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There has been a number of various "open letters" to our soon-to-be 44th President. I had the intent of writing a letter to him as soon as I thought there was no way Senator McCain would win out, but since everyone else is writing it openly, I might as well too.

Dear Mr. President-Elect,

Congratulations! The peaceful transfer of power is something that the United States demonstrated first to the world and we're again able to showcase it to the larger world community.

As a young person in Austin, TX, I was energized by your initial run, making my first and only contribution to a political campaign to afford myself a place to see you speak at The Backyard. I voted for you in the historic Democratic primary. In the weeks leading up to the general election, however, I had to pause and reflect upon casting my vote for you.

My confusion and hesitation was not because I started to doubt whether or not you would be a strong leader, or if I thought you had the better answers in this time of American's questioning on the conflict in Iraq, on the economy, on immigration and on other various, as the Catholic Church refers to them, "social justice" issues.

My pause was because of your position on abortion.

In your reflection on the 35th anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision, you refer to the choice of having an abortion as fundamental and the ability to have an abortion as "reproductive justice". Along the same line, on July 17, 2007, you answer a question at a Planned Parenthood event stating that the "first thing" you would do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.

I do not expect to be able to change your mind on this issue and I do not expect to be able to convince you that a child inside the womb is still a child.

In good conscience, I could not vote for you in the general election. I believe the State has a vested interest in and a duty to maintain the safety and security of all in our country. Supporting any person's ability to cause the premature death of an unborn child is directly opposed to these ideals.

You have mentioned before that fathers of children must step up and take responsibility. The Freedom of Choice Act and other pro-choice measures you support would take away the ability of these fathers to take responsibility for their unborn children, it would continue to promote a culture that divides action from accepting the logical outcome of an action, and it would continue to divide this country.

As a Catholic who aligns himself more with the Democratic Party than anything else, I feel isolated from the Party that I think could do the most good because of the Party's desire to ignore the first victims of abortion, as well as ignore the impact of the death of their unborn children has on many of those who sought out abortions.

With four, possibly eight, years before you as the President of the United States, you will be constantly in my prayers that most of your visions become reality and I look forward, with hope, that my worst fears regarding this topic will not be realized.

I pray that your administration will be receptive of people of faith, including those that disagree with you so much on this issue. I will work with your programs, directly or indirectly, to help end poverty and promote a just living for those who are on the fringes of our society.

As a young adult (in my mid-20's), I want to be involved in the political process. I think working for a campaign and helping in the governance of this country would be exciting. But, there is no place for me in America's political landscape.

While your campaigned helped a generation have hope in the political process for the first time, I must confess that I feel hopeless that this division will change anytime in the near future. I look forward to the day that I can fully respect and support the Party that energizes me. I look forward to the day that I can make a donation to your campaign, the DNC or some other candidate. I look forward to the day that I can place a Democratic candidate's name on my Facebook profile, the sidebar on my website or their sign in my window. Until that day, however, the only support that I can give to you, in good conscience, in the support of my prayers.

May God bless you and the United States of America!

Sincerely,
Brandon J.G. Kraft
Austin, TX

Voters overwhelmingly approve ordinance that bans renting to illegal immigrants

Farmers Branch, Texas, near Dallas, became the first community in the country to outlaw local landowners from renting to "illegal immigrants". I hope the community discovers how much of their quality of life depends on undocumented individuals: new construction should slow down quite a bit, or at least skyrocket in price. The same should go for most low-skilled labor, such as dishwashing, lawn work and similar areas.

I am disgusted by the way individuals in this country treat undocumented immigration like a plaque upon this land, yet have zero issues with the United States' lead in developing economic policies that allow multinational corporations to, for lack of a better word, screw individuals in Latin America, among other places.

NAFTA, the North American Free-Trade Agreement, truly did not help Mexican citizens. NAFTA enabled large multinational, U.S.-based agribusinesses to setup shop in Mexico. How can Mexican farmers compete in the corn market when an U.S. business moves in and is able to produce and sell corn in both the United States and Mexico while their production is subsidized by the United States government. There is much debate on this, with studies published supporting this statement and studies published refuting it. In all cases, parties agree that removing U.S. farm subsidies would allow Mexican farmers to improve their condition.

Undocumented immigrants are not coming into America to have "a better life"; they're coming into America to have a life. Why else would husbands or wives leave their family, take a journey to the United States that takes the lives of many only to be treated as a second-class individual in the United States?

I find it disturbing and disgusting that lack of charity people possess or the lack of recognition of the inherent human dignity possessed by these migrants. While they have broken the law, their offense is not on par with murder or a sex crime, yet, we label them as criminals. I broke the law when speeding on Mopac or when my tax advisor gave me the Telephone Tax Refund*, yet I'm not worried about having a paramilitary police force raid my apartment, have people spit at me or yell insults, be banned from renting an apartment, have my name listed on a criminal database or all those other things we reserve for the "worst" of our criminals.

The local diocesan newspaper quoted the a city parish's pastor as saying,

"I haven’t preached directly about the ordinance.I’ve mentioned that we are challenged to welcome the stranger, but we are also challenged to maintain the social order in our society. We must do it humanely and justly. People are not disposable. People have innate dignity. People get very emotional about this undocumented business. Part of that is that there is fear of some type of chaos.”

Perhaps this is part of the problem? Are we challenged to maintain the social order in our society? I know Jesus was radical and all, but he did seek to maintain the social order that involved the moneychanger's "right" to transact business on the temple grounds, right? Didn't he also maintained the social order by never challenging the religious figures of the time? Oh yeah, he maintained the social order through allowing the angry mob to stone the woman accused of adultery.

Wait, sorry, I was reading the wrong gospel, the gospel seen in many American churches that says whatever we want it to say. In the Gospel that I'm versed in, Jesus challenged the social order when an injustice existed. Why are we exempt from that today?

Social and political charity is not exhausted in relationships between individuals but spreads into the network formed by these relationships, which is precisely the social and political community; it intervenes in this context seeking the greatest good for the community in its entirety. In so many aspects the neighbor to be loved is found “in society”, such that to love him concretely, assist him in his needs or in his indigence may mean something different than it means on the mere level of relationships between individuals. To love him on the social level means, depending on the situations, to make use of social mediations to improve his life or to remove social factors that cause his indigence. It is undoubtedly an act of love, the work of mercy by which one responds here and now to a real and impelling need of one's neighbor, but it is an equally indispensable act of love to strive to organize and structure society so that one's neighbor will not find himself in poverty, above all when this becomes a situation within which an immense number of people and entire populations must struggle, and when it takes on the proportions of a true worldwide social issue.

This quote, taken from the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (available as a published book or as online text) published by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace sums it up. We're called to love all in our society, not only in terms of the emotional, but also in terms of the social. We're further challenged to "love" our neighbor by working for a social order that enables them to escape the shackles of poverty.

In the case of Farmers Branch, the newly-banned illegal immigrants easily fall within the category of neighbor. For the rest of us, as we promote the new global community as the reason why our stock portfolios are looking great or celebrate new technological tools enabling the
"world to shrink", shouldn't we also look at the poor around the world as our neighbor? Shouldn't we love him or her as we're able, including sharing the Good News with them and working that their living conditions match their human dignity?

This is for another post, but chew on this. The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization has stated that there is enough food in the world to fully nourish everyone on the planet. Yet, data (more data) indicates that a large portion of the global population are lacking the proper nutrition. As we get hot under the collar about our brothers and sisters from Central and South America coming to America to help provide for their livelihood, shouldn't we feel just a bit guilty for spending our time protesting migrants instead of working toward adequate nutrition for the world's population?

She's not worthy of the name. The name belonged to the Blessed Virgin Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ first. But if you google "madonna" nine of the first ten entries are not about her, but about the Queen of Bad Music and Cheap Sacrilege. (The one that actually references our Mother is at the very bottom.) Before there was Charlotte Church or even Britney Spears, there was this lady. Her full name is Madonna Louise Siccone. I think I'll call her ... Louise.

Is it possible to get Catholic and Jewish and Muslim leaders to agree on anything these days? Apparently yes. For Louise is planning on holding a concert in Rome just minutes away from the Vatican tomorrow night during which she will reportedly crucify herself on a mirrored cross while wearing a crown of thorns.

In response, the Big Three in modern monotheistic religions have held up their hands and uttered a collective, "WHOA." Higher ups at the Vatican are even talking excommunication, which shouldn't bother the baptized Catholic Louise too much considering she is now a staunch practicioner of Kabbalah. I still don't know what that is, except that I'm pretty sure I saw a book at Barnes and Noble once written by a Kabbalah, entitled God Wears Lipstick. Uh huh.

Life Style Extra reports that Ersilio Cardinal Tonino, speaking with Benedict XVI's approval, told an Italian newspaper:

"This is a blasphemous challenge to the faith and a profanation of the Cross. She should be excommunicated. To crucify herself in the city of popes and martyrs is an act of open hostility."

"Act of open hostility." That sounds pretty canonical to me.

But oh, that's not even the best one, folks. Riccardo Pacifici, spokesman for Rome's Jewish community, said also:

"We express solidarity with the Catholic world. It's a disrespectful act, and to do it in Rome is even worse."

And Mario Scialoja, president of the Muslim World League in Italy, had this to say:

"We deplore it, we feel it is an act of bad taste. She would do better to go home."

Haha! She would do better to go home! The very thought brings such joy to my heart. If Louise could just chill with her millions in the Hollywood foothills (or wherever she lives ... somewhere in the UK?) how much more pleasant would our lives be? Or even if Louise has to continue performing, maybe if she could dispense with the public acts of open hostility to things Christian? Maybe if she could just desist with all the intermingling of religious imagery and sado-masochism? Would that be okay Ms Siccone? No?

Well, I suppose excommunication is not far off for little Louise. We all should pray for this troubled lady. But that doesn't mean we can't appreciate the fact that she has gotten leaders from all three of the major monotheistic religions to agree on something: namely, that she is beyond the pale. Bravo Louise!

I was asked by a friend a couple of days ago what I thought about Mel Gibson's much publicized tirade against Jewish people. I said quite frankly that if some blue-blooded Hollywood star had gotten pulled over for drunken driving and gone on a tirade against inbred simpletonistic divisive hate-mongering Christians, it would not have gotten nearly the press that this is getting.

This is not to defend the indefensible comments Gibson made. Certainly there are enough talking heads out there condemning his insignificant little rant. I merely wish to point out the equally indefensible double standard that exists in the mainstream press. How many of us, if we saw a headline saying something like, "Bill Maher defames practicing Catholics on late night show" would think someone in the news had become unusually agenda-oriented? The difference though is that Bill Maher uttering anti-Catholicism isn't news. He does it and loves it and never apologizes for it. Nor does anyone ever expect him to.

media can't contain it's anger
But I thought Mel spouting anti-Semitism wasn't supposed to be news either. We all knew he hated "the Jews" after his two-hour defamatory scandal The Passion of the Christ, didn't we? How does this change anything?

There's a couple of possible answers to this question. One is that the media simply knew all along that what they were saying about The Passion was crap. Mel Gibson turning out to actually have anti-Semitic feelings (albeit booze-induced) was just as much news to them as it was to the ordinary people who never bought their lines to begin with (and, I think, still don't).

Another theory: The media is bitter and jealous of and angry at Gibson. Why? Because he created a product that they hate with every fiber of their body, and that they could never produce themselves, and that despite all their hatred people still flocked to theatres in droves to see. Even though if these media elites had five minutes alone with their Hollywood pals in a room with no windows or recording devices they would have equally venomous and defamatory things to say about Pope Benedict, Opus Dei, Tom Selleck, Bill Donahue, Mel Gibson, Mary Magdalene, and Jesus Christ. Although anyone who watches the news knows it doesn't take a room with no windows for some of these people to let their vitriol flow.

All of this merely demonstrates that hatred of Christians and Christianity is the last accepted prejudice in Hollywood and in the mainstream press (and, incidentally, on college campuses). Mel Gibson is live bait for these bloodthirsty media sharks because he is an outspoken Christian, albeit a very eccentric one. If he was a Muslim, he would have the same standing in the mainstream press as Louis Farrakhan and Hezbollah.

mel and the UN: a match made in heaven?
And speaking of that, have we heard about what Mel actually said to the officer after being pulled over? According to several sources, here's what he said:

"The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. Are you a Jew?"

Now when I read what Gibson actually said the first thing that popped into my head was, "Hey, maybe Mel should join the UN Security Council." How is this any different from what we're hearing from those guys and from the mainstream press regarding the actions of the State of Israel in the latest MidEast conflict? Why is it okay for these elites to say that the Israelis' actions in war are "indefensible" and "wrong" but it's not okay for Mel to say basically the same thing in hyperbole on a drunken bender to a cop? Again, I'm not saying it should be okay for him; just that if it isn't, it's no more okay for these people to paint Israel as if they're just going after poor defenseless Hezbollahs.

bottom line
The Sydney Morning Herald Online asked today if people will want to go see Mel's next movie. My answer is yes, for the simple reason that for every Mel Gibson in Hollywood there are at least twenty or thirty other looney Hollywood types whose hatred for Christians and for the Gospel doesn't stop us from going to watch their pathetic movies.

Whoa ... I think my one-quarter Irish is out tonight.

That first one is Charlotte Church, and yeah, we're talking five-star sacrilege here, folks. According to the Catholic News Service, the renowned Welsh singer turned pop star mocked the Church in the pilot of an eight-part television chat show.

She called Pope Benedict a nazi, dressed up as a nun, pretended to hallucinate while eating "communion" wafers imprinted with smiley faces signalizing the drug ecstasy, smashed open a statue of the Virgin Mary revealing a can of hard cider inside, stuck chewing gum on a statue of the child Jesus, and well, you get the idea.

Pray for this woman.

At any rate, Ignatius Press had been a distributor of her CDs, cassette tapes, VHS tapes and DVDs. They have decided, surprise surprise, to no longer do so. In a statement, Ignatius said:

"In light of the recent statements and actions of singer Charlotte Church, Ignatius Press will be dropping all of her products. It is with regret that we do this; Miss Church possesses a great gift from God, and in the past she has used her talent often to offer praise and glory to our Lord. She has performed for the late Pope John Paul II, and in many sacred concerts, televised Christmas celebrations, and her many albums were enjoyed by our customers over the years.

But we cannot stand by a young woman who uses her stature in the media to mock the Eucharist, slander the Holy Father, and denigrate the vows of religious women.

Therefore, our catalogs and website will immediately withraw all compact discs, cassette tapes, DVDs and VHS tapes that feature Miss Church. Please join us in praying for this troubled young woman."

I have to wonder if Ms Church hasn't had second thoughts about her shenanigans. I have no reason to think she has. But, there's always hope.

Gee whiz I love our pope!

The more I see of this man, the clearer it becomes that this is a pope who will not keep silent about that pesky thing that gets in the way of so much "progress," that annoying x-factor, that "narrow" and "imposing" mantra used by us unenlightened religious folk--"The Dignity of the Human Person." While power elites hide behind a false rhetoric of "freedom," while misguided technologists press the weakest human beings on the planet into lethal servitude in the name of "science" and "medicine," they can only roll their eyes and hang their heads in dismay (or is it shame?) as the Successor of Peter reminds us all about the truth and mystery of each person, and thus the discriminatory and destructive nature of these cultural fads.

The Meeting of Families
During his homily at Mass at the FIfth World Meeting of Families on Sunday, the Holy Father made plane multiple times that marriage is to exist between one man and one woman, and that couples must accept the child born to them as loved by God. Said he:

In contemporary culture, we often see an excessive exaltation of the freedom of the individual as an autonomous subject, as if we were self-created and self-sufficient, apart from our relationship with others and our responsibilities in their regard. Attempts are being made to organize the life of society on the basis of subjective and ephemeral desires alone, with no reference to objective, prior truths such as the dignity of each human being and his inalienable rights and duties, which every social group is called to serve.

"The Human Person: Heart of Peace"
On the heels of that dramatic message, the Vatican News Service reported Thursday that the Vatican issued a communiqué announcing the theme for the next World Peace Day, which will be celebrated on January 1, 2007: "The Human Person: Heart of Peace." The theme was chosen by Pope Benedict, the communiqué said. The news report quotes the communiqué at length, saying that the theme

...expresses the conviction that respect for the dignity of the human person is an essential condition for peace within the human family. Only through an awareness of the transcendent dignity of each man and woman can the human family follow the path that leads to peace and to communion with God.

Today, perhaps more persuasively and with more effective means than in the past, human dignity is threatened by aberrant ideologies, assailed by the misguided use of science and technology, and contradicted by widespread incongruent lifestyles. Indeed, ideologies that find their inspiration in nihilism or fanaticism (material or religious) seek to deny or to impose supposed truths upon reality, upon man and upon God.

Catch that? It's often said by proponents of these "aberrant ideologies" that it's us unenlightened religious types who seek to "impose our views" on the rest of humanity. But the Vatican press office here is turning the tables, saying it is rather these aberrant ideologies that actually impose their own views upon reality itself, in other words, trying to establish what is right and wrong merely by their own whims. This table-turning has proven to be a rhetorical specialty of Cardinal Ratzinger / Pope Benedict, as exemplified by his now well-known phrase "the dictatorship of relativism."

...[O]ften science and technology (especially biomedicine), rather than serving the common good of humanity, are instrumental in serving an egotistical vision of progress and wellbeing. Moreover, propaganda and the growing acceptance of disordered lifestyles contrary to human dignity are weakening the hearts and minds of people to the point of extinguishing the desire for ordered and peaceful coexistence. All this represents a threat to humanity, because peace is in danger when human dignity is not respected and when social coexistence does not seek the common good.

Culture wars on World Peace Day?
So direct is the Vatican in announcing the focus of the Day that it makes reference to the encyclical of John Paul II that made clear in an unprecedented way the Church's emphatic defense of life.

The Church has the mission of announcing the Gospel of Life, the central position of mankind in the universe and God's love for humanity. [emphasis added]

It's rather striking when one considers: we are talking about the World Day of Peace. Yet the day looks to focus on issues the contentious and sometimes downright hateful conflicts over which have been described by many as "culture wars." Someone might then object: How are we to work towards peace if we are fixating on issues that are so divisive? Won't this just lead to more conflict?

This argument depends upon a false understanding of peace that, it seems to me, the pope and the Vatican are now blowing out of the water. Peace doesn't just mean the absence of conflict. It does not mean simply sitting down and remaining silent in the face of evil. Sometimes, one must fight--yes, fight--against falsehood and injustice in order to build a culture where peace is possible. Not necessarily with guns but with truth. Not with missiles but with charity. We must love those who disagree with us, but that does not mean pretending no disagreement exists. It means finding charitable ways to communicate truth to them. This is an ongoing and difficult struggle. But it is a necessary prerequisite for real peace.

His Holiness' holiness
Remember all those folks in the secular press who preened like peacocks when the pope came out with his first encyclical and didn't mention abortion, contraception, homosexuality or divorce? Remember Ian Fisher at the New York Times and so many others who beamed back in January that the pope had "presented Roman Catholicism's potential for good rather than imposing firm, potentially divisive rules for orthodoxy"?

Where are those people now? Might they be eating their own speculations? Why, this snarling bulldog of a pope was supposed to have been enlightened by the importance of his office! He was supposed to realize that the world was bigger than the tiny world he knew as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith! How frightfully upsetting that he has turned out to be just as committed to these narrow-minded doctrines now that he is the Successor of Peter as he was when we all made fun of him and called him "God's Rottweiler"! How could he be so unconcerned about what we think?

The fact of the matter is he doesn't have to be concerned about whatever the rest of the world says about him because His Holiness' holiness is a direct refutation in itself of whatever defamations might fly his way. Instead of never shaking any cherry trees and being just the irrelevant nice-guy pope so many in power and the press wanted him to be, he has consistently made himself a model of what it means to speak difficult truths to the world--even a world that slanders him--with the love of Christ. And no one who ever actually knew or appreciated him is surprised by this. He is simply the same man with the same strong message and the same gentle voice that he always was.

Except now he's the Rock. Viva il Papa!

According to the Japan Times, some folks in Japan are claiming that a species of mushroom can provide people with the most significant spritual experiences of their lives.

This might sound frivolous, or even insulting, compared to the experience of losing a parent or feeling the presence of god, but in a report published this week on the effects of magic mushrooms, more than 60 percent of people taking the hallucinogenic drug said the resulting "trip" met the criteria for a "full mystical experience" as measured by established psychological scales.

It's not insulting to anything except my intelligence. Just because it provides people with the same sensations as a "full mystical experience" doesn't mean that's what people actually have when they take the drug. If there was a drug that made a person feel like they were on Man of Steel Roller Coaster at Six Flags, that would not mean the person by taking the drug would actually be on the roller coaster. Nor would it mean that--since the effect can be generated in the brain without the person actually being on the roller coaster--the whole exercise of riding a roller coaster is pointless, or that the roller coaster doesn't exist but is merely a figment of the imaginative center of the person's brain.

The article features Roland Griffiths, pscyhopharmacologist at Johns Hopkins who was involved with the study.

Thought, emotion, and ultimately behavior, are grounded in biology, Griffiths said. "We're just measuring what can be observed. We're not entering into 'Does God exist or not exist.' This work can't and won't go there."

But assuming that "thought, emotion, and ultimately behavior are grounded in biology" already has implications as to whether God exists and his place in the order of things. That's the agenda behind stories like this. The scientists may very well believe they only want to measure "what can be observed." But the ultimate implication is that everything is observable and everything can be manipulated at the biological level. Sinners can be turned into saints, and saints into sinners, with a pill.

Course, this pill doesn't claim to do that. It just claims to give people "mystical experiences." That's actually what Griffith says at the end of the piece.

"Far from being threatened, the only thing we can imagine being of greater interest to religions is whether people live more wholesome, compassionate and equanimous lives in consequence of such experiences."

Of course he hopes it would and thinks religious communities ought to hope it would as well. But that would only further his own assumptions: that thought and emotion and behavior are grounded in observable biology, and therefore can be manipulated just as a science bereft of ethics is seeking to manipulate biology today. Right behavior is not a matter of chemicals. It is a matter of grace. And grace is one of those very inconvenient "nonobservables" in the field of science, which means it cannot be manufactured pharmaceutically.

This is not to say that science and pharmacology have nothing to offer in the way of treating behavioral disorders. But the fact of the matter is that we are largely living in a pop-a-pill society where many people are completely dependent on tablets to accoplish their goals. One of the few realms left where such quick-fixes are not possible is the realm of spirituality and religion. The last thing we need is more pills to apparently (but not actually) accomplish what only Providence can.

But to answer the question posed in the headline, yes. Mushrooms can bring one closer to God, but only in the same sense that any of God's creations can do so. In the same way as dogs or cats, or birds or trees, or horses and mountains. But if one fixates on any of these as if it is the way to commune with God, then it ceases to be an ally in the quest for God and becomes an obstacle. If these mushrooms become understood by the psychopharmacological field as the way to commune with the divine, they may find that just the opposite has happened.

The Fifth World Conference of Families recently wrapped up in Valencia, Spain this past weekend.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero annoyed the Vatican by playing hooky from yesterday's Mass, although he had welcomed the pope at the airport when he arrived to visit the conference. Now why would he want to do that? Maybe because the Catholic Church and the Vatican in general and Pope B16 in particular represent all the sorts of moral absolutism and family defense and life defense that the socialist prime minister abhors.

John L Allen Jr at the National Catholic Reporter anticipated the Holy Father's visit to the conference in Valencia and his much awaited meeting with Zapatero by looking back at his time in office.

Since taking office in 2004, Zapatero's government has either adopted or discussed legislation in favor of:

* Same-sex marriage legislation;
* Fast-track divorces;
* Curbing religious education in state schools;
* Supporting embryonic stem-cell research;
* Easing abortion laws;
* Reducing or eliminating public funding for the church.

After listing off a few other jabs Zapatero has taken at the Church and her vision for a culture of life, Allen writes:

Cumulatively, the impact of all this has been to make Spain the front line in the battle against what Benedict XVI has called the "dictatorship of relativism." The stakes are doubly high, from the Vatican's point of view, because not only is Spain a traditional Catholic stronghold in Europe, but it exercises a strong gravitational pull on Latin America, home to almost one-half of the 1.1 billion Catholics in the world.

It was not supposed to be like this.

When Zapatero was elected just three days after the March 11, 2004, terrorist attacks in Madrid, he attracted support even from practicing Catholics. Many thought his government would be akin to former Socialist Prime Minister Felipe Gonzales -- cautious on social questions, albeit officially committed to progressive positions, and respectful of the church. Prior to the election, almost no one predicted a serious church/state clash. Zapatero campaigned in favor of dialogue, and he was actually closer to the church on what was the election's deciding issue, the war in Iraq.

Once in office, however, Zapatero let loose the dogs of cultural war.

What puzzles me is Allen's assertion that "it was not supposed to be like this." I don't see how anything that has taken place in Spain could not have been entirely predicted before Zapatero took office. He garnered much of the Catholic vote because of his stance on what turned out to be the deciding issue--the war in Iraq. As Allen puts it, he was closer to the Church on that one particular issue, even though he was decidedly against the Church on a laundry list of others. The simple difference here is that the war in Iraq--I hate to say it but somebody has to--is an issue on which people of good will, Catholic or otherwise, can legitimately disagree. On the other hand, that laundry list includes issues--same-sex marriage, embryo-destructive research, and abortion--that simply cannot be disagreed upon from a Catholic standpoint. And pardon my frankness, but an issue that can be legitimately disagreed upon should not have been the deciding electoral issue in a country where 80 to 90 percent of the population is Catholic.

But alas, what do we have here? We have a mostly Catholic electorate choosing a candidate based on issues--like war--that require prudential judgments on the part of the part of the politicians. (That is to say, the Church in the end leaves it to the prudential judgment of the heads of State to decide what the best course of action is in terms of war and peace. They can assess, they can persuade, but theirs is not infallible judgment in matters of state.)

So in the process the Spanish electorate basically ignored issues--like same-sex marriage, embryo-destruction and abortion--Church teaching on which is clear and unequivocal. And I'm telling you folks, it's just not that complicated: When you elect politicians who claim to agree with the Church's prudential judgments but not with the Church's timeless moral and social doctrines, you can expect major friction with the Church if that person wins. And that's exactly what's going on in Spain right now. This whole thing was entirely predictable.

It's also entirely predictable on account of less than 20 percent of the Catholics in Spain are practicing. If they don't go to Mass, they can hardly be expected to make the distinction between intrinsic evils and prudential judgments.

Politicians love to blow smoke about "dialogue," during political campaigns. But bottom line: If they stand against the Church on clear-cut, indisputable evils, we shouldn't be surprised if those politicians go militant anti-Catholic once they're in office. Even if they are Catholic themselves.

Here's a conversation over instant messenger between myself and fellow contributor Brandon Kraft, from this afternoon:

Brandon: the church of england voted to continue the process to admit women to the office of bishop
Mark: of course they did
sorry -- my militancy comes out
Brandon: it's england though- they've been slower to adopt the liberal leanings that we're used to with the [Episcopal Church of the United States]
they have another vote in the future that needs a 2/3rd majority in all three houses to be approved the vote today, only needed a simple majority, would have been only one vote over the 2/3rd required for the final rule change
so really, it could stall out still
today's vote marked the [Church of England]'s acknowledgement that theologically they accept the possibility
Mark: well i suppose we can hope for something
Brandon: i think we've given up hope for an instutitional reconcilation with rome
or at least that's my read
like there's no pastoral provision for the eastern orthodox
we're still hoping for instiutional unity with them
Mark: yeah that's far more likely i think
Mark: with [the Church of England] i just see a history of the false sense of "compromise," giving an inch here and there and pretty soon it's just too far gone to resemble anything that would be considered reconcileable with traditional Christianity (that is to say, Catholicism and Orthodoxy)

So there you have it. I wish I could say it surprised me. But we'll see how all this pans out.

United Regional Health Care System (URHCS) in Wichita Falls, TX announced that The Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth are leaving effective July 31st from their Wichita Falls medical operations.

Catholic-sponsored health care started in Wichita Falls in 1935 with the Sisters opened Bethania Hospital on 11th Street and moved into a convent across the street. Over the years, the hospital competed with Wichita General Hospital, located three blocks down Grace Street until in 1997, the two hospitals merged to form URHCS.

One of the sisters joined the Board of Directors for the combined operation and the Sisters maintained direction of pastoral care for the 11th Street Campus, as Bethania is now known.

Due to various circumstances, including the hopsital's performance of tubal ligations, the Sisters decided it was time to move on.

In the coming weeks, the Catholic identity of the hosipital will be stripped away. Except for the "landmark" cross on top of the building, the hospital will become secular. The hospital intends to maintain pastoral care and grow it into an interdenominational effort. The hospital's chapel, original to the 1935 section of the building, will be converted to an interdenominational structure. The chapel is the only public chapel in Wichita Falls to maintain a traditional high altar after renovations in the 1960s to the other Catholic chapels and parishes in the city. While no plans have been formalized, it is assumed that this will be removed as part of the transition.

URCHS will work with the Sisters to create a "herritage center" or "mini-museum" to honor the legacy of the Sisters and their impact on Wichita Falls healthcare. For all of the religious items removed, the hospital will work with the Diocese of Fort Worth to ensure they are handled with all due reverence and care.

My involvement with the pastoral care of the hospital has been quite minimal. I am friends with Fr. Donlon, chaplain of the hospital and the usual celebrant of the 12 Noon Mass at Sacred Heart Parish. Before moving to Austin, I was also an altar server and lector for the chapel's Sunday morning services.

I'll be in Wichita Falls in mid-July so I plan on visiting, praying in and taking pictures of the chapel for probably the last time I'll be able to before the transition.

Aaaah, it's good to be back in the blogosphere! I spent all of last week in Bapchule AZ on a pastoral mission trip ministering to Native American youth. Quite an experience. I'll be reflecting on it more in the future.

Here's something to watch for on the cinema front. December 1, 2006, The Nativity premieres, a cinematic presentation of the story of Joseph and Mary as the journey to Bethlehem and give birth to Jesus. Screenplay by Mike "good thing my last name isn't Roch" Rich, writer of Radio, The Rookie, and Finding Forrester. DIrected by Catherine Hardwicke, director of Tombstone, Three Kings, and Vanilla Sky.

Check out the movie's homepage. Looks like it might be pretty dandy. Five months from today, folks. I'm there.

In a glittering gem of subtly slanted reporting, the Washington Post on Wednesday reports:

Harvard University announced yesterday the launch of a privately funded, multimillion-dollar program to create cloned human embryos as sources of medically promising stem cells.

If I read one more article from the Mainstream Press about how “medically promising” these untested, unproven cells are, I might have to take a vacation. We all know what “medically promising” means. It means entirely theoretical. If the mainstream media had as much blind faith in religion as they do in science and biotechnology, they would be more Catholic than the pope.

This is not about stem cells!
The glittering gem continues:

The collaborative effort, involving several Harvard-affiliated medical research centers, the New York Stem Cell Foundation and Columbia University, marks a new phase in the long-simmering U.S. culture war over stem cell research, pitting some of the nation's most prestigious institutions against a vocal conservative movement that opposes the work.

First of all, this “long-simmering US culture war” is not over stem cells. How many times do we have to go over this? It is over the embryos who are being destroyed in the process of having their stem cells taken away for research purposes. The least our friends in the mainstream press could do is accurately report precisely what the source of the controversy is.

Three out of the four possible sources of stem cells are considered perfectly licit by the Catholic Church and pro-lifers. There’s adults, there’s fetuses, and there’s postnatal umbilical chords. The last one is no longer living so it’s fair game. The first two can have stem cells extracted without being killed or maimed. There’s nothing wrong with researching stem cells. There’s something very wrong with killing innocent people in order to do it. And as Fr Tad Pacholczyk at the National Catholic Bioethics Center points out, it’s these sources of stem cells that are actually being used right now to treat disease and are actually succeeding! No blind faith needed here. But the Washington Post makes it sound like all of us grandfather-clock, anti-technology Christians are opposed to all the stem-cell research that’s happening when they fail to simply and clearly identify precisely the kind of stem cell research to which Christians and pro-lifers are opposed and why.

Borderline editorializing
Now I just have to observe here: How does the mainstream press describe those who perpetrate this research? They are “collaborative” and “pres-tee-gee-ous.” Whereas who are we? We are “vocal” and “conservative”! Well gee whiz Washington Post, why not throw in “meddling” while you’re at it? The contrast is so obvious it borders on editorializing. Could they not have at least suffered to give us the label “pro-life”? “Why no, Mark, that would bring a positive spin to the story and keep the paper from being fair-and-balanced.” Okay fine but if that’s true, then why is it okay to call these scientists “presteegeeous”?

“Sincerity” versus truth
The folks spearheading the latest embryo-destructive research campaign for whatever reason feel the need to pander to us scrupulous, antiquated, simple-minded, churchgoing pro-lifers who have opposed the utilitarian practice for years. Harvard President Lawrence H Summers had this to say:

“While we understand and respect the sincerely held beliefs of those who oppose the research, we are equally sincere in our belief that the life-and-death medical needs of countless suffering children and adults justifies moving forward with this research.”

Make no mistake folks. This is textbook relativism. Look at the premises behind what President Summers is saying. It doesn’t matter what you believe. All that matters is that you believe it sincerely. We dogmatic simpletons can believe that embryos are human beings who have rights and deserve not to be exploited even for ostensibly noble purposes. And our presteegeeous colleagues in the biotechnology industry can believe that embryos are industrial material, to be drained of resources and then discarded.

Surely embryonic research proponents like President Summers are aware that we antiquated religious pro-life types aren’t swayed by all of this “sincerity” talk. If we sincerely believe that Hitler’s final solution to the Jewish problem is a good idea, it is still a very bad idea. That kind of ideology of “sincerity” is precisely what justified those atrocities then, and it’s what justifies these atrocities today. It’s not enough to be sincere. I am reminded of something I heard Archbishop Fulton Sheen say on Relevant Radio a few days ago, that history shows us that what is happening today is not new. They are the same things that have always happened, just in different ways to different people.

Injustice has always been justified not by claiming that it is right but by claiming it is for a good end and it is nobody’s place to judge the means. And injustices have always been rectified by those who sincerely strive to do what is really right, even if it means being vocal, and meddling, and uncompromising.

From Fox News:

There are 400,000 women in Germany already whose livelihoods come from selling their bodies for other people's sexual enjoyment. A US Congressman has cited that perhaps 40,000 more will make their way into Germany's borders while the country hosts the World Cup Soccer games. Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, a top official for the Pontifical Council for the Care of Migrants, told Vatican radio earlier this week:

"Using soccer terminology, I say that red flags should be given to this industry, to its clients and to the public authorities who host the event. Prostitution, in fact, violates the dignity of the human person, reducing her to an object and instrument of sexual pleasure. Women become goods to be purchased, whose cost is even less than that of a ticket to a soccer game."

I wonder what the radical feminists think about this. I mean, do they whip out their same shtick about this issue that they do about abortion? "Prostitution empowers women"? "It's her body, it's her choice"? And if not, then I wonder if they would give this woman-suppressing cleric from the woman-suppressing Church some credit for speaking out on the exploitation of women. Hey I can dream can't I?

That's right ladies and gentlemen, I am posting this entry on the sixth minute of the sixth hour (...PM but anyways) of the sixth day of the sixth month of '06! Oh my gosh! that's like ... 66666! That's even more evil than 666!

Evil movie!
Well, what would a day like today be without summer blockbuster The Omen to commemorate it? And what kind of commemoration would a summer blockbuster be if said summer blockbuster was not a remake of an original from 30 years ago? (And thirty is a multiple of six! What're the odds??)

I have not seen it (and will not tonight because I have better things to do that don't involve the occult in any way shape or form), but hope to at some point. Roger Ebert gave it a positive review. He said something in the review that got me thinking:

I've observed before that when it comes to dealing with demons and suchlike, Roman Catholics have the market cornered. Preachers of other faiths can foam and foment all they want about satanic cults, but when it comes to knowing the ground rules and reading ominous signs, what you want at the bedside is a priest who knows his way around an exorcism.

Amen to that, Roger.

Okay so, that may be overstating it. People have been joking about this empire of baloney since before the movie came out I'd wager. But now the jokes are really starting to permeate. Two great pieces on the DaVinci Load that came out recently:

"Opus Dei's Box-Office Triumph" by Paul Fortunato
On June 2 an Opus Dei member from Houston wrote an op-ed in the New York Times. He practices corporal mortification, and is not ashamed to admit it. He also does something that works as a demonstration of class while serving at the same time as a nice little back-handed jab at the author and creators of the Load. He thanks them.

As a member of Opus Dei, I would like to thank Dan Brown and Ron Howard for "The Da Vinci Code." Why am I not outraged like so many other devout Roman Catholics? Because I think we could not have wished for a better result: critics attack the film (and, retrospectively, the book) as boring and annoying and cartoonish; and because everyone is seeing it anyway, many people who would otherwise have no interest in Opus Dei are curious, allowing us to explain what we are really about.

"Heaven Can Wait" by Anthony Lane
This piece, printed in the May 29 issue of the New Yorker, is laugh-out-loud funny. The last paragraph is priceless, and I won't give it away. Just read it.