I Saw A Woman Die Yesterday

Granted, I've been in such a situation before. I was at my grandmother's bedside when she passed away. This was a stranger, though. It was so different. When my grandmother died, all I could do was writhe around in my own emotional knots and think about how sad I was that she was going/gone. I tried really hard to pray, but it was difficult and chaotic and I couldn't hold it together. In retrospect, I was probably praying more for myself than her. Sounds bad, doesn't it? It is, but it's also probably more common than we care to think. In those sorts of situations, our emotions step in, and our brains shut down.

Yesterday wasn't like that. I stood there completely helpless. I didn't know who this woman was or what her relationship with God was like, if she had one at all. This time, I began reciting the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. It was weird beyond measure. I thought about all the saints who have written about the moment of death and how viciously The Enemy fights for the soul in those last moments.

Most Protestants don't have this, I guess. There are either the presumptive comments about Mr. or Ms. X "going to be with Jesus" or the write-off of "all we can do is pray for the family now." It unnerves me to think now how many people die with nobody praying for THEM in that terrible hour.

Turgonian's Latest Effort

Our colleague Turgonian has begun another blog. This is a good thing, as any outlet that provides the world with more of such brilliance is welcome.

His efforts now are directed at a better understanding of the divide between Catholicism and our Orthodox brethren across the Bosporus. May his efforts bring forth much fruit.

Stop over and check it out.

Good News On The Pro-Life Front

I get chided every once in a while for not posting good news. Given that I actually have some today, I'm proud to provide some illustrations of the positive things going on in the fight against child murder.

First, Planned Parenthood's mission of genocide will be taking a hit in New Jersey due to Gov. Christie's budget cuts. Around 59 PP centers may actually have to close or at least limit their services. I'm not aware of anything that indicates Christie has any real opposition to abortion or Planned Parenthood in general but that doesn't matter. Collateral damage to any instrument of Satan is still damage.

The problems for Sanger's Minions don't stop there, though.

You probably haven't heard that a recent government audit is completely unable to account for over $1.5 billion in tax money that has been shelled out to Planned Parenthood. The National Review has a brief mention of it. With all of our nation's spending problems right now, you'd figure that this would be a big deal, but I haven't seen a word in the mainstream press.

It's a start, though.

Finally, you have the shut-down of an abortion mill in North Carolina.

One of four Triangle abortion clinics will no longer do procedures after Saturday, but it's unclear whether it will close or simply stop offering abortions.

On top of that, the article gives a bit more illumination on the current state of affairs:

Abortions in North Carolina have been declining, as they have across the nation. In 2008, the latest year for available data, about 27,000 North Carolina women had abortions, according to the N.C. Center for State Health Statistics. That was down 4.6 percent from the previous year.

Nationwide, abortions are at their lowest level since the 1970s.

All in all, a pretty fair helping of positivity, I'd say.

But don't stop praying.

Cardinal Kasper Has Submitted His Resignation

Wow. It's the end of an era. Can we have a parade or something?

Per Zenit:

After more than 10 years as the point man for the Church's efforts to promote Christian unity, Cardinal Walter Kasper today announced his resignation as president of the pontifical council dedicated to that cause.

I can't say I'm sad to see him go. It's difficult to see his work as anything but damaging to the Church and any real ecumenical effort. This is the same guy who spent years telling Anglicans NOT to convert.

In the realm of things I didn't know:

For three years he worked as an assistant to Leo Scheffczyk and Hans Kung.

That probably explains a lot. So does the rest of the article. It's not that long, but when you read it, it gives some great insight into why Cardinal Kasper never seemed to have a clue. Consider:

"Dialogue is life," he said. "Dialogue is an integral part of the life of the Church."

This illustrates why no real progress was ever made under his watch. It's not about conversion of others. It's dialogue. Dialogue is the end unto itself. How an entity like the Church, which declares itself to have infallible teaching authority over all God's faithful, could tolerate endless dialogue is a mystery to me. Have you ever tried to dialogue with a math professor over why your formulas are really right rather than wrong? It doesn't work very well.

Note also his comments here:

"The unity of the Church cannot be planned or fabricated."

Yeah, we know that because the unity of the Church already exists. Otherwise, there would be no Church. We talked about this before when we looked at Blessed John XXIII's take on the subject. Unity is here. Others should be received into it. Dialogue might be a good tool for convincing them to do so, but it has its limits.

Regardless of my opinion on his performance, may God bless the Cardinal in his retirement and his successor in his future endeavors.

Anglican Bloodbath?

No, this isn't a post about Queen Elizabeth. As with most of our Anglican-based posts, it's about Rowan's continued problems, though the ideas of "Rowan" and "bloodbath" don't really go together. More like "Rowan" and "catastrophic collapse."

As reported by the Daily Mail, Rowan is trying to hold the remaining timbers of the Anglican wreck together. That's to be expected, I guess. We all try to keep our job security, and I suppose if the Archlayman of Canterbury has any duty at all, it would be to keep some sort of Anglican entity in existence as best he could.

As is often the case, the issue at hand has to do with bishops (such as they are in Canterbury), specifically women who want to be bishops.

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York are to make a dramatic intervention in the long-running row over women bishops this week by demanding that opponents of female clergy are not driven out of the Church.

Dr Rowan Williams and Dr John Sentamu are so concerned thousands of traditionalist churchgoers will quit when women become bishops that they are to risk the wrath of liberals by calling for major reforms in Church legislation.

Ok, so you've got a threatened schism over women becoming bishops. What do you do if you're the leader here? Do you make a stand on principle? Take the bull by the horns and formally declare for one side or the other on a dispute that strikes at the very heart of what the episcopacy is? Attempt to formulate some sort of doctrine or instruction on the matter through debate, study, and discourse?

Of course not. This is Rowan we're talking about here. What you do is abandon all semblance of reason and try to please everyone, ironically enough by deliberately splitting the Anglican Communion from within and asking that people just keep the brand name intact.

Sources said their statement will spell out a legal formula that will give traditionalist clergy and parishes the right to reject the authority of a woman bishop.

Traditionalists, who do not accept that women can be priests or bishops, have been calling for the creation of a ‘his and hers’ Church, in which they cannot be forced to serve under a woman bishop.

Liberals say, however, this would unacceptably diminish the status of women bishops because there would be parts of the Church over which they would have no sway.

So far the Synod has only agreed to give traditionalists minimal protection in the form of a code of conduct.

Holy smokes. Did the "traditionalists" just admit that the women bishops aren't really bishops? If you're going to pretend to be bishops at all, shouldn't you at least agree on whether or not your own folks are consecrated as such? How can you have a real bishop and not have to serve under them?

The liberals are right. Either the women have the authority as bishops or they don't. The proposed de facto schism under the umbrella of the Anglican Communion would be completely nonsensical. Then again, nonsense has been the Anglican stock in trade for a while now. Rowan and John aren't even dealing with logic anymore and are just scraping to save the brand.

An insider said: ‘This is a huge moment for the Church. It will determine the shape of things to come. The Archbishops are putting their integrity on the line, but are passionate about keeping the Church together.’

Shouldn't you have some integrity first before you can put it on the line? Unfortunately, Rowan sacrificed that a long time ago. All of this grab-bagging is embarrassing. There is no "Church" left in Canterbury to keep together.

However, a leading supporter of female clergy said: ‘There is a good chance the Synod will reject the Archbishops.’

We needed an "insider" for that tidbit?

John Fisher And Thomas More

There isn't a whole lot that I can say that these clips don't. I still can't fathom how such material wound up on Showtime, but I am grateful for them.

Being aware, as we are, of the current and coming persecutions throughout the world, it's probably inevitable that we ask ourselves the question: Could I do it? Could I be a martyr?

To be blunt, the answer is no. Neither you nor I could pull something like this off. God, on the other hand, can do such things, and we should not concern ourselves with whether or not our flesh is weak. It is. We should simply pray and trust in God that He will deliver us in these torments to the Pearly Gates.

St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher, pray for us that we may not fail in our times of trial.

Pope Joan: The Movie

How lovely.

A new film based on the legend of Pope Joan – an Englishwoman who purportedly disguised herself as a man and rose to become the only female pontiff in history – has sparked debate in the Roman Catholic Church.

The medieval epic stars a German actress, Johanna Wokalek, as the female Pope, the American actor John Goodman as Pope Sergius and David Wenham, an Australian last seen in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, as her lover, a knight named Gerold.

A tale with all the historical accuracy of The Da Vinci Code and John Goodman as Pope Sergius. What could possibly be wrong with this? Just another blast at the Church. I'd love to see the reaction if a movie/book/whatever was released that alleged that Mohammed was actually female.

For those who are curious or just haven't heard this before, Patrick Madrid gives the reality behind the lie.

I Hate Father's Day

You might think that makes me a bad father. Actually, it's the other way around. I hate it because it reminds me of what a bad father I am. This is my 9th one, and it's not getting any better. It didn't start out this way. My first felt weird and uncomfortable. Every one since then has been outright miserable.

What's even worse is that my own distaste sours my enjoyment of the events meant to show appreciation to my own father, who is an outstanding guy. This all probably adds up as my being a bad son on top of everything else.

Let's go ahead and get on with Monday.

The Real Sedevacantists

I've probably mentioned it before, but I have a great deal of pity for sedevacantists. I think most of them are good people who, quite frankly, were so traumatized by the events of the last few decades that they couldn't hold it together and abandoned the Church.

It always makes me wonder what they would have done if they'd been around for guys like Benedict IX.

It's very easy to focus on the more organized groups of sedes, but let's face it. There aren't that many of them, and lots of Catholics probably don't even know they exist.

Are they the only ones, though? What exactly are we to make of the Nancy Pelosis, Joe Bidens, and Peggy Noonans of the world? In those sorts of folks, you clearly have the mindset that there is a guy in Rome claiming to be the Vicar of Christ. However, their attitudes demonstrate that they think such a claim is a fraud. The extent of their current role in the Church is to usurp the Magisterium's role and proclaim dogmas of their own.

When you get down to brass tacks, the highest of these dogmas, the one from which all others flow, is that the Pope is not who he claims to be. He's really just a guy in a funny hat who gets to talk from a balcony, and a lot of people show up to listen.

How is this different from the "traditionalist" sedes? Why do we treat them differently?

The Triumph of Bad Taste

Today, the kids were sick, and my wife had to stay home with them while I directed the choir at church. She then went to a local Roman Catholic church for Mass. She isn't particularly rabid, theologically, but, get this: she went to the Polish mass, in a language she couldn't understand, simply to avoid the ubiquitous liturgical silliness these days.

It's actually not a bad parish, just rather low-church, as so many are. Guitars and drums are in the sanctuary, as well as (it seems) half the parish as extraordinary ministers of the eucharist. I know that the priest loves God and isn't trying to offend, but the liturgical practice is offensive.

My question: if we must have guitars and folk-music in order to appeal to the taste of whoever it is that likes that stuff, why doesn't anyone do anything to appeal to the taste of people like me or my wife? Why do we rush headlong to the lowest and easiest?

What was it Stan Lee always says? Excelsior!

Shenouda II Vs. The Egyptians

How long before we face this in Europe and America?

Pope Shenouda II, the leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church, has confirmed that his church will refuse to abide by a decision of Egypt's highest court, which ruled that the Coptic Church must allow divorce and remarriage.

In May the court ruled that because "the right to family formation is a constitutional right," no religious body can deny that right. In Egypt all marriages must be endorsed by a religious body. The court said that the Coptic Church must alter its teachings to allow for the civil rights of divorced people.

Pope Shenouda said that the Coptic Church will disregard the ruling, insisting that the court has no authority to dictate religious beliefs and practices.

I can't help but think that we'll be seeing the same with abortion and euthanasia shortly thereafter. Hence, our future path to Logan's Run-dom.

The Hatred Of Beauty

Have you noticed how allergic people are to the term "beautiful"? Women aren't beautiful anymore. They are "hot." Music isn't beautiful. Frankly, I don't know what the hell it is.

This is a very bothersome thing because it trickles down to so much else. If I may jump immediately to the extreme, consider sex as the prime example. The Catholic Church has often been denigrated for allegedly teaching that sex is something dirty or unclean. In reality, of course, sex is holy to the extent that it allows participation in God's creative act. Even in the unitive sense, though, it is a beautiful thing as the most intimate expression of spousal love. Read the Song of Songs if you don't believe me.

Contrast that with the more worldly conception of sex. What is promoted as the best kind of sex? The dirty kind. The filthy kind. Those adjectives are not hyperbole. They are the actual words used. By the way, if you're wondering what prompted this post, it was an episode of Friends, formerly a primetime television staple.

Consider also the very nature of how sex is engaged. The normal conception of the holy is that it is reserved, rather than given away in profligacy. Formerly, one could say similar things about beauty. The whole point of beauty is that the beautiful thing possesses certain attributes making it unique and set apart from the masses. This is part and parcel of Catholic sexual teachings. Because the marital embrace is special and holy, its exercise is reserved to the sacramental bond.

Switch gears back to the world. Sex, in hypocrisy that is difficult to comprehend, is praised as something "special," yet is treated as a commodity indistinguishable from what you'd find in your average grocery store, something to be freely traded in a mutual transaction founded upon the pleasurable exchange of bodily fluids. Pleasurable, yet dirty and filthy in its best form. Rarely as something beautiful.

The world is weird.

To back it down a few gears, just look around at your other cultural elements. What is there that promotes beauty? Anything? Sure, Susan Boyle might be popular, but she's not getting the play of Lady GaGa (and never will). The latter's work is an exaltation of the ugly in almost every form one can imagine. She's also big enough to get her own episode of Glee. I could come up with more examples, but you get my point.

The really sad thing in all this is that the treatment of beauty goes beyond simple apathy. If you played Mozart to a room full of moderns, they might consider it nice at first. They would then demand that it be changed to the latest release from Rascal Flatts (just to show that I'm not biased by genre). If the demand is not met, I would anticipate "It's nice" changing to "This sucks." I've seen it happen exactly as I've described.

It's not that people are apathetic to the beautiful. They have been acculturated into hating it. People are almost embarrassed even to use the word anymore in fear of sounding like a lame-o.

Regardless, this clearly bleeds into the praxis of Catholics, with, of course, the liturgy being the primary manifestation. In what universe could this sort of stuff be labeled as "beautiful"? Yet parishes drown themselves in this sewer of ugly banality to the exclusion of Gregorian chant. Why? Because chant sucks, naturally. Ask around. Not you, Karl. You have it good.

Let me guess what some of the folks reading this are thinking. It's all in the eye of the beholder, right? All subjective? I don't think that flies. First, I've yet to find someone describe a clown Mass as something beautiful, so it's not like people are even worried about that aspect of things. Second, the important beholder in this particular instance is God. Ascribing liturgical novelty as beautiful in the eyes of the Almighty takes an enormous amount of hubris. We don't have to worry about that so much with the TLM or the Divine Liturgy because of their long-sanctioned standing within the Church.

Getting to the brass tacks, hatred of beauty is contagious. Given the current shape of the world, I think that this is all borne out by the clear and widespread hatred of God, Who is Perfect Beauty.

Who Exactly Can't Be An Anglican Bishop Now?

Per the Telegraph, divorcees now qualify. Am I the only guy more surprised by the fact that there was still a rule prohibiting divorced bishops than the recasting of the rule itself?

The Church is set to issue a statement announcing the new policy next month after legal advice made clear that there is no obstacle to a divorcee, or a priest married to a divorcee, being consecrated.

It means that a number of clergy who have been rejected in the past by the Crown Nominations Commission, the body responsible for appointing bishops, will now be put forward for consideration.

So who is left that hasn't gotten in on this yet?

Has anyone asked Chants A Lot's pet rock or Chris's chia pet if they are discerning a vocation?

Eucharisticism

I just coined that word, I think. I use it to refer to the idea that the only thing that matters in worship is the Eucharist, and that any other liturgy becomes measured by this. Thus, Vespers and Matins vanish, because "I can't go to communion." The sanctification of time which is so characteristic of Christianity throughout the ages is lost, because we want to get ourselves that sacrament.

Schmemann, an Orthodox theologian, writes: "The receiving of communion is becomingc [for the faithful] the 'one thing needful,' the self-sufficient goal and content of all their churchly life." This is a bad thing, and can lead us even to reducing the sacrament to some sort of magic pill that we need weekly, rather than the participation in the once-forever redemptive act of Christ, which we also participate in through the hourly prayers of the Church.

My suggestion? Ban the Saturday vigil mass, except for feast days.

Option #3

We make mistakes here all the time. When that happens, we try to own up to them. This could be just such a case.

Over the course of this blog's existence, we've speculated a bit on whether Speaker Pelosi was a morally bankrupt liar or perhaps just stupid beyond the expressive capacity of the English language. Her comments that sparked this speculation are why she scares the hell out of me.

However, recent events have forced me to question if she is either of these things and that maybe I was being overly harsh in my assessment. There is a third option that I have been prompted to consider. It's entirely possible that Speaker Pelosi is insane.

Note the following report from CNSNews:

At a May 6 Catholic Community Conference on Capitol Hill, the speaker said: “They ask me all the time, ‘What is your favorite this? What is your favorite that? What is your favorite that?’ And one time, ‘What is your favorite word?’ And I said, ‘My favorite word? That is really easy. My favorite word is the Word, is the Word. And that is everything. It says it all for us. And you know the biblical reference, you know the Gospel reference of the Word.”

Ok. At this point, we can probably just accept her shpiel here as garden-variety political pandering for the benefit of her audience. Then she goes to 11.

“And that Word," Pelosi said, "is, we have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word. The Word. Isn’t it a beautiful word when you think of it? It just covers everything. The Word.

Are you kidding me? Did Nancy Pelosi just call for public policies based on the values of Jesus Christ?

Try to wrap your head around this. Pelosi is saying that she wants to give voice to Christ's values. Does that include partial birth abortions? Holy smokes. I'm not even going to get into what the Church says about relations with the State. Has she read Quas Primas or Libertas lately?

The real conclusion here is that Pelosi regards herself as Pope. We've seen this dynamic before. Now that she's going to start dropping comments like this, though, it seems to me that there is a strong likelihood that she suffers from some kind of mental disorder.

In a bit of a tragic conclusion, she says the following:

“Fill it in with anything you want. But, of course, we know it means: ‘The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us.’ And that’s the great mystery of our faith. He will come again. He will come again. So, we have to make sure we’re prepared to answer in this life, or otherwise, as to how we have measured up.”

Yeah, Nancy. He's coming back, and He'll probably have something to say about the dead babies. If she is insane, perhaps her culpability for her cooperation in the infanticides will be mitigated.

In case you don't buy the above account, by the way, there is video:

May God have mercy on her, and the rest of us for tolerating a nation that permits such horrors.

Boniface Says It Better Than Me

I've punched a lot of keys on this blog yammering about the problem of substituting dialogue for evangelization. Given that it's probably been incoherent babble for the most part, I was very happy to see that Boniface over at Unam Sanctam has a great post on this topic. With some of our recent items here, it seemed like the perfect time to mention it.

My favorite bits:

St. Paul might begin his sermon on the Areopagus with a dialogue about the comparative merits of Greek religion, but this only serves as a springboard to lead him into the essential message - the preaching of the Gospel, where he warns them that God will no longer overlook their ignorance, that He demands all nations repent of their sins because God has fixed a Day of Judgment, and that this Judge will be none other than Jesus Christ. What St. Paul certainly does not do is tell the Greeks how great their paganism is and then encourage them to continue to worship their false gods and petition then for worldly favors like "peace on earth."

Someone should be sure to mention that to the Lama.

Also:

The real place of dialogue, as St. Thomas Aquinas tells us in the introduction to the Summa (I.Q.1,art.8), is to establish common ground with somebody so as to delineate the parameters of the debate. But that this dialogue should lead to a disputation, with the express purpose of coming to a conclusion, is never questioned by St. Thomas.

There we have the main problem. People are afraid of disputation. It's why the Lama's viewpoint is insulting. By degrading all religions to an equal level, he treats us like jackasses who can't have a reasoned discussion about the most important topic that there is- God. Remember the old saying about the things you never discuss being politics and religion. That's why both of them are so screwed up these days. Nobody wants to actually talk about them and debate over what's going on. The preference is to state conclusions and then congratulate ourselves on being able to do so.

Whoopity freaking do.

He's A Big Hitter, The Lama

He's also written an op-ed for the New York Times. I'm sure the Dalai Lama is a very nice man. I just can't make any sense out of the stuff that he says. Meanwhile, folks world-wide drop trou every time he makes a statement on anything.

Just look at the first sentence of his piece:

When I was a boy in Tibet, I felt that my own Buddhist religion must be the best — and that other faiths were somehow inferior.

Ok. First question, why are you a Buddhist at all? Surely, you must think that other faiths are somehow inferior in some way, right? This is a huge chunk of cognitive dissonance that affects many people. If he truly thinks all religions are equal, then he should naturally eschew any practices overtly connected to any one of them. By taking up the practices of one, he admits there is something there of an enhanced value, even if it is just purely and personally subjective.

Granted, every religion has a sense of exclusivity as part of its core identity.

Including Buddhism? Does this mean he's admitting some level of "betterness"? After all, if you're going to exclude something, surely it will be the bad stuff. And at some point, someone excludes/includes enough to catch your attention and make you think it's more correct than everyone else? Right? Bueller?

Even so, I believe there is genuine potential for mutual understanding. While preserving faith toward one’s own tradition, one can respect, admire and appreciate other traditions.

And we can buy the world a Coke while we're at it. Is this supposed to be profound in some way?

An early eye-opener for me was my meeting with the Trappist monk Thomas Merton in India shortly before his untimely death in 1968. Merton told me he could be perfectly faithful to Christianity, yet learn in depth from other religions like Buddhism. The same is true for me as an ardent Buddhist learning from the world’s other great religions.

Just had to throw this in given our recent shpiel on Merton. Back to the main issue. We have to ask ourselves just what the Lama is getting at in trying to place all religions at the same level.

A main point in my discussion with Merton was how central compassion was to the message of both Christianity and Buddhism. In my readings of the New Testament, I find myself inspired by Jesus’ acts of compassion. His miracle of the loaves and fishes, his healing and his teaching are all motivated by the desire to relieve suffering.

The focus on compassion that Merton and I observed in our two religions strikes me as a strong unifying thread among all the major faiths.

Take Judaism, for instance... I remember vividly the rabbi in the Netherlands who told me about the Holocaust with such intensity that we were both in tears...

In my many encounters with Hindu scholars in India, I’ve come to see the centrality of selfless compassion in Hinduism too...

Compassion is equally important in Islam — and recognizing that has become crucial in the years since Sept. 11, especially in answering those who paint Islam as a militant faith...

What I'm getting from all this is that compassion is the unifying element of mankind. It apparently forms a sort of natural super-structure in which all the world's religions are housed. Is there something missing here?

How about God? Where is He in this mix? Considering that He (or They for Hindus) is allegedly the reason why we have religions (unless you're Buddhist, which doesn't seem to require a deity). How about Truth? Eternity? Dare I even consider mentioning salvation?

On a side note, I wonder what the Lama thinks of evangelization. For some reason, I doubt he associates it with compassion of any kind.

Finding common ground among faiths can help us bridge needless divides at a time when unified action is more crucial than ever. As a species, we must embrace the oneness of humanity as we face global issues like pandemics, economic crises and ecological disaster. At that scale, our response must be as one.

Unified action is crucial. The Lama will have to excuse me, though, if I place the eternal destiny of myself and all of mankind ahead of the economic crisis. Losing my house, car, or job isn't really on the same level as Gehenna. Working together to prevent these kinds of natural problems is all good and well. Nobody is saying otherwise.

That we have to begin from the Lama's template of indifferentism is offensive and degrading to the very concept of religion. It makes all our beliefs in the supernatural and transcendent look trivial. They aren't, and it's insulting to say otherwise. Moreover, it's completely contrary to this idea that we have to "understand" each other's religion. If they are all really the same, why even bother?

Also, take a look at the title for the piece. It's captioned as "Many Faiths, One Truth." What "truth" is that? Compassion? How does that equate to Truth? Unfortunately, the Lama is in for a rude awakening if he thinks that compassion is some kind of panacea. I know folks who think that murdering Down's Syndrome children in the womb or killing people like Terri Schiavo is compassion. With whatever respect I can muster, the Lama's idea of some kind of natural human compassion as the ruling aspect of humanity isn't going to work if it's divorced from Truth. Read Caritas in Veritate for the current Pope's take on all this.

Harmony among the major faiths has become an essential ingredient of peaceful coexistence in our world.

Here's what is necessary for harmony and peace in our world:

Men must look for the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ; and that We promised to do as far as lay in Our power. In the Kingdom of Christ, that is, it seemed to Us that peace could not be more effectually restored nor fixed upon a firmer basis than through the restoration of the Empire of Our Lord... When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony.

Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas

All Dogs Go To The Episcopal Church

Hilarity ensues in Danvers, MA.

A Massachusetts church is scheduled to launch a new monthly worship service — for dogs. Calvary Episcopal Church will offer later this month its first "Perfect Paws Pet Ministry" aimed at giving area pooches and their owners improved odds at getting canines into heaven. The Danvers church plans to hold the service on the third Sunday of every month, complete with communion for the humans and special blessings for pets. Dogs will get special treats.

Monthly services. Wow. I can't even get a monthly TLM in this whole deanery. Does that mean that this church gives more consideration to its dogs than my own hierarchy thinks of me? Throw me a bone here, guys!

(rimshot)

Just a minute, though. What is this?

Church officials said well-mannered, leashed dogs are invited.

This is a complete distortion of the Gospel. Those who are well don't need a physician, right? So saith The Master. Why are the unruly dogs being excluded? Are we just content in letting them be damned?

OUTRAGE!!

I probably shouldn't get so worked up. Before this is all over, they very well might be consecrating them as bishops.