The Gun Closet

Houston police say a group of thieves broke into a house and forced a resident into a closet so they could ransack the place. The closet chosen during the Tuesday afternoon home invasion was the one where the resident kept his guns. Houston police Sgt. Jerri Brandon said the man, now armed, confronted the thieves and exchanged shots with them, wounding one and flushing all three from the home.

The wounded intruder collapsed down the street with gunshot wounds to a shoulder and leg.
The resident was not wounded.

 H/T: Blowing San #1 who says, "For it is written, 'The stupid, they shall be punished."

LSAT

I am preparing to take the LSAT in June, and I would appreciate prayers.  On a related note, the next person who tells me that he aced the LSAT without studying will get hit over the head with my prep book.

Syrian Christians

Assad is a murderous dictator, but our aid to the opposition may result in a radical Sunni ascendancy and the massacre of Christians.

These are the people threatened by America's Syria policy:

The Soviet Tetris Song

The History of the Soviet Union sung to the Tetris melody.  Yes.

Going Tribal

Catholics are often told to avoid tribalism, and to instead focus on the Church and Her teachings.  This is a well intentioned admonition, but it is misleading.  Urging Catholics to obey the Church is itself an appeal to tribal loyalty.  Humans are tribal by nature, and that's a good thing.  The problem is not tribalism itself, but a failure to properly prioritize tribal loyalties.

Politics is the most obvious arena of mixed loyalties.  Catholics who care more about their political party or ideology than they do about their faith are in error and place themselves in danger of grave sin.  This can be a problem not only in cases of obvious and intrinsic moral evils such as abortion, but also in the sphere of prudential judgement.  When some Catholic Republicans give rubber stamp approval to every drone strike, invasion, and morally dubious interrogation method without even considering the moral teachings of their church, they are demonstrating inordinate loyalty to the wrong tribe.  Catholic Democrats do the same when they nod in unison to every extension of domestic federal power without any consideration for subsidianrity.  That being said, it is certainly possible to be overcritical of party loyalty.  To condemn any and all who maintain loyalty to their political party is to make a judgement too far.  So long as they properly prioritize their tribal identification, it is entirely possible for someone to be loyal to both God and party, though this is obviously harder for the members of some parties than for others.

In addition to politics, a  broader crisis of tribalism exists in the modern world.  The pseudo theology of many Catholics incorporates the heresy of universalism, the idea that everyone with the possible exception of Hitler and that guy who cut you off in traffic is a great person who is assured of salvation.  Universalism makes the Catholic tribe seem no more important than any other.  It is a grave mistake to think this way.  Ours is the one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, the one means of salvation, and the original, vintage, old time religion.  All those who are saved are not necessarily members of the visible Church, and may not have even heard of the institution, but they are nevertheless saved by Christ through his Church.

A failure to prioritize tribal loyalties is evident in the foreign policy views of American Christians.  It makes sense that we would identify with Israeli Jews, but we should identify even more strongly with Palestinian Christians, whose interests are not entirely aligned with those of the Israelis.  Americans were not wrong to sympathize with the plight of oppressed Iraqi Shiites, but we liberated them at the expense of Chaldean Christians, who were largely protected under Saddam's evil but secular regime.  This failure is repeated throughout the Middle East, where Americans voice support for "democratic" uprisings that threaten to annihilate our coreligionists.  The brotherhood of Christians need not be so insular and exclusive as the Hebrew tribes or the Islamic Ummah, but we must not forget that Christians are our people, and that we must practice solidarity with them.

It should be noted that solidarity with other Christians and with Catholics in particular does not mean that we must choose the "Catholic" side in every situation.  We must consider what loyalty to our coreligionists demands of us, but in some situations, we can justly favor another tribe.  For example, illegal immigrants in the United States tend to be Catholic, but American Catholics need not feel compelled to support amnesty and open borders simply because it would help other Catholics.  Loyalty to the teachings of the Church should make us consider immigration policy with respect to the dignity of the human person, and we should be especially considerate of those immigrants who are Catholics.  Even so, restricting illegal immigration may be so vital to the lesser tribe that is our nation, that it can outweigh our sympathies for those members of our greater tribe.  Unlike the Chaldeans or the Copts, Mexican laborers will not face death if we do not prioritize them.  There are certain things that constitute outright betrayal of our Church that must never be done, no matter what it means for the other tribe to which we belong.  However, within an area of prudential judgement, the we may justly prioritize the needs of a lesser tribe over the needs of our coreligionists, whilst maintaining our greater loyalty to the Church and its members.

The two most important tribes in human history are the Hebrews and the Catholics.  The covenant with the former has been fulfilled by Christ, and the number one spot has been passed to the latter.  Ours is the greatest tribe in the world, and we must not forget that. It is a great error to discard tribalism in a spirit of egalitarianism.  It is not merely acceptable for Catholics to maintain tribal loyalties, it is essential, for the natural law and the teachings of the Church demand loyalty to family, community, country, and Church.  To be Catholic is to be tribal.

Semester Survived

Finally done with my junior year!  Now back to that blog thing.

Busy

My time is all dumfungled with term papers and so I can't post too often until I get to the sockdolager of my academic consarn this semester.  By the way, check out this guide to swearing like an old prospector.

Divine Mercy Sunday

It is fitting that the Divine Mercy devotion was revealed to St. Faustina and promulgated by the Church in the 20th Century, a time when man has needed the mercy of God more than ever.


















Jesus I trust in you!
St. Faustina pray for us!

Misquoting a Cosmonaut

Yuri Gagarin, Soviet Cosmonaut and the first man in space, was alleged to have said that he did not see God when he left Earth.  In reality, Gagarin never said this and was actually a lifelong Christian.  Rob Kerby writes in Orthodoxy Today,

Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, in line with the official atheistic Soviet line, proclaimed that Gagarin had told him the famous line about not seeing God in space. But nobody else ever heard Gagarin say it –and he never repeated it.

In fact, “Gagarin was a baptized faithful throughout all his life,” says General Valentin Petrov, Professor of the Russian Air Force Academy and a personal friend of the cosmonaut. “He always confessed God whenever he was provoked, no matter where he was.”

In a 2007 article titled “Yuri Gagarin, the Christian,” by Maria Biniari, she wrote on his birthday in 1964, he visited a monastery, the Lavra of Saint Serge, and met with the Prior — the monk in charge.

There, he had a photo taken of himself, which he told the priest “this is for those who don’t believe.” He signed it “with my best wishes, Yuri Gagarin.”

“That famous phrase which has been ascribed to him, well, in actual fact it was Khrushchev who had said it,” says Petrov. ”It was heard during a meeting of the Central Committee, whose desire it was to promulgate anti-religious propaganda.

“Khrushchev had mockingly addressed the following words: ‘Why didn’t you step on the brakes in front of God? Here is Gagarin, who flew up to space, and yet, even he didn’t see God anywhere.’

“Immediately after that, those words were placed into another’s mouth, because the people would have believed more in Gagarin’s words than Khrushchev’s,” says Petrov.

In fact, Gagarin should be remembered for completely different words, says his friend:
"I always remember that Yuri Gagarin said: “An astronaut cannot be suspended in space and not have God in his mind and his heart."

I had read Gagarin's alleged line about God, and until now I had no idea that he was actually a believer.  I wish that my own country had beat the Communists to space, but if someone had to beat us, I'm glad it was Yuri Gagarin.

He is Risen!

Fra Angelico 15th Century

O filii et filiæ
Rex cælestis, Rex gloriæ
Morte surrexit hodie.
Alleluia.

Good Friday

Icon from Matt Stone

Beauty and Worship

More greatness from one of my new favorite blogs, Lamentably Sane

Some priests were formed with the idea that being humble means dressing in rags, celebrating banal liturgies, and building ugly churches. With all respect, there is no one in this world more patronizing than someone who professes to love the poor but has never been poor themselves. The poor, by and large, don't want ugliness and banality. Their lives are hard and they want a glimpse of heaven. Think about it: the most beautiful churches in the United States were built with the money and hard work of poor or working class immigrants. Our great-grandfathers worshiped in ornate cathedrals and gorgeous parish churches with reredos and high altars adorned with exquisite wood working, stone altars, and lovely statuary. It was their comfortable, easy going, middle class descendants who tore it all down and replaced them with felt banners and picnic table altars. "Why was this expensive oil not sold and given to the poor?"

Humans are made to appreciate beauty, and beauty on earth points to the beauty of heaven.  Those who would do away with beauty at Mass are implicitly embracing a sort of Kantian  idea of a transcendent rational will that works best when it is not influenced by "worldly" things like aesthetics.  This is utterly opposed to the traditional Christian understanding that we are not simply intellects inhabiting bodies but that each person is a unity of body and soul.  Our neurochemistry and our immaterial intellect are both ordered to appreciate a beautiful liturgy and a beautiful church.  We should not fight against our natural attraction to beauty but embrace it, especially in  our churches.

St. Patrick was a Superhero

Today we celebrate my patron St. Patrick, one of the greatest saints in the history of the Church.  The 17th of March falls on a Sunday this year, so there is no liturgical celebration, but we should still honor St. Patrick.  Many saints have fantastic miracles attributed to them, some more credible than others.  St. Patrick's miracles are in a class by themselves.  According to the 7th Century Irish monk and historian Muirchu, Patrick killed scores of pagans with jedi powers of the Holy Spirit. One of the pagan priests insulted the Faith, and Patrick rebuked him.  With a rock.

As he uttered such things, Saint Patrick regarded him with a stern glance, as Peter once looked on Simon; and powerfully, with a loud voice, he confidently addressed the Lord and said, O Lord, who canst do all things, and in whose power all things hold together, and who hast sent me hither, as for this impious man who blasphemes Thy name, let him now be taken up out of this and die speedily.”

And when he had thus spoken, the magician was caught up into the air, and then let fall from above, and, his skull striking on a rock, he was dashed to pieces and killed before their faces; and the heathen folk were dismayed.

Afterwards, the Irish sent chariots against Patrick.

Then St. Patrick, seeing that the ungodly heathen folk were about to rush upon him, rose up, and with a clear voice said, “Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered; let them also that hate him flee before him.”

And straightway darkness came down, and a certain horrible commotion arose, and the ungodly men fought amongst themselves, one rising up against another, and there was a great earthquake, “and [God] bound the axles of their chariots, and drove them with violence,” and they rushed in headlong flight — both chariots and horses — over the level ground of the great plain, till at last only a few of them escaped half alive to the mountain of Monduirn.

And, at the curse of Patrick, seven times seven men were laid low by this stroke in the presence of the king and his elders, until there remained only himself and his wife and two others of his companions; and they were sore afraid.

These are among the more violent of the many miracles credited to St. Patrick.  His miracles often seem more like Irish folk tales than real history, but I think that Patrick truly performed some of the miracles attributed to him.  I believe this for the simple reason that he was not killed immediately upon setting foot in Ireland, and in fact managed to single-handedly convert the warlike Irish.  The Irish had been fighting each other and sacrificing people to pagan idols for millenia, yet Patrick converted them armed with nothing but his crosier and the Holy Spirit.  I don't know if Patrick smashed a bunch of chariots, but he certainly did something to impress the heathens.  Perhaps he really did drive the snakes from Ireland.  Serpents have always been conspicuously absent from the Emerald Isle even though they live in Britain, just across the Irish sea.  Whatever he did in life, we can be assured of his intercession in Heaven. 

St. Patrick pray for us!

Link Fest

Fr. Z reports that then Cardinal Bergoglio immediately complied with Summorum Pontificum after it was released.

Mr. T prays for the pope.

Benedictine College celebrates pope Francis.

Some humorous vocation advice at Lamentably Sane.

The American Spectator recalls conservative folk music . . . from the 60s!

The state of California literally regulates holes in the ground.

Fake Science: For when the facts are too confusing.

John Wilson explains why 1913 was the worst year ever.

Habemus Papam!

God Bless Francis I!