"In the end, asking Hamas to investigate may have been a mistaken enterprise"...

Who knows how far along the way to wisdom Justice Richard Goldstone may travel if he's granted another few years?

So it is reported to be the case that the long expected...

Instruction implementing/revising Summorum Pontificum has already been sent to the reverendissimi domini. Their excellencies have gotten an e.mail, to which doubtless they will attend promptly....

So many occasions for prayer and acts of piety...

During the first week of Lent, but spare an Ave or two for the people of Wisconsin, if you can. The mental disorder on display in the video is not restricted to mad Madison, alas.

Was reminded of a bus commute home last week...

When I glanced through this post at Badger Catholic; the university students observed therein are upset that they may have to fund their own contraceptives and testing for sexually transmitted diseases. I think it must have been Thursday or Friday last that I overheard a group of five... well, my approximation is that they were probably thirteen or fourteen, perhaps; first year of high school, maybe. Three boys, two girls.  In any event, they were chattering about how often each of them has been 'gay', as in, 'I was gay for a couple of months back when...' and 'I am gay but we're going to Florida for the summer...' (the clear implication being that in Florida something may happen that will alter her 'lifestyle choice')--although it is true I heard only three voices (two male, one female), so forty percent of the group were keeping their judgments to themselves, I guess.  So far as I could tell by the minimal number of cultural tells I was able to glimpse they were 'middle class' kids; but, specially here in Eugene, who knows. How impoverished our society has become, how terribly parents are failing in their duties, how... et cetera, et cetera. Spes contra spem.

The British High Court has ruled that...

Christians may not be foster care providers because of their "view that homosexuality is wrong". I suspect that the situation there and here will only get worse, from the Catholic point of view.  Spes contra spem.

Update on Monday, February 28, 2011 at 18:54 by Marc

Since I have to struggle to keep up with the details of the casuistry that elucidates decisions of the US Supreme Court, I'm not also going to try to do that for the British courts; but I'll add links here as I see them. Father Finigan's post on this awful nonsense.

Update on Saturday, March 5, 2011 at 10:01 by Marc

The attorney for the Johns, Paul Diamond, has made several comments worth hearing; the Pentecostal couple will not appeal the High Court decision. "They think it won't happen in America, that your judges won't do that. What they fail to understand is that it's a hard-nosed political agenda."

Politicians in DC have no excuse to fail at enacting laws to limit the number of abortions...

Mons Ángel Rodríguez Luño, professor of moral theology at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross and currently dean of the Faculty of Theology, wrote (in 2002) an essay examining the various legitimate and illegitimate responses to legislative initiatives about the issue of abortion, particularly in view of Evangelium Vitae (§73).

... The moral object of the lawmaker's act is the elimination of all the unjust aspects of the prior law which here and now he is able to eliminate, without thereby becoming the cause of the retention of the other unjust elements, which he neither wants nor accepts, but which he is unable to eliminate....

In other words, a law significantly reducing the number of abortions would merit the support of Catholic and other legislators even though it does not outlaw the practice absolutely. The paragraph of Evangelium Vitae in question follows. Father Frank Pavone g a.

73. Abortus ergo et euthanasia crimina sunt quae nulla humana lex potest rata facere. Huiusmodi leges non modo conscientiam non devinciunt, verum graviter nominatimque compellunt ut iisdem per conscientiae repugnantiam officiatur. Ipsa ex Ecclesiae origine, apostolica praedicatio praecepit ut publicis magistratibus legitime constitutis parerent christiani (Cfr. Rom. 13, 1-7; 1 Petr. 2, 13-14), eodem tamen tempore hoc firmiter monuit: “Oboedire oportet Deo magis quam hominibus” (Act. 5, 29). In Vetere iam Foedere, quoad minas adversus vitam, insigne invenitur exemplum quo auctoritati officitur iniuriose imperanti. Pharaoni, qui cunctos modo natos necari iusserat, Hebraeorum obstetrices sunt refragatae. Eae “non fecerunt iuxta praeceptum regis Aegypti, sed conservabant mares” (Ex. 1, 17). At sapiens huius mentis ratio est respicienda: “Timuerunt autem obstetrices Deum” (Ibid.). Ex ipsa Deo obtemperatione – cui tribuendus est uni ille timor qui secum fert eiusdem absoluti dominatus agnitionem – vis animusque oriuntur iniquis hominum legibus reluctandi. Vis quidem et animus sunt illius qui promptus est in vincula conici vel gladio necari, pro certo illud habens: “Hic est patientia et fides sanctorum” (Apoc. 13, 10).

Si ergo de lege agitur suapte natura iniqua, ut est quae abortum permittit et euthanasiam, numquam licet eidem se accommodare, nec quisquam “potest esse particeps alicuius motus publicae opinionis qui eiusmodi legi faveat, neque potest latis suffragiis sustinere” (Cong. pro Doctrina Fidei, Declaratio de abortu procurato, 22, die 18 nov. 1974: AAS 66 (1974) 744). 

De conscientia nominatim agitari potest quibusdam forte evenientibus casibus, cum legatorum suffragia necessaria sunt ut strictiori legi faveatur, quae scilicet circumscribat abortuum lege admissorum numerum pro laxiore lege quae iam viget vel suffragiis probanda. Huiusmodi eventus non sunt rari. Illud enim contingit, dum orbis terrarum quibusdam in partibus leges subinde pro abortu inducuntur, suadentibus haud raro valentibus internationalibus institutis, aliis tamen in Nationibus – in illis potissimum quae iam infeliciter id genus leges sunt expertae – signa quaedam exsistunt mutatarum sententiarum. Superiore in casu, quoties vitari antiquarive non potest abortus lex, liquet legatum, qui palam alioquin vulgoque abortui adversetur, suffragari licite posse illis consiliis quae eiusmodi legis damna minuere velint et perniciosum effectum extenuare qui sive culturam sive moralitatem publicam respicit. Hac enim agendi ratione officium suum non praestat illicitae vel iniustae legi; potius vero aequus opportunusque inducitur conatus ut eius iniquae cohibeantur species.

O tempora, o mores...

Watched this with some little amazement at Mark Shea's site. Mr Seymour, apparently, didn't realise that he had witnessed President Lincoln's assassination. I suspect that this is perhaps the only time on American broadcast television when the word, 'withal' was spoken (at least, outside a dramatic or historical program of some sort).

Someone was obliquely defending Mr Beck in my hearing...

The other evening, and I had to admit that I'd never seen or heard the man. Alex Massie at the Spectator has come to my rescue with what is a rather long YouTube video which I have to admit has so far captured my attention. The mix of truths and half-truths and nonsense is quite amazing. "The whole world will implode." Mr Beck is... amusing; I gather he is selling a book.

Update on Tuesday, February 1, 2011 at 21:43 by Marc

The Beck I watched supra is indeed amusing, as I pointed out; but so is this sort of criticism of the Beckian persona or act. Of course it is ridiculous at first glance to imagine the Chinese managing the wild kangaroo or the Turks the 21st c. Bulgurs; yet it would have been entirely unimaginable to a member of the Roman elite in the epoch of her greatest ascendance that North Africa would fall to the barbarians or that their influence would make and unmake the reigns of the Caesars themselves.

The ignorance of our contemporaries is sometimes very surprising...

But not in matters geographical; as the poster at Chicago Boyz observes, even to know that Brasil is in South America strikes some people as wanton extravagance. A co-worker, the other day, guessed (rather sheepishly; I'll give her that) that Iraq is situated on that same Ibero-American continent.  

The sad list of European lands that have legalised euthanasia...

Is only going to lengthen, I'm afraid. @AnnaArco g a.

A coincidence of the tragic and the ridiculous...

In the unending course of articles and blog posts through the news reader: first, in 2010 Oregon cooperated in the death of yet more people via its assisted suicide regime and, next, that odd fellow Rep Dennis Kucinich (D), once feted here in Eugene by scores of citizens as the next president of the United States, has gone to law because he broke his tooth in the House cafeteria. The gentleman must have a powerful jaw indeed if one bite caused so much damage.

Update on Sunday, January 30, 2011 at 13:55 by Marc

Scott Johnson at Power Line reads Mr Kucinich's e.mail.... "The clamor for information about this incident requires that I provide at least this much information." The clamor.

After so many years of the judicially imposed abortion regime...

In the United States, at one level there is not much new that can be said: we know how the nefarious business works, we know of the human beings slaughtered, we know the rationalisations involved, we know that the mainstream media will talk about anything else today. But the fundamental inhumanity of the practice of abortion is spotlighted by the Gosnell criminal scandal in Philadelphia; Clark Forsythe at the Weekly Standard points out the direct connection between Roe v Wade and the horrifying abattoir that Dr Gosnell operated.

Update on Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 18:32 by Marc

The Anchoress presents a large collection of March for Life posts and photographs.

"A gay drug-fiend feminist immigrant-loving anti-Israel pro-warmist agenda decreed by Brussels"...

I read Melanie Phillips's article in the Daily Mail (I can't help but hear the 'The Daily Mail Song' whenever I get diverted to that paper) only because of it's critique posted at Heresy Corner.  One quite agrees that,

The whole congeries of assumptions, doctrines and laws which go under the banner of "equality and diversity" is too complex and subtle for such a simplistic analysis.

That is, as the one proposed in Miss Phillips's column; but she would not herself argue, I guess, that she wrote the definitive 500 word essay on the subjects she discusses. And if she conceives that the "conspiracy of elitist liberals" (as the critic paraphrases her) is an actual conspiracy, like the one that plotted the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, well, she may be a bit mad.

The Heresiarch continues-- and this is what caught my attention; I have no real interest in being anything other than a foreign spectator as the Brits argue about their relationships with immigrants, Israel and inhalants--  by declaring, in so many words, that 'the culture war' is ended and that we losers must be, our "anger, confusion and wild imaginings" notwithstanding, treated with a bit of understanding and decency lest.... And the scene closes with ominous clouds on the horizon.

But of course we many of us think that the so-called 'culture wars' continue and will continue, since they are simply engagements in a larger campaign i.e. the battle between the two standards, that of Christ our Supreme Captain and Lord and that of Lucifer, the mortal enemy of our human nature, the war between the culture of life and the culture of death, which will be fought donec veniat, in which no 'culture war' is ever finally decided. Although the calculus is pretty vague in its infinite complexity, I'm keeping Miss Phillips, mad or not, on the right side of the ledger.

The French 'March for Life' attracted many thousands...

Of participants (Le Salon Beige has a collection of links to media coverage); 6,500, according to les flics, 40,000 according to the managers. The West Coast version drew some 40,000 people; the event's media coverage site is here.  (A photographic account of the event's 2006 version is here, at Zombietime, where we may hope for photos of this year's, eventually.) Tomorrow in DC....

"This story reveals the profound refusal to peacefully accept difference"...

While waiting for the washing machine to do its cleansing work, trying to finish the last of the Camels-- this is a real parenthesis: for many years, I smoked nothing but Camel straights, with the single interruption of my decade in the monastic desert (of course, there were the occasional odd breaks, for a day or two, due to lack of funds or an oppressive cold in the head); but out here in the Oregonian wilds the number of retailers still selling non-filtered cigarettes is small compared to that which proudly sells American Spirits, and since their manufacturer also sells a filterless version the price of which is rather less than that of Camels, when they can be found, I converted-- before going off to the library, I persuaded myself to look at the current issue of the Eugene Weekly. This essay about 'Tucson', by a professor of some species at the University of Oregon, reminded me that next time I ought not to yield.  

The terrible Philadelphia abortionist and his mass slaughter...

Are utterly horrendous, and almost beggar belief: those pro-abortion people are always going on about how safe and pure abortions are in these post-Roe days, are they not; just disgusting.  Dave Andrusko at National Right to Life has been reading the grand jury report (which is here; pdf). One has to wonder how numerous such 'progressive clinics' are, and their 'physicians'.

"People seem to be shocked. One wonders why."

At Mirror of Justice, Robert George on the media and the politics of the Philadelphia tragedy.

It being Friday, the weekday when it is most appropriate to meditate...

On the suffering and Passion of Our Lord, this video from Keith Fraser at Chant Café should provide abundant matter. Such liturgical workshops continue to be held, alas, in the wilds of southern California and the Upper Midwest.

"What are we going to do about the lawyers?"

An amusing and occasionally percipient column by Boris Johnson; he's writing about the relationship between the Internet and thoughtful politicking and journalism et cetera, in the aftermath of Tucson. Politicians are becoming aware that it's not just the professional chatterers they need to be wary of:

... And now, at last, the journalists are getting something like the same treatment; and of course, as a politician who loves writing, I must tremble before the wrath of pheasantplucker [an anonymous commenter--MP], but I also rejoice at the change that has taken place. A broadcast has been turned into a dialogue. When we write our pieces, thousands of eyes are scanning them for errors of fact and taste – and now our critics cannot only harrumph and curse us. They can tell the world – in seconds – where they think we have gone wrong. We are not just writing columns, we are writing wiki-columns, and if we sometimes get beaten up, we also have the satisfaction of gaining the odd grunt of agreement. 

Politicians are being held to account by journalists; journalists are being held to account by their readers – and it cannot be long, the internet being what it is, before the wind of popular scrutiny blows through all the bourgeois professions. What are we going to do about the lawyers?

I wish I knew an appropriate lawyer joke. @Londiniensis g a.

'Little Hugo' in the Daily Mail yesterday...

Makes me want to move to Cartagena permanently; perhaps retirement beckons. Found the link at Verum Serum. I expect that if Venezuela were a shade or two lighter in her skin color that certain persons wouldn't be quite so upset; maybe not. "That soap is so horrible!"  Chepe Fortuna is well represented on YouTube; the opening trailer (I think that's what it is) is here; embedding is disabled.