From the, "Why not? I have nothing else to lose" department

Based on this, the Dalai Lama seems to have given up any hope he ever had of getting back to his homeland or that the Chinese leaders would ever begin to act like rational human beings, rather than the power-at-all-costs monsters that they are. The Chinese don't take well to people who make them "lose face." Do you know what, though? It's often the only thing that works with them. Take the situation reported by Steve Mosher. He recounted in a recorded talk how a Chinese official was giving a news conference concerning China's forced abortion policy. Said Mandarin was asked whether if the one baby allowed a couple was born with birth defects, would they be allowed to euthanize that children. And the guy essentially said the court of international opinion hadn't made itself known on that. Now USAID, Peter Singer, PETA, and Planned Parenthood may have no issue with that sorta thing, but most people would. So China wants to save face and not be known for a nation with the barbarous policies that it has.

Readers, please tell me

Where are you from? If you from a foreign country, what is the nearest major city? If you live in the US or Canada, from what state or province do you view this page?

Also, what brought you here? Do you read regularly? What are your interests? Do you agree or disagree with the things you've found posted here?

Any feedback would be great and highly appreciated.

In Christ,
Look in the Mirror

In Germany, the Pope makes a good point

With so much of the ridiculousness (and here) of contemporary German Catholicism swirling around him (and the ridiculousness of contemporary Catholicism period), you almost are tempted to give B16 points for simply showing up for this visit to his homeland, especially since it is to the heart of German Protestantism and atheism. That he is able to do so and move the ball forward to the extent he is perpetually able, I find remarkable.

However, in this address, he makes a point that seems to bear more reflection:

Faced with a new form of Christianity, which is spreading with overpowering missionary dynamism, sometimes in frightening ways, the mainstream Christian denominations often seem at a loss. This is a form of Christianity with little institutional depth, little rationality and even less dogmatic content, and with little stability.

For those who can't figure what he's on about, he's talking about the evangelical movement, the new/emergent/emerging church movement, the megachurch movement, etc. It seems to me that evangelicalism as it is becoming will become the death knell of Christianity in the future. So much of it is founded on emotionalism. There is little taste for doctrine as such. Holding something as dogmatic is itself often held as anathema, and much of it is about what religion gives "me," and not what I bring worship, honor, service, and praise to my God, "who art all good and worthy of all my love."

I once had a fundamentalist criticize the Church's not inviting to the eucharistic table those who simply said, "I want to be Catholic." Why, he asked, do you make catechumens take anywhere from six months to two years of instruction to become officially Catholic? Well, simply put, it's because doctrine matters. It would be like saying back at one of the early Councils, "Eh, who cares if Jesus is wholly God and wholly man or simply God under the appearance of man or God's highest creature?" Had the Church not insisted on the the meeting of Christ's divinity and humanity as the hypostatic union, Christianity would today be a dead letter. Had the outcome of the Council of Nicaea not been what it was, the same would be true.

And yet the growth in Evangelicalism as a "non-denominational" denomination is an outgrowth of an idea that such dogmatism is no longer needed, if it ever was (and let's not kid ourselves: Calvary Chapel, etc., they're all very denominational with a strict set of beliefs, yet beliefs that can morph and change as times and circumstances require with no reference to the truth, e.g., Ron Bell and Rick Warren et al). It is not doctrine that is important, we're told, but one's personal relationship with Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. How else to explain, "Once saved, always saved," or, "I'm a good person, and Jesus and I love each other, and thus I will go to heaven," or "If Jesus was here today, He wouldn't bother with XYZ. He would just tell us to love one another."

If that's the case, why bother? It's an offshoot of what Miss Flannery O'Conner once said about the Eucharist: "Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it." Dogma and doctrine are the glue that bind us together with our predecessors in the Faith, and they ensure we will pass on the faith handed down whole by the apostles to our progeny and beyond.

Megachurches and the new or emergent church movement may look impressive on paper now, but they are ultimately nothing more than today's fad, a flash in the pan. They are, in short, just another form of Modernism. Thus, they will only further undermine institutional Christianity than has already happened.

God help us and save us from this, please.

I ask my Iranian friends again ...

If even half of this is true, I ask my Persian friends again: When will you come to realize that Islam is not incidental to your woes but the direct cause of them.

Bl. Bartolomeo Longo, pray for us.

Boy, did I need to read this. Do you?

This comes at just the right time. Are you just incredibly busy these days? I am, man, I tell ya. My life is way too stressful, and I'm looking for ways to cut back.

Let's see:

• A huge campaign at work with even bigger pressure coming from those above me and those above them and those above them, and so on.
• A manuscript that is due November 1, where my word limit is 40,000 words, and I'm about 10,000 words above that. And cutting words for me -- details, really -- is a hateful thing. Hateful. Still, I have to do that.
• A pilgrimage to Rome that I'm leading that starts November 3. There are still so many loose ends to wrap up, it's mind numbing.
• There are yard projects to finish before winter (rabbit hutch, winterizing the chicken coop), and there's no time to do so. Plus, my wife is pressing me to cull all our animals, which I don't want to do a) because I like our animals, especially my rabbits and b) I want to see if I can get animals alive through the winter.
• I teach CCD.
• I lead my parish's Bible study.
• I do our family's grocery shopping.
• I'm out of certain types of animal feed and am scrambling to feed them each day until I can get to the feed store.
• We're (I'm) caring for our weekend neighbors farm animals during the week.

It's just nuts. So tonight, as much as I want to just work on my MS when I get home tonight, I'm going to play with one of the kids. That article I linked to above clinched it for me. Did it have any effect on you?

Three cheers for Lichtenstein

This is great. Somewhere in Western Europe they have stood up for life. However, not to be Debbie Downer, but it was just a six percent margin. How long will the culture of death liberal Catholicism that runs rampant in neighboring Austria and Switzerland be held at bay on this issue? In any event, a win's a win. Kudos to His Majesty Prince Alois, Liechtenstein's monarch. His threat of veto must have had a very positive influence.

Big Brother is watching you

Can you believe this? How have we devolved to this level?

You know what the funny thing about this sordid situation is? The very people who have set this in motion are those who cry "Christian Taliban!" and "theocracy" at the drop of a hat. When did an established Christian state -- Catholic or otherwise -- ever do something like branding a 3-year-old, thus jeopardizing or at least limiting their entire future? Dear God, help us.