extreme Catholic 

Government, military, community and Church leaders in the southern Philippines have told nuns to stop serving an indigenous community after the nuns were accused of "irresponsible" dealings with communist rebels.

Maybe these nuns need to kidnap and threaten to kill a truch driver to get the government to change policy.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 8:39 PM   Permalink  

Drivers who use the Grand Central Parkway are facing a traffic nightmare Saturday morning after a chunk of concrete fell from an overpass injuring a driver.

The roadway is completely shut down.

The Office of Emergency Management says the 60 by four foot long block of concrete fell from the Steinway Overpass at around 9 p.m. Friday.

Just a few blocks away and a stretch of road I travel almost every day. It could have been me.

Another reminder to always be in the state of grace, have a paid-up life insurance policy, and prepared for death.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 1:32 PM   Permalink  

Chicago Sun-Times: It's single life for Hilton and ex-beau Carter

She wasn't not single (i.e. double negative alert) before -- because she wasn't married.

Publicists at work, I suppose.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 12:32 PM   Permalink  

I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. Is the headline in The New York Times letters section an example of dangerously Orwellian doublespeak or an amusing form of self-parody: "Religious Intolerance Among Americans"? Beneath the headline, Americans are judging religions they disagree with. For readers of The New York Times, that means Christian fundamentalists.

I missed this one earlier in the week. It's another look at the people who believe there is a nobility to hating Christians. What could be more righteous than condemning Christians in the New York Times?

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:43 PM   Permalink  

A former Catholic seminarian is suing the Diocese of Tucson, its bishops, and Bishop Wilton Gregory, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops among other high-ranking American prelates. The suit alleges a pattern of racketeering activity exemplified by fraud and obstruction of justice.

This might be the proverbial big one -- evidence of a conspiracy among bishops to obstruct justice -- and to systematically destroy the people who brought to them evidence of immorality and sexual abuse.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 12:19 PM   Permalink  

A Brooklyn priest remains hospitalized Thursday, as police continue to search for the robber who broke into his rectory earlier this morning and attacked him as he slept.

Church officials say a man crawled through Monsignor James Kelly's bathroom window at St. Brigid's Church in Bushwick shortly before dawn. Investigators say the intruder struck Kelly in the head and robbed him.

Monsignor Kelly is in stable condition at Wyckoff Hospital.

A very bad beating. The above story has a video link.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:41 PM   Permalink  

There's no plot, says Anthony Browne:

Islam really does want to conquer the world.

That's because Muslims, unlike many Christians, actually believe they are right, and that their religion is the path to salvation for all

Obviously, we all know about Osama bin Laden's ambitions. And we are all aware of the loons of al-Muhajiroun waving placards saying “Islam is the future of Britain”. But these are all on the extremist fringe, representative of no one but themselves. Surely no one in Islam takes this sort of thing seriously? I started surfing the Islamic media.

Take Dr Al-Qaradawi, the controversial Egyptian imam who was recently fawned over by the Mayor of London even though he promotes the execution of homosexuals, the right of men to indulge in domestic violence, and the murder of innocent Jews. During the brouhaha it went unnoticed that he also wants to conquer Europe. Don't take my word for it, just listen to him on his popular al-Jazeera TV show, Sharia and Life.

“Islam will return to Europe. The conquest need not necessarily be by the sword. Perhaps we will conquer these lands without armies. We want an army of preachers and teachers who will present Islam in all languages and in all dialects,” he broadcast in 1999, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, which translates his programmes. On another programme he declared, “Europe will see that it suffers from a materialist culture, and it will seek a way out, it will seek a lifeboat. It will seek no life-saver but the message of Islam.”

Far from being on the fringe, his immensely popular programmes are watched by millions across the Middle East and Europe. The BBC cooed that he has “star” status among the world's Muslims.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 9:27 PM   Permalink  

A homeless woman was charged early yesterday with vandalizing approximately 60 cars at Ramp Motors in Port Jefferson Station and defacing three Suffolk County churches over the weekend, Suffolk Police said.

Irmgard M. Junta, 38, formerly of North Isle Village Apartments in Coram, was charged with three counts of aggravated harassment in the first degree in defacing St. Francis Cabrini Church in Coram, Christ Baptist Church in Coram and North Shore United Methodist Church in Wading River. She also was charged with criminal mischief in the second degree for the damage to the cars.

And yes, that should be "St. Frances Cabrini Church"

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 12:03 PM   Permalink  

I'll link to the stories when they show up.

AP is first

A federal racketeering indictment unsealed Thursday charges John A. Gotti, the son of the late Gambino boss John Gotti, with multiple crimes including the 1992 attempted murder of Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 9:13 AM   Permalink  

Crowds are flocking to a hardware store in Rio Grande Valley, Texas, to see an image of Jesus that has appeared on a tinted window at the business.

Crowds flock to a hardware store in Texas to see an image of Jesus on a window. Click here for a larger image and more unique July stories and images.

The image first appeared on a True Value store window on July 19 and caused employees to wonder where it came from.

Since being discovered, the image has not faded.

People at the store agree that the image resembles the face of Jesus Christ with a crown of thorns.

"I go to church whenever I get a chance, but I'm not a spiritual person. I do believe, especially now," a resident said after seeing the window.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 9:03 AM   Permalink  

I've seen many quotes that link Arroyo's Catholic faith to her decision to bow to terrorist demands. Reuters comments on all the celebrations that have broken out.

[de la Cruz] was due on Friday to attend a Catholic mass with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who risked close ties with Washington to save the life of a worker she described as a Filipino Everyman.

You'd think that Washington was the real enemy by reading these accounts.

I'm still looking where she claims her Catholic faith required her to turn the other cheek.

I'll apologize if she never has to turn the cheek again, but I think the next slap is coming soon -- and the Philippines will be the slappee and not the slapper.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 8:43 AM   Permalink  

• She is the daughter of legal Filipino immigrants to the United States.
• She lives in Maryland near a terrorist target.
• Everyone should know that after appeasing terrorists once, every Filipino in the world is now at greater risk, since Gloria Arroyo has set the precedent that whatever the terrorists want, the terrorists get.
• The Philippines has its own Islamic terrorist threat: the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). American soldiers have died defending the people of the Philippines from these terrorists. The presence of Philippine troops wasn't a gift but a demonstration of solidarity with the United States in the War on Terror.

I fear and many Filipinos fear that Arroyo's thanking the terrorist for releasing de la Cruz and calling Islam a religion of peace and mercy is only going to increase the resolve of the terrorists to exploit the weakness of the Philippines government.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 9:25 PM   Permalink  

Go ahead, [President] Gloria [Arroyo]. Keep working to pay off the Islamofascists. No doubt there's a Nobel (Ap)Peace(ment) Prize for you already in the works.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:48 AM   Permalink  

What do you make of this story about 14 Syrian musicians whose in-flight bathroom use was more coordinated than a synchronized swimming routine? It sounds a lot like the kind of dry run James Woods witnessed and which I recounted in this excerpt from The Face Of The Tiger.

Also being discussed in Dallas Morning-News blog

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:29 AM   Permalink  

TimesLeader: Two more allege sex abuse by priest

New court documents reveal two more witnesses who say they were molested by the Rev. Carlos Urrutigoity, one of two priests at the center of a lawsuit alleging sexual misconduct by the priests and negligence by the Scranton Diocese, former Bishop James Timlin and others.

Also, the records reveal the former bishop showed a rarely seen flare of temper during a deposition in the civil suit. And he admitted some seminaries have reputations for alleged homosexual activity.

And they say homosexuality has nothing to do with the crisis.

For these bishops to have a retirement in good standing without a word of criticism is another scandal. No one in the Church is holding them accountable.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:00 AM   Permalink  

The Catholic Church has much to say about marriage. It is a profoundly moral matter and for Christians, family and marriage are models of the relationship of the God and the Church made explicit in scripture. It is the state and politics that have intruded upon marriage and not the reverse. Those boundaries have been moved around.

The domain of hospital visitation rights, inheritance, rent-control apartments, health insurance, etc. are separate civil matters. In fact, in New York City, more pairs of people who have no sexual contact are signing up as domestic partners than pairs of people with sexual contact. You might call this a scam, others are calling it a right. Same sex advocates are divided on this point as much as others.

The Court preempted any laws which criminalize or restrict homosexuality. This led to obvious next goal: It's incorporation into society by changing the defintion of marriage. Skillfully, its advocates changed the burden from there changing the definition of marriage to show that it was not always included in its definition - and show that this development is no different from laws prohibiting marriage of one man and one woman of different races, or where one had cognitive disability. There's a big difference: marriage is about children.

Society has an interest in stable families which include children. That's not disputed. What's a matter of dispute is whether marriage is the correct form for society to encourage and nurture families or something else like day one day car, Head Start, etc. rather than having a father around. Children need a mother and a father.

Same sex advocates have two points to make here:

• There's no reason to believe that two women or two men are better or worse at raising kids.
• Marriage is about personal fulfillment and not about children.

In some debates I've seen online there's what Curtis Sliwa calls the "verbal rope a dope" -- when refuting the first claim that second claim is introduced, when refuting the second claim the first claim is introduced.

There's abundant information online that shows the experience of children raised by same sex couples is not happy. The counter-argument to the those studies which reached negative conclusions is that the experience of single parent children is worse. There's always something worse.

The second claim I've considered is the tough one. It's the appeal to the power of 1 vote on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The law is whatever we say.

Here's where we need to understand what "We, the People" is all about. We are not under a judicial tyranny.

In the long term, we're going to be either like the Americans of centuries past and able to control the government, or we're going to let self-government slip through our fingers like the first century AD Romans.

Here I think I'm off the page from my fellow extreme Catholics (in the sense of being prepared for a martyr's crown) -- I'm in a jurisdiction, namely New York, where a popular vote would probably support unrestricted killing of the unborn. Not only the mother would have a choice, but they'd probably vote to also accept third party petitions that would judically order the unborn dead if the mother had doubts of the wisdom of bringing into the world a child with a cleft palate. Likewise, the vote for gay marriage and even group marriage would probably be affirmed. Whatever we, the people vote for, we deserve. We will certainly be accountable for how we vote in this life.

So I hope for a Federal Marriage Amendment and for a Right to Life Amendment. In a practical sense, I believe the only way to turn this into reality is to vote pro-life when the pro-life candidate has a reasonable chance of winning. Otherwise vote Republican, since this party is the only one open to any restriction on abortion. I urge that you let the Republican party know that you are voting on their line because they are sometimes pro-life.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 8:42 AM   Permalink  

A man who fell onto the tracks after experiencing a seizure suffered only minor cuts and bruises after four cars of a subway train passed above him in Queens Friday.

Brian Jemmotte, 38, pitched forward onto the elevated tracks as a No. 7 train pulled into the 69th Street station in Woodside at 7:35 a.m. Friday, police said.

The train conductor later told police he initially thought Jemmotte's motionless body was a pile of clothes. As the train entered the station, people on the platform screamed at the conductor to stop and motioned that there was a person on the tracks.

The conductor applied the brakes but the train's momentum prevented it from coming to a stop before four cars had passed over him, police said.

Firefighters responded and found Jemmotte conscious. They removed him from beneath the subway, police said.

Jemmotte, who has a history of seizures, was taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center, where he was treated and released.

His sister, Donna Jemmotte, 49, said she's heard many stories of people being killed by trains under similar circumstances. "We're just flabbergasted," she said.

The New York Post article of the same story is not online. It added:

Jemmotte said he feels blessed. "I tell people "Why do you have to go to church when God is everywhere?" he said.

This is a question or rather a sentiment that I hear often. The answer is that God doesn't have to have a church. We have to go to church. We have the need. If God is important to us individually and in community, then we need to have a time and a place to focus: to ask God, to thank God, and to praise God.

If I ever fall beneath the tracks and survive than I'm going to go to church and you can't stop me!

This happenned on Friday just a few hundred feet away, I walked to the train but did not hear the trains running at 7:45AM. The trains started to roll at 8:10AM, in the meantime I prayed that it wasn't a death but an accident that someone survived without serious injury.

Maybe in heaven I'll learn that my intercession aided Brian.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:14 PM   Permalink  

A beloved Brooklyn nun dressed in habit and veil was knocked down and mugged yesterday by a thug who made off with her rosary beads and about $60 — and she already forgives her attacker.

"God forgives him. So do I," Sister Ngozi Ohaeri said at the St. Rita rectory in East New York.

Ohaeri, 41, was headed to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, where she volunteers as a nutritionist, at 5 a.m. when a man grabbed her bag and tossed her to the ground.

The crook swiped her bag, which had the cash and her rosary, and fled in a cohort's car waiting down the block.

Ohaeri, who suffered minor bruises and emotional trauma, said she begged her attacker to leave her alone.

"I was screaming at him, 'Get away from me. Don't touch me,' " Ohaeri said.

Out of desperation she told her assailant to take the cash but leave the rest.

And though she forgives, she won't forget.

"I am very upset with him," said the nun, who came to the United States from Nigeria in 1992 and has been at St. Rita for four years

Ohaeri was treated and released from Brookdale Hospital and spent the afternoon at the 75th Precinct flipping through books of mug shots.

"She was very, very shook up," said St. Rita Monsignor John Peyton. "It's part of giving. You have to expect to suffer sometimes, too."

The pastor noted his area of Brooklyn is one of the city's most dangerous, and he doesn't believe the crooks had religious motives.

"They're so desperate for money, they'll do anything," he said. "People want work, but they just can't find it."

Ohaeri was mugged as she made her way to the A & C-line subway station along Shepherd Avenue.

She said she was praying as she walked and had no chance to fend off the sneak attack.

"I didn't know someone was following me," she said.

Peyton said the nun is very popular at the hospital and has an unforgettably glowing smile.

"She's a jovial person," he said. "She lights up a room when she laughs — a deep belly laugh."

She wasn't laughing last night. "It's a painful situation," she said.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:27 PM   Permalink  

I visited The Long Island Division of the Queensborough Public Library. Which contains archive information for Brooklyn, Nassau, and Suffolk as well as Queens, i.e. the geographical Long Island.

Access to this part of the library is through a elevator that has a guard standing in front of it (this elevator connects to the staff areas as well as the archives). I have to hand over my drivers license which is photocopied and given a pass. Bag inspection.

I present the pass to a librarian who is going to give me the materials.

I'm watched as I handle the materials. Everyone is watched. No pens. Only a pencil.

Bag inspection on the way out.

I was doing some research on Kitty Genovese and Alice Crimmins.

There's nothing about a visit to serious archives that isn't serious. Sandy Berger admitted to theft and security violations. I can't believe it was inadvertent.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 8:45 PM   Permalink  

John Derbyshire in the National Review Corner mentions the absence of journalistic follow-up is laziness and incompetence.

Rod Dreher, also in the Corner called for an Amber Alert for 14 Syrian musicians.

I agree. There's a lot of background to this story that would help prove it's real and futhermore whether or not it was a case where terrorists were probing the air marshall procedures.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 8:26 PM   Permalink  

Just One Minute

another events-driven conservative mostly-politics blog.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 8:21 PM   Permalink  

New York Post: Times Square Subway Blast Hurts Cop

A small pipe bomb packed with gunpowder and BBs exploded in a subway station last night, injuring a transit cop and throwing several blocks near Times Square into chaos.

A police spokesman insisted that authorities do not believe that the incident was terrorism — but federal officials, including the Secret Service and the Joint Terrorism Task Force are investigating, it was learned.

"Demo"-crats Win

A judge yesterday handed a victory to protesters at the upcoming Republican National Convention, ruling cops cannot unreasonably restrict access to demonstrations or search bags unless there is "a specific threat to public safety."

Manhattan federal court Judge Robert Sweet also said the police, if they want to conduct mass searches of bags, must show how such a search could reduce the threat to public safety.

The pipe bomb was in -- guess what -- a knapsack.

I think every knapsack is a threat to public safety.

If you're not from New York, know now that every enclosed space and some unenclosed spaces like fruits and vegtables stands have a sign that reads: "By being on these premises, we have the right to search all purses and bags".

Even St. Patrick's Cathedral now has this sign.

Judge Sweet lives in a 9/10 world.

See also New York Daily News: reporting and Are You Crazy? editorial

I also think that a lot of strange things are going on that are attempts to probe how we react and how fast our response time is to threats.

Another example of this which is particularly well-written is Terror in the Skies, Again?

If there are enough false alarms, it deadens our alertness.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:36 AM   Permalink  

Associated Press: America-Hating singer booed off stage, ending career LAS VEGAS -- Singer Linda Ronstadt not only got booed, she got the boot after lauding Michael Moore and his movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, during a performance at the Aladdin hotel-casino. Before singing "Desperado" for an encore Saturday night, the 58-year-old rocker called Moore a "great American patriot" and "someone who is spreading the truth." She also encouraged everybody to see the documentary about U.S. President George W. Bush. Ronstadt's comments drew loud boos and some of the 4,500 people in attendance stormed out of the theatre. People also tore down concert posters and tossed cocktails into the air. "She praised him and all of a sudden all bedlam broke loose," says Aladdin president Bill Timmins. Timmins, who was watching the show, decided Ronstadt had to go -- for good. Timmins said he didn't allow Ronstadt back in her luxury suite and she was escorted off the property. Ronstadt's antics "spoiled a wonderful evening for our guests and we had to do something about it," he said. Timmins said it was the first time he sent a performer packing. "As long as I'm here, she's not going to play." Ronstadt had been booked to play the Aladdin for only one show. In an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal before the show, Ronstadt said, "I keep hoping that if I'm annoying enough to them, they won't hire me back." Looks like she got her wish.

And you'll thank me for using a 27-year-old photograph.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 8:36 AM   Permalink  

In an exclusive letter to The Post and Fox News Channel, Ron Frey says his 29-year-old daughter is proud of the choices that led to her having two children out of wedlock.

"The other day I asked her how she was holding up and she told me,

'It's so hard to hear myself criticized by people who don't know me, especially when they take issue with my being a single parent.

But you can choose to remain a virgin until you're married, and then never be asked.

Or you can have consensual sex and get pregnant. Then you have two choices: terminate the pregnancy, or thank God for the blessing.

I've chosen to give thanks for the two wonderful children I love very much.' "

If you have a culture that disparages virginity, you have a culture that disparages fidelity in marriage and motherhood. (I know that's not an original line but my blogspiration, Mark Shea is temporarily off-blog.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:23 PM   Permalink  

In hopes of restoring his parishioners' trust, a priest at a scandal-rocked upper East Side church laid open the Good Book - and the ledger book - yesterday at Mass.

Standing in for the ousted Msgr. John Woolsey, who is under investigation for $ 1 million in missing church funds, the associate pastor set a new tone for St. John the Martyr by giving a play-by-play of the parish's financial transactions.

"These are the accounts," the Rev. Joseph Baker told dozens of churchgoers, holding up bank statements from the church's checking and savings accounts after Communion. "This is your parish, you make it up ... not the priests, we're just the employees."

"I want to be able to say, I'm not hiding anything from you. I want to tell them, it's not my money. It's your money," Baker told reporters after Mass. "You should never be afraid of the truth."

I only posted this to show that this really is a big deal and not one of my famous exaggerations.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:13 PM   Permalink  

AP: Bankruptcy a Risk for Portland Archdiocese

By filing for bankruptcy, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland has begun a complicated legal process that could backfire - perhaps forcing church officials to reveal documents they would rather not disclose and give up assets, legal experts say.

I wonder if the Archdiocese had gotten in touch with any non-profits that had been through the bankruptcy process before to get an understanding of how little privacy and confidentiality is going to persist for any transaction in the Archdiocese that involved money, goods, or services (i.e. temporalities)

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 2:02 PM   Permalink  

New York Times: When One Is Enough

By AMY RICHARDS as told to AMY BARRETT

... My immediate response was, I cannot have triplets. I was not married; I lived in a five-story walk-up in the East Village; I worked freelance; and I would have to go on bed rest in March. I lecture at colleges, and my biggest months are March and April. I would have to give up my main income for the rest of the year. There was a part of me that was sure I could work around that. But it was a matter of, Do I want to?

I looked at Peter and asked the doctor: ''Is it possible to get rid of one of them? Or two of them?'' The obstetrician wasn't an expert in selective reduction, but she knew that with a shot of potassium chloride you could eliminate one or more...

The abortion adovcates now feel bold enough to present the choice to kill these unborn children as something as frivolus as this person's pathetic lifestyle.

Now you know what abortion for any reason or no reason at all entails.

The dehumanization is instantaneous, what were called "babies" in the previous paragraph have become a "them".

There's no reflection on this choice, no consultation with family, friends, strangers, of God. No thought of adoption as an alternative to murder. The emotion is arrogant pride, self-satisfaction.

She's looking to be affirmed as a murderer and nothing less.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 1:54 PM   Permalink  

The anti-American left has fallen in love with a word "exceptionalism". To them it's a code word for hypocrisy and failure to follow the lead of France and Germany.

To the Mullahs in Iran their take on American exceptionalism is along the lines of "If the United States can have nuclear weapons, why can't we?". Other countries have different views of American exceptionalism, but the one that concerns us now is the one from the axis of evil.

The common French and American anti-American complaint is that the United States is too big, too proud, too imperial, too bellicose, etc. France' s claim to be a world power was greatly diminished by the loss of Canada at Montreal in 1759 and the loss of India at Plassey in 1757, and, of course, Napoleon at Waterloo 1815. Can't blame the United States for any of that. The French problem is not being conquered but rather the humbling experience of gratitude to the United States for its victories in World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.

The United States isn't in Iraq to colonize it as the French were in Indochina or Algeria. The United States would have preferred that 9/11/2001 would have been as forgettable as 9/10/2001.

The big American exception is that America was attacked. We have to take the war to where the enemy is.

In an interview we some American Special Forces serving in Afghanistan, one of them remarked. The thought we'd been like the Russians and kill them without a reason. Now they know we're Americans and don't do that. To Iran: we don't need to use those nukes which we already have to achieve national strategy objectives. The Iranian nuke is for conquest, our nukes are for deterrence.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 5:53 PM   Permalink