extreme Catholic 

I can't take credit for this great idea. It goes to WABC Radio talk show host Brian Whitman. He is going to hold his nose and vote reluctantly for Kerry. His is very critical of the Kerry 2004 campaign.

Ask a Kerry supporter to give three positive themes to vote for Kerry (i.e. not "he's not Bush" or "Bush is stupid") -- without prompting.

Brian did this and got (1) Iraq, (2) Abortion, and (3) Education.

He picked apart (1) and discovered that Kerry doesn't want to withdraw immediately but wants to transition to a UN force. The actual world leaders (Russia, China, Germany, France) show no desire to do so. Both Bush and Kerry desire a peace that leaves behind an Iraq not in chaos.

On (2) Brian pointed out that simply maintaining the status quo has never been an issue to energize a campaign. Besides it's not likely that concerns over abortion are going to override concerns about everything else.

For (3) the caller referred to "No choice left behind" which is a wonderful and telling slip of the tongue for "No child left behind".

Brian pointed out that the bill was largely written by Democrats with many items the Republicans wanted left out so the bill would pass. What would Democrats do differently? The only answer the caller could give was "more money".

Another caller brought up the tax cut. Improbably to me, he said that with an income of $60,000 he paid more in taxes in 2004 over 2003. "Rich people need to be taxed more."

When Whitman brought the segment to a close he pointed out that they were no issues about economic growth or employment discussed. The country is now in a state of prosperity. The caller was wrong and people are keeping more of what they earn.

Whitman's conclusion is that since the Republican party's convention is so late in the season, near 9/11 and near the site of the World Trade Center, it's clear the Republican strategy is to make the the war on terror the focus of the campaign.

Kerry's campaign has no focus.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:55 PM   Permalink  

John Kerry is rapidly gaining a reputation as the Whirling Dervish of presidential politics, what with his constant position reversals on every conceivable issue.

His dizzying back-and-forth (and back again, sort of) contortions on judicial appointments and abortion this week alone must have set some sort of modern campaign record.

Kerry raised a lot of eyebrows Wednesday when he told The Associated Press that he would be open, if elected, to appointing judges who oppose abortion — provided the appointment did not provide a deciding vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Indeed, his remarks seemed to suggest he might even name a pro-life judge to the Supreme Court: "That doesn't mean that if that's not the balance of the court [on abortion], I wouldn't be prepared ultimately to appoint somebody to some court who has a different point of view," said Kerry.

That stunned quite a few of his strongest supporters — after all, in the primaries Kerry campaigned on his promise to impose a strict litmus test on abortion when making judicial appointments.

In fact, Kerry has even been running an ad warning that "George Bush will appoint anti-choice, anti-privacy judges."

(Actually, this position reflects a previous flip-flop: During his first term in the Senate, Kerry warned that the federal judiciary was "threatened in a way that we have not seen before" — namely, "the systematic targeting of any judicial nominee who does not meet the requirements of litmus tests.")

To head off more damage from the AP interview, Kerry's staff put out the word that "some court" did not include the Supreme Court — only lower courts.

But that wasn't good enough.

So then Kerry himself promised that "I will not support anyone to the Supreme Court who will undo" the right to an abortion.

Perfectly clear?

Like mud.

As The Post's Deborah Orin noted, Kerry's position du jour comes with more than a few complications.

For one thing, judges don't always take consistently pro-life or pro-choice positions: Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, for example, voted in 2000 to ban partial-birth abortions — yet, unlike his fellow dissenters, stressed that he did not believe Roe v. Wade should be overturned.

For another, Kerry last year publicly vowed to filibuster any Supreme Court nominee who was anti-abortion.

Now he's raised the possibility that he might appoint the kind of judge he once promised to filibuster — if named to the bench by President Bush, that is.

It's getting so that John Kerry is going to need to start handing out "issues maps" if voters are to have any hope of tracking his constantly detouring political positions.

This flip-flops seem to be happening with greater frequency.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:49 PM   Permalink  

U.S. Cardinal Accuses Bush of Moral Failure in Iraq

Tue May 18, 2004 10:48 AM ET

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - A senior American cardinal in the Vatican has accused the U.S. administration of "moral failure" and deception in Iraq and warned the war had severely compromised future relations with the Arab world.

In an interview due to be published in the June edition of "Inside the Vatican" magazine, Cardinal James Francis Stafford also said the abuse of Iraqi prisoners was the work of "barbarians." An advance copy was made available to Reuters.

Stafford, the former archbishop of Denver who has been working in the Vatican since 1996, said the reasons for starting the war in Iraq were a "moral failure" because there had been no conclusive proof of weapons of mass destruction.

"Why did the president, the vice-president and the secretary of defense say there was an immediate danger to the peace of American society by the proximate use of weapons that would come from Iraq, either directly or through al Qaeda?" he said.

"Why did they say that when they didn't have direct evidence?" Stafford said.

Stafford, who is close to Pope John Paul, said he feared the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by the U.S. military would have long-term consequences on relations with Arabs and Muslims.

"Muslims are outraged and truly deceived because we are imposing the same type of life upon Iraqi society that we said we were going to rescue them from. It's the very opposite of what we said we were going to do," he said.

"Not only have we humiliated the Iraqi people, but we've deceived them. We've deceived the Arab peoples," he said.

"Is this what American democracy is producing? Men and women who, just below the surface, are barbarians ... Is that what we're producing?" he said.

The pope strongly opposed the war and dispatched envoys to both President Bush and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to try to avert the conflict.

I don't normally blog news items as old as this one. I neglected to blog this item because I had been on this in some other blogs as a comment contributor. My comments for your comment:

The discovery this week of a Sarin gas IED -- while not evidence that insurgents and terrorists have access to thousands of these shells -- it is evidence that Saddam did not destroy his WMD stockpiles.

Does anyone want to stake the future of civilization on the bet that there was and will be only one?

No evidence has come forth that implicates Lieutenants, Captains, Generals, etc. in directing the torture of AG prisioners. The evidence produced so far shows its starts and ends with 7 members of the 372nd MP Company.

The Army held General Janis Karpinski accountable by neglect -- who is the American hierarchy's Karpinski?

The General Antonio Taguba, USA, produced a detailed and now public report detailing the abuse -- who is the American hierarchy's Taguba?

Moral equivalence rhetoric of panties of the head vs. cutting off the head of a prisoner is calculated to delegitimize the efforts to stabilize Iraq and only emboldens the enemies of peace to keep killing without conscience - they killed one Italian hostage and Nick Berg and they still have some more Italian hostages as we speak.

What kind of people is American democracy producing? Start with 3000 victims who went to work or boarded an jet and simply wanted to live another day. Thousands of men and women who worked heroically to save the lives of the trapped and injured. Hundreds of thousands of men and women who now risk their lives in the global war on terror to save America and the rest of the civilized work from terrorists who wouldn't hesitate one second to kill Your Emminence if given a chance.

Cardinal Stafford as a priest for 46 years and bishop for 28 years is admitting here to a bit of personal failure. He failed in his mission to convert "American democracy" by word and example. Could it be connected in some way with the failure of priests to live lives of chastity and holiness?

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:28 PM   Permalink  

Forty-eight Roman Catholic members of Congress have warned in a letter to Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington that U.S. bishops will revive anti-Catholic bigotry and severely harm the church if they deny Communion to politicians who support abortion rights.

The letter's signers, all Democrats, include at least three House members with strong antiabortion voting records.

"For many years Catholics were denied public office by voters who feared that they would take direction from the Pope," they wrote. ". . . While that type of paranoid anti-Catholicism seems to be a thing of the past, attempts by Church leaders today to influence votes by the threat of withholding a sacrament will revive latent anti-Catholic prejudice, which so many of us have worked so hard to overcome."

You can always "solve" this problem by repenting.

The more serious issues, since these pro-aborts pols are soooo... predictable is whether McCarrick repeats the same old lies and distortions:

• Denial of Holy Communion is first a punitive action and not action to prevent the defilement of Holy Eucharist.
• There's a "conscience exception" that applies to anyone for any sin.
• All actions by bishops in the area are entirely discretionary.
• His hands are tied by old prescedents (ie Wm. Brennan, the Catholic author of Roe v. Wade continued to receive Holy Communion and was given a prominent Catholic funeral Mass.
• Actions by other bishops to admonish and deny Holy Communion to manifest grave public sinners are extreme
• More dialog will solve the problem.
• More time for reflection will solve the problem. We can't get impatient.
• We can ask these politicians to compromise -- to go halfway towards the Church's "position". (aborting half of each baby?)

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:11 AM   Permalink  

An answer that I use with children and some adults as well is that heaven is for God, the angels who serve Him, and humans made in the image and likeness of God.

It is a place of perfect happiness. If it turns out that we need the company of animals to be perfectly happy, then we will have animals in heaven.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:59 PM   Permalink  

When you see the tape of the hearings, you are not going to hear questions but posturing speeches from the commission.

I'm disgusted with all those applause lines.

Lehman's "boy scout" quote yesterday was full of contempt.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 9:05 AM   Permalink  

Happy Birthday, Holy Father.

God Bless His Holiness, Pope John Paul II

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:51 PM   Permalink  

On the road this weekend, I went to Sunday Mass at a Catholic parish outside the Dallas diocese. The priest did something I've only seen happen once before in the 11 years I've been a Catholic: He spoke from the pulpit against abortion and the politicians who support it.

This is going to shock non-Catholics, who seem to think that we faithful papists hear nothing but lectures on abortion and sexual morality from our priests. It's not true. Except for illness, I've not missed a single Sunday Mass since I entered the church in 1993. Though I've lived in major East Coast sees, as well as Dallas, I have yet to hear a sermon explaining, or even proclaiming, church teaching on any aspect of human sexuality – save for abortion, which I'd last heard preached on in, no kidding, 1995...

...I suppose I should be grateful that at least some bishops, at long last, have found their spines. You have to start somewhere. But rather than plucking the speck from John Kerry's eye, it would be better for the bishops to examine critically their own records as pastors and teachers. How is it that only one in three American Catholics accept church teaching on abortion? How is it that only the same miserable percentage has the foggiest idea what the Eucharist really is? John Kerry, whatever his sins, didn't cause this to happen.

Rod makes the point in more detail and with better reasoning than I did that the bishops have failed us.

I mentioned below that like the cases of the acceptance of artificial contraception, abortion, and now gay marriage bishops have had more to say about the futility of doing anything rather than leadership from the bishops since 1970.

The class of 2004 is starting to engage the evil that the class of 1970 avoided. Let's pray for all of them to acquire the courage to do so.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 2:24 PM   Permalink  

Charlotte Observer. Tom Ashcraft: Hilaire Belloc: Islam's a heresy of Christianity

Poet and historian saw continuing -- and dangerous -- vitality in the Muslim faith

Americans have had the luxury of being far removed from the centuries-old turmoil of the Islamic world. Because of the war in Iraq and other events, however, that is a luxury we no longer enjoy.

Several informative books on Islam have recently come out, including Srdja Trifkovic's "The Sword of the Prophet," Karen Armstrong's "Islam: A Short History" and Michael Sells' "Approaching the Qur'an." But perhaps the most succinct, insightful views, especially for Christians, were written about 70 years ago by Hilaire Belloc.

Belloc (1870-1953) was a French-born poet, writer and historian. Educated at Oxford and a naturalized British subject, he served from 1906 to 1910 as a member of the British House of Commons. His wife, Elodie Hogan, was an American from Napa, Calif.

In the 1930s he wrote "The Great Heresies," a history of what Belloc, a Catholic, deemed the five main heresies since the advent of Christianity. In the second slot, between Arianism (fourth century) and Albigensianism (12th-13th centuries), he put "The Great and Enduring Heresy of Mohammed." ...

I ought to find a nice 80x80 pixel image of Belloc and add him to the home page.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 12:26 PM   Permalink  

Prof. Bainbridge mentions that the question of the Catholic church's tax exemption has been raised in light of what critics regard as impermissible politicking by it against pro-abortion candidates. I've seen and heard some comments to this effect myself. I find the idea that the bishops should have to consult with tax lawyers before deciding what they can say about their public mission shocking. If the tax exemption causes even the slightest compromise in a church's teaching on anything, that church ought to just give it up.

In this regard I would make the case that this fear of clericrats of losing the tax exemption has been, is now, and will continue to be a cancer on the on the mission of the Church to convert souls from sin to Christ. That horse left the barn long, long ago.

I think the Canon 915 War among the bishops needs more escalation from the anti-defilement side. I think the media spin in the aftermath of the Mahony meeting and the McCarrick meeting call for taking the initiative again.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 9:13 AM   Permalink  

As a debate swirls in the Catholic Church over how to treat Catholic politicians who back abortion rights, Mount St. Mary's College has withdrawn an offer of an honorary degree to White House counsel Alberto Gonzales after a campus protest over his support for the death penalty.

The reversal came after some students and faculty asked that Gonzales, a potential Supreme Court candidate, not speak at the Catholic college's commencement May 23 because of his record on the death penalty, said Mount St. Mary's President Thomas H. Powell.

Powell emphasized that the offer was revoked because he had failed to seek proper approval from the executive committee of the board of trustees before offering the degree - not because of Gonzales' record.

"I made the mistake," said Powell, who is in his first year as president at the college near Emmitsburg in Frederick County. "I never should have proffered the honorary degree in the first place and that was an error on my part and I've apologized."

Gonzales is still scheduled to speak at graduation, Powell said. Gonzales' office seemed unfazed by the flap.

According to Newsmax, it was a mere 61 students and faculty.

It would be helpful for the bishops to articulate whether politicians who support the limited use of the death penalty as a prudential political and legal position are in opposition to Catholic teaching and if they are, are they ipso facto ineligible for honors from Catholic institutions.

Extending this principle to all 21 agenda items of the bishops and requiring political support for each of them, it may be that such politicians are very rare, if not practically non-existent.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 1:03 AM   Permalink  

visit the site and vote in the poll "Do you approve of same-sex marriage?"

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 12:55 AM   Permalink  

A woman was killed and two other people were in critical condition Monday after a 72-year-old driver lost control of his car in a church parking lot, plowing into parishioners exiting a communion service Sunday.

Two other adults and four other children were hurt in the accident, which began when Andrew Pachana, who had served as an usher at the service, backed out of a parking space at St. Theresa's Church along Routes 1 and 9 just after 4 p.m.

Police said the car traveled about 30 feet in reverse, knocking down a 9-year-old girl, who was pushing her 2-month-old brother in a stroller, and two brothers, ages 6 and 11.

Pachana's car, a Chevrolet Caprice station wagon, then lurched forward, accelerating as it traveled about 80 feet across the parking lot, striking another 9-year-old girl, a 21-year-old woman and 54-year-old man.

Witnesses told police the car then became airborne, hitting a hedge row near the front of the church before crashing into a monument bearing the Ten Commandments and pinning Janina Karolczyz, 66, and Maria Loztak, 59, beneath its wheels.

Very sad. How does one lose control of a car like that though?

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 12:49 AM   Permalink  

Mistakenly focused on physical control of Iraq, we could not see that, were we to give it up, the resultant anarchy might find a quicker resolution than the indefinite prolonged agony through which our continuing presence has nursed it.

Seeking motivation after the fact, we decided to make Iraq a Western-style democracy, and when that began to run off the rails, to make Iraq the mere model for a Middle East filled with Western-style democracies.

Of course, instead of a model to inspire them (of which they have many, such as Switzerland), what the Arabs need is first the desire, and then a means to overcome the police states that oppress them, neither of which a reconfigured Iraq, were it possible, would supply. Japan and Germany are often cited in defense of this overreach, but rather than freeze our armies in place and set them to policing and civil affairs as we fought through the Second World War, we waited until we had won.

I think we are closer to victory than Helprin is willing to concede. The army of future I see will be more divided than it is now between shock troops (to kill people and break things) and infrastructure troops (to restore people and put things back together again).

In a odd way I think there's a nice parallel between the situations faced by the Holy Crusaders of 1099 who conquered Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land: The Crusaders were brave and brilliant in tactics and military strategy but lacked a long-term political strategy. Some combination of local self-rule, tolerance for the practice of the Muslim faith, and alliance with Byzantium might have worked. Centuries later it worked for the British as they established an empire.

I had higher hopes for the ability of the military and political leadership of the United States to follow the perscription of historian Victor Davis Hanson that full military pressure had to be applied until the enemy knew they were defeated before the campaign to win hearts and minds could start.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 12:02 AM   Permalink  

The last national party to fold was the Whigs in 1856 -- after losing only two Presidential elections in a row. Filmore, the last Whig left office in 1853 and after a poor showing in 1856 the party dissolved and the Republicans under Lincoln in 1860 became the new national party.

I think the tipping point would be 60 Republican senators (maybe 61 since we can't reply on Specter).

With that number we'd see a safe (i.e. non-Souter, non-Kennedy) pro-life majority on the Supreme Court with Justice Scalia as Chief.

Of course, the Republican party will eventually fracture but if we have four or eight years before that happens it will be a greater political shift than the 1980 Reagan Revolution.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 11:45 PM   Permalink  

It seems to me that any Catholic should first tell and if that doesn't work use the means appropriate to the relationship they have to help a person get off the wide road to hell and back on the path to heaven.

If I have knowledge for example of one of my kids in mortal sin unambiguously, I'd take them by the hand to Confession, and restrain them as far as I could from receiving Holy Communion.

This isn't punishment, it's a charitable thing and certainly unpleasant or to use McCarrick's vocabulary "uncomfortable". It's part of admonishing the sinner.

Just telling them isn't getting the message across, so it's time for "Plan B". So, canon law aside, this would apply to pastors and bishops.

Am I oversimplifying it?

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 5:13 PM   Permalink  

VATICAN CITY - In a new autobiography, Pope John Paul II wonders if he has been strict enough in his leadership.

In excerpts printed by Il Giornale newspaper yesterday, ahead of the book's publication tomorrow, the pope says church leaders must admonish people as well as lead them in faith. "I think that in this aspect, maybe I have done too little. There is always this problem of how to balance authority and service. Perhaps I need to criticize myself for not having tried hard enough to lead," the pope writes in the book, titled "Get Up! Let Us Go!"

Isn't this what Rod Dreher wrote two years ago and was criticized without mercy for it?

I gathered up all the Gospel quotes of Jesus saying "Let Us Go".

• Mt 26.46 Rise, let us go! Here comes my betrayer
• Mk 1.38 Jesus replied, "Let us go somewhere else--to the nearby villages--so I can preach there also. That is why I have come."
• Mk 4.35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, "Let us go over to the other side."
• Mk 14.42 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!
• Lk 8.22 One day Jesus said to his disciples, "Let's go over to the other side of the lake." So they got into a boat and set out.
• Jn 11:7 Then he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea."
• Jn 11.14-16 So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him". Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."

It's your guess as well as mine which verse he is connecting to (at least until we see the book ourselves). Perhaps the Pope feels that he has been betrayed.

It was 9/11 hero Todd Beamer who became the first warrior in the cause of civilization against terrorism with the words "Let's roll".

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 1:36 PM   Permalink  

First, immigrant Muslims in the U.S., until very recently, seldom expected to find American Islam operating under the thumb of the "Wahhabi lobby." Indeed, most Arab and Indo-Pakistani-Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants to the U.S. came for normal and rational reasons -- to gain economic success, as well as better educational and other opportunities for their children. Saudis excepted, they came from Muslim societies where, notwithstanding corrupt political rule and extremist religious influence, the battle for the future of Islam had yet to be decided. Most of them knew an Islam in which Saudi-backed Wahhabism sought to make inroads, but encountered considerable resistance from traditional Islam.

When they got to America, they discovered a fact that I have mentioned on television and radio countless times -- that Islam is completely dominated by Wahhabism in only two major countries in the world: Saudi Arabia and the U.S.

It would be like one branch of Protestantism hostile to all other Protestant denominations as well as to the Catholic and Orthodox Churches being slowly able to take them all over.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 1:03 PM   Permalink  

Now that gay marriage is a reality in the state of Massachusetts and there is no activity on the FMA in Congress, it's looks like we will have this situation in perpetuity.

The failure in my opinion is one of the bishops refusing to lead and not risking anything to stop this. I trace it all the way back to the failure to confront the sin of contraception in the 1960's.

The shoe will soon be on the other foot as anyone calling these marriages impossible or meaningless will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:57 AM   Permalink  

GOPUSA: Emily, get out of the way. State Department Aide Interrupts Powell Interview

Secretary of State Colin Powell was involved in an on-air disagreement with a State Department assistant during a taped interview broadcast on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday morning.

Sec. Powell, appearing by satellite link from Jordan where he was attending the World Economic Forum, was engaged in a question and answer session with Meet the Press host Tim Russert when the camera suddenly cut away from Powell to focus on a palm tree.

Powell was then recorded as saying, "He's still asking me questions."

A woman's voice, later identified as that of Deputy Press Secretary Emily Miller, replied, "No, he's not."

"No. They can't use it," Miller added. "They're editing it."

The exchange continued with Sec. Powell saying, "Emily, get out of the way."

"Bring the camera back, please," Powell asked.

Powell then said, "I think we're back on, Tim. Go ahead with your last question."

It was supposed to be a 10-minute interview, so Emily was only doing her job in trying to stop the interview.

And it was true, it was being taped and they were editing it.

But what normally would be left out would be included because it makes Russert look full of righteous indignation since it looks on tape less like a violation of the groundrules of the interview and more like arbitrary interference -- and what an opportunity to humiliate Emily.

This technique of going over the allotted time is a common thing for all the media players -- Russert wants to take time away from the time for Chris Wallace, Wolf Blitzer, etc. to have for their interviews. What if Powell had one hour for six ten minute interviews -- and you were scheduled last and bumped because of Russert's hogging the mike.

How would you feel 'bout that?

It was unprofessional for Russert to go overtime, unprofessional for Emily to break in the way she did, and very unprofessional for NBC to air it.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 10:37 AM   Permalink  

Dallas Morning News Blog

Abu Ghraib and abortion photos

A reader makes an interesting point:

Imagine that the response to the Abu Ghraib pictures was . . . to blame the bad taste of the photographer, to criticize the person who leaked the photos, to say that such photos should never be shown because they make people uncomfortable, to say that the photos are all faked anyway. And all the while, no one uttered a word of criticism for the perpetrators shown in the photos themselves. Instead, the perpetrators' acts were defended as a constitional right by hundreds of thousands of people marching on Washington.

Now stop imagining: This is exactly what happens with abortion. Whenever pro-life people show a picture of what happens during an abortion, the reaction is to place all the blame on the photographer or the pro-lifers themselves. "How distasteful," it is said, "when those pictures should never be shown in public. The pictures are probably all fake anyway." No blame whatsoever -- at least in the mainstream media -- goes to the abortionist who actually did the act shown in the pictures.

That's what burns me. The very same people who are out in front denouncing Abu Ghraib would ignore any pictures of abortion and would even treat abortion as a constitutional right. posted by Rod Dreher @ May 13, 9:45 AM

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 5:56 PM   Permalink  

I have returned to New York City after going to Troy, New York to attend the graduation from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a degree in psychology and and a degree in computer science.(2004) It's hard to believe that he graduated just four years ago from Fordham Prep High School in the Bronx.(2000)

He continues his studies in the fall in the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University. He will be in their class of 2006.

Maybe now, with school over, I can encourage him to start his own blog.

posted by Patrick Sweeney at 5:28 PM   Permalink