Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for Us Sinners!

Icon of the Dormition of the Theotokos.

Tommorrow, August 15th, is the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Coming Soon To a Tax Return Near You!

Eucharistic Bouncers?

Some Churches have found it necessary to have a "Eucharistic Bouncer" at Mass to make sure that someone is not trying to take an unconsumed host out of the Church in order to desecrate it. Read the full story from the Crescat.

State of Louisiana vs. Benedictine Monks

The State of Louisiana is prosecuting a group of Benedictine monks for the "crime" of making caskets.

The Holy Father Says God Calls Us All To Be Saints

What's an Ocean?

The title is a reference to my earlier post quoting my Homeboy JOE G. on Fundamentalist Evangelicals. Along the same lines, the Deacon's Bench has a post about Catholic teachers being fired by a Fundamentalist Protestant school because they don't belong to "a Bible believing Church." Sure there's an Ocean . . .

Saint Clare of Assisi

Saintliness is not Silliness

This is a great homily:

Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Edith Stein was born of Jewish parents in 1891, becoming an influential philosopher following her extensive studies at major German universities. Following her conversion to Catholicism she became a major force in German intellectual life, entering the Discalced Carmelites in 1933. Sister Teresa Benedicta was arrested by the Nazi regime on August 2, 1942, along with all Catholics of Jewish extraction, and transported by cattle train to the death camp of Auschwitz where she died in the gas chambers that same year.

PRAYER: Lord, God of our Fathers, You brought Saint Teresa Benedicta to the fullness of the science of the cross at the hour of her martyrdom. Fill us with that same knowledge; and, through her intercession, allow us always to seek after You, the supreme truth, and to remain faithful until death to the covenant of love ratified in the blood of Your Son for the salvation of all men and women. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Confession

For the last three months, I have actually managed to go to Confession once a month. I was going to write a post about it when I read this post by Elizabeth Esther and found that she had already said everything that I wanted to say about confession and said it much better than I could.

Response to Protestant Criticism of the Veneration of Our Lady and the Saints

The blog Young, Evangelical and Catholic has a great post about responding to Evangelical Protestant criticism of praying to Saints.

Militant Anti-Catholic Protestants

My friend JOE G. says this about militant Anti-Catholic Fundamentalist Evangelical Protestants: Arguing with people like this is like arguing with a person who has never seen the ocean and is convinced that the largest body of water in existence is a small pond. You come back from the ocean and tell them "LOOK, I'VE SEEN IT, IT'S HUGE!!! IT'S THOUSANDS OF TIMES THE SIZE OF YOUR SMALL POND!" And they say "oh sure," and are convinced that you're crazy.

Saturday Evening Blog Post

Check out my friend Elizabeth Esther's Saturday Evening Blog Post.

The Transfiguration of the Lord

Religious Liberty Under Attack

The Pope's New Book

Traditionalists Watch Out: Altar Servers Visit Rome and Girls Outnumber Boys

In a gathering of altar servers in Rome, the girls outnumber the boys.

Meanwhile in the Muslim World . . . .

While U.S. Federal Judges rule that rule that people have a "constitutional right" to sexual immorality, in Dubai a British woman has been arrested for not wearing enough clothes in public.

It strikes me as odd that the same people endorsing gay marriage, abortion on demand, etc. are the same people who will want to allow Sharia law to be imposed in this country based on respect for "cultural diversity" and "political correctness." (Witness the New Jersey Judge that ruled that it was OK for a Muslim man to beat and rape his wife, because under Islamic law he believed he was allowed to do it.)

What do they think will happen to them when the Islamic Religious Police take over?

Looking for a Miracle, Don't Use Your GPS

The Deacon's Bench has a great post about Pilgrim's to Lourdes being misdirected by GPS systems to a small village called "Lourde" about 57 miles away.

More Tyranny from the Judiciary

The left wing judiciary continue on their campaign to destroy Western Civilization.

Federal Judge calls 7 million California voters stupid and prejudiced.

IT'S LATER THAN WE THINK!

Clergy Under Stress

The New York Times reports that members of the clergy "suffer from obesity, hypertension and depression at rates higher than most Americans. In the last decade, their use of antidepressants has risen, while their life expectancy has fallen. Many would change jobs if they could."

Sounds like lawyers. Read the whole thing here.

Nancy Pelosi Refuses to Say that the Baby Jesus had the right to life.

Nancy Pelosi apparently thinks that the Blessed Mother had a "right" to abort the Word Made Flesh in her womb.
Great post on this at Creative Minority Report.

Disorderly Conduct Charges Dropped Against Student for Praying Outside Abortion Clinic in Chicago

The City of Chicago dropped Disorderly Conduct charges today against a college student who was arrested for praying the rosary on the sidewalk outside an abortion clinic. Read the full story from the Thomas More Law Center.

The War Against Christianity

Today I read two articles about the continuing legal war by secular society to abolish Christianity.

Christianity Today has an article about the 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision which upholds the decision of Hastings Law School to ban the Christian Legal Society from campus because of its "discriminatory policies" of only allowing members that share its statement of faith.

"In his dissent, Justice Samuel Alito castigated the majority opinion as political correctness run amok.

'The proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express 'the thought that we hate,' he wrote. 'Today's decision rests on a very different principle: no freedom for expression that offends prevailing standards of political correctness in our country's institution's of higher learning. . . . Brushing aside inconvenient precedent, the Court arms public educational institutions with a handy weapon for suppressing the speech of unpopular groups - groups to which, as Hastings candidly puts it, these institutions 'do not wish to . . . lend their names(s).' . . . I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that today's decision is a serious setback for freedom of expression in this country."

Justice John Paul Stevens' concurring opinion leaves no doubt where the secular left categorizes those of us holding orthodox Christian beliefs on sin: "The harshest criticism came from Stevens, who compared CLS's requirements - which include a bar against 'unrepentant homosexual conduct' - with groups that 'may exclude or mistreat Jews, blacks, and women - or those who do not share their contempt for Jews, blacks, and women. A free society must tolerate such groups. It need not subsidize them, give them its official imprimatur, or grant them equal access to law school facilities."

The Bad Catholic can only assume that Justice Stevens, Ginsberg, Kennedy, et. al., would characterize the Roman Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Mormon Church and other religious groups that believe that homosexual acts are sinful are "hate groups" that society must "tolerate." Obviously, such people should be ostracized from society. People who hold beliefs like this should not be allowed to hold law licenses anyway. They definitely should be banned from the law schools.

The other article of interest was in L'Osservatore Romano and concerned the case of Lautsi v. Italy in which the European Union's Court of Human Rights ruled that the display of the crucifix in Italian schools violated human rights.

The Vatican's official paper has no illusions as to the ultimate goal of the secularists:

" . . . in reality, religious liberty is gradually being reduced to merely freedom of faith, that is, the freedom to believe in something or not and this only in your own personal life. It is a mistake, however, to believe that faith is independent of religion. One is internal and the other is external, making the two complementary. To limit religious freedom (because religion would have no social legitimacy) in order to protect freedom of faith (as pure expression of human transcendence) would mean, for example, that prayers and family catechism would be forbidden within the family unit itself because of the invasion on the autonomy of the religious conscience of the child. If this were the standard, parents would have very few chances to transmit their faith to their own children. The same goes for society. If religion is removed from society, faith will be removed from the hearts of generations."

The article quotes Russian Orthodox Bishop Hilarion who minces no words:

"Militant secularism, quickly gaining in numbers in modern Europe, is also a pseudo-religion with its own solid doctrinal tenants and moral norms, its own cult and symbols. As with 2oth century Russian Communism, it also lays claims to a monopoly on world views and remains intolerant of competition. This is why leaders of contemporary secularism react uncomfortably to religious symbols and wince when God is mentioned. . . . Contemporary militant secularism, like Russian Bolshevism, views itself as a Weltanschauung destined to replace Christianity. Hence, it is neither neutral nor indifferent toward Christianity; rather it is openly hostile to it."

We must pray deeply.
IT'S LATER THAN WE THINK!

What I've Been Reading

The new Bad Catholic book report is ready at The Eclectic Reader.

Jesus Stops Armed Robbery

A store clerk in Florida told an Armed Robber, "I know you're going to do whatever you're going to do, but let me share my Jesus with you first." The guy left without taking a cent. Full story from Matthew Warner at National Catholic Register and Fox News.

Anglican Attitudes to Sanctity

(With thanks to the blog Catholic Church Conservation that I stole this from.)

Archbishop Wuerl On Religious Freedom

I went looking for a great speech by a Catholic Bishop on religious freedom and I found one.

People of Faith Must Stand Together Against the Culture of Death

Freedom of Religion

Mormon Church Elder Dallin Oaks. Why can't some of our Catholic Bishops give a sermon like this?

Freedom of Religion

The Bad Catholic is no big fan of Mormonism, but everything that this guy says is right on the money.



"We must obey God rather than men." Saint Peter

IT'S LATER THAN WE THINK!

Freedom of Religion vs. Freedom of Worship

"We must obey God rather than men." Saint Peter



IT'S LATER THAN WE THINK!

Civil Disobedience

"We must obey God rather than men." Saint Peter



IT'S LATER THAN WE THINK!

Fake Episcopal Nun Scams Donors

Read the full story from the New York Post.

New York Parish Declines to Sell Property to Islamic Group

Full story from Yahoo News.

Russian Government Promotes the Orthodox Church

The Russian Government is actively promoting the Orthodox Church. Read the full story from Yahoo news.

Fewer Spaniards Are Catholic

A survey says that fewer people in Spain identify themselves as Catholics. Full story from Yahoo news.

Vanishing Nuns

Due to the "culture crisis," i.e. the fact that modern Western Society is pagan and hostile to Christianity, several orders of nuns in Cambridge, England are facing possible extinction. Read the full story here.

Israel Threatens to Cut Off Water To Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Municipal authorities in Jerusalem are threatening to cut off water for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Read the full story from Asia News.

Catholic Instructor Re-Hired by University of Illinois

The Catholic Instructor fired by the University of Illinois for teaching Church doctrine in a class on Catholicism has been offered his job back.

Prayer Prohibited At Supreme Court

The Supreme Court police prohibited a teacher and her students from praying on the grounds of the Supreme Court building in Washington saying that it was "illegal." Full story from the Alliance Defense Fund. IT'S LATER THAN WE THINK.

Federal Judge Rules that a Public University may expell a student for her Christian Beliefs

Some troll of a Federal District Judge has ruled that a University in Michigan was justified in expelling a college student from a counseling program because she refused to counsel homosexuals based upon her religious beliefs.

Folks, it won't be long before they are ruling that just holding an orthodox Christian belief on sin is enough to deny a person a professional license in all professions.

Think about what you will do when you are denied a professional license, denied a job or a promotion, or your children are denied an education because they are Catholic. Think it can't happen in America? It's already happening. Jesus promised us persecution. It's here. Read the full story here.

THE ACTIVE PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS IN THE U.S. HAS BEGUN.
IT'S LATER THAN WE THINK!

Barcelona Bans Bull Fighting

The region of Catalonia in Spain has passed a law banning bull fights. What in the world would Ernest Hemingway think about this? Read the full story from Yahoo.

The Anglican Church Really Has Gone to the Dogs!

A dog was served Holy Communion in an Anglican Church in Canada. Since the Eucharist obviously has little or no meaning for these people, what's the point of going to Church at all? Why not just meditate and love all beings? I'm so numb I don't think that anything can shock me anymore. Read the full story at the Aggie Catholic.

College Student Thrown Out of Counseling Program Because of Orthodox Christian Beliefs

A college student in Augusta, Georgia has been thrown out of a counseling program because her Evangelical Christian views of homosexuality as a sin is "inconsistent with the couseling profession."

The girls professors demanded that she complete a "remediation plan" which was designed to eliminate her beliefs. Among other things, the professors demanded that the student attend a "Gay Pride Parade." When the girl refused to do these things, she was thrown out of the program.

The Alliance Defense Fund has filed a lawsuit on the student's behalf in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia. Read the whole thing here.

As I said in an earlier post today, its later than we think. I can't help but wondering if there would have been a different result if the student had been a devout Muslim instead of a Christian?

Judge Applies Sharia Law in New Jersey

A trial judge in New Jersey ruled that a Muslim man had no criminal intent when he forced his wife to have sex with him against her will. According to the learned judge, the man lacked criminal intent because under Islamic law a wife is not allowed to refuse her husband's demand for sex. Fortunately, a New Jersey appeals court has reversed this decision. Read the full story from Jihad Watch.

When American judges make rulings like this, our country is already half gone. It's later than we think.

What the Pope is Doing During his Summer Vacation

Wild Nights of Gay Priests

An Italian magazine has done a "tell all" article about sexually active gay priests in Rome who say Mass by day and party at night. In response the Vatican has called for the resignation of all such priests.

The secular world doesn't seem to get it that the problem is not these men having a homosexual orientation but their sinful lifestyle in violation of their vows. It would be just as bad if a priest were actively fornicating with a woman. The problem is SIN not SEX.

We are all sinners and we must cling to the sacraments, especially Confession, and we must pray for each other as we struggle with our spiritual weakness and the attacks of the Evil One.

Fascinating!

The Pertinacious Papist reports that an exorcism prayer said by priests at an abortion clinic had immediate results. Fascinating!

Christians Prosecuted for Evangelizing to Michigan Muslims

Read the full story here.

Anglican Muddle

The BAD CATHOLIC remains nostalgic about his former religious affiliation and is fascinated by all things Anglican. Father Dwight Longenecker has an excellent post about the current muddle in the "C of E."

Change: Yes They Did It To Us

Red State.com reports that new tax regulations in the Health Care law will require businesses to file 1099 reports on any vendor with which it does more than $600 worth of business. This will result in a massive paperwork burden for small businesses and a tremendous new burden on the IRS. Read the whole thing here.

Spiritual Warfare

An important post from the blog Abbey Roads has the text of a letter from the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina to a group of nuns regarding same sex marriage.

The Teachings of the Catholic Church are "Hate Speech"

A professor at the University of Illinois has been fired for "hate speech" for publicly saying that he agrees with the teachings of the Catholic Church on homosexuality. This is a taste of things to come. Since the teachings of the Catholic Church are "hate speech," how long can it be before simply being Catholic will be akin to being a member of the KKK?

Read the full story at the American Papist.

Saint Maria Goretti

Today is the feast day of Saint Maria Goretti.

Dubai Says Airport Scanners Violate Islam

Full body scanners at airports violate Islamic law and will not longer be used in Dubai. Read the full story here.

PILGRIMAGE TO THE SHRINE OF SAINT FLANNERY

The BAD CATHOLIC recently had occasion to be in Milledgeville, Georgia. As you may know, Gentle Reader, Milledgeville was the antebellum capital of the State of Georgia. Along with visiting the Old Governor's Mansion and the Old Statehouse and riding by the famous Central State Hospital, which at one time was the largest mental hospital in the world, I also made the pilgrimage to Andalusia Farm, the home of Flannery O'Connor.

The people who have opened the house and farm to the public are doing the best they can, but many of the outbuildings of the dairy farm run by the O'Connors are in very bad shape. Much work needs to be done in the main house and on the grounds as well. I am sure that donations would be appreciated.

I very much enjoyed my visit. Like other visitors, I was struck by the fact that whereas 50 years ago Andalusia Farm, which is located five miles outside of Milledgeville on the road to Eatonton, was out in the middle of nowhere, now it is surrounded by Walmart, fast food restaurants, strip malls, car dealerships and motels. (As an aside, Eatonton is the home of another famous Georgia author, Joel Chandler Harris of Uncle Remus fame). The curator at Andalusia, Mr. Craig Amason, is very friendly and an expert on all things Flannery.

Miss Mary Flannery's bedroom on the first floor, which needs a paint job, shows the spartan conditions under which the stricken young writer lived and worked. There is a simple bed, a crucifix, some bookcases, a typewriter, and a pair of crutches. Flannery would write for several hours every morning and then in the afternoon she would read, write letters and enjoy the menagerie of animals including her famous peacocks. As I walked up to the house, I was delighted to see a peacock in a pen displaying his fabulous tail feathers.

I also went to the Saturday vigil mass at Flannery's Church, Sacred Heart Parish. This small 19th century structure is much unchanged from its original appearance. I was delighted to see what I presume are the pre-Vatican II statutes of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph flanking the altar and the intact marble altar rail. When I visited, there were young people standing outside waiting for the priest to open the doors to the Church to go to confession before mass, and the exposition of the blessed sacrament and recitation of the rosary were well attended. The Church was packed for mass. I can report that Catholic Christianity is alive and well in Middle Georgia.

Even though it's summer, there seemed to be plenty of students from Flannery O'Connor's alma mater, Georgia College and State University (formerly Georgia Women's College) still in Milledgeville. My tour guides at the Governor's Mansion and the Old Capitol Building were both history majors at Georgia College.

If anyone out there goes to Milledgeville, the place where the locals hang out downtown is a bar and grill across from the Georgia College campus called The Brick. The food is excellent, the beer is on tap, and the service from some very attractive young waitresses is outstanding. (Like Andy Griffith said "My wife told me I could look at the pretty girls so long as I never touched nary a one of 'em. So I've had to do an awful lot of lookin' to make up for that one disability.")

Flannery, history, worship and girl watching all in one trip. Can't do any better than that. It might make a good short story, don't you think?

4th of July Special Presentation

Since its the 4th of July I thought I might as well embed this video too. I always loved this song and the John Wayne movie. In thinking about the sacrifices of the men and women of the American armed forces today and in the past, I think that a lot of politicians are going to have a lot to answer for on Judgment Day. To quote Rambo, "Why didn't you let us win?"

Independence Day

Daughters of Zion

Here are my good friends and Christian sisters Margie Guyton and Ranie Brown who perform as the "Daughters of Zion." Make a joyful noise unto the Lord. Amen.

And Now A Word From Our Sponsor

More of Saint Thomas More & Saint John Fisher

Andy Warhol's Religion

Andy Warhol's Last Supper

Apparently, Andy Warhol was a frequent Mass goer. Read the full story from Paulist Press.

Saints John Fisher & Thomas More, Martyrs

Saint John Fisher was born in 1469. After completing his theological studies at Cambridge in England, he was ordained to the priesthood. Appointed Bishop of Rochester, he led a most austere life and fulfilled his pastoral role by frequently visiting the faithful. He also composed works against the errors of the time.

Saint Thomas More was born in 1477 and was educated at Oxford. He married and had one son and three daughters. While Chancellor in the King's Court, he wrote works on the governance of the realm and in defense of the Faith.

Both were beheaded in 1535 by order of King Henry VIII, whom they had resisted in the matter of his divorce: John Fisher on June 22 and Thomas More on July 6. While detained in prison, Bishop Fisher was named to the College of Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church by Pope Paul III.



Father, you confirm the true faith with the crown of martyrdom. May the prayers of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More give us the courage to proclaim our faith by the witness of our lives. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Source: Liturgy of the Hours

Saint Aloysius Gonzaga

Saint Aloysius was born of the princely family of Castiglione in 1568 near Mantua in Lombardy. Instructed in piety by his mother, he manifested an inclination to religious life. He legally delivered his share of the ancestral dominion to his brother and entered the Society of Jesus. While serving the sick during a plague, he himself contracted the disease and died in 1591.

Father of love, giver of all good things, in Saint Aloysius You combined remarkable innocence with the spirit of penance. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

Source: Liturgy of the Hours

The Gulf: Where the Wild Things Were

Stephen Colbert's Oil Spill humor. We have to laugh otherwise we'll never stop crying.

What Catholics Can Learn From Evangelical Protestants

Great post at the blog Young, Evangelical and Catholic about what Catholics can learn from the example of Evangelical Protestants about Sacred Scripture.

Tudor England

It has been awhile since I just sat down and read a straight history book. It has been long overdue. I had forgotten how much fun it is.

I recently finished a tattered old paperback called Tudor England by S.T. Bindoff. This book, originally published in 1950, was volume number five in the Pelican History of England.

A lot went on during the Tudor Dynasty in England. Everybody knows about King Henry VIII's female problems. Henry's "Great Matter," trying to secure a divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, eventually led to the English Reformation. In 309 concise pages it's all here, from Henry Tudor picking up King Richard III's crown off the ground at the Battle of Bosworth to the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603.

All Tudor fans know the gory details about sex and beheadings, but did you know that Henry VIII debased the value of coins in order to finance his wars? Or that Edward VI's regent Somerset debased the coinage even more? Bindoff goes into great detail about the economy and finances. It's obvious to me that those old Tudor monarchs and their advisers knew a lot more about economics that the current rulers of the United States of America.

In his discussion of the English Reformation, Bindoff says this about the so-called Elizabethan Settlement of the religious issues in England, which I found to be fascinating:

The Elizabethan Church was designed to appeal to the lukewarm multitude, and it enlisted lukewarm support. To most Members of Parliament, as to most Englishmen, its chief merits were negative. It had no Pope, it had no Mass, it made no windows into men's souls, it lit no fires to consume men's bodies. The fact that it also kindled no flame in men's hearts, if hardly a merit, was less of defect in that most men's hearts were not inflammable. But the new Church had by no means rid itself of all the features which had excited the ordinary man's hatred in the old. It had banished the Pope, but it still kept two dozen 'petty popes' in its bishops; it had abolished the Mass, but not ignorance and inefficiency among its ministers; it made no windows into men's souls, but it still made holes in pockets. It abounded with pluralities, sinecures, licences, dispensations, officials, fees.

Bindoff goes on to say that Puritans, those who thought that the new Church of England was not Protestant enough, were just as persona non grata in the Anglican Church as Catholics. In other words, the Protestant Anglican Church was from the beginning a mediocre faith for mediocre believers. As a former Anglican himself, The Bad Catholic humbly submits that that is what the Via Media really means.

Bindoff's chapter called The Sea and All That Therein Is covers Sir Francis Drake and the "Sea Dogs" and the attack of the Spanish Armada. It is some of the best narrative history which I have read in a long time.

Just because books are old, doesn't mean that they aren't good. As a matter of fact, most old books are a lot better than new ones. Bindoff's history of Tudor England is a winner.

Crucible of Faith

Here's Part I of the article referenced in the previous post. Crucible of Faith about the struggle of English Catholics during the Reformation.

Reformation and Recusancy in England

Great post about the Catholic Recusants under Elizabeth I.

Sacred Tradition in Protestantism

Great article by Mark Shea about the use of Sacred Tradition among various Protestants. Read it here.

We're All Bad Catholics

George Weigel says that we're all bad catholics. It's OK to be a bad catholic as long as you are trying to be a good one. Read Weigel's column about "Catholic Lite" here.

You Might Be a Redneck Catholic If . . .

You might be a Redneck Catholic if you have a bathtub Mary. Thanks to the Crescat.

Debtor's Prison Is Back!

One result of these tough economic times: Debtor's Prison is making a come back!
Read the full story here.

Solemnity of the Sacred Heart

Father, we honor the heart of Your Son broken by man's cruelty, yet symbol of love's triumph, pledge of all that man is called to be. Teach us to see Christ in the lives we touch, to offer him living worship by love-filled service to our brothers and sisters. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
(Liturgy of the Hours).

The Violent Bear It Away

As I mentioned, the Bad Catholic has been catching up on reading Catholic authors. I have previously read Wise Blood, the short story collection A Good Man is Hard To Find and dipped into the letter collection The Habit of Being. I have also read most of the lectures and non-fiction contained in the Library of America's Flannery O'Connor: Collected Works.

After visiting Graham Greene's West Africa, I decided to pay a visit to Miss Mary Flannery's South. I am aiming to stay for a while.

O'Connor's best writing is in her short stories and in her letters. She wrote two novels Wise Blood and the one under consideration, The Violent Bear It Away. Of the two, I think that the latter is by far the better book. Toward the end, Wise Blood became confusing and hard to follow, whereas, The Violent Bear It Away moves inexorably towards its inevitable, horrifying ending.

Following Jesus is never easy and you are liable to get maimed in the process. Jesus went to suffering and death, and if we are going to follow him then we must be prepared to go to Crucifixion and death along with Him.

The Violent Bear It Away refers to a quote from the Douay-Rheims version of the Bible: "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away." Matthew 11:12.

The novel is the story of a young teenager, Francis Marion Tarwater. Tarwater has been raised by his great uncle, Mason Tarwater, who kidnapped the orphan child away from Rayber, Mason's nephew and Tarwater's uncle, in order to raise Tarwater to do the Lord's work.

Mason considers himself to be an Old Testament prophet. Rayber, referred to throughout the novel as "the schoolteacher," marries a social worker known as "the welfare woman." Mason tells young Tarwater that the welfare woman was older than Rayber and only able to give him one child, and the Lord spared the child from their evil ways the only way He could by making him dim-witted. Mason believes that he has been chosen by the Lord to baptize Rayber's retarded child, Bishop.

Anyone wanting the rest of the plot summary can read the entire thing here. Otherwise, I'm going to assume that everybody knows the basic story outline.

The Bad Catholic is also probably a bad literature critic, because, if I'm honest, just like I didn't know what I thought of Greene's The Heart of the Matter, I don't really know what I think of The Violent Bear It Away either. However, I'm a real fan of the Southern Gothic style. Greene is good but he ain't no William Faulkner, or Flannery O'Connor for that matter.

It's pretty obvious that Mason Tarwarter represents the religious outlook on life and that Raber, "the schoolteacher", represents the modern secular world view. Tarwater must either choose the Lord or choose modern agnosticism. In O'Connor's hands there is a certain fanaticism on both sides. Old Mason had been committed to the mental hospital, but in their way, both Rayber and his absent wife are just as crazy. There is a lot to think about here. Why would a good God let there be retarded children like Bishop? If there is no God, is everyone better off if Bishop was dead?

This being an O'Connor novel, even without knowing the ending, when I read that Rayber had once tried to drown his son in the ocean but couldn't go through with it, I knew that Tarwater would drown Bishop while baptizing him. Thus the paradox. If Rayber had drowned Bishop, in Rayber's secular world view, Bishop would just be dead. When Tarwater drowns Bishop and baptizes him at the same time, Bishop becomes the Lord's and is born to new life.

O'Connor's sacramental theology runs throughout the book. As in the teachings of the Catholic Church, baptism operates as a channel of grace which affects the individual whether the person wants it to or not. You can reject the grace, like Rayber has, but you can't ignore it. It exists whether you like it or not.

I also don't know what I think about Tarwater's voice that he hears througout the novel challenging him to go against his destiny. Is it the devil? The evil side of himself? The rational side? Because we know that following the Lord isn't rational. You got to be a fool for God like all them prophets in the Old Testament was, and like Saint Francis was. After all, Jesus himself went and got his self kilt when all he would have had to done to avoid it was to keep his mouth shut and not be a raisin' the dead and healing the lame and a makin' the blind see.

I have to say that the homosexual child molester that gets Tarwater near the end of the book surprised me as much as the murder of the family by the Misfit in A Good Man is Hard to Find surprised me when I first read it.

Tarwater is destined to be a prophet of the Lord. No matter what he does he can't shake off the destiny that the Lord has for him. He can try to reject it, but he can't get away from it.

Well, the Bad Catholic has a got get up from this here computer and quit bloggin' and git on with his bidnis of lawyerin' and makin' a livin' and fallin down and worshipin' the Great God Mammon and all like that.

The Violent Bear It Away is grotesque, silly, and profound all at the same time. I think that that's a good definition of a masterpiece. Don't you?



Miss Flannery rocking on the porch.

Saint Ephrem, Deacon and Doctor of the Church

Saint Ephrem was born of a Christian family at Nisibis around the year 306. Ordained deacon, he exercised this office throughout the country and in Edessa, where he founded a theological school. Despite his ascetic life he did not relax his ministries of preaching and writing books to confute the errors of the time. He died in 373.

Lord, in Your love fill our hearts with the Holy Spirit, who inspired the deacon Ephrem to sing the praise of Your mysteries and gave him strength to serve You alone. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

(Liturgy of the Hours)

The American Soldier

The Fruit of Socialized Medicine in the Post-Christian State

Here's a post from the British political blog Cranmer about the National Health Service paying for abortions for women who have had IVF treatment. Read the whole thing here.

Solemnity of Corpus Christi

O precious and wonderful banquet, that brings us salvation and contains all sweetness! Could anything be of more intrinsic value? Under the old law it was the flesh of calves and goats that was offered, but here Christ himself, the true God, is set before us as food. What could be more wonderful than this? No other sacrament has greater healing power; through it sins are purged away, virtues are increased, and the soul is enriched with an abundance of every spiritual gift. It is offered in the Church for the living and the dead, so that what was instituted for the salvation of all may be for the benefit of all. Yet, in the end, no one can fully express the sweetness of this sacrament, in which spiritual delight is tasted at its very source, and in which we renew the memory of that surpassing love for us which Christ revealed in his passion.

It was to impress the vastness of this love more firmly upon the hearts of the faithful that our Lord instituted this sacrament at the Last Supper. As he was on the point of leaving the world to go to the Father, after celebrating the Passover with his disciples, he left it as a perpetual memorial of his passion. It was the fulfillment of ancient figures adn the greatest of all his miracles, while for those who were to experience the sorrow of his departure, it was destined to be a unique and abiding consolation.

Saint Thomas Aquinas

Lord Jesus Christ, You gave us the Eucharist as the memorial of Your suffering and death. May our worship of this sacrament of Your body and blood help us to experience the salvation You won for us and the peace of the kingdom where You live with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Convent in New York to Become a Mosque

Here's what happens in Post-Christian, Post-Catholic America. A former convent on Staten Island has been sold to a Muslim group to become a mosque. According to the blog Atlas Shrugged this group may have radical ties. Read the full story here.

Methodist Mega-Church Pastor Is Now a Catholic

Here's an inspiring story about a Methodist minister who led a 7,000 member mega-church who is now a Catholic layperson. Full story here.

The Heart of the Matter

I've been catching up on my reading of "Catholic novels" lately. This afternoon I finished Graham Greene's famous 1948 novel The Heart of the Matter. Honestly, I don't know what I think of it. Like everything I have ever read by Greene so far, the book is well written and engaging. The characters are well drawn and the reader comes to care about what happens to them.

However, The Heart of the Matter is a strange novel. I can't do any better than George Orwell's review for the July 17, 1948 edition of The New Yorker magazine. Orwell's review is literature in its own right:

Here is the outline of the story: A certain Major Scobie, Deputy Commissioner of Police and a Catholic convert, finds a letter bearing a German address hidden in the cabin of the captain of a Portuguese ship. The letter turns out to be a private one and completely harmless, but it is, of course, Scobie's duty to hand it over to higher authority. However, the pity he feels for the Portuguese captain is too much for him, and he destroys the letter and says nothing about it. Scobie, it is explained to us, is a man of almost excessive conscientiousness. He does not drink, take bribes, keep Negro mistresses, or indulge in bureaucratic intrigue, and he is, in fact, disliked on all sides because of his uprightness, like Aristides the Just. His leniency toward the Portuguese captain is his first lapse. After it, his life becomes a sort of fable on the theme of 'Oh, what a tangled web we weave', and in every single instance it is the goodness of his heart that leads him astray. Actuated at the start by pity, he has a love affair with a girl who has been rescued from a torpedoed ship. He continues with the affair largely out of a sense of duty, since the girl will go to pieces morally if abandoned; he also lies about her to his wife, so as to spare her the pangs of jealousy. Since he intends to persist in adultery, he does not go to confession, and in order to lull his wife's suspicions he tells her that he has gone. This involves him in the truly fearful act of taking the Sacrament while in a state of mortal sin. By this time, there are other complications, all caused in the same manner, and Scobie finally decides that the only way out is through the unforgivable sin of suicide. Nobody else must be allowed to suffer through his death; it will be arranged as to look like an accident. As it happens, he bungles one detail, and the fact he has committed suicide becomes known. The book ends with a Catholic priest hinting, with doubtful orthodoxy, that Scobie is perhaps not damned. Scobie, however, had not entertained any such hope. White all through, with a stiff upper lip, he had gone to what he believed to be certain damnation out of pure gentlemanliness.

I have not parodied the plot of the book. Even when dressed up in realistic details, it is just as ridiculous as I have indicated. . . .

The Bad Catholic has to agree with Orwell. The book is well written, engaging, interesting, but . . . Orwell is right, the plot is ridiculous. Orwell is absolutely spot on, in my opinion, when he says that "If he (Scobie) were capable of getting into the kind of mess that is described, he would have got into it years earlier. If he really felt that adultery is mortal sin, he would stop committing it; if he persisted in it, his sense of sin would weaken. If he believed in Hell, he would not risk going there merely to spare the feelings of a couple of neurotic women."

At one point in the novel, when Scobie is taking communion in a state of mortal sin, and has decided to kill himself to spare the feelings of his wife and his mistress, he prays that God accept his damnation on their behalf. Greene is here almost parodying the Catholic theology of offering up one's suffering on behalf of others as a form of prayer. We can offer up suffering because Christ suffered. How can one offer up a sin as prayer? It is certainly interesting fiction but it's very, very bad theology.

Orwell's classic review of The Heart of the Matter has some other great quotes:

"In addition, it is impossible not to feel a sort of snobbishness in Mr. Greene's attitude, both here and in his other books written from an explicitly Catholic standpoint. He appears to share the idea, which has been floating around ever since Baudelaire, that there is something rather distingue in being damned; Hell is a sort of high-class night club, entry to which is reserved for Catholics only, since the others, the non-Catholics, are too ignorant to be held guilty, like the beasts that perish."

Or this quote, which I absolutely love:

"Every novelist has his own conventions, and, just as in an E.M. Forster novel there is a strong tendency for the characters to die suddenly without sufficient cause, so in a Graham Greene novel there is a tendency for people to go to bed together almost at sight and with no apparent pleasure to either party."

The Heart of the Matter is acknowledged to be one of the greatest novels of the 20th century. It's fun to think about the issues raised in the book and it's fun to sit around and feel sorry for poor Scobie, but it's terrible theology. And in fact, the ending of the novel shows that Scobie accomplished nothing by his suicide. His wife Louise knew he was having an affair all along and figures out that her husband committed suicide. Scobie's girlfriend, Helen, can't live with Scobie's death and sinks into moral depravity by being willing to sleep with any man who wants her. When asked what he thought happened to Scobie, Evelyn Waugh famously said "Scobie is in Hell." The Bad Catholic has to agree.


Graham Greene

Saint Boniface, Bishop and Martyr

Saint Boniface was born in England about the year 673. He was first professed in the monastic life at Exeter but in 719 went to Germany to preach the Gospel. He made many converts there and was consecrated bishop, ruling over the church at Mainz. He attracted many companions by whose help he founded or restored dioceses in Bavaria, Thuringia and Franconia. He also convened councils and promulgated laws. While preaching the Gospel to the Frisians, Saint Boniface was killed by pagans in 754. His body is buried in the monastery of Fulda.

As the cool illustration shows, one of the things that Saint Boniface was known for was destroying pagan shrines and building Christian Churches on top of them to show the power of the true God. Here he is depicted chopping down a holy tree dedicated to the pagan God Thor. In other words, Saint Boniface was definitely not politically correct in respecting the beliefs of the pagans! In our politically correct, morally relativistic culture, where we are required to believe that the beliefs of all people are equally valid, no doubt Saint Boniface would get martyred again.

Lord, your martyr Boniface spread the faith by his teaching and witnessed to it with his blood. By the help of his prayers keep us loyal to our faith and give us the courage to profess it in our lives. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

(Source: Liturgy of the Hours).

Saint Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs of Uganda

Owing to religious hatred, many faithful Christians were killed in Uganda by King Mwanga during the years 1885-87. some of them had enjoyed the good graces of the king at his court, and some were even related to him. Among them, Charles Lwanga and his twenty one companions, adhering steadfastly to the Catholic faith, were put to death, some by sword, others by burning, because they would not accede to the king's unreasonable demands.

Father, You have made the blood of the martyrs the seed of Christians. May the witness pf Saint Charles and his companions and their loyalty to the Christ in the face of torture inspire countless men and women to live the Christian faith. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

(Source: Liturgy of the Hours)

The Greatness of Your Mercy

But as for me, through the greatness of Your mercy I will go into Your house; I will bow down toward Your holy temple in awe of You.

Psalm: 5:7 (1979 BCP).

Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem

As tensions in the Middle East rise, let us pray for peace.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: May they prosper who love you.

Peace be within your walls and quietness within your towers.

For my brethren and companions' sake, I pray for your prosperity.

Because of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek to do you good.

Psalm 122: 6-9, (1979 BCP)

Saints Marcellinus and Peter, Martyrs

Pope Damasus is our authority for the martyrdoms of Saints Marcellinus and Peter during the Diocletian persecution. He received this information from the executioner himself. They were beheaded in a grove, but their bodies were moved and buried in the cemetary Ad duas Lauros on the Via Labicana. Once peace had been restored, the Church built a basilica over their tombs.

Father, may we benefit from the example of Your martyrs Marcellinus and Peter, and be supported by their prayers. Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

(Source: Liturgy of the Hours).

Justin Martyr

Saint Justin, philosopher and martyr, was born of pagan parents at Flavia Neapolis in Samaria at the beginning of the second century. Following his conversion to the faith he wrote many works in defense of religion, of which we have only two; the Apology and the Dialogue with Trypho. He also opened a school at Rome in which public debates were held. Justin was martyred along with several companions during the reign of Marcus Aurelius around the year 165.

Father, through the folly of the cross You taught Saint Justin the sublime wisdom of Jesus Christ. May we too reject falsehood and remain loyal to the faith. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

(Source: Liturgy of the Hours)