Patrick Madrid's Blog, page 5

A Social Network Christmas

Here is an ingenious and quite touching video depicting how the Good News of the Incarnation and birth of Christ the Lord might have been shared on Facebook, had it happened today. Share this on Facebook!





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Take a virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel

This is very nice!  The level of detail is superb, making it almost as if you were there, inside the room itself where conclaves are held and popes are elected. Check it out.http://patrickmadrid.blogspot.com

The most unusual review of one of my books I've ever seen

Lost in Translation:





A remarkable book review of my most recent book, The Godless Delusion: A Catholic Challenge to Modern Atheism (co-authored with Ken Hensley), popped up this morning on my Google Blog Search app.





I think I get the gist of what the reviewer is saying, though I cannot be entirely sure. The review is in English, sort of, though it reads as if it were washed and rinsed through an online translator program. Maybe it was first written in Slovak or Hindi and then translated into Finnish and then translated into English. I can't tell. But I am pretty sure it's an all around positive review, for which I am grateful in any language.





The review is of "Delirium Without God," which I find to be an amusing and entirely apt rendering of what the book's title, "The Godless Delusion," connotes.





Among the many unique and remarkable phrases contained in this review, I have learned some new verbs, such as the picturesque "booty up,"  adjectives such as "abaft," and nouns such as a "blazon of altercation." I quite like that last one. And there is also this complimentary description of me, which I find interesting:

I acquisition this is one of Patrick Madrid's abundant assets. He has become one of my admired apologists for the the Catholic faith. He does not appear out all pumped up, attractive for a fight. He starts with simple honest questions and lets logic, understanding, and animal acquaintance backpack the altercation forward. 

I must confess that it honestly has never occurred to me to implement that old art-of-war tactic of engaging in "animal acquaintance" in order to backpack an altercation forward.  I'm all about backpacking altercations forward, of course, but I just don't think that animal acquaintance should have any role to play in that regard. But then, that's just me.





My thanks to the reviewer for taking the time to booty up the agitation.







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Hey! I used to go to school with that guy

Now this is pretty amazing. Dave Beaumont was in my class ('78) when we both attended "Our Lady Queen of Angels" high school seminary in San Fernando, CA. I haven't seen or heard from him since those long ago days, though I did hear from some classmates of ours that he had entered the Capuchin order. 





And just now, I see Dave turn up in, of all places, the Washington Post as Fr. Dave Beaumont, O.F.M., Cap.   I'm not surprised at all to learn that he's a dedicated friar engaged in some wonderful, grueling, sacrificial, and quite dangerous work, ministering to his flock in rural northern Mexico -- right in the heart of where the drug-related violence is raging. I doubt you'll ever see this post, Dave, but you sure can count on my prayers for protection and guidance. May God reward you. Siempre adelante!http://patrickmadrid.blogspot.com

You can't always get what you want

My grandson Patrick was not happy today when my daughter Bridget and her husband Al broke the news to him that their new baby on the way is a little girl. As you can see, though, his kid brother Joey wasn't the least bit bothered by the news. And neither were Nancy and I and the rest of the family!








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Tom Peterson of "Catholics Come Home" talks with Fr. Benedict Groeschel

Many of you are familiar with the wonderful media outreach to fallen-away Catholics that has been conducted for several years by the good people at Catholics Come Home . Their television commercials, which air around the country on secular television stations and networks, have proven to be quite effective in helping many thousands of  people come into, or back into, the Catholic Church.





Tom Peterson, the president and genius behind Catholics Come Home and Virtue Media was recently the host on Fr. Benedict Groeschel's EWTN television program, "Sunday Night Live," explaining the behind-the-scenes work of the apostolate. It's well worth the watch.









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Understatement of the year: "This debate will be followed closely at the Turkish embassy."

As Europe slowly begins to wake up to the serious danger it faces, a gutsy Catholic member of the Austrian parliament,  Ewald Stadler , adds a few choice words of his own. Please watch all five minutes of this amazing speech.





Courtesy of Eponymous Flower.http://patrickmadrid.blogspot.com

I'm not entirely sure what this means, but it made me chuckle

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Their name is Luka

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Did NASA Discover Life on One of Saturn's Moons?

Gawker reports:



NASA is holding a press conference on Thursday "to discuss an astrobiology finding." Are they going to announce that they've found evidence of extraterrestrial life?

Blogger Jason Kottke took a look at NASA's press release, which touts "an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life" (astrobiology, besides being a cool word, is "the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe"), and decided to investigate further by looking at the participants' resumes. So who are the participants?A geobiologist who's written about "geology and life on Mars";
an oceanographer who's done extensive work on arsenic-based photosynthesis;
a biologist examining Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, and its similarities to early Earth;
and an ecologist investigating the "chemistry of environments where life evolves."
(. . . continue reading )http://patrickmadrid.blogspot.com