Mark P. Shea's Blog, page 1253

Praise Report and Some Chestertoniana

Reader Michael Lichens writes:

I just need to thank you for the prayer requests! I have a temp job for the moment which will pay the bills and I am getting calls, so things will look up little by little. I'm saying a novena to St. Josemaria Escriva and to the the Thirteen Blessed Souls that I find a job that will pay me enough to keep my student loans at bay for a while and allow me to take some more steps in my discernment process. Thanks so much.

However, I also was wondering if you'd be so kind as to advertise the Denver Chesterton Society? I know you probably get a lot of these requests, but it'd be awesome if you could spare the space. We're finishing up the Well and the Shallows and we'll be meeting in the Chesterton Reading Room (cool, I know!) at St. John Vianney Seminary's library at 1300 South Steele Street, Denver, CO on Monday, September 12th at 7:15pm. Directions and contact info are here.

I'm the youngest member of the DCS by about 15 years so it would be cool to have more people drop by and be up for lively conversation. Also, as an added bonus, they'll meet me, a man who was called by Dale Ahlquist and Stratford Caldecott as the best young GKC look-a-like in the States (here's an old blog to prove that.)

Cheers to you and, once again, praise be to God for your work and my personal thanks for the prayers of you and your readers.

Non nobis, Domine. Thanks be to God for answered prayer!

Denver! Check out your local Chesterton Society!

Why Millennials Aren't Keen on Abortion...

...but don't care about gay marriage.

Basic take: in a culture where consent is the sole criterion of the good, it's hard for increasingly libertarian Millennials to see why any sexual combination of homo sapiens who want to hook up for any mutually consenting reason should be interfered with. That's because children and long term consequences of a completely disintegrated social fabric have not been factored in. As the current libertarian model gains purchase and society completely granulates and blows away, Millennial libertarians will discover the unforeseen consequences and move from the "What could it hurt?" phase to the "How were we supposed to know?" phase.

Meanwhile, libertarian Millennials *can* see that killing innocents violates the "Do no harm" principle and is therefore a Bad Thing. Result: more and more young pro-lifers who don't really think gay "marriage" is that big a deal because they don't really believe that a social order consists of much more than "An it harme noone, do as thou wilt": which is excellent Wiccan claptrap, but not very biblical or Catholic since the family, not the atomized individual, is at the heart of Catholic social teaching.

660 Followers!

Today, my minions, I command you to consider this information from a reader in Fargo:

Have you seen this?

Interesting story, this man is about to become incredibly famous. I hope his impending fame will not go to his head. A movie will be coming out in late September about his life called "Machine Gun Preacher".

And he's originally from "North Dakota" and grew up in Minnesota…so that makes sense.

Childress is a former Biker-Gang, Drug-Dealer, Criminal who became an Evangelical, goes to Sudan for mission work, he builds the largest Orphanage there for children whose parents were murdered, protects them with his own group of paid militia, and in his spare time, collects intelligence, organizes and goes with militia to hunt down the rapists, machete murderers, and save orphans which are being sold into slavery or made to become soldiers against their will. He has specifically been trying for years to hunt down this man who is the Pol Pot of the Sudan that the entire world is after.

His website…

Small excerpt from the story in Vanity Fair.

Original Vanity Fair Story..

Trailer from the movie starring Gerard Butler:

Might be interesting to get your commentary on this if you get time and it is of any interest.

I found about this story.. because fellow Seatllite, Chris Cornell, from the band Soundgarden, just released a single for the film called "The Keeper" which I stumbled upon.

No real commentary to add except, "Christ sure seems fond of eccentric and interesting people."

In Remembrance

My offering in memorial of our dead and in the hope that our merciful God will grant them everlasting peace in the world beyond this one through Christ our Lord.

One more point...

It amazes me that I have to say it, but there is no contradiction between opposition to abortion and opposition to the death penalty. That some Catholics believe, much less say, that there is constitutes a grave indictment of the state of American catechesis.

Just a little refresher on the Death Penalty

For those who are somehow confused about my view, I believe what the Magisterium teaches. Full stop. My views can't be used to support the ideological commitments or tribal allegiances of either the Evil Stupid or Stupid Evil parties. My task, as a Catholic citizen, is to try to get American political culture to conform a little bit better to the teaching of the Church, not to cannibalize the Church's teaching in order to pimp out this year's model of Dem or GOP candidate.

I won't be voting for Perry...

... whose sexy swagger and untroubled simplicity about killing people will, I presume, help make him the nominee of the GOP, judging from the roar of approval that went up for his cloudless vision of vengeance killing, with nary a trace of difficulty over the fact that some of his victims might have been, you know, innocent.

As I say, I think you aren't prolife if you choose to kill even one innocent person. But I recognize I'm in the minority on the Right in this matter. As a general rule, as long as a political candidate says he is prolife, he can get a pass on killing any number of innocent or penitent or foreign people who don't happen to be babies. Indeed, when the babies happen to be citizens of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, or Dresden, you can even get a roar of approval for that.

Looks like it'll be another Doomed Quixotic Third Party guy for me again. All I ask is for somebody who doesn't want me to support something gravely and intrinsically immoral. Not perfection; just something that will not make me worthy of the fires of hell like "not deliberately taking innocent human life". That's too much to ask of either party. So I will use my puny strength to pull a lever for somebody who is not part of the Death Machine. It won't change the country, but I will sleep better at night.

Prayer Requests

A reader writes:

I have a prayer request. My mother (89) has had a stroke. It was a fairly mild one, but she is still sometimes confused. She also suffers from severe arthritis and high blood pressure that is almost impossible to control. My father (90) is bearing up, but I can tell he is worried and suffering as are all her children (there are 9 of us). I'm asking prayers for us all. It's going to be a difficult time for our family, I fear.

Father, hear our prayer for your grace and healing, consolation and strength for this whole family through Jesus Christ. Mother Mary, pray for them.

Another reader writes:

I'd like to ask prayers for my family and especially my husband. He's a victim of this fine IRS initiative to squeeze money out of people in your mother's homeland.

He was brought to Canada by his parents at age six and thought he lost his U.S. citizenship when they gave up theirs to become Canadian citizens. When this story broke, he went to an immigration lawyer who told him (for several hundred dollars) that yes, he's American.

Now he;s supposed to file eight years' worth of back taxes, assess himself a penalty on "non-wilfully undisclosed" accounts, and "enclose a check for the full amount" which he estimates at $450,000. If the IRS is in a good mood, they could reduce it to as little as $90,000. Wow.

They can't come after him for the penalty up here -- but if he doesn't pay, he can never take the risk of going to the States again.

This affects our children, too, since I'm also a dual citizen (though I was aware of that).

Anyway, we appreciate any prayers people can spare.

The peace of Christ to you and your family.

Father and Defender of the oppressed, grant your help to your servants through Jesus Christ to meet and deal with this challenge. Mother Mary and St. Joseph, pray for them.

Another reader writes:

Please pray for a 10-year-old boy who had laparoscopic surgery to remove his appendix and the doctor unknowingly nicked the main aorta to his legs/lower part of his body. He is on dialysis and fighting for his life. There is some improvement overnight but concern was about his legs because the blood flow was only 50% in one leg and not good in the other. He is too sick for the doctors to surgically deal with clots.

From the boy's sister:

About a month ago, he woke up one morning and was talking to [his mom] and was very concerned about dying. This was not the first time he had felt this way. He told my mom that it scared him. She told him that it is scary but asked him if he was fully trusting what Jesus Christ did on the cross for his sins. He answered that he believed that, and that he trusted that. Mom said if you fully trust this, the Bible has promised that Christ would be with him even through the valley of death. And that death is actually a gain, to be with Christ in heaven.

Father, we ask that you would grant complete healing to this boy through Jesus Christ, as well as helping his family with your grace, consolation, and peace through the same Christ our Lord. Mother Mary, pray for all concerned.

Oh, Brother

Blasphemous Secular Messianism: As American as Apple Pie.

The People's Democratic National Security State of Heaven...

forging a closer alliance between Caesar and Mammon, so that some big corporation can raid your house if they feel like it:

Apple security personnel search house, allegedly for missing iPhone prototype -

The strange tale of an alleged iPhone 5 prototype that went missing from a lively San Francisco tequila bar in July grew even stranger Friday with the disclosure that Apple security personnel teamed up with San Francisco police officers to search a Bernal Heights home for the device, but that the police officers were not the ones who went inside.

I wonder how long it will be before they can bust you for not buying the right product too?