Mark P. Shea's Blog, page 1271

Two Ominous Bulletins from the People's Democratic National Security State of Heaven

(Formerly known as the United States of America) the struggle continues to provide you with perfect earthly peace and safety by taking away your privacy, freedom and rights:
House panel approves bill forcing ISPs to log users' web history. Requiring Internet companies to redesign and reconfigure their systems to facilitate government surveillance of Americans' expressive activities is simply un-American. Such a scheme would be as objectionable to our Founders as the requiring of licenses for printing presses or the banning of anonymous pamphlets.
Diss a politician? It could mean jail. No politician, bureaucracy, or court should have the power to silence the right of citizens to criticize elected officials.

HT: A Conservative Blog for Peace

Good News and Bad News

The bad news about having no health insurance is: I have no health insurance.

The good news about having no health insurance is: I don't have to knuckle under to the Feds and their damned draconian laws.

A reader writes:

I've been forcibly separated from the interwebs for the last few weeks, and only just saw your entirely reasonable article on NCR about HP and those who so determinedly assail the series.

Reading through the comments on your article has been - no exaggeration - one of the most spiritually and intellectually degrading exercises of my life (though it's no fault of yours). It is hard to share in Chesterton's delight in the common person and his belief in the fundamental alright-ness of 'em when confronted by what such persons seem to emit when given access to a soapbox. That the comments were being put forth under the guise of thoughtful, cautious holiness only makes them worse.

To put it bluntly, I have never seen such bile-inducing stupidity in my life - never. It's a miracle that some of these people can tie their shoes, let alone function as competent adults.

I'll be sure to mention that I said this during my next confession, but said it I have. Good grief.

All the best to you and yours,

P.S. Seriously, this whole thing has occasioned a very thorough remembering of what it was like to be purely secular and to encounter the appalling quality of thought present in some of those comments.
Back then, at least, I would have spent the next several days (even
weeks) following these people in their comments around the site and telling them exactly what they were. I am grateful to have been brought beyond such desires, anyway, even if only for the time that it saves.

It has been a depressing display as the comboxes have dragged on, but be aware of a couple of things. First, the general dynamic of a combox is that normal people have their say first and then, have said their piece, move on. This is particularly true when the subject is something as non-crucial as Harry Potter.

That leaves the zealots and fanatics to continue the discussion and they tend to carry it out until the edge of doom. The problem is, there seems to be no short supply of excommunicating inquisitors and fanatics when it comes to HP, and yes, they do say some uncommonly dumb things.

So, for instance, we find the curious contradiction at the heart of a lot of Harry Hatred: the charge that the books are "gnostic". What kills me is how this charge is established. When you point to John Granger's well-researched and thoroughly literate reading of the books which clearly demonstrates that they do not advocate salvation through "secret knowledge" (which is at the core of gnosticism), how do the Harry Haters respond? Basically, they complain that there's more to the spiritual life than Granger's fancy pants education, knowledge and training in reading literature. Michael O'Brien's wave of spiritual nausea and the Harry Hater's "gut instinct" are more to be trusted. In short, we are to trust in their intuitive "secret knowledge" and not in facts and actual understanding of the text (of which many Harry Haters are proudly ignorant since they "don't read books on the occult" and so have never actually read HP.

Which brings me to the really fascinating thing: the amazing way in which, yet again, so-called "conservative Catholics" completely throw overboard the Church's intellectual tradition (which has traditionally never feared to engage ideas from "outside the tribe" in order to get at the question "What is true?"). Thomas has no fear of Aristotle the pagan and Averroes the Muslim. Today, he would be denounced as Impure by many "conservative Catholics" for not getting his information from Truly True Catholic sources and for daring to read texts from non-tribal members.

Over at the Register blog, some people are seriously suggesting that there is something sinister about the fact that I disagree with some Catholic media folk about Harry Potter and are planning to complain that this disagreement is somehow scandalous. Their approach to the question is not "What is true?" but "Who are my tribal elders who tell me what I want to hear?" and "How can I muzzle ideas I dislike?" It's pretty funny really. Especially since, yesterday, Fr. Brian Harrison, to my great surprise, weighed in on the "Harry is not a big deal" side and threw the Harry Haters into confusion. It is instructive to read, not just Fr. Harrison, but the response to him. First, Fr. Harrison:

Dear XXXXXXXXX,

Remember I was commenting to you during my visit about people who needlessly read deep, dark and diabolical meanings into Harry Potter?

Well, The Remnant has a new "exposé" of the terrible dangers of letting kids watch HP. Being a wizard, we are told, Harry is "a man of evil", and so, along with friends Ron and Hermione, is careering along the road to Hell. On that basis, of course, there's a vast and centuries-old literature of fantasy tales and fairy stories that will have to be excised from every Christian home. This actually seems to me rather like a kind of new puritanism. (In fact, I believe the anti-Harry Potter publicity started in conservative Evangelical Protestant, not Catholic, circles.)


The reason that attempts by real-life human beings to engage in magic and wizardry are sinful is basically because they attempt to procure and wield supernatural powers that God has not given to human beings. They represent, therefore, a sin as old as the Garden of Eden, the presumptuous quest to "be like God". But in Rowling's fictional fantasy world, Harry and his friends are not committing that sin at all. The distinction between them and ordinary "muggles" like you and me is basic to the whole series of books, right from the first time our heroes vanish into the column of Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station in order to board the train for Hogwarts. Harry, Ron, Hermione etc., are not trying to arrogantly overreach themselves. For, unlike real-life human beings, they are depicted as being members of a distinct 'race' who are born as wizards, and so are just innocently fulfilling their own nature when they study and develop their inborn magical abilities. (Of course, Christian parents who let their kids read and see the HP fantasies should also make it clear, as part of their normal commitment to raising their children in accord with their baptismal promises, that we real human beings are not allowed to attempt magical feats, and should not be so gullible as to believe readily in claims of 'supernatural' effects of spells, potions, etc., made by New Agers, Wicca adepts, etc.)

I went to see the final Harry Potter movie the other day, and didn't see anything "anti-Christian" about it. I guess that just shows how naive I am: I don't realize I'm being subconsciously assailed by all the "symbols" that will weaken my faith and morals without my knowing it!

It reaches the point of absurdity when The Remnant's writer claims that there are "symbols" that indicate Harry loses his virginity in the course of his adventures. Never mind that Harry never does anything more than kiss a girl (fully clothed and standing up)! For we are assured that supposed "phallic symbols" hovering in the background will all subliminally send the message to adolescent viewers that Harry is now sexually active and that teen sex is therefore the way to go! Actually, for by far the greater part of the series, Harry, Ron and Hermione are presented - as you well know - just as comrades or buddies, with occasional squabbles but always basically very loyal. Which of course is a perfectly good model of friendship between adolescent boys and girls who are too young to start entering into serious romantic relationships. In the last two movies of the series, when our heroes are evidently around 17-18 years old, Harry gets a girlfriend who makes an occasional appearance, and Ron and Hermione fall in love. And, yes, they too hug and kiss once or twice (again, fully clothed and standing). OK, so what? There's no indication that they're having premarital sex. And in fact the epilogue depicts these two couples, 19 years after the final destruction of the evil Voldemort, as respectably married and with small kids. So the whole Harry Potter saga in fact ends on quite a pro-life, pro-family and pro-marriage note. Not exactly the parting message that the Church's mortal enemies would want to send to today's adolescents!

At the bottom of this Remnant review you'll find an excerpt from one of the books that the critic tries to make out is some sort of subtly blasphemous, contemptuous mockery of the Holy Mass. I find it very hard to believe any Catholic kid is going to take away from this scene any subliminal anti-Eucharistic assault on his/her faith. (And non-Catholic teens, who have little if any idea what the Catholic Mass is anyway, would be even less likely to draw any anti-Christian message out of this distasteful description of the rotting food at a ghost's "death-day party".) I'll leave you to read the excerpt - which the columnist apparently considers Exhibit A for his case - and form your own opinion.

Perhaps the biggest weakness in this whole type of neo-puritan criticism of such modern fantasy books/films is that today's kids are generally so ignorant of both Christianity and their own Western literary and cultural tradition that, even supposing the evil and perverse symbolism was deliberately intended by J.K. Rowling and L. Frank Baum (yes, even The Wizard of Oz is nefarious, occult propaganda, according to this Remnant columnist!), these modern kids would be quite incapable of recognizing it as such. Of course, the retort to this will be, "Ah, how naive you are! Of course they don't recognize it! That's why its so insidious and dangerous! For the symbolism will reach and corrupt them at a subconscious level!".

The trouble is that you can only have buried in your subconscious something that you have previously consciously experienced and have now forgotten and/or repressed. But hardly any of today's uncultured teenage viewers of Harry Potter would ever at any moment of their short lives have had any knowledge of these symbols! How many of these kids, for instance would ever have heard or read that a fish (Greek 'ICTHUS') was an ancient symbol of Christ? Therefore, how could a rotten fish at a "ghost's party" possibly send such kids an insidious 'depth-charge' subliminal messsage that Christ is rotten and contemptible? And how many of these teenage viewers would ever have heard or known that a black cloth (like the one on the ghosts' malodorous dinner-table) was used for traditional funeral Masses in the Traditional Latin Catholic rite? (I didn't even know that myself till now - never having been to a funeral in the Traditional Rite!)

Finally, even supposing these "symbols" were recognizable at the subsconcious level by the young viewers, where is the hard evidence that they do in fact have a corrupting influence on the faith or morals of the young? The puritanical critics' argument seems to be of an a priori nature: "the dark and occultic symbols are there in the Potter books and movies; therefore they must have a pernicious, anti-Christian effect on the young." But what you need here is a posteriori evidence and reasoning: e.g., a statistically significant sampling of kids who have fallen away from Christian faith or practice under circumstances where there is some clear cause-and-effect evidence that this was a result of watching or reading Harry Potter fantasies. (We've had The Wizard of Oz around for more than 70 years now. Where are all the generations of kids whose faith and morals have been scarred for life by Dorothy, Toto, the Tin Woodman, the Wicked Witch of the West, and the anti-climactic little Wizard?)

There are indeed plenty of people in the media today who want to corrupt and destroy Christian faith and morals among the young. But I think they are smart enough to realize that the best way to do this with today's kids is by unsubtle, unambiguous 'full-frontal' propaganda: TV shows and movies like South Park, Sex and the City, HBO, internet porn, blasphemous "art " works, shows that openly present priests and serious Christians in general as nerds, cowards, hypocrites and 'homophobic' bigots, and openly anti-Catholic books and movies like Last Temptation, The Da Vinci Code and Philip Pullman's noxious children's books (in which the villains are cloaked like Knights of Malta and turn out to be child-abusers belonging to a group entitled "The Magisterium"), shows that present active homosexuals as heroes and regular, lovable folks, etc., etc.

The real enemies of the Church, of our Lord and Savior, and of the natural moral law wouldn't waste their time dreaming up characters like Harry, Ron, Hermione and Dumbledore, who they would regard as very tame and ineffective emissaries for their cause, or indeed (more likely) as emissaries for the opposite cause and values springing from J.K. Rowling's own professed Christian faith. This is especially true, given that the message comes through loud and clear throughout the series that the Luciferian side in this struggle, represented by the diabolical Voldemort and his minions, is precisely the side Harry constantly battles against, and finally defeats.
God bless,

Fr. Brian Harrison

Now, the telling response:

Fr. Brian Harrison:

Since you seem to have some spare time… and since you seem to have spent much of your precious time on HP, would you please consider helping one of your fellow priests (Fr. Richard Heilman) understand HP?

Obviously, he has some serious concerns about HP and hasn't had the luxury of time to spend reading/watching/writing that you have apparently had. Please, my friend, take some of your excessive free time and help him. I'm sure he will be very grateful to you. Thanks… and God Bless.

Fr. Richard Heilman: [I have to admit that up until I invited a very holy priest, Fr. Isaac Mary Relyea, to my parishes to give a Lenten Mission on the Four Last Things (listen here), I simply had never heard any of the warnings in regard to Harry Potter. And so, like any good pastor who is concerned for the spiritual well-being of his flock, I did some checking (via google). There it was � with little more than a ten minute search on the internet, I found concerns raised by none other than Pope Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Ratzinger), Cardinal Arinze, Cardinal Burke and the chief exorcist to Rome, Fr. Gabriele Amorth. See previous post).
Moreover, I was not prepared for the inordinate intensity of push-back on this topic. I was simply stunned by the over-the-top outrage toward someone who simply wanted to warn others about the potential spiritual dangers of HP. Frankly, it was in the realm of creepy to me, because it was so very intense. It left me wondering if the supernatural was involved here.
Fair warning to pastors � your choice to broach this subject will, in all likelihood, bring assaults that are severe and personal. For me, I simply chose to pick other battles for now � I did not feel it was worth going to war over this while there are seemingly endless things to warn our flocks about. In the meantime, I plan to do more research to see why these most prominent Roman Catholic Church figures are warning us about HP.]

What's interesting to me is how the person posting the note from Fr. Heilman makes no effort whatsoever to engage what Fr. Harrison says. He simply appeals to several authorities whom he deems to be tribal elders of the Harry Hater faction and thinks that's enough. What strikes me is how postmodern it is. There is no faith at all in the Church's intellectual tradition and the believe that you can actually get at the truth of things by means of evidence and argument. Instead, the approach is to appeal to bogus authority (the bunkum that Benedict "condemned" Harry Potter), dubious authority (Fr. Gabriele Amorth's sketchy pontifications of books of which he is wholly ignorant), Cardinal Burke (who relies completely on Fr. Amorth), and Cardinal Arinze (who likewise relies completely on what he's picked up through the grapevine). Beyond that, we have an appeal to Fr. Heilman's "creepy feeling". It's an interesting picture of Catholics relying on hunches, but that's about it. What's interesting is that the reader who posts it seems to think that (as with Granger, who has actually taken the time to read and analyze the books and not just go on hearsay) Fr. Harrison is the one at fault for knowing what he is talking about and not just falling into line and parrotting the hearsay.

In short, there seems to be an actual celebration of anti-intellectualism and a hostility to using one's brain to *think*. This is not, obviously, a problem that is strictly limited to Harry Potter and is a troubling symptom. And pointing it out is dangerous in current tribal climate, since to mention it is to invite cries of "elitist" from ignorami and postmoderns who abandon the possibility of discovering truth through argument and evidence while trusting their "gut" or the argument from authority (the weakest of all arguments, according to St. Thomas) as the basis for their views on things much weightier that HP.

English Judges Wigs...

cut off circulation to brain.

Who said it?

Quote #1
"Logic" and rationalist thought (a certain degree of national Darwinism) should be the fundament of our societies. I support the propagation of collective rational thought but not necessarily on a personal level. Because, if a woman was purely rational, she would choose to not have babies at all, and instead live her life in a purely egotistical manner. We should strive to become a civilisation where the individual's acquisition of wealth would no longer be the driving force in our lives.

Quote #2
As for the Church and science, it is essential that science takes an undisputed precedence over biblical teachings.

Answer: "Right wing Fundamentalist Christian" Anders Behring Breivik, "A European Declaration of Independence"
Quote #1: p. 1386
Quote #2: p. 1403

HT: Mike Flynn

Interesting Conjunction of Letters

A reader who is by no means a liberal writes in dismay:

I'm sure by now you've heard about this Heritage Foundation claim that American poor people aren't really poor.

Of course a number of problems with this jumped out at me immediately. Owning a "video gaming system" does not necessarily mean owning a newly purchased X-Box, as they suggest. It could mean finding an old Gameboy at a yard sale for $10, or having one leftover from a time when the family's finances were better.

But I was curious about some of the claims. So I decided to look up the evidence first cited for their claims:

"For most Americans, the word 'poverty' suggests destitution: an inability to provide a family with nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter. For example, the Poverty Pulse poll taken by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development asked the general public: 'How would you describe being poor in the U.S.?' The overwhelming majority of responses focused on homelessness, hunger or not being able to eat properly, and not being able to meet basic needs.[1] That perception is bolstered by news stories about poverty that routinely feature homelessness and hunger."

The cited source is:

"[1]See Catholic Campaign for Human Development, 'Poverty Pulse: Wave IV,' January 2004, at (June 21, 2011)."

So I went there. And while looking for their cited question (and responses), I found a lot of context they're not mentioning. Like this:

"Respondents were asked, 'How much annual income would you say a family of four living in the United States needs to cover their basic needs?' The mean level cited is over $41,000, the median is $40,000. As a point of comparison, the Federal poverty income threshold for a family of four is $18,400."

Now wait a minute. The Heritage Foundation was telling me that America's poor are not really poor according to the understanding of the general American public. But when I look at the document they cited, it tells me that Americans think anything less than $40,000 (more than twice the Federal poverty income threshold) isn't enough to cover the basic needs of a family of four. In other words, the general public doesn't agree with the Heritage Foundation-- the poor are even poorer than the general public's concept of poor.

The same CCHD document says:

"A little more than half of all adults are concerned that they will be poor at some point in their lives and people seem to be more concerned about this than in previous years."

Again, this doesn't tell me that the general American public doesn't perceive American poverty as real poverty. Just the opposite. It suggests that most adults fear they could easily cross into real poverty themselves.

Well, I looked and looked, but Heritage Foundation's evidence wasn't in the cited CCHD document at all. Still, I thought, they must be referring to something. Surely they wouldn't make it up out of whole cloth. So I ran a search for the quoted text. I finally found it in this CCHD document.

But guess what? Even if they had cited the correct document, they would still be misrepresenting it. Here, again, is what they said:

"the Poverty Pulse poll taken by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development asked the general public: 'How would you describe being poor in the U.S.?' The overwhelming majority of responses focused on homelessness, hunger or not being able to eat properly, and not being able to meet basic needs."

Here, however, is that the actual CCHD document says about the question they quoted:

"Being poor in the United States is described by low-income people in terms of not having things (a home, job, food, money, health care), but also in emotional terms. Housing continues to be a significant determinant of being poor. Almost one quarter (23%) of low income respondents say that not having a home or adequate housing is what is meant by being poor in the U.S. Lack of jobs and money are also high on the list. But many respondents continue to describe being poor in terms of how they feel. They describe being poor in the U.S. as depressing, degrading, being looked down on, ignored, hopeless, lonely, powerless. For many, being poor has less to do with what they do or do not have than with how they are treated...."

The question "How would you describe being poor in the U.S.?" was not asked of the general public, as HF claims, but of poor people. In other words, the Heritage Foundation told me "this is what the American public means when they say 'poverty,' as opposed to what the government calls 'poverty.'" But the CCHD isn't saying that at all. They're saying "this is how poor people themselves describe their personal experience of being poor."

It is simply amazing to me that anyone is taking this study even remotely seriously.

I had not heard of this study, but then I've been underwater with work and have missed a lot. It is, alas, part of the general trend of the Thing that Used to be Conservatism that it now regards "facts" as more or less malleable props for maintaining Unit Cohesion and not as things which should guide our prudential judgements based on reality. And it certain has little interest in facts when they favor the claims of the poor and weak on the consciences of the rich and powerful. So this sort of manipulation, while sad, is not surprising. The wondrous thing about our post-modern culture is that even conservatives have almost completely adopted the Identity Politics methods that so characterized the Left in the 80s. What matters, for huge swaths of the Thing that Used to Be Conservatism is not what is said, but who is saying it. For many people, it is sufficient argument to say, "Well, the CCHD! There you are! Buncha damn libruls!" to prove that, somehow, the Heritage Foundation's twisting of the CCHD analysis is "more accurate" than the analysis they are twisting. Increasingly, many in the Thing that Used to Be Conservatism navigate reality not by asking, "What is true?" but by asking "Where does my kinship lie? Who are the foreigners to my tribe? Who are the Tribal Elders and what do they allow me to think?" It reminds me ever so much of the Democrats back in the 80s with their stupid identity politics.

And not just me. Here's a reader of my blog, an intelligent and decent fellow hailing from what I think of as the Sensible Old Left as distinct from the Crazy Left, concerned about the weak and dispossessed as a Catholic should be, not ideological and willing to engage with conservatives and see the merits of their side of things. He writes:

I started reading conservative blogs to resume what had been a strong suit for me in the past-reading conservative literature, and explaining the opposition to left-wing folks. (And again, Obama is no where close to left wing.) The right wing since the late 1980's had been a fascinating read, with a lively intellectual life while the left decided to just focus on emoting over thinking.

The right wing had discipline in thought and message (it may argue within its clan but it presented a unified front to the opposition) and dominated government since Reagan.

This collapsed somewhere around 2005. Conservativism was also its height- it had control of nearly all arms of the US government and had created tax/fiscal/regulatory policies that would shape the nation in a way the New Deal had shaped the nation for decades. It structured the Defense Department/Intelligence apparatus/Homeland security infrastructure in a way that the 1950's shaped the next two decades of the Cold War. It had the NYTimes promoting its war in Iraq just as it wanted it too, and one of its reporter went to jail protecting a conservative source. It was the right wing's world.

Intellectually, the right wing had begun to cease deliberate thinking and instead developed philosophies of justification of the GWBush years, while talk radio began to feed the serotonin-starved limbic systems of the Red States. Since then "anger" and paranoia replace thoughtful considered speech. Gone is the more interesting intellectual development of thought.

Part of this problem stems from the same group that promoted its development. The right wing think tanks need to fund their stables of highly-paid conservative super-stars and the think tank funders are not interested in hearing "thought" that develops into something like Alan Simpson's more recent interview in which he thinks their needs to be a taxation policy that supports our infrastructure, which currently at 15% of the GDP is inadequate. I point out often that Australia is has revenues around 30% of its GDP and has a healthier economy, but other nation's successes or failures seem to be ignored by American exceptionalists, left or right. The think tanks want to fund viewpoints, not thought anymore. This may be a flip-flopping of right vs. left, with left wing periodicals doing more thoughtful "work" finally.

In short, the right wing is where the left wing was in the 1980's- angry, splintered and eating each other. The left wing at that time had splintered into a dozen affinity groups with environmentalists vs. poverty-advocates vs. feminists vs. african-american advocates vs. civil rights groups, etc. There was no party discipline and little thought.

Catholic conservative thought has moved past orthodoxy=Republicanism, but just barely. This however, has created a series of litmus tests for the conservative Catholic, who for years ran with the CINO title for anyone who voted Democrat. The conservative Catholic movement is fractured also, and the Colorado mess in which 3 different bishops (or in the case of Chaput, archbishops) all insisted in three varying ways which vote for whom would put someone in the confessional demonstrated this. (This has done nothing for conservative Catholicism which has been part of the back-bone of pro-life activities in the US.) Conservative Catholicism has become increasingly rigid too, harkening back to an era (usually the 1940's and 1950's) and a series of reputed virtues in that era that never existed. Couple that with its disappointment of Benedict 16th, who has turned out to be closer in thought and theology to churchgoing Commonweal readers than to George Weigel, and one finds conservative Catholics unmoored, seeking new sources of "disciplinarians," since its presumed Vatican Dobermann turned out to be a happy, bouncy sheepdog.

Conservative Catholic thought is now, in general (I am not speaking of anyone specifically or you at all, just in general), reactionary, "touchy," and rigidly incapable of entertaining arguments or thoughts beyond its own reflexive stances. As such, folks like Andrew Bacevich will find more of a future on the pages of Commonweal, than in NRO or First Things.

This is just what it looks like from the outside looking into conservative writing, thinking, and commentary.

I find it hard to argue with a lot of this. Is anybody else feeling the constriction and ossification and growth of factionalism and party spirit?

Kathy Shaidle, who passes this along, remarks

"Today, parody.  Tomorrow, protected identity."



Speaking of the inevitable slide that must happen when a civilization abases itself before the notion that Consent is the Sole Criterion of the Good, here is the same sex "marriage"-supporting LA Times saying to polygamists, in the immortal words of Sting, "Don't stand so, don't stand so, don't stand so close to me."

Sorry dudes, but they have every reason to stand close to you. Your rationale for gay "marriage" is identical to their rationale for polygamy.

To find out why and where the doctrine of sola consent must lead, go here, here, and here.

Prayer Request

A reader writes:

I was wondering if you could garner some prayer support from your blog for my brother. He has left his wife. He's making a big mistake. There are issues both ways, but he needs to get back in there and work through them.

Father, you hate divorce. Bring this man to his senses and back to his wife so that they can work through this trouble. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Mother Mary and St. Joseph, pray for this family. Amen.

A Question About Ron Paul

In which somebody asks and I answer.

And that's it for today. I gotta a lot to do this week.

Works of Mercy

Here's some chances to join the sheep of Matthew 25:

First, support the St. Catherine of Siena Institute, one of my favorite apostolates! As is often the case in summer with religious organizations, financial support dries up with the heat as everybody goes on vacation and what not. But the people who work for the Siena Institute go on having mouths to feed and bills to pay 365 days a year. They do phenomenally good work, as anyone who has been to their "Called & Gifted" or "Making Disciples" workshops will tell you. So if you'e got a few bucks you'd normally spend at Starbuck's burning a hole in your pocket why not send it their way instead and do a good thing for Holy Church?

Second, there is a heart-wrenchingly beautiful story unfolding out here in Seattle. Read about the incredible legacy of young Rachel Beckwith here, then donate to her cause here. May she have already heard from the lips of the King: "I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink."

Finally, one more prayer request: My good friend Brian, from my parish, is in eastern Washington taking care of his Mum, Celine. Celine is having trouble walking, and has fallen a few times. She has become so weak that she is having trouble getting in and out of bed. She is now in the hospital undergoing tests to help determine why this is happening.

Father, hear our prayer for Celine's complete recovery and for grace, peace and consolation for Brian and his family in this difficult time. Give skill and compassion to her caregivers. Mother Mary and St. Luke, pray for all involved. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen!