Mark P. Shea's Blog, page 1345

Just How Disgusting is Lisa Murkowski's behavior?

So disgusting she will shut down the government rather than cut one penny from that vital humanitarian organization: Murder Inc.

Murkowski is another of our Catholic politicians who really needs to realize that baptism is grace, not magic, and that merely being Catholic is no guarantee that you have your ticket punched for heaven. May God give her the grace to stop laboring for the death of innocents. And may the GOP surprise me and stand up to her rather than caving.

Don't Just Kill Your TV...

though it definitely needs killing. Also support Catholic efforts to transform culture.

Just how disgusting is Newt Gingrich's behavior?

Well, of course, he was disgusting enough to divorce not one, but two wives for younger models, serving his first wife with divorce papers while she was in the hospital for cancer and being a repellent enough creep to have an affair behind the back of wife #2 while sanctimoniously inveighing against Bill Clinton for being the repellent creep he is. However, confessions take away such sins so we will cut him some slack there.

Likewise, though it is hard to say whether he has expressed any contrition about it, let's just pretend his recent explanation for all this repellent creepitude--the one about how the reason he ditched two wives was because he just loved America so darn much that it, er, somehow caused him to commit adultery twice,--was such a stench-filled, rotten-egg-smelling piece of mental flatulence badly disguised as suckupery to the Christian crowd that the gales of laughter he received taught even a leading "public intellectual" like him not to repeat it. So let's take his humiliated refusal to repeat that load of bovine excrement as something dimly like "repentance" and "humility" for the Great Man. Let's, in fact, just focus on his public life and ignore his long-ago rhetoric against Clinton to the effect that "character matters" (remember that mantra?).

Y'see, that's the hard part. I don't have to live with this odious man under his roof, but I would have to abide him as President if I voted for him. And here, after the above grotesqueries, is what America's newest politicized (and politicizing) Catholic offers us as his political rhetoric: a big fat turd of ignorant jingoism to rattle Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel and his fellow xenophobes down at the bar with incoherent rubbish designed to stampede them into voting for the cynical manipulative old bombthrower:

"I have two grandchildren — Maggie is 11, Robert is 9," Gingrich said at Cornerstone Church here. "I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American."

Yes! Fear those secular atheist worshippers of Allah! FEAR THEM! And coo over my grandkids (from children from one of my other marriages, I forget which). I understand what it means to be American! Something something Jesus! Vote for me! I can save your kids from Radical Atheist Muslims who seek to secularize America for Allah! Have I mentioned I'm born again and Catholic? With adorable grandkids?

I'm gonna hurl.

On the other hand, the Onion captures well the inspiration so many of us feel over a Newt candidacy.

But Mark! He's a Catholic! Yes. So was Madonna. Baptism is grace, not magic. Becoming Catholic does not mean that a skanky politician is above reproach if he returns to old habits like a dog to his vomit. If Newt wants me to take him seriously, then it would be good if he treated the sacraments as means of grace and not as stepping stones to power. We don't need a Catholic whose attitude to the faith is "How can I use God talk and manipulative jingo fearmongering to stampede the suckers in Paducah?" When he behaves seriously, I'll take him seriously. Till then, I will respond to his cynical attempts at manipulation as what they are: cynical (and spectacularly crappy) attempts at manipulation. God grant him the grace to undo a lifetime of bad habits. His sins, like mine and all the rest of the human race's, do not name him and are not his essence. His true face is Christ's. But the mask of sanctimony he is trying to put on the mask of sin is not his true face. He must take both masks off, and that will require a lot of grace and effort. God have mercy on him. The last thing in the world such a man needs is more power.

Hey Detroit!

The family of Terry Schiavo is coming to discuss, "Overcoming Suffering" at two parishes in the metro Detroit area. On April 9th they will be at Our Lady of Refuge in Orchard Lake after the 5pm Mass , and on April 10th they will be at Assumption Grotto in Detroit speaking after the Noon Mass.

Don't miss it if you can!

Gay Brownshirts on the March!

Latest developments on the "Tolerance is not Enough. You. MUST. Approve!" front:

The Maryland Legislature's session just can't end soon enough for us here! A "Gender Identity Anti-Discrimination Bill" was pushed very quickly (and secretively) through our (more conservative) House this past Friday (3/25) and will probably be given a full (more liberal, if that is even possible) Senate vote this next week.

Among other nuttiness, anyone who is confused about who or what they are can use any sort of public bathroom, and places such as day care centers and schools will be unable to "discriminate against" cross-dressers, "trans-gendered" individuals, and so on. We just narrowly missed officially affirming Gay Marriage, and if this passes it will just shore up the other side's defenses for that issue for next year. Lord help us and have mercy on our state. Please pray that this doesn't pass!

Father, hear our prayer and stop the insanity through Christ our Lord. Amen!

Extremely dodgy and ambiguous archaeological find in Jordan

...triggers usual round of "This could be the biggest thing to hit Christianity since the Resurrection!!!!" claims from archaeologists with one eye on grant monies.

Basic story: It's got some pictures on it that suggest it could be Christian and it's from the area where Christians fled before the sack of Jerusalem in 70 AD. What it means is anybody's guess. Meanwhile, Israel and Jordan are departing from normal political discourse for that reason and fighting about it.

Population Planners are Like Mosquitos

You need to exterminate them by destroying their environment (Government and corporate feed troughs) and their food supply (your tax dollars):



I look forward to the day the last population planner is extinct and the disease of misanthropy and baby hatred they carry is eradicated..

Good News from Portugal!

A reader writes:

I have good news!

The Radical Left Wing Prime-Minister that legalized abortion, artificial procreation, no-fault divorce, compulsory sexual education and homosexual "marriage" in Portugal has RESIGNED after all the other political parties put a break to his economic shenanigans.

Thank you for your prayers. They worked! And just in time... the demissionary Prime-Minister didn't have time to legalize euthanasia.

Of course, that guy is running again in the next elections. They will be in May or June.

So, please, keep praying for the falling of this Pharaoh.

Unfortunately, there aren't many good alternatives... but it is a start, I guess.

Please, oh please, keep up your prayers for Portugal!

Father, hear our prayer for Portugal through Jesus Christ! Our Lady of Fatima and Angel of Portugal, pray for your people!

Chris Chan...

has kindly posted a review of Volume 2 of Mary, Mother of the Son : First Guardian of the Faith, here.

Authors like favorable reviews for much the same reason mothers like hearing, "What a charming, intelligent and beautiful daughter you have!"

Thanks, Chris!

What is Sacred Tradition?

In which we answer the musical question, "What is Sacred Tradition?"