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Seeing red on the internet lately? If not, go visit Cardinal O'Malley's new blog.
Yes, his emminence, Sean Cardinal O'Malley, Archbishop of Boston, has a blog! His initial posts are about his return to Rome as a Cardinal and the Mass for Saint Pio. He has photos too.
Visit and leave him a comment - let him know about Saint Blog's Parish - maybe he'll volunteer to be
See, it is Cool to Be A Catholic Blogger!
Some days I believe we're not actually a democracy but more like a lunatic asylum -- our beloved United States of America that is.
As evidence I offer several items from the news of late:
- The publicity being given to the teacher convicted of having sex with a 14 year old student. The woman is clearly disturbed and by her actions, if by nothing else, must be considered a danger to society. The discussions are largely based around the "double standard" argument - why isn't she in jail if not for the fact that she's blonde and pretty? Is it soley because of her looks that she's garnered this much publicity to begin with! Shame on us all.
- The "analysts" prediction that gasoline prices could plummet to as low as $1.15/gallon! So tell me again why the price/gal had to go as high as $3.10 (for regular where I live)? Yes, yes - I've heard the oil companies propaganda and the pundits claims that there was simply no profiteering involved. I don't believe it for a second. In the meantime many have suffered while a few have prospered.
- The debate over so-called "torture" of terrorist detainees. The discussion is becoming heated again. The popular argument against our using torture seems to be that it will endanger the lives of our own troops. By using torture ourselves we will place in jeopardy our American men and women who could be captured and would be tortured in retribution for what we do. Now I am compelled to ask - if you examine the historical facts you'd come to the conclusion that virtually no state which has held any of our troops as captives during the past 50 years has treated them well never mind not tortured them in some fashion (usually this consisted of starvation, beatings (severe I must add), and psychological stress and trauma. Some of our men were held by the NV communists for almost a decade (Lt. Alvarez, US Navy was shot down & captured in August, 1964!). It is remarkable that today we are arguing about the treatment of people who have proven again and again that they will stop at no barbarity, no inhumanity, and let no innocent get in their way to get what they want. Beheadings, executions with hands bound, beatings and torture, mutilation of bodies. For heaven's sake, even civilian contractors' bodies were strung up from a bridge and burned - all in public. A civilian contractor was filmed being shot after his helicopter was shot down - the shocked, dazed man ordered up onto his feet before being gunned down. And we think loud music in a cold room is too much "discomfort". So why are we worried about what "they" will do to our troops - we already know what they will do becuase they've done it.
- Whilst browsing through some "Our Lady of Sorrows" blog posts I happened upon an earlier post on Recta Ratio's blog from 2005 and in that post a reference to a book by Msgr. Robert H. Benson who, as it happens was a convert to the Church and a writer. A quick Google of his name gave up this site which, among other things, has some photos on display. Unfortunately, I paid for a digital copy of the book before discovering it was available free at the Project Gutenburg site.
Come Rack! Come Rope!
Among the best-known of Benson's works, COME RACK! COME ROPE! tells of the suffering of Catholics under Elizabeth I of England, as shown through the eyes of one Catholic family. Tragedy, divine love, and the doctrine of vocation play important roles in this early novel of faith and spiritual redemption.
Greg and Jennifer Willits of the Rosary Army have been on a short break for a couple of weeks but have resumed podcasting with a 9/13 episode of their Rosary Army Catholic Podcast. Always worth listening to - these two are very entertaining.
That's quite a majority. Interestingly (but not surprisingly) many of those in the minority said they would not want to do it again. Only 9 were "undecided".
What are we talking about? Read British Survey Finds Overwhelming Majority of Women Regretted Abortions
No Pro-Choice propoganda, no massive attack on Pro-Life candidates, no retrofit of the dictionary -- nothing can erase what is indelibly inscribed in our very souls.
Five years . . . at once it seems so long ago and yet so much like it happened just yesterday. I was at work by the time the news of the first crash seemed to flash through the building, indeed through the entire world. It wasn't long before we found a television and saw huge plumes of smoke billowing from New York City's World Trade Center's North Tower. As the news commentators were trying to get information about what had happened and why, the TV cameras captured a second airliner flying directly into the South Tower and millions watched as a tremendous fireball erupted from the building. The numbness began to come over me - my mind and my heart simply couldn't handle the horror that I was seeing.
I have two very strong memories from that day five years ago. Thinking about the people trapped in the airliners and the buildings I was terrified for them. My head and heart were burning with the thoughts of those people and the suffering so many of them would be enduring as the world watched the towers smoking and burning. Perhaps others thought, as I did, that many thousands of people would be at work in those buildings and after burning almost an hour the top floors of the South Tower collapsed causing the entire building to pancake, floor by floor until all that remained was a great cloud of gray dust billowing through downtown Manhattan. If my emotions had been overloaded they were now at the breaking point. I could imagine the thousands of innocent people trapped in that building and their would-be rescuers. The horror of it was simply unsustainable and I began to cry for them.
The second memory is what took place in the hours and days following the WTC towers collapse. The family members, the friends, the husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends - standing on the streets of Manhattan holding pictures of their loved ones that had worked in the WTC Towers and hoping that someone can tell them they had seen them and they were all right. Those people, holding their photos, walking the streets trying -- hoping to find someone they loved - that was the most heartbreaking thing I've witnessed since my tour of duty in Vietnam. I thought I'd never stop crying that week. Most certainly though I will never forget. Never.
Of the thousands who died that day I knew and had worked with the mother of one - he and his son were on one of the planes that were flown into the WTC towers. Many, many others died horribly on September 11, 2001 -- innocent victims of mindless terrorism. That I did not know them personally isn't important. What is important is that they are remembered -- all of them. This post, in memory of those who died in New York City, Washington, DC, and in a Pennsylvania field is dedicated especially to David Fodor who worked with Fiduciary Trust International at the WTC and died in or around the towers on 9/11 2001. For David and all those murdered that day and since - you will never be forgotten. May God bless America and may God bless the families of those we lost.