Jumping Without A Chute

Hard At Work

At the Barnes and Noble Book Signing of John Paul II for Dummies, Fathers Brighenti, Toborowski, and Trigilio kept the pens moving.

REMINDER: TONIGHT

If you live in the NY/NJ area. At the Barnes and Noble in Branchburg, NJ (Somerville Circle), Fathers John Trigilio PhD,  Ken Brighenti PhD, and Jay Toborowski MA, SADMP*, will be signing copies of their book John Paul II for Dummies as well as any of the other books they have authored over the years. Stop by and make sure secular bookstores know the importance of Catholic Authors.

*SADMP: Special Agent Diocesan Meat Police

Any Chance We Can Book This Guy To Give A Keynote To The USCCB

From CWN

Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, has urged his followers to take the streets in protest against the human-rights abuses of the country’s government, and use passive resistance to bring down the government.

The archbishop, a frequent critic of the government, told a Thursday news conference in Harare that he was prepared to risk his life in the effort to oust President Robert Mugabe.

“I am ready to stand in front,” Archbishop Ncube said. “We must be ready to stand, even in front of blazing guns.’

Often in the past the archbishop has often called upon citizens to oppose the authoritarian tactics of the Mugabe regime and demand effective government leadership to ease the nation’s severe poverty. But he spoke with unprecedented urgency on March 22, after a series of incidents in which government supporters have arrested, beaten, and killed leading political opponents.

“The biggest problem in Zimbabwe are cowards, myself included,” the archbishop said. “We must get off our comfortable seats and suffer with the people.”

   This isn't liberation theology, this isn't the  no risk, high media impact, grandstanding Gumbleton and Mahony are the masters of. This is being a shepherd. This is witnessing for the Faith.  This isn't releasing a lukewarm statement through the diocesan chancellor, or making an empty gesture after weeks of meeting in committee. Archbishop Ncube may have just signed his own death warrant but at least his flock know their shepherd and he knows them. God Bless him and his people. May the evil that infects Zimbabwe in the person of Robert Mugabe be put to an end.

Maybe They'll Start Feeding Us To The Lions Again

From AsiaNews

Central Jakarta District Court Wednesday sentenced a Muslim militant to 20 years in prison for masterminding the gruesome murder of three Christian schoolgirls in the Central Sulawesi's town of Poso in 2005. The two men who killed the three girls and beheaded them were sentenced instead to 14 years in prison. Given the fact that all three Islamists could have received the death sentence the court’s decision is very lenient. The Indonesian press noted that the sentences corresponded to the demands of the prosecution.

Hasanuddin, who is linked to the terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah, was found guilty of organising the crime, buying the machetes used in the beheading, and writing the notes left near the bodies threatening additional murders.

Continue reading the story

14-20 years. I guess in the most populous Muslim country in the world this is considered "justice."

Where is CAIR to condemn this? Where are those moderate clerics? Where is that mouthipece Ibrahim Hooper to tell me more about the religion of Peace?

The Enemy Within

From CWN

The Pontifical Biblical Institute today played host for the introduction of a new book that questions the accuracy of the Gospels.

The Gospel According to Judas is a fictionalized account of the life of Jesus' betrayer, as told by his son. The book is the product of an unusual collaboration between a novelist and a Scripture scholar: Jeffrey Archer and Father Francis Moloney.

Archer, a British author who has previously specialized in writing thrillers, is also notorious in his native England for having served a prison term for perjury.

Continue reading the story

   Rationalism, secular humanism and gnosticism run amok within a Pontifical Institute! It appears that the smoke of Satan is now a full blown smog with many in the hierarchy happily breathing it in. The institute needs to be suppressed and someone needs to be held accountable for this abomination.

A Request For Help

   On May 19th, 2007 I will be taking part in the 3rd annual Sam Nutter Memorial 5K Run at Sea Girt, NJ. This year the run will be held to raise money for Caitlyn McGuire the daughter of a fellow soldier who is waging a battle against cancer. I am posting this and asking for your help in raising money for Ms. McGuire. to learn more about the run you can visit the Nutter Run Website. At the site, you can donate either by mailing in a donation or through PayPal. If you would like to sponsor me in the run, you can do so by e-mailing me. The Nutter Organization is a non-profit organization and your donations are tax deductible.

   Thank you in advance for your support and, as always, prayers are appreciated too.

No One Expects the Motu Proprio!

From CWN

Italian newspapers are once again reporting the imminent release of a papal document broadening use of the pre-conciliar Latin Mass. Vatican officials remain silent on the topic.

   

A Tale of Two Catholics

Mary Ann Kreitzer at Spero news writes an article contrasting the perspectives, beliefs, opinions, and behavior of two Catholics whose actions recently gained a considerable amount of media attention, Sean Hannity and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace.

Two prominent lay Catholics recently made headlines for their statements on sexual morality: Fox network celebrity and radio talk show host Sean Hannity and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Marine Corps General Peter Pace. One is a cafeteria Catholic who publicly dissents from Church teaching, the other a recipient of the prestigious John Carroll Award for service and commitment to the Catholic faith.

Ms. Kreitzer's article is well written and absolutely right. Hannity's behavior is, by definition, scandalous. I used to enjoy listening to him but as time went on, grew tired of hearing the same topics rehashed as well as the fear mongering he professed before each election. His treatment of Fr. Euteneuer was absolutely despicable and demonstrates that Hannity has become as much a political creature as those who give him the basis for his commentary. Being held morally accountable is something the cultural catholic can not stand and Hannity in this case was no exception. His attempts to shift the focus from his own moral failings to the sex abuse scandal were the tactics of a desperate man looking to justify himself. His fans may have bought it but, God didn't. Hannity should be the poster boy for poor catechesis as his understanding of the faith is so malformed that one wonders what was being taught at Pius X when he attended school there. I would also like to know how much Theology he has actually studied or if this was simply another method to minimize the authority with which Fr. Euteneuer spoke. A disease that seems to affect many cultural catholics in North America is that they feel, based on their understanding of their faith (which is Protestant doctrine par excellence), they are as  much a teaching authority as trained theologians and/or the Pope himself. (Actually this charge could also be leveled at certain heterodox Bishops but, that's a topic for another post.)

   GEN Pace on the other hand is a man I would follow to hell with a gas can and a rope to yank the devil's tail. Not just because of his demonstrated leadership abilities but also because he is man who not only espouses a code, he lives by it. In my own life I have done things of which I was later ashamed. It's been men like GEN Pace who have shown me that it is possible to live up to a code and who have made me a better man as a result. Rather than compromise his ideals and his faith in order to advance, his faith has reinforced and enhanced his abilities as a leader and as a Marine. Through Fear of the Lord, GEN Pace has garnered a reputation that is the envy of every professional warrior. Through fear of public opinion, Hannity has garnered a reputation that is the envy of many in the media.

   I know who I'd rather share a fighting position or a pew with...

Continue reading the article

Thoughts On Sparta

   I have always been a fanatical student of history. In an Irish family where the oral tradition was always revered and in a neighborhood where everyone seemed to be a storyteller, it was history that gripped my mind from an early age.

   My interest in Greek culture began almost from the day I was born. My Great-Grandfather was born on the island of Xios and jumped ship when visiting the states early in the 20th century. Learning about the land of one set of my ancestors seemed only natural. Combine this with a love for military history, philosophy, and theology that emerged in adolescence and the mind is drawn to Greece like a magnet.

   Thucydides, Homer, Aesop, Sophocles, Aristophanes, as well as the big 3 of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are all on the shelf. Next to them are modern writers such as Pressfield, Keegan, and Hanson. The western mind should always remember the Roman god Janus, the one who looked both forward and backward. It is in this that the entire concept of true Liberal Arts education is rooted.

   The release of the movie "300" has many looking backward. While there is definitely some Hollywood style revisionism taking place, the movie has given many cause to do a little reading on their own to learn the facts about the Spartans and the world in which they lived. Yesterday, I found myself giving an impromptu lecture to a group of NCOs and junior officers on the subject of the battle of Thermopylae and how the war with the Persian Empire contributed to setting the stage for the Peloponnesian War that would destroy Greece less than a century later and give rise to the Empire of Alexander.

   I am always happy to see someone find a reason to buy, beg, borrow, or steal a book, it tells me that another human mind is attempting to analyze rather than regurgitate. I am recommending to anyone with an interest in the Battle of Thermopylae that they read Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield. It's a book that will appeal to you whether you are a history buff or just looking for a good read and a little more info. Anyway, I digress...

   Why the interest in Sparta? Where is the appeal? It was a culture that left nothing behind by which a "culture" is judged. No works of art, no music, no architecture, everything was utilitarian in form and function. The aesthetic was contained solely within the person, all else was simply extraneous. Our culture today is the opposite. It's all about stuff. It's about form over function. The human body is shaped and molded not for function but for an aesthetic purpose quite different from that of the Spartans. The agoge where discipline reigned has been replaced by a public school system where anarchy reigns.  Devotion to the Polis and to the gods has been replaced by devotion to the self and the self as a god. Nietzschean existentialism has reached the inevitable train wreck of its natural evolution.

   We have far more in common with the Athenians than the Spartans. The Athenians made the search for packaged truth, (philosophy), a cottage industry. Different packages according to the manufacturer created a free market of ideas much like the one we see today. The democratic model also made the mistake of claiming that all ideas had equal merit, something else our society is guilty of. We are the Athenians of the modern era. We are clad in Armani rather than togas, we gather on the Internet rather than in Academies, and we have  the same intellectual arrogance so often evidenced by the citizens of Athens.

Again, why Sparta? Why is it that Sparta calls to the mind of so many? Is it simplicity? Is it a joy in finding a society that, in its beginning, was beholden to its own truth rather than seeking to embrace and assimilate everyone else's? Is it because we see that in a world of conflict, it isn't platitudes and deep thoughts like those of Athens that get things done; It is the willingness to take action and to understand that conflict is something that must be expected and prepared for, not avoided in the mistaken belief that nothing is worth dying for.

300 Spartans gave their lives in the knowledge that they were buying time. It's hard to find 300 Americans willing to give blood, let alone their lives.  300 Spartans knew that their deaths would mean as much as their lives. We are so afraid of death that we spend most of our lives trying to find ways to avoid it.

   Why Sparta? maybe it's because on some deeper level that we won't admit to, we long to be able to believe in something greater than ourselves...

A Prophet Is Hated In His Own Land

and the Bishop of Rome, (that would be the Pope), is no exception. While he may have been born in Germany, his adoptive countrymen and clergymen have been spending a lot of time drinking at the well of heresy of late. First Cardinal Martini, (the European Chapter President of the We Love Gumbleton Fan Club), states in a homily that the Church "doesn't give orders" such as when it comes to homosexual civil unions. I guess we didn't quite get the translation right in the Hebrew or the Greek when it came to Commandments, maybe they were suggestions. Martini has always been nothing more than a left wing blow hard and its unfortunate although not surprising that he enjoys the ear of the left leaning media. Martini is still smarting from the fact that the Holy Spirit found him wanting in the last Conclave and that he is, whether he likes it or not, nothing more than a theological oddity in the vein of Fox or Spong. It must further gall him to realize that current trends show he will soon surpass the aforementioned heretics in terms of complete irrelevance.

   At the same time, a Church historian, Giusepp Alberigo, has stated in an interview that Pope Benedict XVI is "worse than Pius XII" and that, (and this one had me laughing simply due to its having become such a progressive catholic cliche), "it is difficult to find cohesion between magisterial documents and the spirit of the Second Vatican Council." For a historian, Mr. Alberigo conveninetly forgets some important facts such as the fact that the Holy Father was one of the key people involved in the writing of the Council Documents and would be in a far better position to know the intent of the Council rather than Mr. Alberigo, a historian with a decidedly biased and partisan agenda.

   The more I see of people like this, the more likely it seems that we are to become a remnant Church. So be it, I choose to be a part of a Faith based on universal Truth not universal compromise.