The De-Deification of the American Faithscape

Stephen Colbert is a Roman Catholic, who knew?



The funny thing about this is the discussion at YOUTUBE. Commenters think he is mocking Roman Catholicism when all he is doing is citing the Creed, the audience on the clip are shouting "Amen" in mockery. Also, YOUTUBERS are expressing incredulity that he could have memorized the Creed:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord; Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended into hell; the third day He arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.

When Charismatic Catholics Attack: Reason 10,203 Why We Won't Ordain Women

This was from a show called "Trading Spouses" which I constantly scan for religious content. Religion comes up constantly! In this episode, a lady from Louisiana visitied a family in central Massachsuetts to go live with Wiccans. Meanwhile the Wiccan lady came down to Louisiana. Oh yeah, you guessed it, the Wiccan was "raised Catholic."

The tough thing to judge is which makes you more nuts: 1) leaving the Church to go Wiccan or 2) staying in Church but going charismatic.

Click on the title link to view the high res file from folks at putfile.com. Click on the video to go to YouTube.

This post is for the webmaster over at Ryan's Smashing Life.

Vatican Chief Excorcist: Hitler and Stalin Possessed by Satan

Commentators taken aback, denounce satanic possession as not the worst that can be said about the two monsters.

The Daily Mail in the U.K. ran a neat story on an insight by Father Gabriel Amorth, the Vatican's chief excorcist:

"I am convinced that the Nazis were all possessed. All you have to do is think about what Hitler - and Stalin did. Almost certainly they were possessed by the Devil.

"You can tell by their behaviour and their actions, from the horrors they committed and the atrocities that were committed on their orders. That's why we need to defend society from demons."

The amazing thing is the scoffing in the comments section that follows the story. To some posters, satanic possession comes off like an endorsement. For example:

The next thing you know the Catholic Church will be telling us that the Earth is the center of the solar system and evolution is a fiction.

Oh great, another magical thinking explanation for murderous behavior. We in the Reality Based World know that both Hitler and Stalin were psychopaths and murderous criminals.
- Pugla46, USA

Nothing magical Mr Pugla, just evil incarnate. Why do you retreat to the murky world of psychology and legalism? Like that is worse than being possessed by Satan? What's your solution psychotherapy and a U.N. resolution?

On the whole earth thing: actually it was an early theory of Roman Catholic Jesuit priest Nikolas Copernicus who postulated the helio-centric universe. This is the theory that fellow Roman Catholic Galileo Galilei fleshed out. Father Copernicus' uncle happened to be the local Roman Catholic Bishop by the way and Unkie funded all of Nikola's scholarship ... so you can thank the Church for that one. Her employees were figuring out and arguing about the Universe while your intellectual ancesters were running around naked, painting themselves blue whilst barking at the moon.

Now I have heard everything! If that is the case then nobody who commits a crime is guilty because "the devil made me do it." And by the same token, nobody who works hard to achieve greatness is responsible for their achievments, let's chalk that up to God.
- Dean Gordon, Dallas Texas, USA

Oh Dean, don't buy the false premise. "If the Devil made them do it" they're still guilty and we're still going to drop bombs, kill them, excorcise them and/or incarcerate them. We're not buying into the ACLU defense. The Church, and any civilization that wants to survive, will not do this. This is why we need to choose sides these days: 5000 years of Judeo-Christian civilization or Satan. Joe Stalin and Adolph Hitler made theirs.

Dean actually demonstrates the ability to think in the second sentence. Yes, everything great thing that we do is attributable to the Almighty (more on that later from the world of futbal).

If the Devil can make a man like Stalin order the deaths of 20,000,000 people, why can't God stop him?
- Michael, Leatherhead, Surrey

An old and thoughtful question, Sir Michael. God permits evil to bring a greater good out of it. Also, God made man to serve Him and oppose evil. He will judge His creations at the end of their short lives on this matter. How are we are doing, so far?

Mary, Mother of God, Bulwark Against Satan

It seems an unlikely opposition: devious, dark angel, tempter of men, Satan being thwarted on Earth by meek and mild St Mary, virgin Mother of Jesus. In the next installment of my reflections on de Monfort's True Devotion to Mary (I'm up to page 35), I ask readers to consider what the venerable Saint point out to us:

God has never made but one enmity; but it is an irreconcilable one...It is between Mary, His worthy Mother, and the devil-between the children and the servants of the Blessed Virgin, and the children and tools of Lucifer.

What Lucifer lost by pride, Mary gained by humility.

The slaves of Belial (Satan), the slaves of Satan, the friends of the world (for it is the same thing), have always up to this time persecuted those who belong to our Blessed Lady, and will in the future persecute them more than ever.

-excerpts from Article III- Providential Function of Mary in the Latter Times, Section 2 -In the formation of Apostles, Subsection 1-In the Struggle Against Satan.

In recent times, in typical proto-Protestant fasion, the devotion to the Virgin Mary has been castigated, ridiculed, pawned off as a superstitious, anachronistic antics of old ladies, a relic of the Middle Ages. This being done mostly by Roman Catholics themselves. It is akin to hating your own mother. Is it not surpising then, to observe the recent "smoke of Satan inside the Church" (quote allegedly the last words of a recent modern era Pope).

Father John Corapi, SOLT, says the Rosary is a sure weapon against Satan. The Rosary, handed to St Dominic by Our Lady, the ultimate Ad Jesu per Mariam-esque prayer form, exists for us. Here's how to pray:

1. Sign of the Cross and Apostles Creed.
2. Our Father.
3. Hail Mary (3 times).
4. Glory be, Announce appropriate First Mystery, and then say the Our Father
5. Hail Mary 10 times (once per bead) while meditating on that mystery
6. Glory be, Fatima, announce next mystery, Our Father (then repeat 5 and 6 as shown in diagram).
7. Glory be, Fatima, Hail Holy Queen, Final Prayer and Sign of the Cross.

Arsenal 0 - Manchester City 1

I could feel this coming. Due to the vagaries of Sentanta Sports programming I did not see the match but I predicted its outcome. Arsenal seems a bit unsettled, the club lost many players this year, there's a few injuries, two cry babies who will not honor their contracts and a new stadium in the mix.

This week powerhouse Chelsea also lost to Middlesboro after taking a 50 minute vacation. I've seen all this before when I was rabidly following NHL hockey. Big time superstars get exhausted and frazzled when competing for their countries in international tournaments and then the regular season hits. Watch for a spate of injuries this season. Perhaps sensing this, one French international star on the Chelsea squad, Claude Makelele has attempted to pull out of his national team but the French national coach threatened to invoke FIFA regulations which would have resulted in a 3 game ban for Claude. I like the French side, especially Makelele, Henry and Ribery but the French coach is an insane pagan (pic at right). He totally believes in astrology and does not even allow anyone with the birth sign of Cancer onto the French team. This got me thinking. Makelele should have declared himself a Cancer, but true professional that he is, he sucked it up and will play.

Meanwhile, Manchester United is on a steady roll, attacking every team, every minute. They are also affected by the exhaustion and injury problem and lowly Watford almost beat them this weekend by they seem to be on a mission.

Liverpool seem okay but somewhat overrated. They need to watch out for the Tottenham Hotspurs (my back-up favorite) as they have been acquiring talent and had relatively fewer players to the World Cup this summer.

Fanatholic Tapping into the Catholic/Football Action

I was doing a little peeking around blooger and ran accross Fanatholic. The post was about a Polish goal keeper in the Scottish Elite League in trouble for doing something religious.I thought, "Hmm, someone else is doing a football/Catholic blog" but I think Fanatholic mainly sticks to pure religion.

I haven't seen too much of the Scottish League on Sentanta sports but I hadn't noticed the religion ban. What is painfully obvious is the religiosity of the players in the English and French League that I have been following intensely for two weeks now. Most of the players cross themselves when entering the pitch and the Muslim fellows do this hands over the face thingy.

To my shock the blog master has a link to this humble blog! Well, his is a professional sort of affair so I recommend his blog highly. Click the title of this post for a direct link and join in on the fun. I'll post a related story shortly.

Editor's note: I'll not be calling my rekindled love by the name of "soccer." It is football. American Football (quasi rugby while wearing ABS plastic) will be referred to as American Football.

Researchers: Liberals are not breeding

In happier news: Arthur C. Brooks in the Wall Street Journal writes

Liberal politics will prove fruitless as long as liberals refuse to multiply.

The midterm election looms, and once again efforts begin afresh to increase voter participation. It has become standard wisdom in American politics that voter turnout is synonymous with good citizenship, justifying just about any scheme to get people to the polls. Arizona is even considering a voter lottery, in which all voters are automatically registered for a $1 million giveaway. Polling places and liquor stores in Arizona will now have something in common.

On the political left, raising the youth vote is one of the most common goals. This implicitly plays to the tired old axiom that a person under 30 who is not a liberal has no heart (whereas one who is still a liberal after 30 has no head). The trouble is, while most "get out the vote" campaigns targeting young people are proxies for the Democratic Party, these efforts haven't apparently done much to win elections for the Democrats. The explanation we often hear from the left is that the new young Democrats are more than counterbalanced by voters scared up by the Republicans on "cultural issues" like abortion, gun rights and gay marriage.

But the data on young Americans tell a different story. Simply put, liberals have a big baby problem: They're not having enough of them, they haven't for a long time, and their pool of potential new voters is suffering as a result. According to the 2004 General Social Survey, if you picked 100 unrelated politically liberal adults at random, you would find that they had, between them, 147 children.

The possible causes of the low birth rate are to numerous to list here. Possible causes could be
1) basic misanthropism as evidenced by in the article:

As one liberal columnist in a major paper graphically put it, "Maybe the scales are tipping to the neoconservative, homogenous right in our culture simply because they tend not to give much of a damn for the ramifications of wanton breeding and environmental destruction and pious sanctimony, whereas those on the left actually seem to give a whit for the health of the planet and the dire effects of overpopulation.

2) high average income as evidenced in certain Massachusetts towns.
3) inability to conceive (see picture)
4) high rates of abortion (note Democrat Party positons)
5) high rates of birth control/late marriage.

The abortions (being murders) are the cause of much grieving. I've come accross women who spent their 20s and a good chunk of their 30s taking pills which prevent birth. This not only leads to high rates of breast cancer, but also causes obeisity and depression. Ultimately it plays right into infidelity, divorce, an unhappy middle age and a desperate old age.

Monks brawl at peace protest

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Protesters calling for an end to recent violence in Sri Lanka found themselves brawling with hardline Buddhist monks Thursday, after a rally dubbed a "peace protest" turned unexpectedly violent.

Organizers said there were around 1,000 people in a park in the capital, Colombo, listening to a range of speakers when hardline saffron-robed monks opposed to concessions to Tamil Tiger rebels mounted the stage and erected banners.

Some more moderate Buddhist monks, protesting for peace, were already on the stage when punches were thrown. Soon, monks' robes and fists were flying, although no one was badly hurt, witnesses said.

"They were saying we should go to war," said pro-peace monk Madampawe Assagee. "We like to listen to other opinions so we let them do that but then they started fighting and we couldn't control some of our people. They tried to make it a big fight but we settled it in a few minutes."

These saffron-robed monks would be no match for these ladies:

Ribery staying in Marseilles, (for now).

Franck Ribery, who caught my eye during the World Cup, has been back and forth on where he is going to go. He's 23, an attacking forward and he made quite a showing at the Cup for France. He plays for Marseilles in the French top league. There were exciting rumours of his going to Arsenal at the suggestion of Team France teammate Theirry Henry.

Henry, a striker, is not easy to hook up with, which is something that even my novice football eyes picked up while watching a few of the France matches. This was confirmed when I wandered over to the Arsenal message boards. The Gunner fans over there like him but Henry is like a fine wine around which you debate back and forth what dish to serve it with.

The editorial position of Ad Jesu per Mariam is that we'd like to see him play in the English Premier League but maybe this is not the year for him. Euro Cup is coming (qualifiers are ongoing) and Franck is a family man. Besides, yours truly just scored a subsciption to Santanta Sports on DirecTV for the whopping sum of $12.00 month thru which I'll see approximtely 100 French, English, German, Irish and Spanish League games. I'll be able to slake my thirst for the excitement generated by Ribery.

Note on Franck: the scar on his face is from an auto accident suffered at the age of 2. Now, now, don't feel sorry for him. He'll be a millionaire soon enough and I've seen pictures of his lovely wife, Whahiba, cheering him from the stands. He's leading a blessed life. I truly believe he will inherit the mantle from Zidane.

Latest wire: Marseilles 2 - Rennes 0 . Ribery was all over the place, attacking at the 80th minute! Santanta Sports rules. Thank you DirecTV.

Moscow, Russia 1987

St. Basil's Russian Orthodox Cathedral in the far distance to the left, the State Historical Museum front and center and that's the Kremlin to the right. In between all these building is Red Square. Click the hyperlinks for more info.
photo credit: Yours truly at the brash age of 18.

As a senior in high school I had the opportunity to go to Moscow and Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Russia. This is the first in a series of posts musing on the significance of that trip.

The big XX on the billboard denotes the Twentieth anniversay of something or other being celebrated by the Communist Party which still had a choke-hold on that country at that time.

This picture is symbolic. You have St. Basil's (16th Century), the Kremlin (12 Century), the State Historical Museum (19th Century) all pertaining to Christianity in Russia dating back to the 9th Century. As a superficial layer, just like the superficial billboards, you had 70 year old Communism. The people did not believe in it, they told me so. Rip down the garish billboard and whoola! Communism gone. Losing the Communism, however, was like losing a layer of skin, it left a vulnerable sore spot and a scar. Russia has that today in the miserable corruption, rampant alcoholism, abortion and general malaise.

They should try capitalism with heavy doses of Christianity ala' Poland and the Ukraine. It would, however, require everyone getting off their duff and getting to work. They might also want to refrain from murding their children in the womb, it might stem the population free-fall.

MA Gov. Mit Romney Dispatches State Police, National Guard and Girls Playing Dress Up to Logan International Airport

credit: AP photo

Hmm, which one of these Massachusetts State troopers makes you feel safer? Conversely, if you were a terrorist, which trooper would intimidate you?

The trooper on the right? Notice the eyes and that ominous finger very close to the trigger.

Or, the trooper on the left? concerned about the photographer, holding that assault rifle like a Gucci bag, and walking like a toy soldier from the Nutcracker. She didn't even press her pants.

This is a picture of a nation only half willing to protect itself, more concerned about political correctness than internal security.

Godzilla, Evil Zionist Oppressor

Photo Credit: Reuters (incl. special cut and paste smoke) (Godzilla from a blog somewhere)

There have been so many amateurish photoshopped pictures coming from pro-terrorist news sources like Reuters, CNN and Al Jazeera (see here, here, here, here) that is time that the truth finally come out.

International Zionists and their Christian lackeys have unleashed their most powerful weapon on the innocent rocket firing residents of South Lebabanon and South Beirut: Godzilla. The Editor in Chief of Ad Jesu Per Mariam has summoned the journalistic integrity and courage to transmit this shocking picture to the world. You see? Godzilla even has the name of God in it. What more proof do you need that all these wars are caused by people who believe in God.

These God believers will not confine themselves to upper middle class, white, exclusive suburbs like Belmont, MA, nor will they bide their time, indulge their athiesm, stoke their 401-K, listen to Pink and Barbara Streisand songs all the while plying their corporate careers. No, these God Believers are out there, living in places like Tel Aviv, Israel and Lowell, MA, USA ... plotting their God inspired war-like plans.

Real Men Play Ice Hockey in Cassocks

Check out this video from a seminary that trains men in the Traditional Latin Mass, exclusively.

Basketball, softball, aggessive ice sledding, ice hockey in a cassock (the traditional dress of Roman Catholic priests) ... no problem.

Something tells me that these seminarians used to date girls when they were in high school and undergrad.