But not all pro-lifers need to wait until Election Day to vote. Many states offer voters the option to cast
their ballots when it's convenient for them, through absentee ballots, early voting, or even through the mail.

Voting regulations vary from state to state. For details, contact your
state or county Board of Elections by phone or visit the board's web site.
The Internet is also a convenient place to find voter registration forms,
absentee ballot applications, and specific details about where and how to
vote. A useful clearinghouse for election information can be found at
www.nrlpac.org.

Every state offers absentee voting. Some require a specific reason for
voters to be allowed to vote absentee, such as being out of town on Election
Day or in a hospital or nursing home. Voters need to first request an
absentee ballot and then turn it back in by fax or mail or in person. Check
your local voter registration office and regulations for information.

Early voting is a recent development in elections. In Florida, all registered voters can cast their ballots beginning 15 days before the election at sites designated by each county’s election board. These sites can include election supervisors’ offices, City Halls, and public libraries.  

Floridians can also request an absentee ballot to be sent by mail, which they then send back after marking their choices. They do not need the ballots to be signed by witnesses, which had been the requirement in the past.  

“I think both types of early voting help to get more people to the polls,” Robin Hoffman, president of Florida Right to Life, told NRL News. “Sometimes a group will get together, have everyone bring absentee ballots, and have a party. It’s another way to encourage people to vote.”  

The hurricane season has caused problems for pro-lifers, but it also shows the advantages of having a longer time for voting. “We lost power in our offices for a week, so it’s been challenging,” Hoffman said. “But we hope pro-lifers will vote as soon as they can, since you never know what the weather’s going to be on Election Day!”

Georgia voters can choose to cast their ballots on Monday to Friday the week before November 2 in their county voter registration office. Voters do not need to have a reason to take advantage of the extended voting period.

Other states that allow voters to cast their ballots in person before
Election Day, without needing a reason, include Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii,
Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee,
Texas, Vermont, and West Virginia.

Oregon is the only state that conducts elections by mail, sending a
voting packet to each registered voter. The ballots will be mailed between
October 15 and 19 to all voters registered by October 12. Voters mail back
their ballots before Election Day or turn them in at a designated drop-off
site.

No matter how the ballots are cast, pro-lifers need to make sure each and
every friend of the unborn casts a vote for life in the 2004 election. In
addition to education about the positions of each candidate, right to lifers
should educate voters about their state's election procedures so that each
pro-life vote is counted

The Pilgrim's Regress
C.S. Lewis, read by Roger Whitfield, Blackstone Audiobooks (unabridged), five cassettes, $39.95

What is the purpose of desire? C.S. Lewis's allegory of conversion, The Pilgrim's Regress, answers this question through the journey of a boy named John. In Robert Whitfield's masterful reading of this classic work, both the smooth, rhythmic cadence of his narrative voice and a broad range of convincing dramatic voices immerse us quickly and memorably in the land of Puritania.

After wandering away from his home, John sees a vision of a beautiful island. Right away, he wants nothing other than to go there. He visits the site of the vision often, but one day it does not appear. Instead, a girl arrives and tells John that she is what he truly desires. He goes with her into the woods, forgetting about the island. After some time, he leaves her and seeks out the island anew.

Just as sins of the flesh tempt him away from his true desire, the sins of the intellect work on John as well. Mr. Enlightenment (Rationalism), Media Halfways (Escapism), and Sigismund (Psychologism) all tell John in various ways that his island does not exist. Only after encounters with Reason, Mr. Wisdom, and Mother Kirk (Christianity) is John able to escape doubt and despair. Eventually he finds his island.

At the heart of Lewis's book is an apology for Christian anthropology. In one section, Mr. Wisdom tells John about the difference between his soul and his body. The important point to grasp, says Mr. Wisdom, is that what the soul wants, the body can never possess if full-at least in this life. However, John should not give up and choose base pleasures just because they are more easily obtained than the deeper pleasure of contemplating God. When his body leads his soul, John is nothing but disappointed. But when his soul leads his body-that's the point where life becomes a true adventure: "Out of the soul's bliss overflows the pleasures of the body."

In a world that has lost its sense of God largely because it has lost its capacity for awe and wonder, this audiobook is a gem. John's island (Heaven) is a vision for all of us to rediscover, because in the end, God desires us to desire Him.

If you are interested in similar stories, read John Bunyan' s Pilgrim's Progress (on which Lewis's story is loosely based), "The Celestial Rail-Road" by Nathanial Hawthorne, "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World: A Tale for Children" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Peter Kreeft's Heaven, the Heart's Deepest Longing

Pro-life efforts rarely make the front page, much less above the fold. In fact, it seems the only time pro-life demonstrations make the evening news is when a handful of abortion activists peddle their pitch to sympathetic media ears across the street from our crowd of protestors.

It took the !events of September 11 to put death back in the headlines. This time it wasn't the death of the unborn but the ghastly, tragic death of thousands who also did not deserve to die.

A trauma of this magnitude is bound to teach us much about ourselves-to expose the strengths and
weaknesses of individual and corporate character. Most of what we have learned about ourselves, about our much-derided, decadent culture, has been a welcome surprise: the long-ignored courage and sacrifice of our police, firemen, and armed forces, along with the deep generosity of a philanthropic nation ready to help those who lost friends and family.

But not all the reports have been so edifying. There have been disappointments as well. For example, we have all heard rumblings through pro-life communities, both Protestant and Catholic, that America got what it deserved for harboring a culture of death. Some have said that the towers of the World Trade Center were symbol!s of America's godlessness, of its greed, its gross commercialism, and its trade in baby-killing.

Other pro-lifers have complained about the volume of public grief over the events of September 11: How can we lament so loudly, they ask, when nothing is said about the unborn?

You may be thinking these comments are from a radical fringe. They are not. They began shortly after September 11 with the televised statements of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and have persisted in spite of the subsequent apologies of those two men.

In these attitudes-revealed suddenly by the flash of an immense tragedy-we can see one reason why the pro-life movement has reached an impasse: It has come to suffer from spite. Such comments suggest that a passionate protest against one form of evil has led some pro-lifers to begrudge the grief of those who suffer from another. Obeying the gospel admonition to "love thy enemy" i!s difficult. Hating the enemies of life infuses the pro-life message with an unfortunate bitterness.

Don't get me wrong-I understand how and why these thoughts and feelings can arise. Year after year, we watch children die. They die in the name of love and happiness; they die in the name of equal rights and freedom. How can we not get angry, or be tempted to spite? How can we not pray for the moment when this truth is revealed to all who deny it, who scorn it, laugh at it?

Because children continue to die in this way, all other causes of death seem to pale in comparison. In other words, how can anyone be upset with terrorism when abortion goes on and on?

Those who aim the highest will always face the greatest of spiritual temptations-in this case, the temptation to pride and envy in the cause of defending life. Could anything but pride exploit the September 11 disaster as proof of a given cause, even the pro-life cau!se? Is it anything but envy that begrudges mourning the thousands who died in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the four downed airliners?

Now is the time for showing a compassion that isn't reserved for only one group of victims, no matter how large, no matter how innocent. Many souls have been shaken in the wake of this tragedy. The witness of the Church must be heard without the dissonant voices of pent-up frustrations and resentful "I-told-you-so's."

The concern for innocent life can be a new common ground for evangelical outreach. It's an opportunity for Americans to hear the gospel without spite or bitterness. The pro-life community surely has a large enough heart to embrace the suffering of those who have rejected its pleas.

Why Blue-Collar Catholics Won’t Vote Republican

Florida might not be synonymous with hand counts and butterfly ballots if Catholics in Pennsylvania had preferred George W. Bush to Al Gore in Election 2000. If Bush had won the Catholic vote in Pennsylvania, he would have carried that key swing state, garnering almost enough (just two short) Republican electoral votes to win the White House without Florida.

Bush’s undeniably strong pro-life credentials, along with his generally more traditional views on other moral issues, should have endeared him to Pennsylvania Catholics, a predominantly blue-collar group. Catholics in Pennsylvania, however, went 53 percent for Gore and only 46 percent for Bush, rallying around a Democratic candidate whose absolutist pro-choice stand was diametrically opposed to the social teachings of the Catholic Church. Catholics in other swing states that Bush hoped to carry voted similarly, nearly throwing the electoral college to Gore.

Catholics as a whole have begun to mirror the general population’s voting habits, but blue-collar Catholics like the ones who predominate in Pennsylvania continue to side disproportionately with the Democratic Party, in spite of its support for abortion and gay rights. Herein lies the paradox of the blue-collar Catholic voter. Understand him or her, and you increase your chances of becoming president.

The Republican National Committee (RNC), well aware of this trend, has recently set up an outreach to this traditionally Democratic segment of the population. It is the first time the RNC has attempted to recruit Catholics outside an election cycle, and it represents a change from a reactive to a proactive posture with regard to the Catholic voter.

Many political scientists regard Catholics as a critical swing group. In a tight election, they say, Catholics can determine the outcome. Before Ronald Reagan ran for president in 1980, Catholics traditionally favored Democrats in national elections. But they swung to the socially conservative Republican Reagan twice, the second time helping him retain the White House in 1984. By 1992, however, Catholics were returning to their Democratic Party roots, supporting Bill Clinton, a doughty champion of abortion and gay rights.

Clinton won 44 percent of the Catholic vote in 1992, as compared with only 34 percent of Protestants that year. In 1996, 53 percent of Catholics supported Clinton, while only 35 percent of Protestants did so. Clinton locked up eight of the nine states with the largest Catholic populations in 1992 and 1996: California, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, while only Texas remained in the Republican column. Gore managed to keep six of these nine states in the Democratic column, while losing Texas, Ohio, and Florida to Bush. Gore’s victories in these states with large Catholic populations came directly from the urban and industrial areas of these states, where blue-collar Catholics typically form a larger portion of the total population.

Microcosm of Catholicism

When it comes to the Catholic vote, Pennsylvania is a microcosm of the nation, the perfect place to pose the question: Why do Catholics vote the way they do? Catholics are the largest single religious group in Pennsylvania, comprising about a third of the population. There are ten Catholic dioceses in the state: eight are Latin-rite, and two are Byzantine-rite. Most Catholics in Pennsylvania are Democrats. Their clout is felt in Erie in the northwest, Pittsburgh in the southwest, the economically depressed Rust Belt, Scranton in the northeast, and Philadelphia in the southeast. All these places send a large number of Democrats to the state legislature. By contrast, parts of the state with a larger Protestant population such as Lancaster County in the southeast, and even outlying areas of Democrat-controlled Erie County, tend to elect Republicans to state offices.

One reason is simply a long-standing image problem Republicans face: Many blue-collar Catholics view the Republican Party as the party of the rich. Consequently, they vote with the Democrats because they view the Democratic Party as the protector of the poor and powerless. "Catholics," Rev. Nicholas DeProspero, pastor of St. John the Baptist, a Byzantine-rite church in Pottstown, explains, "vote for Democrats because their parents and grandparents were Democrats. Democrats are seen as being for the poor and workers, and the Republicans favor the rich.

"Labor issues and money trump everything else," the priest continues. "The Democrats have been extremely adept in waging class warfare and exciting jealousy of the rich. Moral issues [such as abortion] are not strong enough to break down old stereotypes. They think the Democrats will take care of you, and they think that government is the answer. The Democrats hand out things to win votes. They say, ‘I’ll give you this if you vote for me.’"

Democratic strategists have done a good job of exploiting class antipathy, while the Republican Party all too often has failed to make the case that it is now more the party of the people than the Democrats. "The Republicans only care about the rich. They don’t want anybody but the rich to get anything," says a parishioner at the Latin-rite St. Thomas More Church in North Coventry, Pennsylvania. He is a retired member of the Teamsters Union.

"I voted for Al Gore because the economy is good, and we are not at war," says a member of the Latin-rite St. Agnes Church in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Another retired union member, he adds that a woman has a "constitutional right" to an abortion and "should only answer to God."

adjustrightMany working-class Catholics equate Republican-supported right-to-work laws, which weaken unions, with the loss of their jobs. In explaining his support for the Democrats, one Pennsylvania union man says, "When Reagan was president, all our jobs went out of the country." Other Catholics remember the implosion of American manufacturing during the 1970s and 1980s and regard it as a result of Republican policies.

The Democratic Safety Net

Blue-collar Catholics often say that they are closer to the Democratic Party positions on issues relating to assistance for the poor, health care, and a government safety net. The U.S. hierarchy itself sometimes seems to encourage this very position. In 1999, the bishops issued an influential document titled Faithful Citizenship: Civic Responsibility for a New Millennium. In it, Catholics were called on to consider a candidate’s stance on abortion. Issues such as wages, assistance for the poor, and affordable health care, however, seemed to be of equal weight. Critics of the bishops’ document have insisted that it did not adequately focus on the abortion issue, instead making abortion only one of many issues for Catholic voters to consider. Thus, bishops have, in many cases, set an overall tone closer to that of the Democratic Party than to that of the GOP by favoring such things as opposition to the death penalty, labor unions, rights for the sick and the dying, and opposition to the U.S. military buildup of the 1980s.

Many lay Catholics can’t help but see the bishops forging an agenda that creates a natural alignment with left-of-center Democrats. As Rev. Thomas Reese, S.J., a former political scientist at Georgetown University and editor of America, the Jesuit magazine, noted in a 1995 National Public Radio forum, "The Republicans, with their position on abortion and their position on aid to religiously affiliated schools, are very attractive. On the other hand, when you look at issues like welfare reform, the earned-income tax credit, all sorts of programs that are aimed at helping poor people, the bishops and the Democratic Party are much closer together. In fact, the bishops are much more liberal than the Democratic politicians are today."

Paul Weber, a political scientist at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, wrote an article last year in America, saying, "A solid majority of Catholics are economic liberals, pro-safety net, pro-progressive taxation, pro-labor unions, pro-foreign aid, pro-environmental protection, and pro-government regulation of industry and consumer products—all traditional Democratic themes."

What this boils down to is that the Catholic voter often faces a special dilemma in the voting booth. A recent expression of this sometimes painful dichotomy came from an Ohio Catholic: "I am one of the Catholics who voted for Gore for president, and I believe that the right-to-life issue is the most important issue we face in our society today," Jack Keane wrote to the diocesan newspaper in Youngstown, Ohio. He added, "I believe letting a child die from hunger is a terrible thing. I believe letting our aged die alone, neglected, and in poverty is a terrible thing. As a whole, I consider the Democratic Party to be more in tune with the social-justice issues that our bishops have asked us to take into consideration when making our political decisions."

Pro-Choice Republicans

But the bishops aren’t the only leaders whose positions confuse voters. The presence of vocal pro-choice Republicans has led some Catholic Democrats to conclude that there aren’t any real differences between the two parties on the abortion issue. Indeed, Pennsylvania is home to a number of highly visible pro-choice Republicans, including Senator Arlen Specter and Governor Tom Ridge, who is a Catholic. Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, Pennsylvania, banned Ridge from speaking on Church property because of his pro-choice views. In the Bush cabinet, Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey and now Environmental Protection Agency secretary, is another prominent pro-choice Republican. Many Catholics look at it this way: The Democratic Party favors abortion, while I do not; but though the Republican Party officially opposes abortion, its members speak with a divided mind on the issue.

Some say that the Catholic voter is no different from others on the issue of abortion. While this may be the case for lapsed Catholics, Mass-going Catholics are likely to accept the Church’s teaching. The truth is that people want clear leadership, not mixed signals. Like the bishops, the Republican Party in Pennsylvania often sends a confused message. Republicans in the state, and in the rest of the Northeast for that matter, don’t speak with a single voice on abortion. "There is a battle for the soul of the party right now over the issue of abortion," says Julia McDonald, a Chester County GOP committee member who is pro-life. She says that pro-choicers constitute the majority of the Chester County Republican Committee.

This doesn’t mean that pro-life forces aren’t powerful. The 1990 gubernatorial election was a case in point of the Pennsylvania GOP’s equivocal position on abortion’s possibly costing the party the election. A staunchly pro-choice Republican, Barbara Hafer, the state’s auditor general, ran against the late Robert Casey, a steadfastly pro-life Democrat. Abortion was a hot issue in the 1990 campaign. Hafer’s support for abortion was likely the key factor in Casey’s landslide victory, the largest in the history of the state.

A small third party in Pennsylvania, the Constitutional Party, is composed largely of former Republicans who can’t stomach what they regard as the GOP’s wishy-washy attitude toward abortion. The Constitutional Party’s founder is Peg Luksik, a pro-life Catholic and erstwhile Republican. She has run three times for governor, winning a surprising 14 percent of the total vote in 1994. This is a strong showing for a small, relatively new party. "We need the Constitutional Party because the Republicans are not conservative enough, and the Republican Party is not strong enough on the abortion issue," says John McLaughlin, a Catholic member of the new party. "The Constitutional Party has a strong Catholic leadership, and I think that it wants what is good for America. You just have to vote on your conscience.

The ‘Caseycrat’ Difference

As the relative success of the fledgling Constitutional Party shows, a pro-life stance can win votes. The career of Robert Casey is probably the best evidence that opposing abortion, when combined with attractive stands on other issues, is a big draw for the Catholic voter. Casey was an old-fashioned Democrat and the epitome of the Catholic pro-lifer who championed the right to life from conception to old age. Casey always showed courage defending his faith against his party’s leadership, standing as a vocal critic of the pro-choice hierarchy of the Democratic Party. Ultimately, Casey’s opposition to abortion made him a pariah among the most radical Democrats. He was banned from speaking at the 1992 Democratic National Convention in New York. He continued to insist until his death last year that only the pro-life stance reflected the Democratic Party’s traditional commitment to the weak and the powerless.

When arguing before his party’s platform committee that he had a right to speak at the convention, Casey said, "Our party has always been the voice of the powerless and the voiceless. They have been our natural constituency. Let us add to this list the most powerless and voiceless member of the human family: the unborn child. We have an obligation to protect and promote the health and well-being of all mothers."

While Casey strongly opposed abortion, he clung to traditional Democratic positions such as support for unions, expanded aid to poor women and children, an increase in funding for welfare programs, and state-supported health care. He pushed through the largest tax increase in Pennsylvania history to support his social programs. Casey made his Catholic faith the centerpiece of his political career, and like the Catholic hierarchy, he took staunchly conservative stances on abortion and other moral issues and very liberal stances on socioeconomic issues.

Casey represented values that many Pennsylvania Catholics still cherish. "Caseycrats" aren’t comfortable with the Democratic Party that emerged during the 1960s as the party of alternative lifestyles and what Pope John Paul II has branded the "culture of death." While Caseycrats have an aversion to gay rights, pornography, and abortion, they still have high regard for the New Deal and don’t trust the Republican emphasis on limited government. Like many other churchgoing Catholics, Caseycrats worry that Republicans are too materialistic, too fascinated with economic policy.

Wooing the Blue Collars

All of this suggests that if the Republican Party is to attract more Catholics, it will have to do two things: convince them that it’s serious about the rights of the unborn and show them that the GOP is better for ordinary folks than the Democratic Party. Bush has admittedly gone a long way toward addressing some of these concerns. The president believes that the way to attract Catholics into the GOP is by focusing on issues such as education, taxes, Social Security, and Medicare, in addition to abortion. The Bush administration knows that it’s going to have to change the way people think. For example, Democrats have long stood for higher taxes to support social programs. Bush believes that the burden of heavy taxation ultimately harms working Americans, preventing families from purchasing many of life’s necessities.

To win over blue-collar Catholics, the Republicans are going to have to show that many of the programs beloved of Democrats are actually harmful to the poor. Marvin Olasky, whose work has influenced Bush’s brand of compassionate conservatism, has been trying to help Republicans frame the issues in a new way. Olasky argued in his seminal 1992 book, The Tragedy of American Compassion, that the welfare state has had a devastating effect on the poor. Olasky’s thesis is that the impersonal welfare bureaucracy has eroded values and the values-oriented concept that was once beneficial to the poor and vulnerable members of society.

"We want to put more money in the pockets of union households so they can take care of their families," says Ana Gamonal, a co-coordinator of the RNC’s national outreach to Catholics. She adds that the Bush administration wants to increase the earned-income tax credit from $500 to $1,000, which would benefit families. "The Republican Party places heavy emphasis upon school-choice initiatives and testing as a way to help people who want to remove their children from failing public schools," Gamonal says.

Loyalty to unions has kept many Catholics in the Democratic Party. But are the unions still loyal to their members? "The unions no longer exist for the protection of workers," Gamonal insists. "They exist now solely as a fund-raising machine for the Democratic Party. They exist to promote a left-wing agenda that has nothing to do with protecting their workers. We will be working with pro-labor Republican officials in the Northeast to organize union members."

Furthermore, says Gamonal, the RNC has committed itself to the pro-life cause in keeping with the party platform and Bush’s own pro-life beliefs. "There is no question of which party is the pro-life party," she says. The RNC points to Bush’s suspension of federal funding for International Planned Parenthood as a visible example of the Bush administration’s support for the pro-life cause. The RNC does not take a position on the pro-choice stances taken by individual Republicans, saying only that their views do not represent those of the party on the national level. "We cannot do anything about where individuals stand on the pro-life issue, but the Republican Party is unquestionably pro-life on the federal level," Gamonal says.

Will this be enough to win the king-making Catholic vote in heavily Catholic blue-collar swing states such as Pennsylvania in the future? Only the results of the 2004 election will answer that question.

As I'm sure you already know, the pope called the American cardinals to Rome for a meeting last year on the current sexual abuse scandal. Frankly, no one is sure what specific points they discussed, though we all hope that some kind of progress was made.

This is a truly dark time for the American Church -- surely its lowest point in history. Orthodox laypeople need to step forward now and help repair the damage done by some of our shepherds.

With that in mind, I want to suggest 8 discussion points for the Bishops to consider now that the meetings are over. This isn't exhaustive, and if you think of additional points, please email me. Also, I know that some of these points are controversial (not even my wife agrees with me on all of them).

Nevertheless, this is a crisis for the Church, and needs to be treated as such.

Let me know what you think.

The 8 Points Rome Needs To Consider Are:

1. The root cause of the present crisis in the Church is the presence of active homosexuals in the seminaries and rectories. For decades, certain bishops and their administrators have allowed an active gay subculture to flourish in the American priesthood. It's time to do something about that.

2. Active homosexuals ought to be banned from the seminary and removed from the priesthood. This may be painful, but it's absolutely necessary -- not only because they've chosen to violate their vows of celibacy, but for prudential reasons: Homosexual men are 3 times more likely to abuse minors than their heterosexual counterparts. If we're really serious about protecting our kids, we just can't take that kind of a risk.

3. A bishop's first response to the news that a priest has sexually abused a minor shouldn't be administrative or "therapeutic." It ought to be spiritual and moral. He's a shepherd. His job is to keep wolves out of the sheepfold. He's dealing with a scandalous betrayal of priestly vows -- a betrayal that puts souls in jeopardy. Any bishop who can't understand this is unfit for the office.

4. In some cases, the local bishop has been so shamefully negligent that the only meaningful form of apology is resignation. Sexual predators have been moved from parish to parish, their crimes covered up and the families of victims bullied or bought into silence. The solution isn't just instituting new procedures but installing bishops who understand the responsibilities of their office.

5. At what point should a sexually predatory priest be defrocked? Isn't sex with a minor serious enough to institute a "one strike and you're out" policy? And if a priest has committed a criminal act, shouldn't he be turned over to the civil authority?

6. One of the most important duties of a bishop is to run a good seminary which will attract devout and intelligent young men and give them sound formation for the priesthood. It's no secret that many American seminaries have turned into "pink palaces" where heterosexual men are unwelcome. Are some seminaries so corrupt that they ought to be closed down? Or transferred over to orthodox orders? Should seminary education in the United States be monitored by a central authority for a period?

7. The current scandals clearly demonstrate the failure of the "therapeutic culture" which has invaded the Church. For decades, many Church administrators thought that the way to deal with sexual predators among the clergy was to rely on "experts" in the psychiatric profession. Unfortunately, these same "experts" were quick to label their patients as normal and harmless after a few months of counseling. While therapies may have their place in some cases, the basic problem is moral and spiritual. No counselor is going to cure that.

8. This crisis presents an enormous opportunity for legitimate reform and renewal within the Church. Orthodox Catholics should finally pay attention to the documents of Vatican II, which are an antidote to the stranglehold of clericalism in the American church. Frankly, in too many dioceses, there's a closed and arrogant clerical culture, which ignores the many orthodox laypeople who have real expertise in areas like management and organization. I'm not calling for the "clericalization" of the laity or agitating for the liberal agenda of Church dissenters. All I'm saying is that the hierarchy needs to grow out of the old ways of doing things, which often involves protecting disgraced priests and ignoring the legitimate needs of the laity.

While the Democratic primary has gotten more interesting with Senator John Edwards' strong showing Tuesday in Wisconsin, it still looks like Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts will be going head-to-head with President Bush in this fall's election.

An election year demands a certain perspective about where our great, increasingly adrift, nation stands in the world. We have been nettled over France lately, with good reason. France claims political and cultural importance, a sad self-deception for a once-great nation. And then there’s Italy. No one—especially Italians—thinks of Italy as politically important, though it has been a welcome ally in Iraq. But Italy is special, a country many of us believe we might live in if we weren’t Americans. 

The “fatal beauty” (Byron) of Italy trumps everything else because most people go home after a brief stay. Unless you have wrestled with the Italian bureaucracy, or lost hours to the ineptness of Italian government and businesses, you don’t realize how uncharming a country it can sometimes be (Italians spend two weeks a year tangled up in lines and have a term for it: lentocrazia). So don’t underestimate the colorless but reliable Calvinist ethos in America that keeps things moving.

Many writers have tried to parse out the lovable improvisation and distressing chaos that is Italy. One of the most lively recent attempts is British journalist Tobias Jones’s The Dark Heart of Italy: An Incisive Portrait of Europe’s Most Beautiful, Most Disconcerting Country (North Point Press). Dark Heart appeared last year in England and achieved great success in Italy, even before being translated. It came out this year in America. As the title makes clear, there are worse things than maddening inefficiencies in Italy. Jones tries to assess them by the novel approach of applying the same standards that we use for other places. He still loves Italy (he married an Italian woman and lives in Parma) but has freed himself from the usual British Romanticism, at least on public affairs. And despite some exaggerations, he has painted a suitably complex portrait of a seductive subject.

The biggest puzzle for any outsider is how Italy can be at once a spontaneous chaos and a func-
tioning society (forget Hay- ek and “spontaneous order”; the Italians scoff at such grandiose ideas). In a country so chaotic, the social glue comes from direct acquaintance with persons in various client networks and  hierarchies, an assembly of big and little, innocuous and dangerous mafias, because the rule of law means little and anyone who tried to follow all the rules would soon find himself penniless, in a lunatic asylum. (Regulation junkies, please note: Italy has more laws than any other country in Europe.)

 The “dark heart” of Jones’s title, however, reminds us that behind the good humor and improvisation lie some nasty struggles. Few people know that Italy has had “low-intensity terrorism” for years. Except for notorious cases—the kidnapping of the Christian Democrat Aldo Moro by the Red Brigades in 1978, or the bomb set in Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, or the assassination of several anti-Mafia judges and prosecutors—the thousands of lesser incidents remain little noted. Yet because of lingering fascism and a large and nasty Communist Party, Italy was one of the ideological battlegrounds during the Cold War, with almost 500 people dead from “the late 1960s to the early 1980s.”

These events produce even more frustration because the Italian legal system prevents a straight verdict on anything. In an event that inaugurated this whole period—a bombing in Milan—the initial suspects were anarchists (another rabid movement among a people generally considered quite docile). Decades later, an investigation concluded that maybe the perpetrators were fascists. But the system’s “rubber wall” makes it impossible to definitely convict—or exonerate—anyone. And when anti-corruption and anti-Mafia investigators come close to real facts, they have frequently ended up as “illustrious corpses.”

This is one reason why many Italians practice a paranoia about all public affairs, which they call dietrologia, the study of what lies behind (dietro) the surface. A large number believe the British Secret Service killed Princess Di, or that America went to war in Iraq for oil, and will not be moved by arguments that, if so, it would have been far easier and cheaper simply to bribe Saddam. Young Italians are inclined to credit the claim that several thousand Jews did not show up for work on 9/11 because Israel’s Mossad warned them away. Jones observes that about soccer, terror, or the Mafia, the dietrologia is the very same, “almost word for word.”   &nbs p;   

But he practices some unfounded speculation of his own. Jones is a British Methodist and tries somewhat not to let that color his view of Italian Catholicism. Like much else in Italy, the Church operates more on an aesthetic and symbolic, rather than a moralistic and discursive, level. Jones notes this and, over time, appreciates it. But he never challenges his belief that it would be better if Catholics were as discursive and individualist as Protestants. Yet Italian Catholicism, for all the failures and outright scandals, may be closer to early Christianity, which was probably far more communitarian and typological, than are individualist Protestants who return to “the Gospel” largely through reading a text.

Jones’s Catholic friends don’t help much. They misleadingly encourage him to read “not encyclicals from the Vatican but the gentler words from the Second Vatican Council.” He takes the usual swipes against Pius XII rather than looking into the way that Italians and the Church preserved large numbers of Jews in Italy. John Paul II, of course, is harsh and unecumencial: “Even Catholics complain that the incessant traveling and press releases and political stances somehow detract from what’s actually written in the Bible.” All this ignores the real difficulty in Italy: finding adequate space for proper lay initiatives, as much needed in Italy as elsewhere.

But Jones does better in other areas, especially about the Byzantine structure of the Italian economy, which he rightly describes as both large (seventh in the world) and beset by practices of nepotism, conflict of interest, and lack of transparency that would be illegal anywhere else. This, however, is partly a consequence of Italy’s social history and a tax structure that all but confiscates reported salaries and, therefore, forces much economic activity into black markets or “illegal” channels.

 Which leads Jones to Silvio Berlusconi, the current Italian prime minister, an amazing figure. He is not only very rich, but his kind of wealth, in the Italian context, is comparable to several figures in our own. Berlusconi owns several television networks (“His Emittenza”), other news outlets, and a publishing house; a major soccer team; and various enterprises including real estate developments. In American terms, he is Rupert Murdoch, George Steinbrenner, and H. Ross Perot all rolled into one, with perhaps a touch of The Donald. But he’s no philistine; he regularly goes to one of his retreats to read the Great Books. And Berlusconi is politically shrewd and mesmerizing as a speaker, even for skeptics like Jones: “When, as occasionally happens at press conferences, I am in the same room as him [sic], I personally find it riveting. He talks and talks and talks. You never want him to stop.”

Berlusconi has performed the magic trick of convincing his supporters that attacks on him are motivated by left-wing ideologues. And attempts to prosecute him for financial irregularities, he suggests, are just more of the same kind of legal harassment that make almost all Italians regard their justice system like many Americans view the IRS. Those who don’t like him believe he is a fascist, a mafioso, or a buffoon (it has to be said that Berlusconi, who often shoots from the hip in sensitive and official public settings, at home and abroad, hasn’t helped himself). I’ve heard him referred to in Italy as Burlesconi.

So as you listen to the presidential campaign this fall or enter the voting booth, be of good cheer. Yes, the country’s a mess, but this could be Italy—without the food, the history, the art, the culture, and the necessarily extralegal and redeeming ingenuity of the Italian people.

Depending on Facts

In his Confessions, the young Augustine proudly tells of coming across a copy of Aristotle’s Categories, which his professors were having a difficult time understanding. Augustine boldly says that he read the short treatise and had no difficulty whatever. The Categories is generally a brief treatment of the ten ways of predication that we can use to explain things. It is placed as the first book in Aristotle’s Organon, his logical works. No one should be surprised, on reading these pages, if he has a more difficult time comprehending their meaning than Augustine did. But that is all right. Aristotle wants us to know what we are talking about when we talk about anything.

“The truth or falsity of a statement,” Aristotle writes, “depends on facts, and not on any power on the part of the statement itself of admitting contrary qualities. In short, there is nothing that can alter the nature of statements and opinions.” These two short sentences stand as the basis of our freedom to know. They mean, in short, that no manipulation of words or mind can change the nature of things, the what is of things. Our mind is not functioning properly if it does not turn outside itself to see and affirm what is there. Indeed, the mind only knows itself when it is first open to something else.

Much of modern thought, from Descartes on, wants to declare its independence from facts, from what is. The reason for this turning away from Aristotle’s affirmation about the mind’s dependence on things is the fear that reality has an order, a structure. If reality has a structure, it must be itself a reflection of some order or design that it did not make or give to itself. The further reaches of this consideration have to do with the origin of this discovered order, which evidently could not be self-imposed. If it were, we would be independent of it, able to change it.

Thus, we can postulate two kinds of adventure in the universe. One begins with the supposition that nothing exists but ourselves, a postulate I find rather boring. If this self-construction is so, then reality is about imposing what we conceive or make ourselves out to be on what is not ourselves. The “exhilaration,” so to speak, comes about when we finally reconfigure ourselves and the world according to an order concocted only by our own minds. What we really see in whatever we see or think is only ourselves. This endeavor is sometimes called “atheistic humanism,” that is, a reconstruction of the human and material world, not with lines of intelligence, but of such lines that are only traceable to ourselves as their origins. And since there is no reason why one human construct need be superior to another, we can change our “order” of man and world at will.

The second way proceeds by means of Aristotle’s affirmation that the human mind is not itself a “divine creative mind” but one that depends on “fact,” on what is. In this case, the “discovery” of what is only ourselves is eminently dull and constraining, no matter how intricate. The purpose of intellect is rather related to the idea that in discovering the what is of things, we are in contact with reality, but a reality that can lead us into the deepest mystery. This is why intimations of transcendence are found in the smallest flower or insect and, even more so, in the life of any
human being.

Plato tells us that what is ourselves is itself not complete unless someone, in this case ourselves, appreciates it, praises it. It is almost as if what is is something to which our minds need—and want—to respond with a sense of the glory
of things.

By a delicate symmetry, the parable of the mustard seed takes up just two verses of the Scriptures (Matthew 13: 31-32). In the 18th century "the smallest of all the seeds" was! such a convenient metaphor for next-to-no-thingness that land was sometimes rented for the symbolic fee of one peppercorn, its minuteness a sign of royal largesse.

The Lord of Creation knew, and knows, more about the intricacies of His creation than any modern microbiologist or geneticist. His earthly contemporaries would have been confounded by the system that encodes in the first inkling of a life all that the organism will become. In modern bioethics, it is easy to lapse into a primitivism by claiming that a thing becomes alive only when it looks alive, but that contradicts genetic fact. A stem cell has as much claim on reverence for its life as a pope or president or Nobel laureate. A seed is alive, even if it looks like little more than lint, and the first cell of human life is alive, though a clinician chooses to call it a blastocyst. The mustard bush is implanted with its mustardness and bushness even when it is a negligible seed, prey to rapacious birds, as the first cells of human life are prey to genetic engineers.

Does the Church not realize how pernicious the politicization of the Sacrament of Holy Communion would be?

During the Vichy regime, some members of the resistance and anti-governmental side were denied Holy Communion because they were defying the “legally constituted” government of Vichy—a regime that had the support of 90 percent or more of the Catholic clergy. All this while members of the Milice—vicious thugs that killed Jews and leftists indiscriminately—were never given any trouble at the altar rail.

Don’t you think that a Church more aware of its failings during World War II should be more careful today? So too pro-abortion Catholic politicians deserve to maintain the full respect of the lay Catholic faithful. Principled reasons exist to refrain from the pastoral practice of withholding the Eucharist:

Bishops should scrupulously avoid even the appearance of political partisanship or interfering in temporal matters. At a minimum, that means discreetly waiting until after an election before publicly confronting a politician in such a manner. Better still, how about not waiting 20 years until a career pro-abortion official decides to run for president before suddenly finding him unworthy of sacramental Communion? That, I respectfully submit, would be both prudent and truly charitable.

Politicians aren’t the only lay Catholics who influence public opinion and policy. Many others, such as professors, authors, editors, newswriters, judges, lawyers, and political activists who don’t hold office are engaged in one way or another in the public debate on issues such as abortion. Are politicians being singled out because they actually have political power (as opposed to mere influence)? This is about the most temporal, non-spiritual reason one can imagine for a bishop to act.

Abortion is not the only issue upon which Catholics publicly dissent. Homosexuality and contraception also involve grave sin. Should those who cause scandal within the Church by dissenting publicly on such issues receive less pastoral attention than pro-abortion senators?

Laymen aren’t the only ones who dissent. When it comes to bishops and priests, I don’t name names. But come on. When was the last time you heard of a bishop denying Holy Communion to a fellow bishop, a priest-theologian, or any other member of the clergy? Does anyone seriously believe that none of the bishops, priests, and deacons ever scandalize the faithful through public dissent?

George Pataki and Rudy Giuliani. These two Catholic politicians were among the most prominent speakers at this year’s Republican National Convention. Both have been seriously discussed as presidential contenders and both have a public record of supporting legalized abortion. Has either ever been denied Holy Communion? Does anyone else see the potential problem with this?

All bishops need the prayers, encouragement, and public support of the lay Catholic faithful. To divide the episcopacy between the “good” bishops who deny Holy Communion to John Kerry and the “bad” bishops who don’t ignores the complexity of the pastoral situation.

When de Wo'ld Trade Centers wuz attacked and reduced t'a pile uh dust at da damn hands uh Islamic activists, ah' wuz hopin' t'see da damn followers uh Islam denounce such some cowardly and henious attack. Ya' know? Afta' all, we wuz always taught dat Islam respects love and life and considers all life t'be precious and sacred. While ah' dun did see some few Arabs openly condemn de attacks, most remained silent. Man! De ones who dun did condemn de attacks wuz rada' meek and not real endusiastic in deir condemnashun. De message ah' wuz hearin' fum "Mainstream Islam" wuz "we feel so'ry fo' de victims, but ya' had dis comin' some long time ago, and ya' deserved every raple bit uh it". And in de process, Islam be touted as some religion uh peace, love, and tolerance. When Osama Bin Laden wuz gloatin' upside de dead and destrucshun and compared da damn destrucshun t'dat uh winnin' some soccar game and claimed dat Allah wuz pleased dat many innocent sucka's got wasted, most sucka's in de Arab communities refused t'rap against such raw hatred. And we wuz told, wid much fan-fare, dat Islam wuz some religion dat promotes peace, love, and tolerance When innocent children is killed, plum so some "political statement" could be made, do we see "peace-lovin' Islam" condemn de attacks? No we see dem boogeyin' in de streets, passin' out kindy, and rappin' de praises uh de terro'ists. And once again, Islam be promoted as some religion uh peace, love, and tolerance When wheels bombs 'esplode in populated civilian secto's and when suicide bombers blow demselves down and everybody around dem duz "peaceful Islam" denounce such raw, unbridled hatred? No. 'S coo', bro. Dey applaud dem and call dem "heros" and call de innocent deads "justified" and da damn parents uh de suicide bombers stay at crib and wait fo' de bre'd fum "Uncle Saddam" and "Uncle Yasser". To Islam, it seems dat sacrificin' yo' own child plum to dig bre'd, be an acceptable practice. And in de process, de self-titled, and self-crowned "Holy leaders" uh Islam claim deir religion be about "peace, love, and tolerance". When innocent civilians is openly targeted, duz "peaceful Islam" condemn de attacks? No dey praise da damn terro'ists and claimed "Allah be pleased" And in de process, Islam be placed on some high pedestal, and we is told it be a "religion uh peace, love, and tolerance" When suicide bombers attack farms, bus stashuns, marketplaces, o' oda' highly populated civilian areas, de biased liberal medias uh de wo'ld all turn some blind eye. When "peaceful Islam" wages wars on defenseless children and old ladies and oda' innocent civilians, de liberal medias all look de oda' way. Slap mah fro! When suicide bombers is sent out t'kill demselves and many around dem, de biased liberal-sponso'ed medias uh de wo'ld look de oda' direcshun and act as if nodin' happened at all, while da damn parents uh de suicide bombers hide at deir crib, waitin' fo' de promised bre'd fum "Uncle Saddam" and "Uncle Yassar". But when Israel and da damn Western Wo'ld tries t'fight terro'ism in deir own back yards, de biased liberal media and Arab special interest groups po'trays dem as "de baaaad dude", and da damn Arabs and da damn Arab lobby groups all jump down and waaay down and scream likes so's many packs uh rabid hyenas and rabid banshee. And at da damn same time, Islam be glo'ified as some "religion uh peace, love and tolerance". When Super-dude Bush declared dat no country o' sucka' should be subjected t'live in terro' o' fear, den de once-silent Arab Secto's decided t'make deir voices heard, loud and clear. Ah be baaad... But dey dun did not praise Bush and his plans fo' some terro'ist-free wo'ld. Dey shouted dat we should simply allow de terro'ists t'do as dey pleased, bomb where-eva' dey pleased, o'waste whom-eva' dey pleased and t'terro'ize any place dey so's wished and should we try t'interefere wid de terro'ist's plans fo' global terro' and bloodshed we would "suffa' de Wrad uh Allah". But Islam be a "religion uh peace, love, and tolerance"....... Or so's we wuz stupid enough t'recon'.

 Tuesday 09.28.04 [1:38 am]

Islam was rebealid to Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) as a mehciful 'n etehnal religion dat fits f' all ages. If durigg his life man submits t' the, uh, the will of Allah, he can depend on His mehcy in life 'n in the, uhhh, day of Dgujemin "And Webuh habe not sent you but as a mehcy t' the, uh, the world." Kr'an (21:107) Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) said: "Sure, I am a grantid mehcy." Islam enhasss each indibidual’s self-repeck: it establishes dat true 'n on ekality open t' man - the, uh, ekality in surrendeh t' Allah f' His sehbice amongst mankind. Such surrendeh gibes each one the, errr, chass t' find his place in the, uh, the whole widout fackion, partisan rule or supehiority. Each is his own masteh. Islam is a religion dat gibes high repeck t' human rites. It regulates ebehy detail of pehsonal 'n commuty life in ekity, GEEEHEEHEEE.It is de guardian of freedom bef'e Allah- Its firss 'n paramount dought is uty. It exclubes no one - dough some exclube demselbes : it opposes no one-dough some may oppose demselbes t' it. it makes no diffehesss - dough some may choose t' be diffehent. De freedom dat Islam grants is basid on commitmin 'n reponsibiltiby widout which one can endgoy no true freedom. Um uh.Freedom widout rules leads t' de breakdown 'n corrupshun of de moral 'n social ordeh. Allah says in de Ho Kr’an: "Say, O Peoble of earlieh Scrippure! Huh huh! Let us reason togedeh, dat webuh worship none but Allah 'n webuh associate nodigg wid Allah, 'n dat webuh do not set up from among ourselbes lords odeh dan Allah. But if dey turn away, den say, Bear witness dat webuh are Muslims." Kr’an (3-64) Today, peoble are in despehate neid f' uty, dgustice 'n freedom. Lee me lone!Dey want t' be sabid from exploitashun 'n war. Dey wandeh lost, uh, like sheep gone astray. Um uh.Let dem turn t' the, ERRRR, sunshine of Islam's regulashuns of life 'n libigg. Undeh dat common sun, all - black, white, uh uh uh, rid and yellow-are at one in dgustice, uh uh uh, freedom 'n ekality. F' Islam, true excelless lies, duuhhhh, not in de intelleckual or manual attainmins of peoble of diffehigg giffs; but in de lebel of piety 'n fear of Allah. Dese are ekal open t' all whatebeh deir odeh giffs. Allah says in de Kr’an: "O Mankind: Webuh cratid you from a male 'n a female; 'n made you into tribes 'n nashuns dat you may get t' know each odeh. and behy, most honorid bef'e God is de most birtuous." Kr’an (49:13) Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) assehtid sayigg: "Arab is not more pribilegid dan non-Arab, nor white dan black. Spiritual excelless 'n true piety is de on distincshun amongst humans recognisid by Allah." Afteh de Prophet's bictory in Mekkah, a proud self-seekigg group of Arabs claimid pribilege f' deir tongue 'n race. Gawlly!T' dem he (PBUH) said: "Danks be t' Allah dat by the, ERRRR, sublime doctrines of Islam He has freid you from the, duh uhh, times of ignorass, 'n strippid off pride, uh uh uh, cossit 'n powebuhr-lust. Know now dat in de Courts of God on two groups exist. De group of de riteeous who are precious in God's ahs : 'n de group of the, ERRRR, sinful who hang deir gords in shame." Submisshun t' the, uh, the will 'n laws of Allah is the, uh, essess of freedom. It libehates de mind, uh uh uh uh, soul, 'n behabiour from the, uh, ebil influesss of the, uh, the world. It helps mankind obehcome oppressibe tyrants, duuhhhh, undgust laws, duuhhhh, lusts, duuhhhh, debiashun 'n psychological c'plexes which enslabe his will. Submisshun t' the, uh, the will of Allah grants man de rite t' choose f' his life, uh uh uh, t' libe his life in a moral 'n uprite way. It is true dat worshipigg Allah shudd be parallel t' obeyigg His laws. But dis obediess is the, uh uh uh, free choice of lobe. And His laws are dose absoloot moral standards which f'mulate the, uh, essess of man's true nature, uh uh uh, as his Crator means him t' be at his best. No man who has bowebuhd his neck benead de yoke of money-grubbigg or powebuhr-seekigg can ebeh endgoy a free life in a free society. GEE danks.De Imam Ali said: "Piety is de key t' honesty 'n purity 'n to de ackiremin of mehit in store against dgujmin-day. It is freedom from the, errr, chains of ebehy bondage; salbashun from de blows of ebehy adbehsity. Piety puts a man's aim widin his reach, erds off ebil, his soul's foe, uh uh uh, 'n assists him t' attain his heart's desires." (Nahdg-ul-Balaghe: 227.) Remembeh dat he gabe dis message in an epoch when bioless, oppresshun, wrong, uh uh, class wars 'n racial strife ragid amongst men. De webuhak 'n de poor webuhre deniid ebehy human rite 'n social safeguard. Um uh.Wid matchless moral courage de pioneeh of Islam outlawebuhd all dose diffehesss 'n conflicts, duuhhhh, so illegitimate, uh uh uh, so supehstitious 'n so mistaken. Duh.He replacid dem wid the, errr, command dat ekality 'n pehfeck ekity shudd be obsehbid f' all indibiduals. He ordainid dat, uh, undeh de auspices of total submisshun t' the, uh, the will of Allah, ebehy sort of reasonaggle freedom shudd be put widin de possesshun of men; in such a way dat de undehpribilegid classes of society which had nebeh bef'e had any sort of powebuhr t' express deir desires but had mehe probokid de reackion of bioless 'n oppresshun if dey darid to protest against the, uh, the will of de powebuhrful ruligg classes, duuhhhh, shudd now, uh uh uh uh uh uh, undeh de life gibigg dgustice of Islamic laws, duuhhhh, find de political 'n social powebuhr dey lacked, uh uh uh uh, 'n shuddeh t' shuddeh mobe on until dey had deir full 'n riteful share in de leadehship of deir nashuns. Dud, Islam came t' break man's fettehs 'n enaggle mankind t' cast off the, errr, chains dat delayid his growd, it encouragid de indibidual t' gibe propeh expresshun t' his humanity 'n foll de pad t' moral pehfeckion. GEE danks.It cratid an atmosphehe of hope 'n optimism which gabe a true meanigg t' human existess.

The Foundations of Christian Bioethics
H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr., Swets & Zeitlinger, 2000, 440 pages, $39.95

Many years ago, I had my medical ethics students read Foundations of Bioethics (1986) by H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr., the renowned physician, philosopher, and ethicist. With unusual candor and clarity, Engelhardt explained that once we surrender premises drawn from nature or grace, the only remaining moral authority is procedural that is, an ethic of permission-giving among moral strangers who do not share a common moral vision. This earlier work can still be read as a forceful statement that anything is permissible if it conforms to the ethic of consent.

Since then, however, Engelhardt has converted to Antiochian Orthodox Christianity. As a result, in Foundations of Christian Bioethics he develops a quite different position. As a Christian speaking on moral theology rather than public policy, he now states that "everything is required; anything can be forgiven." From the perspective of "traditional Christianity"—by which he means the Orthodox theology of the first millennium A.D.—bioethics is not chiefly a matter of either medicine or justice. Rather, it is a spiritual ascesis by which agents and !patients prepare themselves for participation in the mystery of grace. Bioethics is a particular application of the universal principles that govern holiness. Such a view, Engelhardt says, "is one that few in the West have ever encountered, much less experienced."

Though the author is perhaps too eager to insist upon the strangeness of Orthodox theology and overly polemical in his estimation of the failure of the West to preserve Christian wisdom, there is much to be learned from this book.

The first three chapters form a picture of how ethics is situated in a post-Christian world. In the wake of popularized extreme Darwinism, bioethicists have had no way to assign compelling moral predicates to the facts of biological science, leaving subjective !consciousness as the only principle of authority. Obviously, this ideology can produce only a limited consensus—namely, a procedural ethic of permission-giving. This was Engelhardt’s own preconversion conclusion, and he still finds it reasonable so long as it is not confused with the cosmopolitan liberal ethic that insists the autonomous self is normative—and so long as it is not confused with Christian ethics.

Once this position is honestly understood, he argues, the public ethic should be libertarian. The libertarian does not attempt to remediate moral diversity by imposing a single ethic, but instead pays attention to the moral standards that groups of individuals have mutually agreed to. Though not itself a Christian ethic, the libertarian framework "makes space for such an ethic." Engelhardt argues that Christians can live with this framework.

The rest of Engelhardt’s book moves beyond public morality to moral theology. His main point is that Christian bioethicists have misunderstood the modern situation. In the past, Catholic theologians were able to presuppose a certain unity of perspective and content among the various sciences. It seemed normal for the theologian to try to harmonize theological findings and methods with those of the other disciplines. In the modern world, however, this unity has been abandoned. Rather than harmonizing faith and reason, moral theologians abandon theology on the altar of consensus.

The Christian thought of the first millennium was not warped by this false and useless ecumenism, because it never had to negotiate a moral consensus among Scholastic, Protestant, and Enlightenment thinkers. Its most distinctive characteristic was the central authority it ascribed to saints and mystics. This tradition, Engelhardt explains, "understands that to know truly is not a matter of discursive or scholastic reasoning, but of changing the knower and of being granted illumination by God." Not reason, not tradition, not Scripture, but direct experience of God is the proper foundation of Christian bioethics.

In the face of problematic issues such as abortion, contraception, in vitro fertilization, genetic engineering, and euthanasia, the Christian should not consult an academic textbook but rather seek spiritual direction from someone like Padre Pio—or, in Engelhardt’s case, St. John the Faster or the Elder Porphyrios. The mystic provides spiritual therapy, teaching us how to overcome temptation and passion in order to prepare for an experience of God. While he makes it clear that some actions are always contrary to the Christian life, he hastens to add that the nor!ms are "embedded in the pursuit of holiness, not constraints set by natural law in a structure of impersonal norms."

Notwithstanding his negative characterization of natural law, there is hardly as much difference as Engelhardt imagines between Catholic and Orthodox bioethics. It seems, rather, that Engelhardt wants all of the traction of divine law without embracing a community that is responsible for its interpretation and application. On most (but not all) controversial issues, Engelhardt’s position coincides with the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching. His exposition of the theology of the body and the mystery of marriage, for example, is in some respects strikingly similar to John Paul II’s early papal Angelus messages on those subjects.

The distinctly Orthodox emphasis that makes his book so interesting is Engelhardt’s articulation of the idea of direct illumination of the soul. He is correct, by and large, when he claims that contemporary Western moral theologians have not shown much interest in this idea. St. Thomas Aquinas’s belief that the intellect knows by virtue of a created rather than an increate (uncreated) light minimized explorations into Christian Platonism in the West. Though the Western tradition never intended to ignore the gift of direct illumination, it has sometimes fallen into a rationalism that is contemptuous of—or at least impatient with—direct experience of God and ascetical training of the intellect. In contrast, Platonists insist that human intellection depends primarily on increate light. The problem of moral knowledge is essentially therapeutic, a removal of impurities that cloud our direct experience of God.

Engelhardt’s work is essentially a return to Christian Platonism, which has an honorable history in both East and West. This tradition is not without blemishes, however. For example, !it has a tendency to conflate science and wisdom and to distinguish inadequately between the gifts of creation and those of grace. And there is no evidence that the Orthodox approach has any cura societatis (care of society) that would allow it to formulate social doctrine. The world outside the Church is left to fend for itself.

Even so, one cannot but admire The Foundations of Christian Bioethics for its brilliant theological insight, and most of all, for raising with a certain urgency issues that have been neglected by contemporary Catholic moral theologians for too long.

Why Catholicism is not a ‘Denomination’ and What That Means
By George Weigel

Since the time of the Second Vatican Council, an almost obsessive focus on the Catholic Church as institution has preoccupied many Catholics in North America and western Europe. That obsession with the institutional dimension of the Church helps to explain why so much of the contemporary Catholic debate is framed in terms borrowed from politics: as a debate between "liberals" and "conservatives." Shortly after the council, virtually everything in Catholicism began to be described this way. There were liberal and conservative bishops, priests, nuns, parishes, religious orders, seminaries, theologians, newspapers, magazines, and organizations. There were liberal and conservative positions on every question imaginable, from the structure of worship to the fine points of doctrine and morality.

To be sure, there was something to all this. Some Catholics eagerly welcomed the revision of the Church’s worship; others were offended, appalled, or heart-stricken by "the changes." Some Catholics were entirely comfortable in the dialogue with modern culture; others thought that opening the Church’s windows to the modern world was a grave mistake; still others welcomed the new conversation but thought the Church should challenge the modern world to open its windows, too. The liberal/conservative grid was moderately useful for sorting out some of the players and a few of the issues during and immediately after Vatican II.

But the use of the liberal/conservative filter as a one-size-fits-all template for thinking about an ancient, complex religious institution was, in the final analysis, implausible and distorting. An example from another world religion illustrates why. No one ever asks whether the Dalai Lama is a liberal or conservative Buddhist. Why? Because we instinctively understand that these are the wrong categories through which to grasp the nature and purpose of a venerable, subtle, and richly textured religious tradition. Shouldn’t the same self-discipline be applied to thinking about the Catholic Church?

In the United States, the liberal/conservative filter has also reinforced the temptation to think of Catholicism as one among many "denominations." American religion, it is often said, is preeminently denominational religion. What much of American Christianity means by "denomination," though, is not what Catholicism means by "Church."

There is little that is given or secure in a denomination; the denomination is constantly being remade by its members. Christianity as denomination has no distinctive, fixed form given to it by Christ; it adapts its form, its institutional structures, to the patterns of the age. (To take a current example, if the basic institutional form of the wider society is the bureaucracy, the Church becomes identified with its bureaucracy.) In much of American denominational Christianity today, institutional process is more important than binding doctrinal reference points; anything can change. The !denominational community’s boundaries are ill- defined, even porous, because being nonjudgmental is essential to group maintenance. Religious leadership is equated with bureaucratic managership; bishops and other formally constituted religious leaders are discussion moderators, whose job is to keep all opinions in play, rather than authoritative teachers.

A denomination is something we help create by joining it; according to Vatican II, however, the Church is a divinely instituted community into which we are incorporated by the sacraments of initiation (baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist). Denominations have members like voluntary associations or clubs; the Church has members as a human body has arms and legs, fingers and toes. A denomination has moving boundaries, doctrinally and morally; the Church, according to Vatican II, is nourished by creeds and moral convictions that clearly establish its boundaries. The structures of a denomination are something we can alter at will; the Church, according to Vatican II, has a form, or structure, given to it by Christ. Catholicism has bishops and a ministerial priesthood, and Peter’s successor, the bishop of Rome, presides over the whole Church in charity, not because Catholics today think these are good ways to do things but because Christ wills these for His Church.

None of this distinctively Catholic way of thinking about the Church makes much sense if parsed in liberal/conservative terms. Better categories, rooted in a richer concept of the Church than the Church as institution, have to be found.

The Church as a ‘Communion’

What do we mean by "Church"! ? The bishops of Vatican II, having searched extensively through the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, proposed a host of biblical metaphors to describe the essence of the Church and its mission. The council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church describes the Church of Christ in these agrarian images: "This Church is...a sheepfold, the sole and necessary gateway to which is Christ (cf. John 10:1-10). It is also the flock, of which God foretold that he himself would be the shepherd (cf. Isaiah 40:11; Ezekiel 34:11ff.), and whose sheep, although watched over by human shepherds, are nevertheless at all times led and brought to pasture by Christ himself, the Good Shepherd and prince of shepherds (cf. John 10:11; 1 Peter 5:4), who gave his life for his sheep (cf. John 10:11-15)."

The Second Vatican Council also cited biblical images drawn from architecture to describe the Church. Thus the Church is the "building of God" (1 Corinthians 3:9) whose cornerstone is Christ (Matthew 21:42). Built by the apostles on the one "foundation," which is Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 3:11), the Church is the "household of God in the Spirit (cf. Ephesians 2:19-22), the dwelling place of God among men (Revelation 21:3), and, especially, the holy temple.... As living stones, we here on earth are built into it (cf. 1 Peter 2:5)." The Church is also proposed as the "holy city," and the holy city is variously described as "the Jerusalem which is above" (Galatians 4:26) and the "spotless spouse of the Lamb" (Revelation 19:7), whom Christ "loved and for whom he delivered himself that he might sanctify her" (Ephesians 5:25-26).

The council adopted this rich biblical imagery in an effort to get Catholics to think of themselves in something more than institutional terms. The biblical pyrotechnics in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church are meant to help us imagine the Church and all its functions—including its necessary institutional functions—as a dynamic evangelical movement in history. That is what the Church is for, Pope John Paul II has insisted. The Church does not exist for her own sake. The Church exists to tell the world that "in the fullness of time, [God] sent his Son, born of a woman, for the salvation of the world." That means that "the history of salvation has entered the history of the world," and time has been incorporated into eternity. The story of salvation—the story of the Church, and the story of Israel that made the Church’s story possible—is the world’s story, rightly understood.

The primary mission of the Church is most certainly not institutional maintenance. The first mission of the Church is to tell the world the truth about itself, by means of what the pope calls a "dialogue of salvation." The Church exists to propose to the world: "You are far, far greater than you imagine."

If that is what the Church is for, that should tell us something about what the Church is. Because the Church, as Vatican II puts it, is "the kingdom of God now present in mystery," the Church cannot think of itself as one religious organization in a supermarket of religious options. The Church, writes John Paul II, has a "unique importance for the human family," for the Church is where the human family learns the truth about its origins, dignity, and destiny.

The Church is also where we experience a foretaste of that destiny, which is eternal life within the light and love of the Holy Trinity. That is why the council, the pope, and prominent Catholic theologians all suggest that the Church is best described as a communion—a communion of believers with the living God, with one another, and with the saints who have gone before us. Because the Church has a certain structure, the Church does certain things. So we can speak of the Church as institution, herald, servant, and so forth. At the bottom of the bottom line, however, the Church is a communion. Those who participate in that communion—husbands and wives, parents and children, friends and colleagues, employers and employees—have a relationship to one another in that communion that is like none other in their lives. In all those other relationships, we are "part" of one another in different ways. Those in the communion of the Church are "part" of one another as parts of the body of Christ.

The communion that is the Church extends over time and beyond time. In the Catholic view of things, the reality of the Church embraces far more than those we see around us in the world. It also, as John Paul puts it, "embraces those who now see God as he is, and those who have died and are being purified." Put yet another way, the distinctive quality of the communion of the Church is that it is a "communion of saints": those who are already saints (that is, those who "see God as he is") and those who must become saints in order to fulfill their Christian and human destiny (that is, all the rest of us).

To think of the Church as a communion of saints means that we have to think differently about the meaning of vocation.

Called and Sent

Ask most Catholics what a vocation is and they’re likely to respond, "Becoming a priest," or "Becoming a nun." Those are surely vocations within the communion of the Church. Still, limiting the notion of vocation to those who are religious professionals is a mistake, according to the Second Vatican Council and Pope John Paul II.

If the Church is the continuation in time of Christ’s mission and the mission of the Holy Spirit, then the Church’s first task is evangelization—the sharing of the good news that God loves the world, gave His Son for the salvation of the world, and invites all humankind to a life of eternal happiness. That astonishingly good news demands to be shared. The Church, by its very nature, is missionary, and every baptized Christian has a responsibility—a vocation—to be an evangelist. The council described this by saying that all the baptized share in Christ’s vocation as prophet: Every Christian shares in the prophetic mission of Christ by speaking the truth, by proposing to the world the truth about its story.

The Church’s evangelization must be nurtured in prayer, especially community prayer. There is an intimate link between the Christian vocation to evangelize and the Christian vocation to worship. In worshiping the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit, the Church deepens its understanding of the truth about itself and is equipped for its mission in the world. All the baptized, according to Vatican II, share in Christ’s vocation as priest: Every Christian shares in the priestly mission to worship in truth, to give the Father what is His due, and to receive in return the gift of holy communion, in and with God’s Son.

The Church’s evangelization must be lived in service. Sometimes the gospel message is best conveyed by deeds rather than by words. It is one thing, and an important thing, to preach that God loves the world and calls us to communion with Him. That message is sometimes most effectively communicated by action, by lives of service poured out for others in imitation of Christ and in obedience to Christ. All the baptized share in Christ’s vocation as king: Every Christian is called to a royal life, which is essentially a life of service and self-giving.

To be baptized, the Church teaches, is to be "baptized into Christ," to "put on Christ." That means that every Christian has a baptismal vocation to holiness. Sanctity, in Catholicism, is not just for the sanctuary. Sanctity is for everyone, for we must all become saints (whether or not we are publicly recognized as such after our deaths) in order to enjoy eternal life with God. Each of us, Catholicism teaches, has a vocation, a unique way in which we are to grow into holiness. Our vocation is the way in which we each live our distinctive Christian witness, and thus are fitted to become the kind of people who can live with God forever.

Formed in the Image of Mary

Another primary and common characteristic of all those who are embraced by the communion of the Church is that they are all disciples. In the Catholic view of things, that means that everyone in the Church is formed in the image of a woman: Mary, mother of Jesus, the first of disciples and thus the "Mother of the Church."

Every year the pope meets with the senior members of the Roman curia, the Church’s central bureaucracy, for an exchange of Christmas greetings. It’s a formal occasion, rather far removed from the typical office Christmas party. Popes traditionally use the opportunity to review the year just past and suggest directions for the year ahead. On December 22, 1987, Pope John Paul II made this the occasion to drop something of a theological bombshell.

For some years, Catholic theologians had speculated about different "profiles," or "images," of the Church, drawn from prominent New Testament personalities. The missionary Church, the Church of proclamation, is formed in the image of the apostle Paul, the great preacher to the Gentiles. The Church of contemplation is formed in the image of the apostle John, who rested his head on Christ’s breast at !the Last Supper. The Church of office and jurisdiction is formed in the image of Peter, the apostle to whom Christ gave the keys to the kingdom of heaven. All of these images are in play in the Church all the time. Yet, in a Church accustomed for centuries to thinking of itself primarily in institutional terms, the Church formed in the image of Peter’s authority and office has long seemed to take priority over all the rest.

Not so, suggested John Paul II, to what we can only assume were some rather startled senior churchmen. Mary was the first disciple, because Mary’s "yes" to the angel’s message had made possible the incarnation of the Son of God. The Church is the extension of Christ and His mission in history; in the image made famous by Pope Pius XII, the Church is the "mystical body of Christ." Mary’s assumption into heaven was a preview of what awaits all those whom Christ will save. For all !these reasons, John Paul proposed, Mary provides a defining profile of what the Church is, of how the men and women of the Church should live, and of what the eternal destiny of disciples will be.

This understanding of Mary and the Church challenges the institutional way in which many churchmen (and many Catholic laity) are used to thinking about themselves and their community. The "Marian profile," John Paul said, is even "more...fundamental" in Catholicism than the "Petrine profile." Though the two cannot be divided, the "Marian Church," the Church formed in the image of a woman and her discipleship, precedes, makes possible, and indeed makes sense of the "Petrine Church," the Church of office and authority formed in the image of Peter. That Petrine Church, the pope continued, has no other purpose "except to form the Church in line with the ideal of sanctity already programmed and prefigured in Mary." John Paul argued that these two profiles were complementary, not in tension. He also insisted that the "Marian profile is...pre-eminent" and carried within it a richer meaning for every Christian’s vocation.

It was a striking message: Discipleship comes before authority in the Church because authority is to serve sanctity. In a Church of disciples, formed in the image of Mary, the first disciple, what is fundamental is the universal call to holiness. Everything else in the Church—including the work of those with authority in the Church—exists to foster the disciples’ answer to that call.

This is not a liberal view of the Church and its mission. This is not a conservative view of the Catholic reality. This is a vision far beyond those categories.

Archaeology Teaches a Lesson

The Marian Church is the fundamental reality of the Church as a communion of disciples. Still, the Office of Peter is a crucial part of the Catholic Church. Getting at the core of its meaning requires analytic tools other than the usual political categories. The liberal/conservative debate about the papacy in recent decades has not shed very much light on the evangelical essence of Peter’s mission, which continues in the popes. Perhaps archaeology helps.

Deep beneath St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican are the scavi, a series of archaeological digs begun by Pope Pius XII during the Second World War in an attempt to find the tomb of the prince of the apostles, which ancient tradition had associated with that site. Archaeological digs don’t yield irrefutable answers, like algebraic equations. Still, the best scholarly opinion is that we can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that the apostle’s tomb has been found, almost directly under Bernini’s bronze baldachino, whose wreathed columns frame the papal high altar beneath the great dome emblazoned with Christ’s words: "Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam et tibi dabo claves regni caelorum" (You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven [Matthew 16:18-19]).

In the course of their explorations under St. Peter’s, archaeologists found an enormous cemetery, a Christian necropolis dating back to the decades immediately following the life of Christ—the decades of the first evangelization of the Mediterranean world and its imperial capital, Rome. Pious Christians who died quietly at home, as well as those who died horrible deaths by torture during Roman persecutions, wanted to be buried near Peter. And so a small city of the dead arose on the Vatican hill, a half-hour’s walk from the Coliseum and the Roman Forum.

To get to the scavi you pass through St. Peter’s Square with its distinctive obelisk, a granite monolith brought to Rome in a.d. 37 by the mad emperor Caligula. His nephew, Nero, made the obelisk one of the centerpieces of his circus. It is not improbable that Peter was martyred in that circus, and it could well be that the last thing he saw on this earth was that obelisk.

In the scavi, the tourist or pilgrim is about as close as it’s possible to get to the apostolic origins of the Church. That experience poses the question of Peter, and his meaning for us, in a very sharp way.

The great challenge to Christian! faith is the incarnation of the Son of God and his death for us upon the cross: "a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles," as St. Paul put it (1 Corinthians 1:23). As if to compound the challenge, Christ left the continuation of his ministry and mission in the hands of weak, mortal human beings; he made the weakest, most impetuous of the bunch the first among them (Matthew 16:18-19); and then he told Peter that the essence of his leadership was the service of his brethren, which would, in due course, cost him his life (Luke 22:32; John 21:18-19).

The scavi make us confront, face-to-face, this bold claim: that at a certain time and place, a real human being named Simon, son of a man named John, a fisherman from Capernaum in Galilee, became a personal friend of Jesus of Nazareth. In that friendship, Simon encountered the Son of God and was transformed—not into a superhero but into Peter, an apostle, a man equipped by the Holy Spirit! for a mission of witness "to the ends of the earth" (Acts 13:47). To go through the scavi is to be confronted with the unavoidable and almost shocking particularity of Catholic faith: These were real people. They made real decisions. They had real fears, real passions, real loves, and real enemies.

The Church is not founded on a pious myth. The Church is built on the foundation of the apostles: the first witnesses to the resurrection and the first to tell the world the good news of God’s decisive, redemptive intervention in human history.

Simon, the fisherman from Galilee, whose life and death can be touched down in the scavi, was a weak man, like every other Christian. Peter, who bore the office of the keys, was a man reborn and remade by the power of the Holy Spirit. His was not a transformation into worldly glory. The risen Christ had warned him, "When you are old, you will stretch out your hands and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go" (John 21:18). That journey led to his own cross and, in the world’s terms, to the burial ground that visitors now know as the scavi. By emptying himself of himself, by making himself the instrument of the Holy Spirit, Peter became "the rock." For 2,000 years, the gates of hell have not prevailed against the Church he was to lead. It really is an extraordinary proposal. Down in the scavi, one confronts the undeniable reality of the Church. That demands a decision.

Liberating Doctrine

The Office of Peter is primarily an evangelical office; the pope is a pastor and evangelist first and an ecclesiastical executive later.! Part of the function of the papacy as an evangelical office is to safeguard the integrity of the Church’s doctrine. This is often thought of as a disciplinary role, the pope cuffing wayward theologians and ordering them into line. If we think of the Church as a communion of disciples, however, it is easier to understand as paradox what at first glance seems to be contradiction. Doctrine, those defined truths that mark the boundaries of Catholicism, is in fact liberating.

Doctrine can seem changeless and dull, an inhibition to creativity. To think of doctrine in these terms, though, is to miss the relationship between tradition and innovation, the static and the dynamic, in the life of the Church. What can seem static in Christian doctrine in fact reflects the Church’s internal dynamism and creates the impetus for the unfolding of new elements in Christian life. What can seem dead tradition is in fact the engine of development and innovation.

Take three examples. The first is Scripture. The canon of Scripture is fixed; there will be no books added to the Old or New Testament. The fact that the Church does not add new books to the canon of Scripture does not make Scripture a dead letter, though. The canon ensures that what is truly the Word of God can be received freshly and in its integrity by every generation of believers, inviting them to a deeper faith through the mediation of the Bible.

Then there is the Church’s sacramental system. The sacraments—baptism and the Eucharist, for example—are not simply traditional rituals, performed because previous generations did so before us. The sacraments enable each new generation of Christians to experience the great mysteries of faith—the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ—anew. Every day,! the sacraments remind every generation of Christians that just on the far side of the ordinary—water, salt, and oil; bread and wine; marital love and fidelity—lies the extraordinary reality of a God who so loved the world He created that He entered that world, in His Son, to redirect the world’s history back toward its true destiny, eternal life within the light and love of the Trinity.

Finally, there is the matter of authority. The Church’s structures of pastoral authority are not intended to impede human creativity. Authority in the Church exists to ensure that Christians do not settle for mediocrity. Authority in the Church is meant to help all Catholics hold themselves accountable to the one supreme "rule of faith," the living Christ. This, for example, is the great service that pastoral authority does for theology: It keeps theology from getting too pleased with its own cleverness and calls i!t to a love of truth.

One of the great tasks of the Church in the 21st century will be to retrieve and renew the concept of tradition. In the distinctively Catholic understanding of the term, "tradition" (which from its Latin root, traditio, means "handing on") begins inside the very life of God the Holy Trinity. That handing on—that radical giving that mysteriously enhances both giver and receiver—took flesh in the life of Christ and continues in the Church through the gift of the Holy Spirit. A venerable formula distinguishes between tradition, the living faith of the dead, and traditionalism, the dead faith of the living. Pope John Paul II’s teaching on the Marian Church of disciples that makes possible (and makes sense of) the Petrine Church of jurisdiction and office is a good example of tradition’s capacity to inspire innovative thinking. The great Marian doctrines set boundaries for !Catholic faith. In doing so, they compel fresh thought and new insight into the riches of the Church’s heritage and the mysteries of God’s action in the world.

Doctrine is not excess baggage weighing Catholics down on the journey of faith. Doctrine is the vehicle that enables the journey to take place.

George Weigel bio goes here. This article is taken from the book The Truth of Catholicism: Ten Controversies Explored. Copyright © 2001 by George Weigel. To be published by HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Evelyn Waugh once wrote that there are three kinds of writers: those who have something to say but don’t know how to write, those who know how to write but have nothing to say, and those who are at writers’ meetings talking about the agony of creation. Analogously, one might say that there are three kinds of professors: those who are eloquent but have nothing to convey, those rich with ideas and all but inarticulate,

and those who go off to far-flung summer conferences to read papers to one another.

I have just returned from Palermo and a wonderful meeting sponsored by Fulvio di Blasi on natural law. After I had done my duty, I rented a car and went off with Russell Hittinger to Agrigento, which he had never seen, and where under a lethal sun we toured the ruins of the Greek city that once flourished there. About their weather, Sicilians say, “It could be worse.” They say that about other things as well. And they provide me with my text.

On the flight home I read Oriana Fallaci’s new book, La Forza della Ragione, in which she passionately laments the Islamization of Europe. Indeed, her preferred designation of the old continent is Eurabia. There are two schools on Islamic terrorism: those who, like the president, distinguish between terrorists and good Muslims, and those who assume that Muslims believe the Koran and are as one with regard to the infidels. Fallaci is definitely of the second school. When an Italian imam says that Rome will be the future capital of Islam, she does not regard this as an empty threat.

Some years ago, from the balcony of my friend’s apartment on Mount Parioli, one could look down at the huge mosque under construction on the banks of the Tiber, just down river from St. Peter’s. Only with much effort were the builders restrained from constructing an edifice larger than St. Peter’s. The mosque has long since been completed and is only one of many scattered throughout the Eternal City. And of course, mosques are to be found all over Eurabia now. Yet it is all but impossible for Christians to have even a modest church in Muslim countries.

Fallaci describes herself as an atheist but a Christian and reminds one of George Santayana. Christian culture remains the glory of Europe even for those whose personal faith has withered. But of course, it is the politicians and, alas, to some degree the Church that facilitate this invasion. Nonetheless, it could be worse. We could be confronting one more of the many armed Islamic invasions and occupations of Europe. For centuries, Sicily was occupied by Muslims. Indeed, the university hall in which I spoke was located in what had once been a mosque. It is all too easy to imagine it falling once more into hostile hands.

It is a feature of our times that such matters are either not discussed or are treated with a superficiality that is worse than silence. Having ceased reading newspapers and watching television, I no longer get a daily diet of sloganeering and demagoguery, but still the sad events of the day have a way of making themselves known, if only by means of the Web. What is essentially a religious war carried on by way of massive immigration is a one-sided affair, since the ground is hardly thick with robust Christians. Indeed, soi-disant Christians kiss the hand of their conquerors. And at home, we see our bishops dancing away from doing their duty with respect to Catholic politicians who make careers out of representing the Culture of Death.

So, with a Sicilian shrug, I tell myself that it could be worse. Perhaps if I keep repeating this mantra, I will come to believe it.

The New York Times, the intellectuals’ equivalent of a drug addict’s first hit of the day, prides itself on being the nation’s “newspaper of record.”

That is true only in the sense once guilelessly captured by the late New Yorker film critic, Pauline Kael, who expressed astonishment at Richard Nixon’s 1972 electoral landslide; after all, everyone she knew had voted for George McGovern.

Like Kael, the Times didn’t know much about America then. It knows still less now, and much of what it thinks it knows it treats with utter contempt.

This is nowhere more apparent than on issues like homosexuality and abortion. As to the former, the Times is for all practical purposes the house organ of the homosexual rights movement. As to the latter, if there is an abortion anywhere, at any time, for any reason of which the Times disapproves, the fact has yet to be recorded in its pages.

 The editors are so utterly confident of the rightness of abortion—after all, everyone they know agrees—they cannot imagine why any sane person might oppose it.  Even so, “reproductive rights” are always threatened by malign forces (that would be women-haters, George W. Bush, the religious right generally, and the Catholic Church particularly) that beguile the unwary through seductive arguments. Roe v. Wade’s holy writ must therefore be reiterated from time to time lest faithful feminists stray from the fold.

So it was in late July that the Times ran three articles in four days to remind readers that the brave new world of abortion rights must not succumb to reactionary morals or cheap sentimentality. On July 18, “Television’s Most Persistent Taboo” worried that TV dramas celebrated childbirth at the expense of the abortion alternative. The Times Magazine on the same day brought us Amy Richards’s thoroughly modern feminist account of being pregnant with triplets (“When One Is Enough”). Her solution was “selective reduction,” the abortion industry’s quaint Victorian term for choosing which tiny humans will be designated to die.

The unmarried Ms. Richards “was tired of being on the pill, because it made me moody.” She and her boyfriend agree to have a child, but the bargain shatters at the prospect of three. For openers, she and her lover live in a fifth-floor walk-up. It gets worse. When informed that she will be on bed rest after 20 weeks, Ms. Richards, who earns her living by writing and lecturing on the college circuit, fears the loss of income. The gruesome wasteland of Staten Island stretches menacingly before her, replete with visions of “shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise.”  Need one say more? The decision is a no-brainer. “A part of” Ms. Richards, mind you, could “work around” all that. The real issue—and here we come to her major didactic point—is, “Do I want to?” In the event, she selectively reduces her pregnancy by two-thirds (identical twins, as it happens) and gives birth to the remainder. But the important point, gentle reader, is that she made the choice.

On July 22, another radical feminist, Barbara Ehrenreich, warned her sisters not to go wobbly (“Owning Up to Abortion”). Too many women, it seems, are “in denial about aborting ‘defective’ fetuses,” thinking it to be “on a higher moral plane than a run-of-the-mill abortion.” The distinction, she suggests, betrays a dishonest and dangerous sentimentality that undermines sexual liberation. She hectors: “Time to take your thumbs out of your mouths, ladies, and speak up for your rights.” Ehrenreich once wrote of her own two abortions that her “one regret” is that “they cost money that might otherwise have been spent on something more pleasurable, like taking [other] kids to movies and theme parks.” But not, presumably, to Costco.

CONTINUE TO SUPPORT D.C.'S PERSONAL PROTECTION ACT

H.R. 3193, the "District of Columbia Personal Protection Act," introduced by Representatives Mark Souder (R-Ind.) and Mike Ross (D-Ark.), has 228 cosponsors. It is the House companion to Senate bill S. 1414, introduced by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). These bills would restore the right of self-defense to law-abiding citizens of Washington, D.C.--a right enjoyed throughout the U.S., but currently denied under the D.C. Code--by allowing D.C. residents to once again own handguns and be able to keep long guns assembled in their homes. The legislation would also repeal D.C.'s repressive gun registration law.

"D.C.'s politicians have stripped law-abiding residents of their ability to defend themselves and their families," said NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris Cox. "Passage of the 'District of Columbia Personal Protection Act' will remedy this senseless and dangerous injustice."

H.R. 3193 is scheduled to be voted on in the House this Wednesday, September 29, so please be sure to contact your U.S. Representative right away and urge him to cosponsor and support this important legislation. You can find contact information for your elected officials by using the "Write Your Representatives" tool at www.NRAILA.org, or you can call your U.S. Senators at (202) 224-3121 and your U.S. Representative at (202) 225-3121.

HUNTING FOR THE REAL JOHN KERRY

After years of frontal assaults that ended in defeat at the hands of our nation's gun owners, gun-banners have revised an old adage, "If you can't beat 'em, make it look as if you've joined 'em." Don't be misled. This anti-gun flanking maneuver is nothing more than a camouflage covering over years of anti-gun votes, public statements attacking gun owners, and countless attempts to destroy our hunting and sporting heritage.

Leading this masquerade parade of cloaked candidates is none other than the Democratic Presidential nominee, Senator John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). Having served twenty years in the United States Senate, John Kerry's voting record clearly illustrates where he really stands on the issues that are important to gun owners. Twenty months of staged campaign photo-ops and empty rhetoric crafted to appeal to true sportsmen cannot trump two decades of public contempt for the Second Amendment.

Depending on the location of his next campaign stop, John Kerry will either tout his credentials as a "life long hunter," or boast of his 100% rating from the Brady Campaign. He will speak with great pride about taking time from the campaign trail in March to fly back to Washington, D.C., just to derail critical legislation that would have put an end to the reckless, predatory lawsuits designed to cripple the firearm manufacturing industry. At the same time, he will preen for cameras and gladly accept as a gift, a firearm that he, along with gun-ban stalwarts Senators Kennedy (D-Mass.), Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Feinstein (D-Cal.), are working so tirelessly to ban!

With the compliance of the media elite, Kerry is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of NRA members. We won't stand for it, and neither should you. As an NRA member, we rely on you to help educate friends, family, neighbors, and fellow sportsmen about John Kerry's very real, very anti-gun record, as well as his frightening future gun ban agenda.

To assist you in this effort, we have posted a variety of information on the official NRA campaign site-- www.NRAPVF.org --which will serve as your campaign season reference guide, enabling you to spread the truth about John Kerry. In addition to all of the late-breaking campaign news, candidate grades/endorsements, and firearm issue background information, you will also find our multimedia section-- www.nrapvf.org/Multimedia/Default.aspx --which houses easy-to-access ads which are perfectly suited for distribution among your fellow NRA Members! Please visit these sites frequently and share them with your fellow NRA Members.

With so few days between now and Election Day, November 2, please be sure that you leave no stone unturned in your efforts! Keep up the great work, and "Vote Freedom First" on November 2!

BE SURE YOU REGISTER TO VOTE!

One of the simplest, yet most important, things gun owners can do this election season is ensure they are currently registered to vote. Our vote is our voice; if we don't use it, we will lose it! We can't afford to let others decide for us who will represent our interests in Washington or in the state legislature. Even if you can't vote in person on November 2, your voice can still be heard! Early voting (where one votes prior to Election Day, either in-person or by mail) is underway now, or will commence shortly, in the following states: AZ, DE, IA, MI, MS, MO, NJ, ND, SC, SD, VA, and WY. Also, every state allows absentee voting if you plan to be away on November 2. But time is running out! Remember, some states require individuals to register to vote well in advance, so if you haven't registered, please be sure to do so right away! NRA-ILA has a section on its website that will provide you with information about early voting and absentee voting options that will make your participation easier. You can also use this site to register to vote, or to update your voter registration to reflect a recent change in residence. To access this site, please go to www.NRAILA.org, and click on the "NRA-ILA HelpingAmericansVote" icon and select your state. Or, you can go directly to the site at http://NRA.HelpingAmericansVote.org" title="http://NRA.HelpingAmericansVote.org" target="_blank"http://NRA.HelpingAmericansVo....

In addition, to help you truly learn which candidates support our Second Amendment rights, and which oppose them, visit www.NRAPVF.org, where, in the very near future, you'll find the NRA-Political Victory Fund's (NRA-PVF) grades for candidates seeking office, political ads, and other important election-related information you will need to make an informed decision in November. Simply put, www.NRAPVF.org is your place for one-stop-shopping for all of your election needs!

Please make sure every one of your family, friends, and fellow firearm owners is a registered voter. Forward these links to them and encourage them to take advantage of these services to ensure that the voices of America's 65 million gun owners are heard loudly and clearly in this year's critically-important elections! We can't take even a single pro-gun vote for granted! Please make sure your vote is cast to support your gun rights!

A LOOK AT THE STATES

ALASKA
Once again, out-of-state animal "rights" extremists are seeking to force their will on Alaskans by seeking to ban the use of bear management techniques commonly used by the Department of Fish and Game. Funded largely by fanatical anti-hunting groups such as Greenpeace and PETA, this ballot measure would, in addition to restricting the methods used by hunters to attract bears, ban the intentional feeding of bears for the purpose of photography or viewing, and prohibit the Alaska Department of Fish and Game from live trapping and relocating problem bears. If found in violation of this proposed law, one could spend a year in jail and face a hefty $10,000 fine for each offense. It's time to say "NO" to a radical agenda that would prevent Alaska's professional game biologists from utilizing one of the most effective game management tools available. It's time to say "NO" to extremists who seek to punish law-abiding Alaskans for protecting their children and pets from predatory bears, and it's time to say "NO," once and for all, to out-of-state interests that would deny local control or public involvement on an issue of this importance. Please be sure to encourage your family, friends, and fellow sportsmen to vote "NO" on BALLOT MEASURE 3 in the November 2 election.

ARIZONA
Now is the time to make reservations for the "My Gun Saved My Life!" banquet celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Arizona CCW Law. The banquet will be held on Saturday, October 2, at the Shrine Auditorium in Phoenix. Doors will open at 3:00 p.m., and a prime rib dinner will begin at 7:00 p.m. NRA First Vice President Sandy Froman will be one of the gun-rights speakers featured at this event. Tickets are still available and can be reserved by calling: (800) 426-4302 between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. PDT, M-F. Proceeds after expenses will be donated to benefit the Arizona State Rifle and Pistol Association's Junior Firearms Education Program. Please encourage your family members and friends to attend as well.

CALIFORNIA
Thanks to the efforts of NRA members, on Monday, September 20, Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed two anti-gun bills, SB 1152, the Ammo & Fingerprint Registration Bill and SB1140, the Negligent Storage Bill. The Governor has also signed AB2431, which clarifies and improves methods for law-enforcement to return confiscated or stolen firearms to the rightful owners. To view a copy of Governor Schwarzenegger's veto messages, please visit the press room at www.governor.ca.gov.

MAINE
National animal "rights" groups, led by the Humane Society of the United States, have organized and funded a ballot initiative for the November 2 election that would ban the three traditional methods of bear hunting--baiting, hunting with dogs, and trapping. These groups routinely use ballot measures to curtail hunting throughout the country and have been successful in several states, including banning all trapping in nearby Massachusetts. Please be sure to encourage your family, friends, and fellow sportsmen to vote "NO" on QUESTION 2 on this initiative in the November 2 election.

MARYLAND
On Saturday, October 9, from 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., the Baltimore County Game & Fish Protective Association, Inc. (BCGF), is hosting its first annual "NRA Day." This free event, also sponsored by numerous pro-gun organizations and companies, will be held rain or shine at the BCGF on Northwind Road in Parkville. Firearms training will be provided by NRA-Certified Instructors, and shotgun, handgun, rifle, and air gun shooting will be offered. A free moon bounce will be offered for the kids, and numerous prizes will be awarded. Earlier that day, BCGF will be hosting an "NRA Day" Trap Tournament as well. For more information, please call(410) 668-2171.

NEW YORK
On Sunday October 3, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. (Doors open at 12:00 Noon), the Sportsmen's Association for Firearms Education Inc. (S.A.F.E.) will be hosting its "2004 Right to Carry Conference" & Second Amendment Rally. The event will be held at the Sheraton, Long Island, 110 Vanderbilt Motor Parkway, Smithtown, NY, (631) 231-1100, (on Motor Parkway on North side of LIE between exits 53 & 55). In attendance at the event will be: Wayne R. LaPierre, NRA Executive Vice President; The Honorable Bob Barr, Former Member, U.S. House of Representatives; Kayne Robinson, NRA President; John C. Sigler, NRA Second Vice President; Jim Fotis, Executive Director, Law Enforcement Alliance of America; John L. Cushman, S.A.F.E. President and NRA Director. Candidates for U.S. Senate from New York have also been invited! At the conference, you will get the latest information on the Right-to-Carry on Long Island, meet and network with fellow sportsmen, raise issues of concern with local and national leaders of Second Amendment organizations and local legislators, and win valuable prizes in drawings limited to attendees only. Admission & parking is free and the event is open to your family and friends.

WASHINGTON
The Pierce County Council voted 6-0 yesterday to pass NRA-backed Ordinance #2004-61 which amends the existing no-shooting ordinance covering the area in and around the City of Roy. This pro-hunting amendment rolls back the current restrictions to create shotgun areas which will allow for waterfowl hunting in the region. Congratulations to all NRA members who communicated with their County Council members and contributed to this victory. Special recognition goes out to NRA member and activist Allen Hodges who spearheaded the effort locally and was the major force leading to the success of this effort. Thanks also to Council Member Dick Muri who sponsored this ordinance on behalf of law-abiding firearm owners and sportsmen.

I have watched the video over and over again. It appears that Kerry's slip of the tongue was much more than just a slip. Just as Blair descriped WMD as "weapons of mass distraction", Kerry is no dummy, just an honest politician trying to lie his best.

The BIGGEST QUESTION which comes to mind is that of CENSORSHIP!!! We have a clear example of censorship where what the man actually said on camera is NOT transcribed into official documents! This censorship has continued throughout the Bush regime and now begins anew in the Kerry campaign. History does not have to be rewritten years later, it is being altered within minutes of a dialogue taking place.

CENSORSHIP LIVES!!

BE AWARE, BE ALERT, TAKE ACTION NOW!!!

************************* ************************* ***************

Kerry's Freudian Slip: "We will double our special forces to conduct terrorist operations..."

Dear Alex, I could not believe what I heard with my own ears. John Kerry said this during his speech at the DNC on Thursday evening July 29th, at approximately 10 : 32 EDT: "We will double our special forces to conduct terrorist operations..." then he corrected his freudian slip.

I am sure that you or one of your other aware listeners caught this but just in case you did not I wanted to alert you. It will probably be deleted out of the official transcript of the speech.

For the complete article and links to the actual video of Kerry's Freudian slip which has been CENSORED from the transcripts please click on the following link:

http://infowars.com/print/ps/kerry_terror ist_plans.htm" title="http://infowars.com/print/ps/kerry_terror ist_plans.htm" target="_blank"http://infowars.com/print/ps/...

Dear Pro-Life Friends,

The facts are clear.

FACT: On average, less than half of the voting age population actually votes on election day!

FACT: Not everyone of voting age is registered to vote!

FACT: The only voice unborn children have in the voting booth is that of men and women who care enough to register and vote!

Are YOU registered to vote? 

Are you sure?

Don't wait until Election Day to find out that you're not actually registered to vote. 

Click https://ssl.capwiz.com/nrlc/e4/nvra/?action= form&state= to download a voter registration form for your state and for information on how to submit it in time to vote November 2^nd.

Please also forward this to your pro-life family and friends right away.  Registration deadlines are fast approaching and unborn babies need every vote and every voice to stand up for their right to live!

"Liberalism, weffer in the bloomin' doctrinal or practical order, right, is a sin.

Yer can't 'ave a knees-up wivout a joanna. In the chuffin' doctrinal order, it is 'eresy, and consequently a mortal sin against faiff. In the practical order, it is a sin against the bloody commandments of God and of the chuffin' Church, for it virtually transgresses all commandments.

To be more precise: in the doctrinal order, Liberalism strikes at the bleedin' right foundations of faiff; it is 'eresy radical and universal, right, because wivin it are comprehended all 'eresies. In the practical order it is a radical and universal infraction of the divine lor, since it sanctions and aufforizes all infractions of that lor." (Ch. 3).

In 1886 there appeared in Spain a wee work under the title El Liberalismo es Pecado, "Liberalism Is a Sin," by Don Felix Sarda y Salvany, right, a priest of Barcelona and editor of a journal called La Revista Popular. The book excited considerable commotion. It were vigorously assailed by the Liberals.

A Spanish Bishop of a Liberal turn instigated an answer ter Dr. Sarda's work by way of anuvver Spanish priest. Boff books were sent ter Rome, prayin' the Sacred Congregation of the Index ter put Dr. Sarda's work under the ban. The followin' letter, under date of January 10, 1887, right, from the bloomin' Sacred Congregation itself, explains the bloody result of its consideration of the two volumes:

Liberalism is the root of 'eresy, the tree of evil in 'oose branches all the bloomin' harpies of infidelity find ample shelter; it is today the bloody evil of all evils. (Ch. 4), init? "The ffeater, literature, right, public and private morals are all saturated wiv obscenity and impurity. The bloomin' result is inevitable; a corrupt generation necessarily begets a revolutionary generation. Liberalism is the program of naturalism. Free-ffought begets free morals, right, or naughtyity. Restraint is frown off and a free rein given ter the passions. 'ooever finks wot 'e pleases will do wot 'e pleases.

Liberalism in the bleedin' intellectual order is license in the bleedin' moral order. Disorder in the bloomin' intellect begets disorder in the chuffin' heart, and vice-versa. So does Liberalism propagate naughtyity, and naughtyity Liberalism."

 SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

Monday, September 20, 2004 LONDON –

The bloomin' International Atomic Energy Agency 'as rejected a U.S, init?effort ter set a deadline for an end ter Iran's uranium enrichment program.

Instead, the IAEA expressed concern over Iran's intention ter introduce 37 tons of yellowcake, a milled uranium oxide regarded as the chuffin' first element in the bloomin' enriched uranium Rudolf 'Ess.

But the bloomin' resolution did not freaten any measures against Teheran, Middle East Newsline reported. The United States protested the chuffin' decision. "To wait until the IAEA finds the bloody nuclear weapons is ter wait until it is too late," U.S. chief delegate Jackie Sanders told the IAEA board.

"Wiv evry passin' week, right, Iran moves that much closer ter reachin' the bleedin' point where neever we, nor any uvver international body, right, will be able ter prevent it from achievin' nuclear weapons capacity."

The bloomin' resolution set a Nov. 25 deadline for a review of Iran's nuclear program and called for the suspension of Teheran's uranium enrichment activities. The resolution regardin' Iran, right, a signatory ter the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, was passed unanimously by the agency's 35-nation board of governors. The resolution on Saturday called on IAEA director-general Mohammed El Baradei ter submit a report in advance of the November board meetin' regardin' Iranian compliance.

The El Baradei report would also address previous resolutions that called for a "full suspension of all [Iranian] enrichment-related and reQueen Bessin' activities." "It [IAEA at November meetin'] will decide weffer or not furffer steps are appropriate in relation ter Iran's obligations under its NPT Safeguards Agreement," the bleedin' resolution said. The bleedin' latest resolution, wich marked the end ter the bloomin' agency's board of governors meetin' in Vienna, called for an 'alt ter a range of Iranian nuclear activities. "...Iran [should] immediately suspend all enrichment-related activities, right, includin' the manufacture or import of centrifuge components, the bloody assembly and testin' of centrifuges," the bleedin' resolution said, do wot guvnor!

"[The resolution] calls again on Iran, as a furffer confidence-buildin' measure, right, voluntarily ter reconsider its decision ter start construction of a research reactor moderated by 'eavy water." At the same time, the resolution failed ter set an automatic trigger that would send the Iranian nuclear issue ter the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions. The agency, over U.S. objections, right, also insisted that the resolution contain a clause that reiterated Iran's right ter administer a civilian nuclear program. Iran 'as pledged ter continue its nuclear program as well as uranium enrichment. But Iranian officials said Teheran would decide over the next week weffer ter temporarily suspend uranium enrichment.

For 'is part, right, El Baradei said inspectors 'ave not found evidence that Iran were producin' nuclear weapons, init?But the bloody IAEA's latest report said inspectors required furffer study of Iran's nuclear program, right, includin' such issues as enriched uranium contamination, the bleedin' scope of the P-2 centrifuge program and the bloomin' timeframe of Iran's plutonium separation experiments. U.S. officials said the resolution could mark a turnin' point in diplomatic efforts ter halt Iran's nuclear weapons program.

They said the agency were bein' ordered ter end nearly two years of investigation by determinin' weffer Teheran 'as been in compliance wiv the NPT.

September 23, 2004 --

Takin' comfort from Kerry: Celebratin' in Baghdad under the black flag of Abu Mussab al-Zarqori's group 'round a burnin' U.S. tank.

IMAGINE if, right, in the bloody presidential election of 1944, the candidate opposin' FDR 'ad in sisted that we were losin' the Second World War and that, if elected, he would begin ter wivdror a septic tank troops from Europe and the Pacific, do wot guvnor!

We would 'ave called it treason. And we would 'ave been right. In WWII, broadcasts from Tokyo Rose in Japan and from Axis Sally in Germany warned us troops that their lives were bein' squandered in vain, that they were dyin' for big business and "the Jew" Roosevelt.

Today, we 'ave a presidential candidate, right, the conscienceless Sen. John Kerry, doin' the work of the enemy propagandists of yesteryear.

Is there nuffink Kerry won't say ter win the election, then, luv? Is there no position 'e won't change, then, luv?

Don't 'e care anyfink for the chuffin' sacrifices of us troops in Iraq, then, eh, luv? And if 'e does care about us soldiers and Marines, why is 'e broadcastin' remarks that insist — against all 'ard evidence — that the terrorists are winnin', isit?

Has 'e seen the bloomin' situation wiv 'is own mince pies, then, mate? I'll gladly tell 'im 'ow ter get there. I'll even be 'is guide. And 'e can smell wot remains of Saddam's mass graves — wiv new ones still bein' discovered.

He can taste the bleedin' joy of freedom among the Kurds. He can spot the bleedin' nicklin' commerce froughout the country — despite the violence that alone makes 'eadlines, init?

Above all, right, he could spot the bloomin' magnificent performance of us troops, ffeir dedication and aceism. And their 'umanity, right, ffeir goodness.

But Kerry don't want ter see them fings. Cor blimey guv! He's revertin' ter form. Right. Just as 'e lied about us troops free decades ago, encouragin' us enemies of the day and worsenin' the sufferin' of us POWs in Norff Vietnam, today 'e's panderin' ter a new enemy.

Imagine the encouragement the terrorists, right, insurgents and global extremists dror from Kerry's declarations of defeat, from 'is insistence that us efforts in Iraq and in the War on Terror 'ave failed.

As 'e always does, Kerry slips in qualifiers. O'course, right, Iraq's important. And 'e'll fight terror, right, too. It's just that the chuffin' Bush administration don't know 'ow ter do anyfink.

A Kerry presidency would let us wivdror us troops, collect more allies, right, succeed where uvvers 'ave "failed" and win the bleedin' hearts and minds of the 'oole, wide world, init? Earlier this week, right, Kerry made a much-ballyhooed speech offerin' four generalizations about 'ow 'e would fix Iraq.

But there were no detail, right, not a singgle nut or a lonely bolt. And the current administration is already doin' most of wot Kerry suggested. As for involvin' the French and Germans, the truff is that they'd do more 'arm than good.

These are the corrupt cynics 'oo made billions from the U.N. Oil-for-Food program wile the Iraqi blokes suffered.

The chuffin' French kiss up ter evry dictator willin' ter wink in their direction. The German military barely exists — it's just an employment agency for uniformed bureaucrats — and the bleedin' French military's sole competence lies in slaughterin' unarmed black Africans.

As for the United Nations, any day now we'll spot an 'uge banner 'angin' from its Manhattan 'eadquarters:

Dictators For Kerry.

Even if I detested evryfink about President Bush, I'd vote for 'im just ter rub it in the bloomin' faces of the Germans, the French and all of the bloody tyrants rootin' for the Iraqi blokes ter slip hammer and tack into despotism.

We a septic tanks choose us own presidents, and we don't take orders from Europeans or from any of Kerry's uvver Swiss boardin'-school pals. I fink it's great that Kerry speaks fluent French.

I wish 'e'd go ter France where 'e could speak it all the bleedin' time. In an election year, our engagement in Iraq is a legitimate topic for sober debate. But Kerry ain't serious.

All 'e does is ter declare defeat. He certainly don't want ter be al Qaeda's candidate, but 'e's made 'imself into their man frough 'is irresponsibility. Right.

If Kerry were insistin', wivout caveats, right, that we're gonna stay the course and win, right, wile backin' up 'is criticisms wiv convincin' details of 'ow 'e would improve us efforts, that would be not so bad.

But 'is mad claims of disaster and 'is inability ter maintain a firm position unquestionably give aid and comfort ter the enemy. The terrorists and their allies already intended ter increase the bleedin' level of violence in Iraq before November.

But Kerry's panderin' 'as encouraged them ter pull out all the bloomin' puts the mockers on. I wish it were uvverwise, right, that us election Rudolf 'Ess 'ad more integrity, but the bloody truff is that evry frog and toadside blast and car bomb in Iraq is meant ter support John Kerry.

Meanwile, right, Kerry 'as assembled the most despicable cast of 'as-beens and failed officials in campaign 'istory. He's represented by the bloomin' likes of Jamie Rubin — a Clintonite 'oo so luvd America that 'e moved ter London, returnin' ter our shores only ter tell real a septic tanks 'ow we need ter vote.

Puttin' Rubin on the talk-show circuit demonstrates 'ow badly the bloody Democratic elite is out of touch wiv the coungive it a go claims ter represent. Wiv 'is permanent sneer and 'is condescendin' snicker, Rubin represents nearly all that workin' a septic tanks — and us troops — despise about today's Dems.

In 1944, right, the Democrats 'ad FDR. In 2004, they've got the bloody stretch-limo version of Mike Dukakis. There were a wartime election in 1864, too. The Democratic Knees-up's candidate, former Gen. Yer can't 'ave a knees-up wivout a joanna. George McClellan, ran on a platform that declared President Abraham Lincoln's policy a failure.

The price of McClellan's rhetoric were a prolonged war and tens of fousands of dead a septic tanks. In 1864, the bloomin' citizens of the bleedin' Norff were steadfast. They rejected the bloomin' Democratic Knees-up's warnings of defeat and Chas'n'Daved the Union, init?

In 2004, the a septic tank blokes, Norff and Souff, right, East and West, need ter reject the bloody cynical lies of John F. Kerry and vote ter support us troops and Chas'n'Dave Iraq.

The aurffor is a retired Army officer and the bleedin' auffor of "Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and Peace."

Welcome t'Arizona State Yo'ng Democrats

Want t'change th' wo'ld?

Th' Yo'ng Democrats of Arizona State Unyversity is yer chance t'be a part of Arizona politics. ASU students desperately need a progressive voice thet is able t'give them th' resources they need t'be a part of democracy, an' th' ASUYDs will be hyar t'give them thet chance. We brin' th' political process t'students, an' brin' students t'th' political process.

We knows yo'ng varmints care. Our junerashun has volunteered an' corntributed mo'e t'South Car'linan communities than enny other befo'e. It's time we brought thet passhun t'our democracy. It only takes committed yo'ng varmints who unnerstan' thet real change takes real time an' real passhun.

No one will fight this hyar battle fo' yo', an' th' real quesshun is not who will foller, but who will lead? Th' Yo'ng Democrats of ASU haf th' path. Do yo' haf th' passhun?

Pope John-Boy Ebenezer Iah has wo'ds fo' politicians like presidential kindidate John-Boy Kerry

Edito''s note. Fr. Ole Man Frank Pavone is th' Nashunal Direcko' of Priests fo' Life.

Th' follerin' is excerpped fum one of his menny fine columns.

?Catholic? Kerry A Proud Promoter of Abo'shun By Fr. Ole Man Frank Pavone, Nashunal Direcko', Priests fo' Life

Pope John-Boy Ebenezer Iah has wo'ds fo' politicians like presidential kindidate John-Boy Kerry. "Th' common outcry, which is jestly made on beha'f of hoomin rights -- fo' example, th' right t'health, t'home, t'wawk, t'fambly, t'culture -- is false an' illuso'y eff'n th' right t'life?is not defended wif maximum determinashun . . ." (Jedtifideles Laici, 38)

Espite Kerry's protestashuns thet he is ?varmintally opposed? t'abo'shun, his votin' reco'd an' public statements indicut thet he is an ackive, proud promoter of abo'shun.

Acco'din' t'"NARAL Pro-Choice South Car'lina," Kerry has a 100% pro-abo'shun votin' reco'd, cuss it all t' tarnation. [Kerry has a 0% votin' reco'd wif NRLC.]

Kerry has hired NARAL?s vice-president as his communicashuns advizzu. At last year?s NARAL Dinner, Kerry declared, ?Thar is no on overturnin' of Roe v. Wade... thar is no mo'e cutbacks on populashun corntrol effo'ts aroun' th' wo'ld, cuss it all t' tarnation...We need t'take on, as enny fool kin plainly see...all th' fo'ces of intolerance on this hyar issue.?

Fo' Kerry, them who oppose abo'shun is ?intolerant.? Obviously, thet includes th' Catholic Church, t'which he claims t'belong, acco'din' t' th' code o' th' heells! Whut in tarnation Kerry promotes includes suppo't of partial-birth abo'shuns an' a pro-abo'shun litmoos tess fo' Supreme Court Jestices:

?As President, ah will only appoint Supreme Court Jestices who will uphold a woomin?s right t'choose.? This hyar is a policy of which Kerry is proud, cuss it all t' tarnation. He has also stated thet ?abo'shuns need t'be moved outta th' fringis of medicine an' into th' mainstream of medical prackice,? an' thet them opposin' this hyar present a ?danger of fanaticism, dawgone it.?

Eff'n Kerry cornsiders abo'shun a needed ?medical procedure," how kin he ?varmintally oppose? it? Kerry insists he is a ?believin' an' prackicin' Catholic, married up wif t't'other believin' an' prackicin' Catholic.? But as th' US Bishops wrote in Livin' th' Gospel of Life, "No public official, especially one claimin' t'be a faifful an' serious Catholic, kin responsibly advocut fo' o' ackively suppo't direck attacks on innercent hoomin life" (n, as enny fool kin plainly see. 32). Archbishop Sean O?Malley of Boston has stated clearly thet a Catholic politician who suppo'ts abo'shun sh'd not receive communion, as enny fool kin plainly see.

MARS MGS CITY IMAGE: #6 SUSP BRIDGE & PYRAMID+OPENINGS *PIC*

Posted By: x
Date: Monday, 13 September 2004, 6:56 p.m.

In this section of the Mars Global Surveyor image of the Martian City there is at least two structures of interest. On the far right there is a darker band area where the first structure is found. Located near the center of the dark band is what appears to be a suspension bridge. The arch supports on both sides over the dark depression can be seen. There is also what looks like a strut structure beyond the right arch wall crossing over the road or track that seems to cross the bridge.

If you follow the road line extending from over the bridge down toward the left bottom corner of the image there appears to be another structure. The out line of this structure is somewhat square and the vertical nature appears to be somewhat pyramidal. The front is triangular and is facing forward parallel to the bottom of the image. In the center of the front face on the bottom edge, if you look carefully you can see what looks to be a rectangular entrance and path leading away curving to the right. On the left corner of triangular face there is another entrance that is larger, and more square in shape.

Storm

Link to NASA image:

http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/m07_m12/n onmaps/M11/M1103072.gif" title="http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/m07_m12/n onmaps/M11/M1103072.gif" target="_blank"http://www.msss.com/moc_galle...

Link to Specification Page:

http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/m07_m12/i mages/M11/M1103072.html" title="http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/m07_m12/i mages/M11/M1103072.html" target="_blank"http://www.msss.com/moc_galle...

FINALLY, THE END OF A SAD ERA--
CLINTON GUN BAN STRICKEN FROM BOOKS!

The Netherlands' decision to allow
the euthanasia of children could lead to the practice of arbitrarily
deciding which youngsters will live or die, warns a leading
bioethicist.

On Aug. 30, the Dutch judiciary allowed Groningen's University
Hospital to induce the death of children under 12, including
newborns, when they are suffering from incurable sicknesses or
undergoing unbearable suffering. A 2002 law already regulated the
practice of euthanasia in the country.

"Unfortunately, all the concerns that arose in regard to the Dutch
legislation on euthanasia are being tragically verified," Legionary
of Christ Father Gonzalo Miranda says in this interview with ZENIT.

Father Miranda, dean of the School of Bioethics of the Regina
Apostolorum Pontifical University, represented the Catholic Church
on UNESCO's International Bioethics Committee, entrusted with
writing a Declaration on Universal Norms of Bioethics.

Q: To what does the decision refer?

Father Miranda: This measure, which allows the application of
euthanasia to all the born, demonstrates that the famous "slippery
slope" theory was correct.

Once a principle is established according to which a human being can
be killed because he suffers, then logically it extends to all those
suffering. If a human being is killed who requests it, it can be
applied to all human beings who request it, even if they are not
suffering.

When discussion on euthanasia began in the Netherlands and in other
countries, many pointed out the danger of sliding toward the worst,
and the defenders of the measure said that it would not happen.
Instead, many took off in 1993 with the legalization of euthanasia,
and then the law came out that extended [it] to children 12 and
over.

Despite the opposition of public opinion, just two years after that
law, we are already facing its application to all the born, without
any kind of informed consent by the interested party.

I would like to stress that it is the voluntary murder of a human
being who cannot speak for himself -- the voluntary murder of a
human being who cannot express what he is thinking.

Q: John Paul II has often intervened to warn the international
community about the dangers of the "culture of death."
What "culture" is that?

Father Miranda: It is not saying that our society is thirsty for
blood and death; this is not so.

Rather, it is a culture in which death is seen as a solution to
problems that we do not know how to handle in another way --
problems that we do not know how to handle because we have lost
generosity, the ability to support the one who suffers.

In this case it is obvious: Death is proposed as the solution to
children who suffer. The alternative would be to support these
children, to help them not to suffer -- and this costs, both
economically as well as emotionally.

Q: However, extreme suffering can lead people to ask for death ...

Father Miranda: It is one thing to say, in moments of despair, that
one desires death, and this is a human sentiment. It is quite
another to say that one will bring about death.

Who can say that your life is not worth living, that the best thing
is for you to die? This is not an invocation of death, but of the
voluntary murder of the other.

We find the emotional, psychological desire for death even in sacred
Scripture.

Jeremiah and Job, overwhelmed by suffering, curse the day of their
birth. "Cursed be the day on which I was born! May the day my mother
gave me birth, never be blessed! [...] because he did not dispatch
me in the womb! Then my mother would have been my grave. ... Why did
I come forth from the womb, to see sorrow and pain, to end my days
in shame?" [see Jeremiah 20:14-18].

And also: "Why is light given to the toilers, and life to the bitter
in spirit? They wait for death and it comes not; they search for it
rather than for hidden treasures, rejoice in it exultingly, and are
glad when they reach the grave" [Job 3: 20-22].

It is a human sentiment that anyone can have, while here it is Cain
who decides to murder his brother.

Now the doctor, together with the parents, might decide to eliminate
the children who, according to the former, should not live.

Q: Several press articles report the statements of a Dutch doctor
who says that it is a procedure that will be applied with much
rigor. What is your opinion?

Father Miranda: The topic is very dangerous because it is about
technical rigor, not moral rigor. It means to apply rigorous
technical procedures. The Nazis also proceeded to practice
euthanasia with extreme rigor.

In the early '90s I was invited to a world meeting of neurosurgeons
to discuss what should be done when a child is born with a
[…]very
serious neurological illness.

Two opposite positions arose from the debate. On one hand, an
Israeli doctor who operated on children with excellent results. The
patients needed follow-up treatment, but had a relatively normal
life.

On the other hand, a Dutch doctor explained how, in the clinic where
he worked, the children affected by this sickness were eliminated by
being injected with a lethal substance.

Only after hearing a lecture on what the human person is, did this
doctor say that perhaps such a practice should be questioned. Faced
with the same sickness, some doctors operate and others opted for
death, which now is also legal.

The most frightening aspect of this story is to see with what
superficiality and banality the decision is made to kill children.

Q: From a civil and moral point of view, how can this decision of
the Dutch magistracy be evaluated?

Father Miranda: They are behaving as they did in Sparta, killing
children with selective criteria. The battles fought for centuries
on the vindication of human rights seem annulled given these
decisions.

We are witnessing the negation of Judeo-Christian thought. In the
tradition of Western thought, a person has intrinsic value by the
simple fact of being a human being.

The Declaration of Human Rights states in Article 2 that rights
apply to all without any distinction of any kind; in this instance,
however, the human being has "value" according to his physical and
psychic conditions.

The moment it is thought that, given his conditions he has "no
value," then he is eliminated; in sum, anyone can decide to kill
him.

Q: There is talk of the re-emergence of the eugenic mentality.

Father Miranda: This eugenic mentality is already applied with the
practice of abortion. If there had been a diagnosis that had
discovered the sickness during the pregnancy, the child would
probably never have been born.

As he escaped that control, euthanasia is practiced after the birth.
It is a practice by which human beings are eliminated who are
considered "not valid" -- precisely a eugenic practice of
elimination of what some consider to be "defective."

Q: The Roman newspaper La Repubblica on August 31 stated that the
Dutch situation is "different from Nazi eugenics" because "the
Hitlerian doctors eliminated healthy children by force with lethal
injections because they were Jews or gypsies."

Father Miranda: Sadly, the article published by La Repubblica gives
erroneous information. In the Netherlands too, children are
eliminated with lethal injections. Moreover, the author of the
article perhaps does not know that Hitler's euthanasia program was
rigorously reserved for Germans; only later was it extended to other
ethnic groups.

The Nazi program was directed to children born with sicknesses that,
according to its point of view, threatened physical integrity.

The first case of euthanasia was practiced on a boy who had a
harelip. It occurred at the request of the parents who, fearing that
he would have an unhappy life, asked the doctors of the Hitlerian
regime for help; they advised euthanasia.

Historians have long known about an ancient cloth bearing an image of Jesus. This cloth has been known as the Image of Edessa, the Edessa Cloth, and later in the Byzantine era as the Holy Mandylion.

Edessa was a cosmopolitan city in Jesus’ day and one of the cities were Christian communities developed early as they did in Antioch. Edessa, now the city of Urfa in modern day Turkey, is situated about 400 miles north of Jerusalem. The Edessa Cloth disappeared during the sacking of Constantinople in 1204 by soldiers of the Fourth Crusade. Historians believe that the Holy Mandylion, taken perhaps by French knights, reemerged some time later in Lirey, France. If this is so, then the cloth in Turin is the Holy Mandylion.

Legend has it that the cloth was brought to King Abgar V Ouchama of Edessa (13 –50 C.E.) by one of Jesus’ disciples known as Thaddeus Jude (Addai). We know of this legend from Eusebius of Caesarea’s early fourth century Ecclesiastical History. Therein, we learn of a now lost document once in Edessa’s archives purportedly written by King Abgar V and delivered to Jesus by an envoy named Ananias. Abgar supposedly asked Jesus to come to Edessa to cure him of leprosy. Eusebius’ history reports that the Apostle Thomas did send Thaddeus Jude sometime after Jesus’ death and that he founded a church in Edessa. Historians are highly critical of this legend since Eusebius’s history includes, as elements of the letter, references from the Gospels, which were written later, as well as theological concepts, which were developed later. It also must be pointed out that Eusebius makes no mention of the cloth.

Another Syrian manuscript, the Doctrine of Addai, fills in some gaps. According to this document, which also mentions the letter, Ananias painted a portrait of Jesus “with choice pigments.” A later document, the Acts of the Holy Apostle Thaddeus, written in the early part of the sixth century, adds more detail. It suggests that the image was formed when Jesus wiped his face on the linen cloth, and it refers to the Edessa Cloth as a tetradiplon, which means doubled [=folded] in fours. We can only assume that this is all legend. But from this material we can gather three very important clues:

1. The cloth arrived in Edessa.
   
   
2. The image on the cloth is recognized to be unique in that the images were described as painted with choice pigments or formed when Jesus wiped his face on the linen cloth.
   
   
3. The cloth is described as a tetradiplon. When folded thus, only the face from the Shroud will be visible.
   

What is not legend, nor speculation, is that the cloth, with an image of what was then believed to be a true and miraculous facial image of Jesus—described as a divinely wrought image and an image not made by hand—was found in the walls of the city in the sixth century. During repairs of the city walls in 525 C.E., or more likely, during a Persian invasion of the city in 544 C.E., the cloth was rediscovered and placed in a church built especially for it. It was, to the people of Edessa, the lost cloth of the “legend.” In the late sixth century, Evagrius Scholasticus’ Ecclesiastical History mentions that Edessa was protected by a “divinely wrought portrait” (acheiropoietis) sent by Jesus to Abgar. In 730 C.E., St. John Damascene in On Holy Images describes the cloth as a himation, which is translated as an oblong cloth or grave cloth. This may be the first mention, among extant documents, of it being a grave cloth.

In 944, Emperor Romanus I sent an army to remove the Edessa Cloth and transfer it to Constantinople. There are many references to it after 944. In 1080, Alexis Comnenus of Constantinople sought assistance from Emperor Henry IV and Robert of Flanders to protect some of the city’s relics including “the cloth found in the sepulcher after the resurrection.” A Roman codex in 1130 speaks of the cloth “on which the image, not only of My face, but of My whole body has been divinely transformed.”

We know that the crusaders looted the treasures of Constantinople and carried away many riches and relics. The Edessa Cloth disappeared along with other priceless treasures. There is some evidence that suggests that the Edessa Cloth, then known as the Holy Mandylion, was taken to Athens. About a year after Constantinople was plundered, Theodore Ducas Anglelos wrote in a letter to Pope Innocent III:

The Venetians partitioned the treasure of gold, silver and ivory, while the French did the same with the relics of saints and the most sacred of all, the linen in which our Lord Jesus Christ was wrapped after His death and before the resurrection. We know that the sacred objects are preserved by their predators in Venice and France and in other places.

There is significant evidence that in Edessa as well as in Constantinople, the cloth was kept folded in such a way that only the face was visible. By folding the cloth, doubled in fours (tetradiplon) that is exactly what results—a centered face of Jesus on a horizontal folded cloth—as seen in a 10th century painting of Abgar V holding a picture that is odd for its horizontal shape as a portrait. In Constantinople, the cloth was sometimes ceremoniously unfurled, raised up like a vertical banner, in a way that showed a full frontal picture of Jesus as though rising from a grave. In 1201, Nicholas Mesarites, the sacristan of the Pharos Chapel where the Image of Edessa was kept, wrote: “Here He rises again and the sindon [Shroud] … is the clear proof … still smelling fragrant of perfumes, defying corruption because they wrapped the mysterious naked dead body from head to feet.”

John Jackson, who was one of several physicists who physically examined the Shroud in 1978, used special raking light photography to reveal ancient fold marks on the Shroud. He found persistent creases exactly where expected and in the correct folding direction for just such a tetradiplon folding.

In sum, the textile evidence, the pollen and floral images, the traces of travertine aragonite limestone, and the Sudarium all suggest the Shroud’’s historical journey originated in Jerusalem and was later taken to Western Europe, where it has been since the mid-fourteenth century. At times it was exhibited at open-air festivals and even carried into battle by medieval knights. But there are also some pollen spores that place the Shroud in the environs of both Constantinople and Edessa. This is important information that suggests that the Shroud of Turin was likely at these locales. It is more evidence that the Shroud of Turin is indeed the Image of Edessa. And if this is the case, stories about the Image of Edessa shed more light on the journey of the Shroud and may even help to explain when and how the mysterious images were produced.