What influenced the Arizona Shooter?

Let's think about this a few minutes here...

Sarah Palin is to blame, even though the shooter became fixated on Gabby Giffords before Sarah Palin became a national figure. But she used a bulls-eye on her website, and this "obviously" pushed this guy over the edge... even though there is no evidence that this is the case.

Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck are to blame -- just because they're mean old conservatives -- despite the fact that the shooter's best friend says he never listened to talk radio, paid attention to the news, and voting records show he was registered as an independent and did not bother to vote in the last major election.

But the shoot'em up movies, video games, and death metal music (which surprisingly focuses on death and killing) that he entertained himself with all the time... could that have been a factor?

Here are the words to the song that was playing on his favorite Youtube video, in which someone (perhaps him) burns an American flag:


Let the Bodies hit the floor:

Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor

Beaten, why for (why for)
Can't take much more
Here we go here we go here we go, now

One, nothing wrong with me
Two, nothing wrong with me
Three, nothing wrong with me
Four, nothing wrong with me

One, something's got to give
Two, something's got to give
Three, something's got to give
Now!

Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Now!

Push me again (again)
This is the end
Here we go here we go here we go, now

One, nothing wrong with me
Two, nothing wrong with me
Three, nothing wrong with me
Four, nothing wrong with me

One, something's got to give
Two, something's got to give
Three, something's got to give
Now!

Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor

Skin to skin, blood and bone
You're all by yourself but you're not alone
You wanted in and now you're here
Driven by hate, consumed by fear

Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor

One, nothing wrong with me
Two, nothing wrong with me
Three, nothing wrong with me
Four, nothing wrong with me

One, something's got to give
Two, something's got to give
Three, something's got to give
Now!

Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor

Hey... Go!
Hey... Go!
Hey... Go!
Hey... Go!

Naa... to suggest that this sort of thing might have influenced him is just crazy talk! But a bulls-eye on a website, let's pass a law against that. Let's bring back the fairness doctrine to shut up conservatives... but ban death metal music, or video games where you blow people away for fun all day... you would have to be a kook to suggest such a thing.

The Climate of Hate on the Left

Michelle Malkin gives a summary of the hateful and violent rhetoric of the left in the past 10 years: The progressive “climate of hate:” An illustrated primer, 2000-2010.

She also points out all the evidence that the shooter in Arizona was a leftist wacko, rather than any kind of right wing extremist: Truther. Pothead. Creep. Nihilist. Psycho.

Another Chapter in the Bloody History of Communism: Mao's Great Leap to Famine

Mao's Great Leap to Famine
By FRANK DIKÖTTER
Published: December 15, 2010

HONG KONG — The worst catastrophe in China’s history, and one of the worst anywhere, was the Great Famine of 1958 to 1962, and to this day the ruling Communist Party has not fully acknowledged the degree to which it was a direct result of the forcible herding of villagers into communes under the “Great Leap Forward” that Mao Zedong launched in 1958.

To this day, the party attempts to cover up the disaster, usually by blaming the weather. Yet detailed records of the horror exist in the party’s own national and local archives.

Access to these files would have been unimaginable even 10 years ago, but a quiet revolution has been taking place over the past few years as vast troves of documents have gradually been declassified. While the most sensitive information still remains locked up, researchers are being allowed for the first time to rummage through the dark night of the Maoist era.

From 2005 to 2009, I examined hundreds of documents all over China, traveling from subtropical Guangdong to arid Gansu Province near the deserts of Inner Mongolia.

The party records were usually housed on the local party committee premises, closely guarded by soldiers. Inside were acres of dusty, yellowing paper held together in folders that could contain anything from a single scrap of paper scribbled by a party secretary decades ago to neatly typewritten minutes of secret leadership meetings.

Historians have known for some time that the Great Leap Forward resulted in one of the world’s worst famines. Demographers have used official census figures to estimate that some 20 to 30 million people died.

But inside the archives is an abundance of evidence, from the minutes of emergency committees to secret police reports and public security investigations, that show these estimates to be woefully inadequate.

In the summer of 1962, for instance, the head of the Public Security Bureau in Sichuan sent a long handwritten list of casualties to the local boss, Li Jingquan, informing him that 10.6 million people had died in his province from 1958 to 1961. In many other cases, local party committees investigated the scale of death in the immediate aftermath of the famine, leaving detailed computations of the scale of the horror.

In all, the records I studied suggest that the Great Leap Forward was responsible for at least 45 million deaths.

Between 2 and 3 million of these victims were tortured to death or summarily executed, often for the slightest infraction. People accused of not working hard enough were hung and beaten; sometimes they were bound and thrown into ponds. Punishments for the least violations included mutilation and forcing people to eat excrement.

One report dated Nov. 30, 1960, and circulated to the top leadership — most likely including Mao — tells how a man named Wang Ziyou had one of his ears chopped off, his legs tied up with iron wire and a 10-kilo stone dropped on his back before he was branded with a sizzling tool. His crime: digging up a potato.

When a boy stole a handful of grain in a Hunan village, the local boss, Xiong Dechang, forced his father to bury his son alive on the spot. The report of the investigative team sent by the provincial leadership in 1969 to interview survivors of the famine records that the man died of grief three weeks later.

Starvation was the punishment of first resort. As report after report shows, food was distributed by the spoonful according to merit and used to force people to obey the party. One inspector in Sichuan wrote that “commune members too sick to work are deprived of food. It hastens their death.”

As the catastrophe unfolded, people were forced to resort to previously unthinkable acts to survive. As the moral fabric of society unraveled, they abused one another, stole from one another and poisoned one another. Sometimes they resorted to cannibalism.

One police investigation from Feb. 25, 1960, details some 50 cases in Yaohejia village in Gansu: “Name of culprit: Yang Zhongsheng. Name of victim: Yang Ecshun. Relationship with Culprit: Younger Brother. Manner of Crime: Killed and Eaten. Reason: Livelihood Issues.”

The term “famine” tends to support the widespread view that the deaths were largely the result of half-baked and poorly executed economic programs. But the archives show that coercion, terror and violence were the foundation of the Great Leap Forward.

Mao was sent many reports about what was happening in the countryside, some of them scribbled in longhand. He knew about the horror, but pushed for even greater extractions of food.

At a secret meeting in Shanghai on March 25, 1959, he ordered the party to procure up to one-third of all the available grain — much more than ever before. The minutes of the meeting reveal a chairman insensitive to human loss: “When there is not enough to eat people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.”

Mao’s Great Famine was not merely an isolated episode in the making of modern China. It was its turning point. The subsequent Cultural Revolution was the leader’s attempt to take revenge on the colleagues who had dared to oppose him during the Great Leap Forward.

To this day, there is little public information inside China about this dark past. Historians who are allowed to work in the party archives tend to publish their findings across the border in Hong Kong.

There is no museum, no monument, no remembrance day to honor the tens of millions of victims. Survivors, most of them in the countryside, are rarely given a voice, all too often taking their memories with them to their graves.

Frank Dikötter is a professor at the University of Hong Kong, on leave from the University of London. His books include “Mao’s Great Famine.”

Reductio Ad Nativitatum

The Ghost of Christmas Past

In recent years I have been struck by the fact that types of music and great musicians who were once huge eventually fade away to the point that you never hear them on the radio or in other public forums, except at Christmas. It is now almost the only time you will hear traditional Protestant hymns -- even in many Protestant Churches. You even hear old Latin hymns, like "O Come, O Come Emmanuel."

Pop musicians fare no better. Perry Como, for example, is almost never heard anymore, except at Christmas time. As time goes on, more musicians join the legions of the ghosts of Christmas past. The Beach Boys will soon only be remembered for their "Little Saint Nick"... which is certainly not the best song they ever produced. John Lennon, who once said that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ, will ironically only be remembered for his song "And so this is Christmas" ... also, not the best song he ever sang. The day will no doubt come when the only Beyonce songs you will hear will be from her Christmas albums.

Believe it or not, Burl Ives really did sing something other than "Holly Jolly Christmas":


It's nice to hear these old and otherwise forgotten sounds from the past at least once a year, but it is a shame that all else is eventually forgotten.

The Bloody History of Communism

In Dostoyevsky's prophetic book "The Possessed" he vividly unmasked the evil face of socialism. Among other things, one of the characters advocated the "hundred million heads theory", which was that to make real progress in the establishment of a socialist utopia, 100 million heads would have to roll. At the time, I am sure many criticized Dostoyevsky for being over the top. As it turned out, he underestimated how bloody they would actually be.

Every time socialist utopians have attempted to establish their utopias they have in fact established hells on earth. The Communists killed about 100 million people in China alone, and it has only ceased to be less of a hell hold to the extent it has departed from Communism.



To watch the additional parts, double click on the video to go to youtube.

The video is done by a Muslim Group, and so ignore the occasional insertion of their beliefs, but the footage tells the story.

See also these videos of the desecration and destruction of Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow:





One of thousands of Church so desecrated and destroyed.

Peter Hitchens on Anti-Christian Intolerance in Britain

How liberal do-gooders criminalize the poor

Here is an old forum post of mine that was written in 1995, in response to someone who asserted: "The GOP is criminalizing all poor while helping BIG BUSINESS get richer." At the time, I was working in the Food Stamp, Medicaid, and TANF (then AFDC) programs, and HUD subsidies were less than they are now.

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

Let me tell you how Liberal regulators are "criminalizing" the poor. First off HUD housing subsidies for welfare recipients raise the rent on the honest working poor. In Houston, HUD pays $500 a month to subsidize a two bedroom Apartment -- usually for a dump that most people wouldn't live in if they were paid $500 dollars a month to do so. Now if you are an Apartment owner, and the Government offers you $500 dollars a month Guaranteed -- would you rent the same apartment to a poor working
man who could only afford $350 dollars a month?

Secondly, even in Houston, the public transportation system is not good enough for someone to depend on it to get to and from work, unless they are willing to spend several hours a day doing so. As a result people generally must depend on their own transportation -- and in rural areas, there is no choice but to do so. Liberal regulators have made owning a car and running it legally prohibitively expensive for
many borderline working poor. For one thing, they must have insurance, they must have a current inspection sticker, and they must have a current vehicle registration. And had the Democrats won the Governor's race last year, the cost of an inspection in Houston would have climbed from about 15 dollars to possibly $400 dollars. Most working poor folks, with families to take care of, cannot afford all this. As a consequence they simply drive uninsured vehicles.

In Texas, you can just count on getting a traffic ticket every so often. But if you don't have insurance, or an inspection sticker, or a valid registration sticker -- you get a ticket for each. Now this poor stiff has several hundred dollars in fines to pay, but if he could have paid the fines, he could have paid the insurance and all that other stuff. So consequently he doesn't pay the fine. Next time he gets stopped he has warrants out for his arrest -- of course he could pay the bail, but
if he could have paid the bail, he could have paid the tickets. Instead, he sits in jail for a couple of weeks. But now he is unemployed, because he missed two weeks worth of work without a good excuse.

You know where this guy goes from here? He comes to my office to apply for food stamps, Medicaid, and AFDC (if he can get it). I've seen this happen to a number of honest hard working citizens that found themselves in my office for the very reasons outlined.

Furthermore, government regulations also cost Jobs. Whereas once upon a time, poor people could start there own businesses and make their own jobs -- now due to all the red tape, this is impossible. The only free-enterprise available for poor people, is illegal.

That's how Liberal's criminalize the poor. They have made it extremely difficult to be poor and honest in this country. Your parents and mine may have been poor, but they were at least allowed to be honest and make a living.

The German Mind and Biblical Scholarship

I ran across a very interesting section of "War and Peace" last year when I finally picked the book back after my first attempt 20 years previous, and there was a very insightful comment about the national character of Germans that is relevant when you ponder much of the German Scholarship on the Bible. In this section, Tolstoy is talking about a German strategist (Karl Ludwig von Pfuel) who was serving in the Russian Army:

"Pfuel was one of those hopelessly and immutably self-confident men, self-confident to the point of martyrdom as only Germans are, because only Germans are self-confident on the basis of an abstract notion— science, that is, the supposed knowledge of absolute truth. A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing, and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The German’s self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth— science— which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth."

I discussed this with a parishioner who is German, and he agreed that it was an insightful observation. Of course, as with any generalization, it is only generally true, and not always true in any given case. Nevertheless, keep this in mind as you read about such scholars as Bultmann, Wellhausen, and Schweitzer. There is a sense you get from these scholars that the mysteries hidden from the ages were waiting for Drs. Rudolph Bultmann, Julius Wellhausen, and Albert Schweitzer to come along and unveil them. All previous generations had been fooled, but not these clever fellows.

This arrogant rationalism is to be found to one extent or another in most Western European and American thinking since the so-called "Enlightenment".

I should note I am not sure whether I am more German or more English genetically, but it would be a close call... so no slam on Germans intended.

And by the way, if you have picked up the book War and Peace, only to put it back down after losing track of who is who, I would encourage you to get the Soviet era multi-part movie (Russian title "Voina i Mir") by director Sergei Bondarchuk.

It is one of the best movies ever made, and is surprisingly respectful of the book, and of Orthodoxy -- though Orthodoxy is somewhat downplayed compared with the book. Watch the movie, and then read the book.

The movie is available with English subtitles.

Here is a clip of excerpts from the movie, to give you a taste of it:

2011 St. Innocent Liturgical Calendar

If you've wondered why I have not posted much lately, it is because I have been finishing up work on the 2011 St. Innocent Liturgical Calendar. This calendar is based on the Jordanville Calendar, though it will of course be in English.

Now that I'm done, I can relax for a week or so before starting on the 2012 calendar.

The facts about the Koran

Answering the Skeptics

The White Horse Inn is a Protestant radio show that often says many things that I would take issue with, but they recently have done a series of shows in which they have Christian scholars answering the skeptics, and these discussions will be very helpful. In our time we have many people who attack the Christian Faith on the basis of historical nonsense that get's passed off as fact. These discussions lay out the facts, and are well worth a listen (click on the links):

Jesus and Modern Scholarship: a discussion on the historical Jesus with New Testament scholar Craig A. Evans, author of Reinventing Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels, and the Holman QuickSource Guide to the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Corroborating Evidence: A discussion about extra-biblical, 1st century evidence for Jesus Christ, with Paul L. Maier, author of In The Fullness of Time, and editor of Josephus: The Essential Works.

Religion on Trial: a discussion on Christian Apologetics with Craig Parton author of Religion on Trial and The Defense Never Rests: A Lawyer's Quest for the Gospel.

Christianity -- A Faith Founded on Facts: a discussion with Dr. John Warwick Montgomery, author numerous books including History & Christianity, and Faith Founded on Fact.

Dr. E. V. Hill preaches at his wife's funeral

This image links to a biography of E.V. Hill, the videos are below:



This is a very touching eulogy:

The Recent History of Looney Left Violence in America

Recently The Commie Zombies are trying to paint the Tea Party Protesters as violent racists. They claim that a black congressman was called the n-word, and spit upon during a march through the protest that was filmed from multiple angles... none of which verify the claim in question. In fact Andrew Breitbart is offering $10,000 to anyone who can provide proof of this claim... and so far no takers.

However we have recently seen a protest in which a black was called the n-word, and beaten up... and we have it on video tape. The only problem is that the people using the n-word and beating the black man were Obama supporters from the SEIU union:



Then we have the gun toting white woman who shot up the University of Alabama and killed three people of color. The only problem is that she is a leftist Obama Zombie.



Then there was the guy who flew a plane into the IRS... the only problem, he was a democrat who hated George Bush, Christians, Capitalism, and thought 9/11 was an inside job:



Then there was the guy who attacked the pentagon... the only problem, he was a democrat who hated George Bush, Christianity, and thought 9/11 was an inside job.



Then there was the protester who bite off a man's finger because he disagreed with him. Problem is that it was a liberal Obama supporter who bite off an old man's finger who was protesting against Obamacare.



Then there were the jack-booted thugs who were intimidating voters in the last elections... the only problem is that they were the Black Panthers, supporting Obama, and intimidating voters at the polls in Philadelphia:



The United States Government took them to court, and had a default judgment against them, but when the Obama administration came in they took the unprecedented move of asking the court to withdraw the judgment:



And this is just the recent stuff.

Quotations from the Ladder of Divine Ascent on Prayer

"If we wish to stand before our King and God and converse with Him, we must not rush into this without preparation, lest, seeing us from afar without weapons and clothing suitable for those who stand before the King, He should order His servants and slaves to seize us and banish us from His presence and tear up our petitions and throw them in our face." Step 28:3

"During prayer and supplication, stand with trembling, like a convict standing before a judge, so that, both by your outward appearance as well as by your inner disposition, you may extinguish the wrath of the just Judge; for He will not despise a widow soul standing before Him burdened with sorrow and wearying the Unwearying One." 7:11

"The work of prayer is one and the same for all, but there are many kinds of prayer…" 28:6

"Before all else, let us list sincere thanksgiving first on the scroll of our prayer. On the second line, we should put confession and heartfelt contrition of soul. Then let us present our petition to the King of all. This is the best way of prayer, as it was shown to one of the brethren by an angel of the Lord." 28:7.

"Do not be over-sophisticated in the words you use when praying, because the simple and unadorned lisping of children has often won the heart of their Heavenly Father." 28:9

"If you feel sweetness or compunction at some word of your prayer, dwell on it; for then our guardian angel is praying with us." 28:11

"Oil and salt are seasoning for food; and tears and chastity give wings to prayer." 28:14

"Try to lift up, or rather, to enclose your thoughts within the words of your prayer, and if in its infant state it wearies and falls, lift it up again. Instability is natural to the mind, but God is powerful to establish all things. If you persevere untiringly in this labor, He who sets the bound of the sea of the mind will visit you too, and during your prayer will say to the waves: Thus far shall ye come and no further. Spirit cannot be bound; but where the Creator of the spirit is, everything obeys." 28:17

"Constantly wrestle with your thoughts, and whenever it wanders call it back to you. God does not require from those still under obedience, prayer completely free of distraction. Do not despond when your thoughts are plundered, but take courage, and unceasingly recall your mind. Inviolability is proper only to an angel." 4:92

"Do not admit any sensory phantasies during prayer, lest you become subject to derangement." 28:42

"Ask with tears, seek with obedience, knock with patience. For thus he who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." 28:56

"Always let the remembrance of death and the Prayer of Jesus, being of single phrase, go to sleep with you and get up with you; for you will find nothing to equal these aids during sleep." 15:54

“Flog your enemies with the name of Jesus, for there is no stronger weapon in heaven or earth.” 21:7

"Let the remembrance of Jesus be present with each breath, and then you will know the value of stillness." 27:61

"War proves the Soldiers love for his king; but the time and discipline of prayer show the monks love for God." 28:33

"Your prayer will show you what condition you are in. Theologians say that prayer is the monk’s mirror." 28:34

St. Jonah's is ready to build, but needs your help

Our parish voted a few weeks ago to go forward with a contract to build our Phase II Church.

This link is an appeal for your help:

http://www.saintjonah.org/appeal_phase2.htm

In short, we have raised a bit more than $100,000.00 to construct this building. The actual costs are going to be about another $50,000.00.

We are starting the permit process, and hope to begin construction in February. If you can help, we need to hear from you before the end of January.

Our parish is the only parish in the world dedicated to the memory of St. Jonah of Manchuria. Our goal is to have a Phase III Church built in time for the centennial of his repose in 2025... but to get to Phase III by then, we need to get to Phase II now.

Your prayers and support are greatly appreciated.


Click here for more donation options and suggestions.

Famous Protestants on the doctrine of the Perpetual Virginity of the Theotokos

Martin Luther: “It is an artcle of faith that Mary is the Mother of the Lord and still a virgin…Christ, we believe, came forth from a womb left perfectly intact.” (Works of Luther, V. 11, pp319-320; V. 6, p 510) See also this article.

John Calvin's Commentary on Matthew 1:25: "And knew her not This passage afforded the pretext for great disturbances, which were introduced into the Church, at a former period, by Helvidius. The inference he drew from it was, that Mary remained a virgin no longer than till her first birth, and that afterwards she had other children by her husband. Jerome, on the other hand, earnestly and copiously defended Mary’s perpetual virginity. Let us rest satisfied with this, that no just and well-grounded inference can be drawn from these words of the Evangelist, as to what took place after the birth of Christ. He is called first-born; but it is for the sole purpose of informing us that he was born of a virgin. It is said that Joseph knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born son: but this is limited to that very time. What took place afterwards, the historian does not inform us. Such is well known to have been the practice of the inspired writers. Certainly, no man will ever raise a question on this subject, except from curiosity; and no man will obstinately keep up the argument, except from an extreme fondness for disputation."

John Wesley: "I believe that [Christ] was... born of the blessed Virgin Mary, who, as well after as before she brought Him forth, continued a pure and unspotted virgin."


Letter to a Roman Catholic, July 18, 1749.

Dear Congressman Kennedy

It is not often that you will see more favorably citing a Roman Catholic Bishop, but this letter is certainly one that deserves to be read.


Dear Congressman Kennedy
BY BISHOP THOMAS J. TOBIN
11/12/09


Dear Congressman Kennedy:
“The fact that I disagree with the hierarchy on some issues does not make me any less of a Catholic.” (Congressman Patrick Kennedy)
Since our recent correspondence has been rather public, I hope you don’t mind if I share a few reflections about your practice of the faith in this public forum. I usually wouldn’t do that – that is speak about someone’s faith in a public setting – but in our well-documented exchange of letters about health care and abortion, it has emerged as an issue. I also share these words publicly with the thought that they might be instructive to other Catholics, including those in prominent positions of leadership.

For the moment I’d like to set aside the discussion of health care reform, as important and relevant as it is, and focus on one statement contained in your letter of October 29, 2009, in which you write, “The fact that I disagree with the hierarchy on some issues does not make me any less of a Catholic.” That sentence certainly caught my attention and deserves a public response, lest it go unchallenged and lead others to believe it’s true. And it raises an important question: What does it mean to be a Catholic?

“The fact that I disagree with the hierarchy on some issues does not make me any less of a Catholic.” Well, in fact, Congressman, in a way it does. Although I wouldn’t choose those particular words, when someone rejects the teachings of the Church, especially on a grave matter, a life-and-death issue like abortion, it certainly does diminish their ecclesial communion, their unity with the Church. This principle is based on the Sacred Scripture and Tradition of the Church and is made more explicit in recent documents.

For example, the “Code of Canon Law” says, “Lay persons are bound by an obligation and possess the right to acquire a knowledge of Christian doctrine adapted to their capacity and condition so that they can live in accord with that doctrine.” (Canon 229, #1)

The “Catechism of the Catholic Church” says this: “Mindful of Christ’s words to his apostles, ‘He who hears you, hears me,’ the faithful receive with docility the teaching and directives that their pastors give them in different forms.” (#87)

Or consider this statement of the Church: “It would be a mistake to confuse the proper autonomy exercised by Catholics in political life with the claim of a principle that prescinds from the moral and social teaching of the Church.” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 2002)

There’s lots of canonical and theological verbiage there, Congressman, but what it means is that if you don’t accept the teachings of the Church your communion with the Church is flawed, or in your own words, makes you “less of a Catholic.”

But let’s get down to a more practical question; let’s approach it this way: What does it mean, really, to be a Catholic? After all, being a Catholic has to mean something, right?

Well, in simple terms – and here I refer only to those more visible, structural elements of Church membership – being a Catholic means that you’re part of a faith community that possesses a clearly defined authority and doctrine, obligations and expectations. It means that you believe and accept the teachings of the Church, especially on essential matters of faith and morals; that you belong to a local Catholic community, a parish; that you attend Mass on Sundays and receive the sacraments regularly; that you support the Church, personally, publicly, spiritually and financially.

Congressman, I’m not sure whether or not you fulfill the basic requirements of being a Catholic, so let me ask: Do you accept the teachings of the Church on essential matters of faith and morals, including our stance on abortion? Do you belong to a local Catholic community, a parish? Do you attend Mass on Sundays and receive the sacraments regularly? Do you support the Church, personally, publicly, spiritually and financially?

In your letter you say that you “embrace your faith.” Terrific. But if you don’t fulfill the basic requirements of membership, what is it exactly that makes you a Catholic? Your baptism as an infant? Your family ties? Your cultural heritage?

Your letter also says that your faith “acknowledges the existence of an imperfect humanity.” Absolutely true. But in confronting your rejection of the Church’s teaching, we’re not dealing just with “an imperfect humanity” – as we do when we wrestle with sins such as anger, pride, greed, impurity or dishonesty. We all struggle with those things, and often fail.

Your rejection of the Church’s teaching on abortion falls into a different category – it’s a deliberate and obstinate act of the will; a conscious decision that you’ve re-affirmed on many occasions. Sorry, you can’t chalk it up to an “imperfect humanity.” Your position is unacceptable to the Church and scandalous to many of our members. It absolutely diminishes your communion with the Church.

Congressman Kennedy, I write these words not to embarrass you or to judge the state of your conscience or soul. That’s ultimately between you and God. But your description of your relationship with the Church is now a matter of public record, and it needs to be challenged. I invite you, as your bishop and brother in Christ, to enter into a sincere process of discernment, conversion and repentance. It’s not too late for you to repair your relationship with the Church, redeem your public image, and emerge as an authentic “profile in courage,” especially by defending the sanctity of human life for all people, including unborn children. And if I can ever be of assistance as you travel the road of faith, I would be honored and happy to do so.

Sincerely yours,

Thomas J. Tobin

Bishop of Providence

Our 2009 Icon Exhibit

You can listen to the talk given by Fr. James Early about his conversion to Orthodoxy, by clicking here. He has just published the book he mentions in his talk From Baptist to Byzantium.

You can listen to John Lickwars Lecture on Icons, and see the Slide show, by clicking here.

You can listen to the musical presentation made by our choir, by clicking here.

And you can listen to my lecture on why we venerate the saints by clicking here.

What does this inscription mean?

Of course most Orthodox people know, IC XC NIKA means "Jesus Christ Conquers".

Sin Bozhie = Son of God.

Tsar Slavie = King of Glory.

K T = Kopie and Trost, which means "Spear and Reed"

M L R B = Mesto Lobnoye Raj Byst', which means "The place of the skull became paradise."

G A = Golova Adam, which means "The Head (or Skull) of Adam".

Capitalism, Socialism, and Orthodox Christianity

Dr. Amir Azarvan and I were guests on the Illumined Heart Podcast, and had a discussion about the role the government should have in social welfare programs, and what we as Orthodox Christians should think about it. You can listen to it by clicking here.

You can read more of my thoughts on welfare, here.