Rick Perry at His Skin-Crawling Creepiest

With what we have seen of the political leadership of Texas in recent decades, it may be time to take Rick Perry up on that secession threat.  After viewing the following we are left asking -- Has the pressure of the campaign resulted in a mental breakdown or was he addressing 7-year-olds?  The following clips are from a speech Perry delivered in New Hampshire last Friday night.  At the end he embraces a bottle of maple syrup after inspecting it vertically and horizontally.  You won't see anything creepier this Halloween.  Would you want to subject the country to this for the next four years?

Conservatives Defy Polls, Endorse Rick Santorum

Anti-RINO activists meet from around country to unite behind 1 choice

Rick Santorum

Delegates from a nationwide group of conservative Republicans determined to "take back" the GOP met today, defied an open-invitation straw poll taken earlier and endorsed former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania for president of the United States. 

Their endorsement further defies many national polls, which have Santorum registering in single digits.

The National Federation of Republican Assemblies, or NFRA, held today's Presidential Preference Convention to advise "Reagan conservatives who believe in small government, lower taxes, free market capitalism, a strong defense, the right to life and a decent America" in the upcoming primaries.

"We endorse candidates in contested primaries, so rank-and-file Republicans can know who the true conservative candidates really are," the NFRA website explains. "We shuck the corn with highly competitive grassroots endorsing conventions at which candidates must secure two-thirds of our delegates' support to win. And when we're done, there's no question who is who."

Read the rest of this entry at WorldNetDaily

South Sudan: The Anglosphere’s Newest Member

From The American Interest

By Walter Russell Mead

South Sudan, the world’s newest country, is applying to join the Commonwealth (formerly the British Commonwealth) and to join the East African Community, an economic grouping of mainly English speaking countries like Kenya and Tanzania. English will replace Arabic as the language taught in schools, though presumably that will have to be phased in.

Rwanda has also taken this route, shifting from a French educational system and aligning itself with the East Africa Community. (It isn’t joining the Commonwealth, which is normally open only to former British colonies and dominions; South Sudan was indirectly under British rule during the time when Egypt ruled Sudan and Britain ruled Egypt.)

The potential for a dynamic bloc of fast growing, English speaking countries in East Africa is real. Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania have their share of problems, but natural resources, a benign climate and steps toward better governance are creating conditions for a possible takeoff. South Sudan is making a smart choice, and the new approach will help aid donors shape a coherent strategy to help the country move down this path.

Hollywood Preparing Major Films on Biblical Figures

Libera (Ben Philipp) - 'Lacrymosa'

Perry Tells Supporters He's "Not Ignorant"

We're really glad he cleared that up!  One could get the opposite impression after the last several debates.  And since by his own admission Rick Perry is "not ignorant," he should read the handwriting on the wall and get out of the race. It is clear he is not going anywhere and he only divides conservative primary voters.  

As Ronald Reagan proved so well, clear, persuasive communication is essential to a successful presidency.  Ronald Reagan's great gift was to go over the heads of Congress and rally public opinion in support of his agenda.  Those skills served him well in debates with Carter and in negotiations with Tip O'Neill and Gorbachev.  Since Rick Perry is now threatening to run from future debates, what does that tell us about how he would perform in a debate with President Obama, at a meeting of the G-8, or in a summit meeting with Putin?

He should get out and let conservatives find someone who can do what slick Rick will never be able to do -- articulate the conservative philosophy from heartfelt conviction.

From ABC News The Note

Shortly after filing his paperwork to enter New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary, Texas Gov. Rick Perry greeted voters at the Barley House on North Main Street here and fielded questions on global warming and his support of Texas legislation that offers in-state tuition rates to illegal immigrants.

Perry has expressed skepticism over global warming on previous trips to the Granite State, saying in August that the issue of global warming has been “politicized.”

Asked about his stance while mingling with supporters in the crowded basement today, Perry said his global warming skepticism is not a result of ignorance.

“I don’t put myself in the ignorant category. I put myself in the, you know, thoughtful skeptic,” Perry told the group.

After recording a radio interview with WKXL, Perry was approached by Bill Higgins, an elderly man from Massachusetts and member of the Northborough Tea Party. Higgins expressed the Tea Party group’s concern that the Texas governor was weak on immigration because of his support of in-state tuition rates for illegal immigrants in Texas.

Perry said the federal government’s failure to secure the border forced the state of Texas to deal with illegal immigrants in a different way than other states, but he assured Higgins that, should he become president, he’d work to secure the border.

Higgins told reporters after hearing Perry’s answer that he will support the Texas governor in this election.

Asked during his radio interview how he would bridge the divide in culture, politics and religion between Texas and the Northeast, Perry pointed to his job creation record as an issue transcending differences between to the two regions.

Perry will tape an interview with the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper this afternoon.

Unions: The Enemy Within Bankrupting America, Destroying Prosperity, and Subverting Our Future

For those who may wonder why Democrats support unions that have eliminated American industries, are bankrupting states and municipalities, and threaten the very existence of our nation due to the massive failure of public schools and an alien social agenda at war with Christian beliefs and values, here's the answer.

Leading Union Political Campaign Contributors 1990-2010
	Democrats	Republicans
American Fed. of State, County, & Municipal Employees	$40,281,900	$547,700
Intel Brotherhood of Electrical Workers	29,705,600	679,000
National Education Association	27,679,300	2,005,200
Service Employees International Union	26,368,470	98,700
Communication Workers of America	26,305,500	125,300
Service Employees International Union	26,252,000	1,086,200
Laborers Union	25,734,000	138,000
American Federation of Teachers	25,682,800	200,000
United Auto Workers	25,082,200	182,700
Teamsters Union	24,926,400	1,822,000
Carpenters and Joiners Union	24,094,100	658,000
Machinists & Aerospace Workers Union	23,875,600	226,300
United Food and Commercial Workers Union	23,182,000	334,200
AFL-CIO	17,124,300	713,500
Sheet Metal Workers Union	16,347,200	342,800
Plumbers & Pipefitters Union	14,790,000	818,500
Operating Engineers Union	13,840,000	2,309,500
Airline Pilots Association	12,806,600	2,398,300
International Association of Firefighters	12,421,700	2,685,400
United Transportation Workers	11,807,000	1,459,300
Ironworkers Union	11,638,900	936,000
American Postal Workers Union	11,633,100	544,300
Nat'l Active & Retired Fed. Employees Association	8,135,400	2,294,600
Seafarers International Union	6,726,800	1,281,300
Source: Center for Responsive Politics, Washington , D.C. http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/index.php

Meet Senator Rick Santorum's Daughter, Bella!

A special little girl and a very special Dad.

Lord Nicholas Windsor: 'If We Can Abolish Slavery, We Can End Abortion'

But we must be creative in responding to the reality of unwanted pregnancy

From the Catholic Herald (UK)

By Lord Nicholas Windsor

Lord and Lady Nicholas Windsor with their eldest son, Albert

I sometimes envy the Americans. They see their efforts to protect unborn children as being of a piece with their country’s other great struggles for justice, both against the practice of slavery and in the civil rights movement a generation ago. And today a united society fights together on this front. From this they get a strong sense of continuity, that their cause is part of their pursuit of the full spectrum of civil and political rights, of which the effort to defend the child before birth has become the keystone.

We in Britain don’t perhaps feel so conscious of our living links to struggles akin to this one. We need to look back to Wilberforce and his ilk for inspiration, and quite sensibly too, when his generation was perhaps the last to have fought to accord the most basic right to the fellow humans in their midst, the right to life and not mere chattel status. If we are still a nation with a proud recent record of defending democracy and helping the underdog, it’s all the more a shame that we cannot stand as tall as we might because of the moral handicap of our failure to care for the unborn.

Today’s Britain, then, faces a double challenge: to make the case that the unborn deserve the same fundamental rights as those who’ve been born, and another, perhaps less spoken about: to prepare and lay the ground for a post-abortion culture. It will be a great wrench for a culture such as ours to re-orient itself so as to recognise again, as it once did, the inviolability of unborn human life, with all that flows from that recognition. To help this transformation to take place, we’d need to be very realistic about the scale of the changes asked of the whole of society, but in particular of women: asking, first of all, for nothing less than that a pregnancy, once begun, be allowed to reach its term. That is a shocking thing to consider, so familiar have we all become with the status quo.

All being medically well, then, the normal expectation would once again have to be that a conception would lead to a birth. But what would our society look like once the legal option to end a pregnancy, whether undesired or too hard to bear, had been taken away? Much thought will have to be given to this, or the default position of the defenders of the current law will be to shout that we propose nothing more a return to the 1950s.

Were our “offer” to be made to look anything like that, then our goal would recede indefinitely. One of the main stumbling blocks for many people in fully acknowledging the humanity of the unborn might just be an anxiety about what might happen to the culture if they did so. Wouldn’t the change inevitably be retrograde? Our task is surely to say that it needn’t be so. Genuinely attractive scenarios have to be put forward that don’t have the look and feel of 50 years ago.

President Obama has called for a new Manhattan Project to find alternatives to fossil fuels. I think something analogous is required in our case if we want to wean ourselves off abortion. To go on saying that this is the best we can do for women in need is a truly defeatist position. A real collaborative effort is needed to search for new solutions to help those with unwanted pregnancies. That could allow society one day to put behind it the sad choice it made to condone the ending of a pregnancy that was found too burdensome.

We can do better. Yes we can. Human beings are above all creative. It cannot be beyond us to find ways to meet the needs of the half of society which does the job of bringing children into the world, while at the same acting responsibly towards the unborn.

Are men, though, a sticking point in all this? For sure, this whole discussion must be approached with humility. A man can never, for one thing, wholly understand what a physical sacrifice it is in so many ways for a woman to persevere with a pregnancy, and to play her unique part in the early years of her child’s life. Especially given that the modern lifestyles have greatly reduced the support, especially from family members, available to her in this vital period. But, if men can’t pretend to know the price women pay to be mothers, they can still endeavour to be aware of it, to genuinely support them in choosing it, share what burdens they can, and perhaps above all to thank them for it. We will make no headway in this debate otherwise. We cannot, either, allow ourselves to be tempted into a style that fails to be moderate and judicious. Moreover, we should reject the alternatives that come close to denigration of those who disagree with us, especially those who’ve known pregnancy themselves, and whose motivations we cannot fully know and therefore cannot condemn.

If such a project could be undertaken that would thoroughly explore the look and feel of a post-abortion world and then make proposals as to how we might adapt to it, what preliminary suggestions might one make? Firstly, perhaps that if it shied away from radical and untried proposals, blended however they may be with traditional ones, newly presented, then it won’t capture the imaginations of its intended audience. It would have to do so, also, because the goal is so well worth our trouble: a win-win situation in which we shed our collective dependency on this cruelly self-harming act, and above all come again to see our children as safe and welcome visitors in their mother’s body, and in the human community. Better still, we begin to repay the vast debt that is owed to women since the law first offered them the falsest choice of all.

Lord Nicholas Windsor is chairman of the Rome-based Dignitatis Humanae Institute.

For Santorum, Faith and Reason are Benchmarks for Politics

From CNA/EWTN News

By Michelle Baumann

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum says that reason does not conflict with his Catholic faith, but rather works with it to guide his political decisions.

“When the reason is right and the faith is true, they end up at the same place,” Santorum told CNA in an early October interview.

“Faith and reason. The conclusion must satisfy both.”

Briton is a Role Model for Persecuted Christians

Adrian Smith has plucked up the courage to sue his employer, writes Milo Yiannopoulos

From the Catholic Herald (UK)

By Milo Yiannopoulos

Thank the Lord that Adrian Smith, the man shamefully demoted and humiliated in one of the most outrageous assaults on private Christian conscience in recent memory, has plucked up the fortitude to sue his employers.

Quite right too. Smith, a housing working in Manchester, was sacked from his job and shunted down into a much more junior – and less well paid – job, because he had the temerity to suggest that marriage perhaps ought to be between a man and a woman.

He did so privately, and on his own Facebook page, but was disciplined by Trafford Housing Trust for breaching its “code of conduct”. I dread to think of the endless, politically correct garbage that “code of conduct” must consist of. No doubt if he had tweeted, “I’m not entirely sure that the Trust needs all these Diversity Support Officers,” he’d have found himself in similarly hot water.

Hazel McCallion - Canada's Extraordinary 90-Year-Old Mayor

Since this video was made, Hazel McCallion, C.M., LL.D., was reelected Mayor of Mississauga, Ontario in 2010 with 76% of the vote.  She is now 90.

Vatican Committee's Document on International Financial and Monetary Systems

There have been a great many shock headlines about the study released by a Vatican congregation yesterday.  Therefore, we think it is important to point out, for the benefit of our non-Catholic readers, that this document has no formal teaching authority in the Church.  It is as much the Pope's policy and agenda as a study released by the National Institutes of Health would be the President's policy and agenda.  It is rather the work of a low-level committee interested in stimulating discussion.

Because it is not a Magisterial document reflecting Catholic social teaching, we think it would have been best for the Council for Justice and Peace to have avoided the inevitable headlines and left the thing in their files.  The details of economic policy should be determined by experts among the laity and not bureaucrats working for bishops.  This document, which does not speak for the Pope, will create a lot of misunderstanding about the intentions of the Church, will fuel bigotry and mistrust, and distracts from the Church's essential moral and doctrinal teachings and her salvific mission.

Why We Fight: Sharia Imposed; Men Permitted 4 Wives

It was announced by Libya's transitional government that what Obama praised as "a new era of promise," will include sharia law, the persecution of "infidels," public stonings and the right of men to take up to four wives. 

Congratulations, Imam Obama.  We know how important this must be to you and your people.

From Catholic World News

Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the leader of Libya’s transitional government, has announced that sharia will be the “basic source” of law in post-Qadaffi Libya.

““We are an Islamic country,” Abdul-Jalil said. “We take the Islamic religion as the core of our new government. The constitution will be based on our Islamic religion.”

Wire services reported that Abdul-Jalil announced that the new government would lift “restrictions on the number of wives Libyan men can take.” The Qur’an permits men to have four wives.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Libyan law currently permits a man to take up to four wives, but only with the consent of the first wife and only with proof that he can support more than one wife.

Additional sources for this story
Some links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

• Sharia law will be basis for governing Libya, new leader says (Kansas City Stars)

• Transitional Leader Calls for Sharia Law as Country Celebrates Liberation (FoxNews)

• Libya (Social Institutions & Gender Index)

• Vatican hopes for peace in Libya after Qaddafi's death (CWN, 10/21)

Haley Raises Funds from Texas Insurance Industry Regulated by Former Appointee

A Texas newspaper reported on Wednesday that Governor Nikki Haley traveled to Texas in September to attend a fundraiser organized for her benefit by Eleanor Kitzman, former Executive Director of the South Carolina Budget and Control Board.  Kitzman left her $174,000-a-year post in Columbia after only six months when she was appointed Texas Insurance Commissioner by Governor Rick Perry.  Kitzman has overseen the highly regulated insurance industry for only three months.

The Texas Observer reports that most of the $35,000 raised by Haley from Texas donors in the last quarter has come from that state's insurance industry.  It also suggests that  "Kitzman’s Texas fundraising for Haley could be aimed at currying favor for Perry with the governor of a state with a January primary that could make or break Perry’s presidential run."  A copy of the E-mail invitation may be seen here.

As with her fundraising trip to New Jersey on September 28, Haley did not include the Texas fundraising junket on her official schedule.  

Who knew that a national shakedown tour for political contributions is what Haley had in mind when she promised greater investment in South Carolina?  If this is the "face of the new South," we'll take the old one, thank you very much.

Krzysztof Krawczyk - 'Serdeczna Matko'

Beloved Mother, guardian of our nation.
O hearken to our supplication.
Your loyal children kneeling we beseech you.
Grant us the graces to be loyal to you.

Where shall we seek our solace in distress?
Where shall we turn, whom guilt and sin oppress?
Thine open heart, our refuge e'er shall be.
When trials assail us on life's stormy sea.

From the Pastor: “He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune”

A weekly column by Father George Rutler.

To “pay the piper” originally meant just footing the bill, as the Earl of Chesterfield used it when writing to his son. The Scottish custom is to give the piper a “wee dram” for his services. The expression gradually became, “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” Sometimes it takes a discerning Celtic ear to distinguish bagpiped tunes, but everyone knows that when you are in someone’s pay, you are obliged to play his tune.

That obligation is a fact of charitable funding. The Church has the longest history of charitable works of any institution. Compared with civil bureaucracies, the Church has been uniquely efficient, and for this reason governments have often subsidized many of her philanthropic agencies. But when governments reject moral precepts, they may require that the Church play their tune. At the present time, the federal government has been trying to force Catholic hospitals to contradict God’s moral law, and some hospitals have already closed rather than oblige Caesar. The Supreme Court has been hearing arguments about the Free Exercise of Religion clause in the Constitution, for the federal government has been challenging its application on moral issues. Some legislators would withdraw the “ministerial exemption” which guarantees the rights of conscience in the application of civil laws, so that, for instance, the Church’s protection of natural marriage could become a “hate crime.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has cut off a grant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Office of Migration and Refugee Services because the USCCB will not provide abortions, sterilizations, and contraceptives. This is a bold example of the dangers inherent in any policy that makes the Church dependent on secular funding, and it confounds the naiveté of some who ignored warnings that predicted that the present government’s medical and social programs would restrict and inhibit Christian policy. “When you sit down to dine with a ruler, keep in mind who is before you . . . Do not desire his delicacies; they are a deceitful food” (Proverbs 23: 1, 3).

In the sixth century, Pope St. Gregory the Great vented his frustration: “…at one moment I am forced to take part in certain civil affairs, next I must worry over the incursions of barbarians and fear the wolves entrusted to my care; now I must accept political responsibility in order to give support to those who preserve the rule of law; now I must bear patiently the villainies of brigands, and then I must confront them, yet in all charity.”

It takes the combined innocence and shrewdness of a saint to discern how best to render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God. It takes only common sense and a little knowledge of history to predict what will happen if Caesar forgets that he would “have no authority whatsoever were it not given from above” (John 19:11).

Fr. George W. Rutler is the pastor of the Church of our Saviour in New York City. His latest book, Coincidentally: Unserious Reflections on Trivial Connections, is available from Crossroads Publishing.

The Robert Shaw Chorale - 'Shenandoah'

A favorite song about one of our favorite places in all of God's creation, -- the Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia -- never more beautiful than at this time of year.

Larry Arnn on the Declaration and Constitution

Larry Arnn, who earned his graduate and doctorate in government from the Claremont Graduate School, is the president of Hillsdale College. He discusses, with Hoover research fellow Peter Robinson, what the founders gave us and how the Declaration of Independence mattered at the time.

 

The Revolutionary Communist Party's Little Yellow Book

"The Socialist Constitution is a disturbing read, breathtaking in the brutality of the totalitarian measures proposed, a trip down the rabbit hole of the twisted American Communist mind."

From American Thinker

By Peter Wilson

Four days after the first occupiers arrived on Wall Street in September, the Harvard Crimson student newspaper offered editorial space to a Maoist fringe group called the Revolutionary Communist Party. The article by RCP spokesman Ray Lotta urged replacing the U.S. Constitution with the Constitution of the New Socialist Republic in North America, which has been published as a 91-page book with a yellow cover.

The RCP is not an underground organization. RCP Chairman Bob Avakian, the author of the Constitution, is in exile in Paris, but the RCP openly operates Revolution Bookstores in sixteen American cities, including Cambridge, Berkeley, New York, and Seattle, and is the publisher of Revolution magazine. Recently they were involved in creating the radical organizations Not in our Name and World Can't Wait, and according to Discover the Networks, the RCP played an instrumental role in sparking the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

Is America Disintegrating?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

In Federalist 2, John Jay looks out at a nation of a common blood, faith, language, history, customs and culture.

"Providence," he writes, "has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people -- a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion ... very similar in their manners and customs ..."

Are we still that "one united people" today? Or has America become what Klemens von Metternich called Italy: "a mere geographical expression"?

Rick Santorum's 'Path' to GOP Nomination

Charles Krauthammer, A.B. Stoddard, Steve Hayes join Bret Baier on the Fox News Center Seat.

Pope Appoints Archbishop Viganò as New Papal Nuncio to U.S.

From CNA

By Michelle Bauman

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, 70, was appointed today by Pope Benedict XVI to serve as his official representative to the United States.

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, called the appointment “yet another sign” of the great care the Pope has for the U.S. and its Catholic community.

“As the personal representative of our Holy Father, you will serve as a continuing sign to us of that source of renewal and hope that Pope Benedict brought to our country,” said Archbishop Dolan in an Oct. 19 letter welcoming the new nuncio.   

Former KGB Official Explains Plan Unfolding in America Right Now!

An older video, but never more relevant.

The World Doesn't Have a Right to Abortion

The womb ought be the safest place for a baby to be and should be protected by law, writes Nicholas Windsor. 

A 3D ultrasound showing a baby inside the womb Photo: Getty

From The Telegraph
By Nicholas Windsor

If I were to imagine the voice of a rather sensible relative, or just a concerned bystander, addressing me on the subject of abortion, the words I hear them using go something like the following: "Why on earth get yourself mixed up in/wade into a matter like this?" (Aside) "And isn't it rather distasteful?"

Well, I don't think my well-meaning voice has it far wrong. I can't be altogether wise to join this debate (on the side I've chosen, anyhow) and, no, it's never going to be the stuff of polite conversation. But just why is it that this question generates so much heat in politics, in the media and around the dinner table? Not just, I think, because it belongs somehow to the category of "bedroom and bathroom" subjects that nice people don't broach too freely. Much more than that, it seems to be a highly reactionary position, one that, probably without a precedent, would seek to take back a "right", specifically a woman's right, that was conferred by Parliament in 1967 in the Abortion Act. What could be more illiberal in our culture than that? No wonder there is fury and resistance.

Gingrich Vanity Campaign More Than $1 Million in Debt

The AP is reporting today that Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign is more than $1 million in debt. It is the largest debt among the major candidates, followed closely by Jon Huntsman, who is $890,000 in debt.

It has been clear for months that both the Gingrich and Huntsman campaigns are not getting any traction with Republican voters. Gingrich, who is better known than most if not all of the presidential contenders, has too much baggage to overcome.  How much better it would be to commit that kind of spending to the systemic education reforms he advocates.  With the kind of money he has spent on a hopeless campaign, he could instead have helped thousands of inner-city children escape failed public schools. For the sake of a real conservative getting the nomination over charlatans like Romney and Perry, we hope he drops out soon.

Pope Benedict Proclaims a 'Year of Faith'

From Catholic World News

Pope Benedict XVI has announced a special “Year of Faith,” dedicated to rousing a “new impetus to the mission of the whole Church to lead men out of the desert in which they often find themselves, to the place of life, of friendship with Christ.”

The Year of Faith will begin on October 11, 2012: a date that marks the 50th anniversary of the opening of Vatican II. Pope Benedict notes that the date is also the 20th anniversary of the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which he describes as “a precious and indispensable tool” for the task of evangelization. The special observance will end on November 24, 2013: the feast of Christ the King. Pope Benedict announced the Year of Faith on Sunday, October 16, as he celebrated Mass in St. Peter’s basilica at the conclusion of a conference on the “new evangelization.” In his homily the Pontiff explained that the “new evangelization”--which is aimed at restoring the strength of the faith in traditionally Christian countries now dominated by secularism—is a natural complement to the mission ad gentes, the drive to bring the faith to societies that have not yet heard the Gospel message. On the same day, October 16, the Pope released a motu proprio entitled Porta Fidei (“The Door of Faith”), formally proclaiming and explaining the Year of Faith. The initiative, he said, is required “because of a profound crisis of faith that has affected many people.”

Herman Cain Sings 'Imagine There's No Pizza'

Whatever you may think of 9-9-9, there's no question that Herman Cain has a great voice!   If the GOP presidential nomination doesn't work out, he should consider "America's Got Talent."

Mark Your Calendars: End of World Coming Oct. 21, Camping Says

Radio preacher Harold Camping predicted that May 12, 2011 would mark the beginning of the end of the world CREDIT: Karl Tate, TechMediaNetwork

What is it about "No one knoweth" that so many self-proclaimed "Bible Believing" Christians just can't seem to understand?  On the question of when the world will end, our Blessed Lord is quoted in Saint Matthew's Gospel (Mt 24:36) as saying: "But of that day and hour no one knoweth, not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone."  

But radio preacher Harold Camping has done some new calculations which, apparently, even the angels are incapable of, and determined that the end of the world will now occur on October 21.  There are more than a few passages the literalists don't seem to take literally.  Nevertheless, If he's right, we hope to be bowing in "humble adoration," and if he's wrong, we predict he and all the rest of us will come to a better understanding of Purgatory -- through the U.S. Presidential election season.

Pope Believes Secularized Nations Can Become Christian Again

From CNA

By David Kerr

Pope Benedict XVI told over 8,000 Catholics involved in the “new evangelization” that he has every confidence they can return their respective nations to Jesus Christ.

“Seeing all of you and knowing the hard work that everyone of you places at the service of the mission, I am convinced that the new evangelists will multiply more and more to create the true transformation which the world of today needs,” the Pope said Oct. 15. in the Vatican’s Paul VI Audience Hall.

The Pope was addressing a conference entitled “New Evangelizers for the New Evangelization - The Word of God grows and spreads,” organized by the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization.

Sermon of Father Franklyn M. McAfee for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

"What matters in a struggle is not whether you have the right number, but whether you have the right cause."

Battle of Gideon Against the Midianites - Nicolas Poussin, 1625-1626

Sermon of Reverend Franklyn M. McAfee, D.D.

Pastor Emeritus

St. John the Beloved Catholic Church

McLean, Virginia

October 12, 2008

The Cathedral Singers of Richard Proulx - 'O Sanctissima'

O most holy one, O most lowly one,
Loving virgin, Mary!
Mother of tender love,
Queen of the heavens above,
Pray for us here below!
Virgin ever fair, hear our fervent prayer,
Look upon us, Mary!
Bring to us your treasure, grace beyond measure;
Pray for us here below!

Two Friends and Rivals: Art Exhibit in Rome Showcases Works of Lippi and Botticelli

From Rome Reports:  "The Eternal City has opened its doors to a new and unique exhibit that honors two Italian artists who were both friends and rivals."