Denver-area pro-lifers, take note

The 2013 Denver March for Life will take place Sunday, Jan. 20 outside the capitol building.

Mass begins at the cathedral at 10:30, while speeches begin at the capitol at 12:30.

Good things are happening in Denver, whether it is the Lighthouse Women's Center helping pregnant women in need or the Regis University Students for Life conference for college and high school students, held in October.

This blog has declined in part because I've found more productive uses for my time.

Thanks to my friends in the Knights of Columbus, I've helped that Regis University group raise funds to go to the March for Life in Washington, D.C. in hopes that they'll become a strong pro-life presence at Regis. Students for Life of America is hoping to expand into Colorado, with a field agent dedicated to organizing pro-life student groups.

In July the Knights of Columbus raised funds for Mary's Maternity of Motherhood Home, a maternity home in Arvada. Just a bit of extra e-mailing and word-of-mouth advertising on Facebook helped draw 20 more attendees at $20 per ticket.

There are so many small organizations whose leadership has done pioneering work, but they just don't have the skills for a social media world or a few thousand dollars to seed their future growth. If you're good at blogging or rallying friends on Facebook, or if you have connections with a broad network of charitable organizations, consider yourself a volunteer.

Merry Christmas!

The Wise Men

by G.K. Chesterton

Step softly, under snow or rain,
    To find the place where men can pray;
The way is all so very plain
    That we may lose the way.

Oh, we have learnt to peer and pore
    On tortured puzzles from our youth,
We know all labyrinthine lore,
We are the three wise men of yore,
    And we know all things but the truth.

We have gone round and round the hill
    And lost the wood among the trees,
And learnt long names for every ill,
And served the mad gods, naming still
    The furies the Eumenides.

The gods of violence took the veil
    Of vision and philosophy,
The Serpent that brought all men bale,
He bites his own accursed tail,
    And calls himself Eternity.

Go humbly…it has hailed and snowed…
    With voices low and lanterns lit;
So very simple is the road,
    That we may stray from it.

The world grows terrible and white,
    And blinding white the breaking day;
We walk bewildered in the light,
For something is too large for sight,
    And something much too plain to say.

The Child that was ere worlds begun
    (…We need but walk a little way,
We need but see a latch undone…)
The Child that played with moon and sun
    Is playing with a little hay.

The house from which the heavens are fed,
    The old strange house that is our own,
Where trick of words are never said,
And Mercy is as plain as bread,
    And Honour is as hard as stone.

Go humbly, humble are the skies,
    And low and large and fierce the Star;
So very near the Manger lies
    That we may travel far.

Hark! Laughter like a lion wakes
    To roar to the resounding plain.
And the whole heaven shouts and shakes,
    For God Himself is born again,
And we are little children walking
    Through the snow and rain.

Michael Carr, radical Log Cabin Republican, running for Colorado state senate

Michael Carr is the Republican candidate for Colorado’s State Senate District 31 due to a vacancy committee appointment. But his past remarks are a cause for great concern to anyone not on board with the LGBT political agenda.

I saw Carr speak at a February meeting of the Coalition for a Conservative Majority as part of a panel on diversity in the conservative movement.

Carr described himself as an Irish Catholic from the south side of Chicago. He now lives in the Capitol Hill neighborhood with his partner. Carr brought up the Illinois civil unions bill and how he had supported it and lobbied for it.

There was something about the bill he didn’t mention.

The State of Illinois used the civil unions bill to shut down Catholic adoption agencies that contracted with the state government to continue their decades of service. The oversight of over 2,500 children was displaced to other agencies in an entirely unnecessary move.

In the audience question time I addressed Carr about how that bill pushed Catholic Charities out of doing adoptions. I asked him whether there is a "zero sum game" situation between gay rights advocates and religious and social conservatives.

Carr had an easy out.

The closure of Catholic Charities adoption agencies was a shock to those who believed the promises that religious freedom would be protected.

All he had to do was voice his support for religious freedom protections and lament the bill wasn’t passed in a way that respects the diversity of opinion on a controversial issue.

Instead, Carr spent a few minutes defending the need for government to be neutral and serve everybody.

“Is there a zero-sum game?” I asked again. Again he dodged.

His comments were in line with his April 12, 2011 remarks at the Illinois Log Cabin Republicans blog opposing a bill to secure the right of religious organizations to continue their adoption services. Carr said supporters of that bill “should be ashamed of themselves.”

There is nothing shameful in recognizing that a married man and a woman are better for raising children than any other family structure. There is nothing shameful at wanting a child to be brought up morally right.

There is nothing shameful about Catholics and others running adoption agencies in partnership with the state in a way that reflects their moral principles.

Carr’s position allows LGBT activists to bar Catholics and others who rightly object to homosexual relations from their place in public service. As the fate of adoption agencies in Illinois shows, the pretty talk of tolerance and diversity is empty.

Carr’s Democratic rival, the openly gay State Sen. Pat Steadman, is the sponsor of Colorado’s proposed civil unions bill. But even Steadman adopted language protecting religious adoption agencies into his bill.

The sorry state of the Republican Party means that religious believers and others who reject gay political causes have few friends.

Carr himself helped put on the GOP state assembly ballot a pro-civil unions resolution that won a majority vote, but failed to reach a 2/3 supermajority necessary for adoption.

There are some bright lights in our state. Colorado’s Republican House Speaker Frank McNulty threw the legislature into a special session rather than adopt civil unions. But the Republican House majority rests on a one-vote margin and is being vigorously contested in the 2012 election.

For years, pundits and party activists have been telling social conservatives to keep quiet. The present situation is what social conservatives get for taking their advice.

Colorado caucus resolution against conscience-violating contraception mandates

The federal contraception and sterilization insurance coverage mandate is in the news. Many Catholic parishes have heard from the pulpit about the dangers this poses to religious liberty and public morality. The mandate’s narrow religious exemption does not apply to Catholic health care systems, charities, and educational institutions.

Religious colleges may even be forced to provide free contraceptives to their unmarried students in their insurance plans. Religious hypocrisy is disgusting. But in this case it is being made mandatory!

Coloradans who are registered members of a political party can take a concrete step in upcoming weeks to push the political process towards reform of the federal regulation and of a 2010 state law (H.B. 1021) which does much the same thing.

Go to your party’s local caucus and stick around for the entire meeting. Vote delegates you trust on this issue to go to the county, congressional and state assemblies, or stand as a delegate yourself.

And at the appropriate point of the caucus, introduce this resolution to make your party’s leaders pay attention:

Resolution to Restore Religious Freedom and Moral Conscience in Health Insurance Mandates

Whereas religious liberty is a foundational principle of the United States and the great state of Colorado;

Whereas federal and state governments are violating this noble freedom by mandating that conscientious objectors provide no-co-pay insurance coverage for sterilization procedures and contraceptives, including abortion-causing contraceptives;

Whereas these mandates pose great difficulties for local educational institutions like Colorado Christian University and Regis University, which are involved in the moral formation of young people;

Whereas these mandates pose great difficulties for religious health care systems and charities whose religiously-motivated endeavors have contributed to the general welfare;

Whereas the religious and moral objections of all employers are worthy of protection and reasonable accommodation;

Be it resolved that:

The Democratic / Republican Party shall secure effective legal exemptions for institutions and businesses with religious and / or moral objections to providing insurance coverage for sterilization procedures and contraceptives.

(Be sure to edit the final passage so the party of your caucus is the one mentioned.)

The GOP Caucuses are on Feb. 7, while the Democratic Caucuses are on March 6.

See www.cocaucus.org for more information.

American culture-blindness in Iraq

The Telegraph obituary of career British diplomat Sir Hilary Synnott discusses his observation in Iraq of the revolutionary American mentality:

The CPA [Coalition Provisional Authority] itself, he found, was mainly staffed by American policy wonks — “young, naive, pushy people” fired with a messianic zeal rapidly to replace centuries of tribal and religious rivalries and state control with democracy and free markets, and displaying a dogmatism that, as Synnott drily noted, “cut no ice” with the Iraqis.

Perhaps the two greatest forces in American life today are egalitarianism and capitalism. Both opinionmakers and politicians shun other cultural questions, either because they believe they are unimportant or because they believe they are losing issues.

This muteness has crippled our response to cultural decay at home, so it is no surprise it has crippled our international actions as well.

Without cultural ballast, a democratic society cannot make the distinctions necessary for rational thought, let alone wise governance.

How does a country recover from this desolation?

(Link via Rod Dreher)

Remembering Denver's Italian community

Before Columbus Day became a time for Ward Churchill's followers to flaunt their self-righteous indignation, it was a time for Italian-Americans to remember their heritage and the faith which inspired their countryman on his world-changing voyage.

The Denver Catholic Register's archives remind us of this rich history, using the words of many local Italians themselves.

The Register's 1988 Columbus Day issue interviews Gerald Natale, pharmacist of the North Denver Tejon Drug Co. Also featured are Fr. Thomas M. Lo Cascio, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel organist Nettie Borelli, former restauranteur and Democratic district captain Ernie Capillupo, and future Congressman Tom Tancredo. Rosie C. DeLorenzo Churchill recalls life in North Denver, while Vicki Villegas, daughter of Louisville's Blue Parrot owner Joe Colacci, talks about rebuilding the restauruant after a fire.

In the 1990 issue, Genevive N. D'Amoto Fiore recounts her life, including run-ins with anti-Italian discrimination. Carmine Lonardo's Italian Sausage and Meal Deli in Lakewood also gets an article, as does the priest who baptized me: Father Dorino DeLazzer, who now lives in Greeley. The Register also profiles Amato of Denver concrete statuary business owner Carlo Amato, along with Dante Alighieri Society then-president Pamela Adducci.

Not surprisingly, the issue also covers Mother Cabrini and her famous work in Denver.

Despite our official praise for diversity, America's white ethnics have become largely invisible. Many have have left their old neighborhoods. Sometimes they left because of the lure of a better life elsewhere. Sometimes they left because political actors refused to defend their homes from crime, poor schools, or massive "urban renewal" projects.

Thanks to the assimilatory forces of modern culture (a mixed blessing, for sure), many have forgotten both the great and the humble achievements of their ancestors.

But there are always family members who will remember great-grandfather and tell his story to the next generation.

Fox 31 spikes $2 million quote about Tim Gill’s 2012 election spending

The death of a proposed civil unions bill in the Colorado House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee deeply angered Tim Gill, the multi-millionaire gay activist whose smartly targeted campaign spending has helped re-shape Colorado politics.

Gill’s lawyer Ted Trimpa said Gill will now be spending millions more to defeat Republicans across the state, starting with GOP members of the statehouse, Fox 31 News reports.

“It might be a difference of, before, spending $200,000 [on 2012 House races], and now spending $2 million,” Trimpa said.

Or at least, that’s what he said before Fox 31 edited the story to remove the quote.

The National Organization for Marriage blog caught the edit.

Fox 31 reporter Eli Stokols’ story now closes with Trimpa saying “It's very likely there will be consequences for not allowing full debate and consideration by the full House.”

The story no longer mentions dollar amounts.

An inquiry about the edit sent to Fox 31 and Mr. Stokols received no reply.

Regular news writers know there can be many reasons for modifying a quote. Perhaps Trimpa was talking off-the-cuff and the dollar amounts were inexact and inflated.

Or perhaps the writer or editor of the story felt forced to keep a key source happy and spiked revealing inside information about the 2012 election.

Colorado’s Republicans have a bare 33-32 majority in the House and a big money man could have disproportionate impact on the future of our state.

Of all issues to swing elections, the civil unions issue is one of the least important. While support for such unions has increased in the U.S. since they were first created in Vermont in 2000, their possible ramifications are under-debated.

We have heard little about the burdens to over-regulated business owners and objecting religious organizations, the potential for abuse, and even the basic financial costs of implementation to cash-strapped state, county and municipal governments.

The debate’s focus was entirely on gay rights even though the bill also allows unrelated heterosexual couples to contract unions – which in France has resulted in more civil unions than civil marriages!

In hard times, we should look not to create new facsimiles of the family. Rather, we should look to the tried and tested family policy of the New Deal. Scholars like Allan Carlson have praised that era’s focus on shaping economic policy specifically to help a working man support a wife and kids.

But that’s not an option Tim Gill and friends would like to be on the agenda.

When an obsessed multi-millionaire aims to change the political landscape and rewrite the social constitution of our state, his activities deserve more media scrutiny, not less. Fox 31’s edit suggests the news media is telling us less than we deserve to know.

The pleasures of reaction

The master aphorist Don Colacho says: "We reactionaries provide idiots the pleasure of feeling like daring avant-garde thinkers."


Perhaps he speaks of progressive critics who think they are on a march to enlightenment. They leave backwards thinkers behind.


Or perhaps he speaks of his admirers who quote him profusely and deem themselves to be part of a rising cognoscenti. 


The entire set of aphorisms is worth reading. The Anglosphere owes a debt to the translator Stephen, who has considerably boosted the reputation of this insightful Colombian.

Gerard Manley Hopkins Conference returns to Regis March 23-25

Events begin at 6 p.m. Friday with light soup and conversation at Regis’ Main Hall, Room 333. Actor Richard Austin will deliver a performance of Hopkins’ poetry at 7:30 p.m.

Paper presentations begin at 8:15 a.m. Saturday in the same room.

Sophia University’s Fr. Peter Milward, S.J., who endured Japan’s massive earthquake, will speak “On the Silences of Newman and Hopkins” at 11 a.m. that day. (Unless his travel arrangements have been affected.)

The Hopkins Memorial Mass will take place in Regis’ chapel at 4:45 p.m.

Sunday presentations will also begin at 8:15 a.m.

Victoria McCabe (contact information) should have more detailed information for those who wish to know more.

Want young people at church? Stop your Sunday shopping.

Sherry Weddell of the Colorado Springs-based Siena Institute has been doing important work on the demographic problems facing American Catholicism. She cites disturbing figures:

"Roughly 32% of those raised Catholic have abandoned the identity altogether. An additional 38% of those raised Catholic retain the identity but seldom or never bother to show up. 30% attend Mass at least once a month. Only about 15.6% are at Mass on a given weekend... Catholics leave the Church and the name Catholic by age 23. The majority by age 18."

She notes that attending CCD, involvement in youth ministry and going to a Catholic high school make little or no difference about whether a young man or woman stays Catholic.

But so far she misses one obvious question:

What do young churchgoing Catholics do on Sunday when they start to drift from the Church?

Certainly, some are sleeping in or goofing off. Yet in my experience many young Catholics are working very hard to support themselves or their families or to prepare for the future.

Unlike those fortunate to have "normal" weekday jobs, my twentysomething friends who work retail all have to work Sundays because that's when everyone shops.

If young people are busy working, it's very hard for them to get to Mass.

Catholics are notoriously apathetic about evangelization. If Catholics must be apathetic, let's at least be apathetic in the right ways and not shop or contract labor on Sunday.

Every time we shop on Sunday, we provide a bit more pressure on some young low-paid worker to skip church. This is a matter of worker's rights and, yes, social justice.

As the Catechism says:

"Sanctifying Sundays and holy days requires a common effort. Every Christian should avoid making unnecessary demands on others that would hinder them from observing the Lord's Day."

This is a larger problem than is recognized. In response to these comments on Mark Shea's blog, one woman wrote:

"My husband frequently has to work both Saturday evening and Sunday morning. He works for a grocery store. He has asked if he can be excused from Sunday work because of his religious faith and been told no, because he's in management. It's either quit his job (not an option!) or frequently be literally unable to attend Mass.

"So many people think absolutely nothing about zipping over to the supermarket after Mass on Sunday to pick up a jar of peanut butter. Come on, you couldn't wait one more day? You couldn't think about these things on Saturday?"

This woman's plight is too common. It also suggests Sunday labor has ripple effects. If her family owns only one car (a likely case, in a country where there is less than one car for every two people) both she and her children will face more difficulties simply attending Mass.

Just imagine the difficulty if both spouses work more than two low-paying jobs to stay afloat.

Some parishes are very aware of the problems of arranging rides to Mass for the elderly or disabled. But I'm not sure we're very good at helping distressed families or newly independent young people physically travel to Mass. A mere volunteer driving program can help people grow in faith.

What's more, destructive economic habits don't end with the worker. Many Catholics who leave the faith surely start their decline in a fateful Sunday morning decision to visit the mall instead of Mass.

Both custom and law once prevented Americans from shopping and unnecessary economic activity on Sunday. Such laws are now on the wane, as is churchgoing and human happiness.

Catholic commentators love to condemn the dictatorship of relativism. But for the working man or woman who has trouble making it to Mass on Sunday, a far greater threat to faith is the small dictator in management. Not to mention his many Catholic patrons, myself included, who have acted like Sunday is no different than any other day.

We cannot serve both God and Mammon. What easier way to serve God than through collective inaction on the Lord's Day?

The Wexford Carol

Performed by Allison Krauss and Yo Yo Ma

(via Western Confucian


Merry Christmas!

National election poll stops asking respondents if they're married

Peter Hitchens is fond of claiming that the actual purpose of polling is not to measure opinion, but to change it.

More justification for that skeptical attitude comes from the Heritage Foundation. It reports that the National Election Pool (NEP) survey

...did not ask respondents if they were married. So instead we found out [2] that “Men with Children” preferred the GOP 58% to 40% while “Women with Children” preferred Democrats 52% to 45%. But there is a big difference between “Women with Children” who are married and “Women with Children” who are not. For example [3], more than a third of single mothers are poor compared to just 6.4% of married couples with children. Single-parent families with children are almost six times more likely to be poor than married couples. How did marriage affect voters’ preferences in 2010? We don’t know because the NEP stopped asking respondents if they were married.

The survey is used by the Associated Press, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News and NBC News.

And it's just obscured a key political phenomenon.

While much is made of the "gender gap" in voting, people in the know realize this is usually a proxy for a marriage gap. Married women are more likely to vote Republican and unmarried women are more likely to vote Democrat.

But with this change to a poll, that useful bit of information will be more obscured.

Other linguistic abuses: the poll is using the wordy phrases "men with children" or "women with children" instead of the briefer term "father" or "mother." And the Heritage Foundation unwittingly uses the phrase "single parent" to hide the fact that single mothers are more prone to poverty than single fathers.

These media decisions concerning what demographics to measure shape the way in which politicians and pundits view the country. A polling environment which treats marital status as irrelevant to voting habits is not only the product of a crooked newsroom culture. It is a generator of a crooked popular culture.


(via The Brody File)

Tom Noel on Denver history

The University of Colorado-Denver professor was caught on video lecturing at the Denver Rotary Club:

Activist media monitors Archbishop Chaput's Theology on Tap session

Last Friday Archbishop Chaput told a gathering of the Religion Newswriters’ Association (RNA) he thinks many of them view religion as a backward social force. He observes a “seeming collusion – or at least an active sympathy – between some media organizations and journalists, and political and sexual agendas hostile to traditional Christian beliefs.”

He sure knew what he was talking about!

Major media focused on the dispute following the speech between the archbishop and N.Y. Times reporter Laurie Goodstein, who was angry the prelate did not return her calls. At GetReligon.org, we can read Archdiocese of Denver Chancellor Fran Maier say he was “intrigued” by “how little attention the attendees seemed to have paid to the actual text” of the archbishop’s speech.

The archbishop's full remarks are indeed newsworthy. And there is also news enough in a duel between authorities of the New York Times and of the Catholic Church.

But for Colorado observers, other big news is hiding in the lightweight commentary on the speech by John Tomasic of The Colorado Independent.

Writing as if it is odd that Catholics are obliged to be politically aware and active, Tomasic cites Archbishop Chaput’s words at Denver’s September Theology on Tap: “Politics is the embodiment of the Second Commandment: Love your neighbors as you love yourself.”

Constructing a frail straw man, Tomasic tries to make an issue out of the archbishop’s refusal to speak to the New York Times. In a desperate search for hypocrisy, he notes Chaput’s declared reading habits:

Chaput told the Theology on Tap crowd he stayed informed by reading the Denver-based Catholic News Agency website every day, four or five monthly magazines, that he listens to National Public Radio and to Fox News. He also reads two newspapers every day: The Denver Post and the Wall Street Journal. Unabashed right-wing Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, gets the lion’s share of the Archbishop’s attention. Because that’s how you find out what’s going on, kids!

Besides the obvious childishness of pretending that someone who listens to both NPR and Fox News is a Murdoch puppet, what’s so notable about this report?

The writer quotes Theology on Tap, but there is no written account of the event online.

The cited Theology on Tap session took place Sept. 10, while Chaput’s RNA address took place two weeks later. Tomasic links to the archdiocese’s recording of the event. The comments he quotes do not first begin until 46 minutes into the session, well into the “Q&A” section of the event. The final comments Tomasic cites take place at the 58:30 mark.

As a Theology on Tap attendee, this is astonishing to me. What kind of obsessive listens to the whole of an informal youth event like this to compile an information dossier?

A paid obsessive, perhaps. The Colorado Independent is part of the American Independent News Network, formerly known as the Center for Independent Media.[1] Under the former name, 2009 records show, the organization reported $2.1 million in assets and $4.1 million in revenue across its donor base and its half-dozen plus publications.

It's possible that The Colorado Independent had a writer in attendance. It is more likely that a staffer, even State Editor Tomasic himself, is assigned to listen to recordings of Chaput's political comments[2] and to summarize them for the purposes of intelligence gathering. These dossiers are then fodder for potential stories written in the style of a maiden aunt shocked that anyone could say such horrible things.

Now in a way it's good to know somebody is paying so close attention. Many a speaker wishes more people listened to his talks. The Archbishop of Denver is certainly a public figure so coverage of his public events can be legitimate.

But Theology on Tap is a young adult event where lips are supposed to be loose and candor is supposed to be prized. Only the most unflappable public figure will be unafraid to interact with the public when he knows his informal remarks are being monitored for "gotcha" quotes, while his real gems are thrown aside.

What kind of killjoy hears of an event like Theology on Tap and thinks “I can use this…”? Oh yes: a paid one.

The Independent’s Tomasic has written on Catholic topics in the past, reporting upon a men's conference in the Springs (with a non sequitur about the health care debate), repeating the attempted hatchet job on the Pope, and ranting about Chaput's recent comments on anti-Christian sentiment. Tomasic muddies the waters on the last piece by citing anti-Muslim activism. (Journalism 101: discuss what your subject said, not what you wish he said.)

In Tomasic’s latest piece, the writer examines the Colorado Catholic Conference through the lens of homosexual political causes. Considering that Colorado's richest gay activist Tim Gill’s Gill Foundation donated $150,000 to the Center for Independent Media in 2009, it’s clear why The Colorado Independent is watching Chaput.

Who else are they watching? And how many Catholics will side with the activist press when they decide to release their full fury against a Catholic archbishop?



(Comments follow these endnotes. ToT attendees, let me know if you noticed a reporter there. Photo taken from ArchDen.org)

[1] Adam Schrager and Rob Witwer’s book _The Blueprint_ suggest that the Center for Independent Media is likely linked to the Colorado Democracy Alliance, who often are the worst members of the present influential faction in the Democratic Party. As a young seminarian and then as a priest Chaput worked on the Bobby Kennedy and Jimmy Carter campaigns and is still friends with former Democratic state legislator Polly Baca. Present Democrat-leaning activists ran Chaput’s kind out of power -- and want to keep them out.

[2]One worrisome possibility is that The Colorado Independent is monitoring all the Archbishop's homilies, but I doubt it has that many people on staff. Its writing fellow Joseph Boven is a former researcher for Colorado Media Matters, an affiliate of an organization whose M.O. is listening to long recordings in hopes of finding something to type about with feigned outrage.

See also: other highlights of the Theology on Tap event

Archbishop Chaput’s Denver 2010 Theology on Tap: additional highlights

Various selections from the Sept. 10 Theology on Tap featuring the Archbishop of Denver, which was monitored by activist media:

“Anyone here who hasn’t noticed the despair in the world should go back to sleep, because you’ve been asleep until now,” Chaput commented.

“The Church in the United States has done a poor job, a genuinely bad job, of forming the faith and conscience of Catholics for more than 40 years. And that responsibility begins with the bishops.”

The clergy can be just as comfortable, self-satisfied, and lukewarm as anyone, he continued.

“I think that’s true about your bishop,” he told his Denver flock.

“Archbishop Chaput proclaims self comfortable, self-satisfied and lukewarm” is one of those headlines you should see at The Colorado Independent, but won’t.


Near the 35:00 mark of the archdiocese’s recording, Archbishop Chaput converses with a young man who thinks the Church-State arrangement of pre-revolutionary France was pretty cool. The archbishop, a reputed descendant of St. Louis IX, disagrees. Saying he’s never met anyone else who thinks so. Another Colorado Independent headline we’ll never see: “Archbishop disagrees with theocrat”

Near the 43:00 mark, he and an intelligent young woman discuss whether Nietzsche, St. John Chrysostom or Jesus said we should hate our friends. (Answer: All of the above!)

The Internet is not forever

"The internet never forgets" is one of those commonplaces used to instill fear, but also to comfort. Just remember the right Google keywords, we think, and we can find anything.

This is not true. Various algorithms will bury that crucial web page after only a month's time.

And human control can bury information, too.

I say this because Wikipedia is now considering for deletion its article on the short-lived journal The New Pantagruel. This would be a loss for everyone in its ambit, not just those of us who contributed.

My source suggests there are possible political motivations at work in the proposal to delete. He was not specific, but tNP former editor Caleb Stegall did represent Kansas Attorney General Phil Kline in a contentious abortion case.

Thomas Molnar escapes utopianism. RIP.

Political thinker and historian Thomas Molnar passed away earlier this month. Those of us who have read through past issues of the Intercollegiate Review and related periodicals often enjoyed his deeply intellectual essays on philosophy, tradition, and modern society.

John Zmirak offers his appreciation at ISI, while Andrew Cusack pens his own tribute to Molnar.

Cusack writes: "Molnar and his work have become sadly neglected for the very reasons he detailed in his major work: the overwhelming triumph of ideology over the intellectual sphere."

His work Utopia: The Perennial Heresy decried utopianism's "nightmarish re-shaping of life":

It is a serious mistake to think that utopian literature is nothing more dangerous than scaling the heights of lyricism, for the cold fact is that there lurks behind each passage a terrifyingly inhuman situation in which naked force is combined with the most subtle indoctrination techniques. In such cases, utopia is revealed not as "a place which is not," but as a place of desolation and death.

The utopian "poses as a seer when he speaks confidently of the radical change which will restore mankind to its true dignity and of the future which will be incommensurable with the past." This is in fact a denial of true human freedom, treating progress as an inevitable mechanism.

It also ignores the tragedy that change is "not only gain but loss as well."

As one might guess, Molnar was a particular critic of the evolutionary dreamer Teilard De Chardin.

Cusack offers a choice quote from Molnar, late in life:

Around 1960 the power of the media was not yet what it is today... Hardly anybody suspected then that the media would soon become more than a new Ceasar, indeed a demiurge creating its own world, the events therein, the prefabricated comments, countercomments—and silence. … The more I saw of universities and campuses, publishers and journals, newspapers and television, the creation of public opinion, of policies and their outcome, the less I believed in the existence of the freedom of expression where this really mattered for the intellectual/professional establishment. For the time being, I saw more of it in Europe, anyway, than in America: over there, institutions still stood guard over certain freedoms and the conflict of ideas was genuine; over here the democratic consensus swept aside those who objected, and banalized their arguments. The difference became minimal in the course of decades.

Knowing that the state of man is disunity in a fallen world, Molnar knew that merely human efforts to restore this unity are doomed to failure, tyranny, or both. The deadening of public debate is part of this sham progress towards an empty ideal.

Let us pray that Molnar, a devout Catholic, will enjoy the true unity and freedom of the Beatific Vision.

The crazed author cackles...

A laugh break from the depressing topic below:


via Summa Minutiae

When the N.Y. Times called indifference to child sex abuse ‘heartwarming’…

The Easter-time controversies over Pope Benedict XVI's handling of sex abuse flamed out quicker than expected. The New York Times' attacks on the Pope quieted down following reports of exculpatory information in its primary sources, criticism concerning poor and inaccurate reporting, and the revelation that some key documents used in fact originated with a lawyer intending to sue the Vatican.[1]

Of course, these contrary reports lacked the prominence of the original Times stories. The damage to the papacy had been done. High-ranking prelates now have a credible example of an unfounded, sensationalist media attack. The cynical bishop will use the attack as an empty excuse for inaction; the naïve will explain the details of the attack without benefit to an unknowing public outraged by reporters’ half-truths.

Now the Times has tried to renew the controversy with another story from Laurie Goodstein, followed by a Thursday editorial.[2]

Religion journalist Mollie Hemingway of GetReligion.org, herself a Lutheran, has critically examined the latest report and declared it to be "a hit piece." Other critics were also harsh.

As usual, the Times has posed as a moral authority and, like the Church it criticizes, it is slow to acknowledge its mistakes and errors.

But even as the Times appoints itself papal adviser and advocates a worldwide "zero tolerance policy" for the Catholic Church, it is useful to remember that the newspaper is selective in its attention and can show gruesome moral flexibility where the sexual abuse of children is concerned.

Take the October 27, 2007 Times op-ed "A True Culture War" by University of Chicago anthropology professor Richard Schweder.[3]

There, he recounts anthropologist Montgomery McFate’s efforts to help the U.S. military understand the cultures of Afghanistan. Citing an NPR news show story, Schweder adds:

Nevertheless the military voices on the show had their winning moments, sounding like old-fashioned relativists, whose basic mission in life was to counter ethnocentrism and disarm those possessed by a strident sense of group superiority. Ms. McFate stressed her success at getting American soldiers to stop making moral judgments about a local Afghan cultural practice in which older men go off with younger boys on “love Thursdays” and do some “hanky-panky.” “Stop imposing your values on others,” was the message for the American soldiers. She was way beyond “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and I found it heartwarming. [my emphasis]

Prof. Schweder’s nauseating, flippant attitude should not distract from the very real threats facing young boys in Afghanistan.

In June 2008 allegations began surfacing that Afghan security forces were sexually abusing young boys at Canadian bases in Afghanistan. Soldiers and chaplains told military commanders of the incidents.

According to the Ottawa Citizen’s Sept. 21, 2009 story “Sex abuse and silence exposed,”[4] in 2008 Brig. General J.C. Collin, commander of Land Force Central Area, “passed on to the senior army leadership the concerns raised by military police who said they had been told by their commanders not to interfere in incidents in which Afghan forces were having sex with children.”

One reputed witness is former Cpl. Travis Schouten. According to the Toronto Star:

He says he was told by an Afghan translator about "Man Sex Thursday," a weekly routine in which Afghan soldiers, police and translators sexually abused young boys. Schouten is overwhelmed by guilt for not having intervened when he heard what he believes were the cries of boys being sexually assaulted, sounds he says were corroborated when he later saw a young boy, barely alive, with signs of rape trauma.[5]

The trauma was such that (this is not for the squeamish) the boy’s bowels had fallen out of his body. Cpl. Schouten himself suffers from post-traumatic stress.

“We allow rampant abuse of young boys at the hands of what is supposed to be their finest police officers and army officers, then what does that say?” the soldier told the Ottawa Citizen in 2009. [6]

That report continues, saying Defence Department records show military police were upset about such incidents but were told not to interfere. Army officers’ 2007 discussions of the issue had as their main concern that “the media would somehow find out.”

Another soldier told Canwest News Service that soldiers were informed the practice involved “consenting Afghans,” no one was raped, and the children involved were “given small gifts or money in return for sex.” Perhaps academic anthropology explained it all away.

For his part, Schouten rightly doubts the ability of six- to eleven-year-olds to consent. One of his translators apparently told Schouten how he enjoys the violent practice and also uses a knife on the youths.

Schouten’s words are a rebuke to Prof. Schweder:

“The Canadian Forces wants people to think it’s a cultural thing, that everyone is doing it, because it takes the onus of responsibility off them to stop it.”

“I do feel people should be held accountable and people should know this is what is going on over there,” he told the Ottawa Citizen.

And the New York Times’ response to these claims of cover-ups? A search on “Schouten” reveals no results. The Canadian charges are not on its radar.

In 2002 the Times did inform us that although the “puritanical” Taliban “tried hard to erase pedophilia… now that the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is gone, some people here are indulging in it once again.” [7]

The Times reporter interviewed 19-year-old Ahmed Fareed, who at the age of 12 was taken into a pedophiliac relationship with a 22-year-old. The piece concludes:

…he insisted that he does not regret being lured into a relationship by his older friend. When asked if he would do the same to a young boy, Mr. Fareed said, yes.

''I'm looking for one now,'' he said with a smile.

At least this Times writer had enough sense to recognize pedophilia as a “curse.” But what of his responsibility to report a professed child predator?

Both journalists and the military forces in Afghanistan have arguments for silence and a “don’t look, don’t tell” policy.

A journalist might say that reporting these likely criminals to authorities would compromise his special need for sources by making others less willing to speak to journalists. Informing could subject his pedophiliac source to harsh, even fatal punishment.

A military officer might say soldiers have a larger mission to run and it is not their role to intervene on an issue that could alienate allies.

But here we hear echoes of the bishop who did not report a priest to the authorities because of the special paternal relationship between him and the priest, or because of fears the priest couldn’t handle prison, or because of fears the publicity could adversely affect the Church’s mission.

And what of our love for zero tolerance policies? There is always something for which we, the fallen ones, will excuse or ignore crimes against children, whether we are clergymen, reporters or soldiers.

But at least let’s not declare to be “heartwarming” the intense corruption of our Afghan allies’ culture or the relativism of certain professors who write for the New York Times.



Twitter: @kevinjjones, @MZHemingway

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[1] Phil Blosser's special blog on the 2010 sex abuse reportage is a useful resource.

[2] Church Office Failed to Act on Abuse Scandal and The Pope's Duty.

[3] A True Culture War.
Also note that the big controversy among anthropologists was not how to handle sexual abuse of children in the field, but whether cooperation with the U.S. military violates their professional standards.

[4] Sex abuse and silence exposed

[5] Post-traumatic stress disorder's hidden scars

[6] Former Canadian soldier speaks out against 'disgusting' child rape in Afghanistan

[7] An open secret: warlords and pedophilia.
Sympathy for the Taliban is hard for any American. But knowing of the wretches who practice these foul customs makes the Taliban’s reputed tyranny somewhat more understandable.

Elena Kagan thought ACOG statement turned out 'a ton' better than expected

The billowing controversy over Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's consultation with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has prompted several reactions. Some see the problem as so severe that it will sink her nomination: political appointees have no business advising a supposedly non-partisan scientific fraternity on their true positions.

Jonathan H. Adler at the Volokh Conspiracy offers several defenses of Kagan, noting that she served the role of an advocate and was supposed to coach experts to say what was most useful to her employer, the Clinton White House. This interpretation sees ACOG's acceptance of Kagan's words, and not Kagan's alleged sock puppetry, as the most damning deed in this matter.

The nominee is in the unenviable position of defending actions 13 years after the fact. As EWTN News reports, she could not recall whether the memo in question resulted from discussions with ACOG.

According to EWTN News, Kagan doubted her ability to alter the ACOG statement at the Senate confirmation hearings. She stated “there was no way I could have or would have intervened.” She attributed the goal of the document to be a statement "consistent with the views we knew they had."

In light of Kagan's expressed lack of confidence, EWTN News reports a noteworthy fact:

In January 1997 Kagan sent a final version of the ACOG statement to Bruce Reed, assistant to the president for domestic policy. A copy provided in the "Bruce Reed Collection - Elena Kagan" section of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum shows Kagan's handwritten note to Reed about the document.

"It turned out a ton better than expected," she wrote, adding "I'll let you know in person what happened."

In another twist, Bruce Reed, her apparent superior in the Clinton administration, is now the CEO of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). He even co-authored a book with present White House Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Considering this reported "in person" meeting, Reed should be just the man to consult to learn what really happened. Kagan's optimistic scrawl suggests she had more influence on ACOG than she remembers or says.

We'll see whether this story continues to develop.


(Disclosure: EWTN News is my part-time employer.)