I have a relative who is battling alcoholism, and has been going back and forth between seeking help and giving up. Last night she attempted to end her life, though she survived and is currently in the ICU. The doctor now has control to committ her for some time, so there is hope that she will embrace the help that is being offered. Father, hear our prayer for her complete healing in body, soul, and spirit through our Lord Jesus... Read more

I have a relative who is battling alcoholism, and has been going back and forth between seeking help and giving up. Last night she attempted to end her life, though she survived and is currently in the ICU. The doctor now has control to committ her for some time, so there is hope that she will embrace the help that is being offered. Father, hear our prayer for her complete healing in body, soul, and spirit through our Lord Jesus... Read more

is by how often they change their story and contradict themselves. So, for instance, C.S. Lewis remarks on the credibility of Christianity vs. its critics by noting that the Christian story is consistent (with minor differences of detail) while the various critical attacks succeed and contradict one another with “the restless fertility of bewilderment”. That’s because lies have the fatal flaw of not conforming to, you know, reality. The test applies elsewhere too. Pro-abortion arguments are all over the map... Read more

Over at Vox Nova, a classic example of the sort of soft apologetics or “Coalition for Fog” technique I have seen deployed successfully for years by Bush apologists is deployed with similar effect by the Obama apologists of the Left. To wit: Question to PonderApril 28, 2009“I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John” (Lk 7:28a). Anyone know if he ever spoke against abortion? Infanticide? Euthanasia? Any “pro-life” issue at all? Now why did Jesus... Read more

Ya gotcher weekly “Kmiec Tries to Square the Circle and Get Pwned” story, as well as your weekly “Obama and Dems to Catholics: Up Yours” story. Footnote: Sam Brownback, Great White Hope of conservative Catholic prolifers… voted to confirm. Converts like Gingrich, Tony Blair, and Brownback make me wonder if we need to redefine the term “convert”. What discernible effect does their ecclesial address change actually have? Blair is giving advice to the Pope to get with Swinging London and... Read more

My latest at the Register. Read more

My latest at Catholic Exchange. I loaded this into the hopper quite some time ago, but it’s a helpful reminder for me today after the deranged insanity I witnessed from the crazies in the IC comboxes yesterday. Bizarre defenses of testicle crushing for nine year olds, waterboarding likened to the sacrament of baptism, the doctrine of hell as a support for torture regimes. Madness! However, the correspondence I’ve gotten privately from equally astonished sane people heartens me. Our hope is... Read more

One reader asks: I hate it that torture has become a Movement Conservative issue. My last reading of Edmund Burke found nothing that would justify torture as any sort of conservative value. While I believe that it should be discussed, how in the world did torture suddenly become part of our repertoire? While Tom Kreitzberg is pondering: Why is the ticking time bomb question so universally irresistible? Answer: Because we are terrified of 9/11 and would crawl through sewers to... Read more

So exciting! And I still don’t even know what it means! Nonetheless: TODAY’S ORDERS, MY FOLLOWERS, ARE THESE: Be courteous, kind and forgiving,Be gentle and peaceful each day,Be warm and human and grateful,And have a good thing to say. Be thoughtful and trustful and childlike,Be witty and happy and wise,Be honest and love all your neighbors,Be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant. Be pompous, obese, and eat cactus,Be dull, and boring, and omnipresent,Criticize things you don’t know about,Be oblong and have your... Read more

…will probably mean reception under one species for a while. Too bad. I like receiving the Precious Blood. Read more