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I remember the evening. Three of us on our deck (including my roommate), pizza, beer––a dangerous amount of beer––just enough to believe fervently in the implausible and to begin executing it. What should we do? One of my friends yelled, ” A Midsummer Night’s Dream!” And since we were three quarters of the way to December, we all heartily concurred. We began the casting process on a pizza box, drawing up the list of characters paired with hapless friends who would be informed, when we felt like it, that their wit, flamboyance, elegance, shrewishness, or curves, had been duly noticed by the community.

Running Out The Clock

“Behold, very cunning enemies have filled the Church, Spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, with bitterness; have watered it with absinthe; they have cast ungodly hands onto all that is desirable in it. Where the See of the blessed Peter and the Chair of Truth were established like a light for the nations, there they have set the throne of abomination of their impiety; in order that once the shepherd is struck down, they may be able to disperse the flock.” (Pope Leo XIII’s “small exorcism” prayer, as quoted in Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s They Have Uncrowned Him, pp. 151-152)

Louis de Bourbon: “The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, a distorted spectacle!”

Among all the treasures that God offers us through the Holy Church, the first and the most valuable, upon which all others depend, is supernatural faith (with all the teachings about God and His works). Crystallized in the Credo we recite both in personal prayers and at every Holy Mass, this faith represents the foundation of Christian religious life. Although relatively short, the small “poem” of the Credo is rich in content. Specifically, we are taught everything we need to know about God and the manifestations of His wonderful omnipotence.

The Role of Those Committing the Scandals. In his Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas wrote the following in response to the question of whether the excellence of the person sinning aggravates the sin:

This is Part 3 of an epic, 3-Part story. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

This is Part 2 of the epic, 3-Part story of the First Cristero. Part 1 is here and Part 3 is here.

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Paying a debt is justice; giving more than one owes is generosity or gratitude; giving everything without expectations is love. Luis Navarro Origel gave everything, without expectations, because he loved God above all things. – Martin Chowell

Vance joined the Marine Corps out of high school before going on to university and then writing candidly in his bestselling book Hillbilly Elegy – a classic reading of the impoverished, white working class in the hollowed-out Rust Belt in Middletown, Ohio. The book was made into a successful 2020 film directed by Ron Howard that starred Glenn Close that would launch Vance to cultural and political distinction.

171 “Although the first millennium is decisive [apostle Matthew quoting Jesus: ‘Thou art Peter and on this rock I will build my Church… I will give you the keys…’ Mt 16:15-20?] many dialogues recognize that it should not be idealized nor simply re-created, since the developments of the second millennium [the Protestant Reformation?] cannot be ignored and also because a primacy at the universal level should respond to contemporary challenges [ecumenical dialogue?]. Some principles for the exercise of primacy in the 21st century have been identified. A first general agreement is the mutual interdependency of primacy and synodality at each level of the Church, and the consequent requirement for a synodal exercise of primacy.”

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Over the past thirty years, the texts of several authors have always found a place on my desk. I read and reread them constantly, without tiring, striving to understand everything that those who left them to us as a legacy have conveyed most precious. Among these authors, Saint Hildegard of Bingen (c.1098–1179) holds one of the most important places. The depth of her visions, the subtlety of her remarks, the beauty of her prose and poems, along with the surprising interpretations she offers, sometimes compel me to re-read the same fragment dozens of times. For example, I have been meditating for many years on the answer given by the Benedictine abbess to the eighth question in the small volume Solutions to Thirty-Eight Questions: [i]

As Catholics, we hear that we are schismatics, heretics, and enemies of the Church; as those who refuse to take experimental Covid shots, we hear that we are science-deniers and enemies of society. And, thanks be to God, none of that unhinged nonsense impels us to abandon what we know is right.

Indeed, in a mostly pagan Japanese society, many men view their jobs as their ikigai, or the thing that makes their lives worth living. Consequently, many Japanese men (unfortunately) have a self-effacing dedication to their jobs, at the expense of their health and family relationships. In fact, “wan-ope ikuji,” a shortened version of the English “one-person child care operation”, is a Japanese term to characterize the situation in which only one parent (usually the mother) takes charge of all aspects of child-rearing.

When DEI can kill

In his essay about converting to Catholicism in The Road to Damascus, Evelyn Waugh wrote of the self-evident logic that led him to conclude that if Christianity was true, the Catholic Church must be correct:

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Throughout the entire history of humanity, the “other world” has always been the most controversial and, at the same time, appreciated subject. Regardless of which era we study, we find that both the history of religions and folklore and popular culture convey countless stories about the path of souls into eternity. Sometimes, as in chapter XI of Homer’s Odyssey or in Plutarch’s De sera numinis vindicta ( On the Delays of the Divine Vengeance ), we encounter what is known as “necromancy”—i.e., the invocation/summoning of the souls of those who have passed into the otherworld. Other times, as in another equally famous text, namely in book VI of Virgil’s Aeneid, we find a description of a journey into the world of the dead. And at the heart of Christian-inspired culture, we also have an epic poem— Divina Commedia —which, from start to finish, narrates the journey of the author, Dante Alighieri, through all the hierarchical regions of the unseen world.

Defending God’s Holy Mother, who is ours as well

Tokyo March for Life – we’re going on!

Assassination by other means

“The celebration was a Solemn High Mass in honor of St Cecilia, Patron Saint of musicians, and Palestrina’s Missa Brevis was sung; also noteworthy is the fact that the vestments were made by the celebrant himself. The choir stalls in the sanctuary were filled with priests, religious, and seminarians attending in choir. Most significantly, the church itself was filled to overflowing with young people! In fact, two extra ciboria had to be put out to accommodate the large number of attendees.”