Video Meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor

We stop in at the El Paso Texas Comedor, a local bar, to introduce our new missionaries to Gallo Beer...The proprietress does appreciate our business (at that moment we're the only people in the bar) and pours out a few bags of chips for us. For entertainment, she sends over her young grandson(?) who practices his card tricks on us. Looking out the open door, we see a woman walk by with a pig on a leash. Not long after, another woman walks by with a pig on a leash. And soon after, there's a third. It must be Pig Night at some other cantina. That night our group's Evening Prayer service includes our saying the Magnificat, though one member of the group is changing it to "inclusive language" on the fly. - Terrence Berres, back from a mission trip to Guatemala

My opinion is that almost every problem in the Catholic church can be blamed on one thing: Lack of Catholic spiritual reading from and early age and through life. The whole problem revolves around spiritual ignorance, which can be blamed largely on spiritual illiteracy. We have so many people who today who are experts at diagnosing spiritual disease, but won't spend ten dollars to provide the remedy, which might come in the form of a book like "the Confessions of St. Augustine" or "the Little Flowers of St. Francis", or "The Story of A Soul". To turn our beloved Church around we need more than the proposed Motu Propio! The Latin Mass was never sufficient for the saints! We need to spread the knowledge of TRUE DEVOTION to every Catholic, and then to the world, by spreading holy Catholic literature! Every Catholic school student needs to read at least two biographies from the lives of the saints every year! Every parishioner also needs to do spiritual reading! - commenter on "Open Book"

I often wonder how people with the most casual attitudes toward sex can even hold rape as a separate crime from other grievous assaults -- it's often less physically damaging, yes it's invasive, but so is a knifing or a shooting. I think pro-chastity people can apply much better reasoning to why rape is so deeply evil than people who will acknowledge no arguments other than 'because it's mine to do whatever I want with, that's why!' They have more of an unreasoned claim that that's just this extra-special type of violation. - female email correspondent

Christians are not the only ones with the injunction thou shalt not crush babies’ skulls to preserve the convenience of the mother, but for some reason we are the only ones willing to be called nasty names to uphold the principle. - commenter on "Stony Ground"

Commenter: A priest heard me say "suck it up" once; he wisely responded "Don't you mean 'offer it up'?" Tom: Good point. On the one hand, grace builds upon nature, and if you aren't even sucking it up, how can you offer it up? On the other hand, without keeping in sight the supernatural end the means to which include offering it up, how can fallen man reliably suck it up? And has not the loss of the habit of offering it up in the Church in the United States contributed to the general problem of things not sucked up? Deep waters, my friends. - Tom of Disputations

I think a lot of what we're dealing with here is the sort of allergy to modern evangelical techniques that a lot of Catholics have picked up, mainly by being witnessed to in an extremely offensive way. I shrink from inviting people to church or being invited, because the same kids who tormented daily at the bus stop and on the bus suddenly decided to be all friendly to me one day because they'd get some kind of soulwinning points. Needless to say, I not only didn't accept their invitation to their church but found out they didn't think I was Christian. - Maureen of "suburban banshee" on why some Catholics think some groups within the church are too evangelical/protestant

Which prayer wasn't heard during the petitions yesterday at a parish in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati? (a) That our elected leaders will work to end gun violence, let us pray to the Lord (b) That local communities will address mental illness and the needs of the mentally ill ..(c) That the dead, in particular those of Virginia Tech and our parish, will experience the joy of the Resurrection ... - Rich of "Ten Reasons"

[He] is sometimes treated condescendingly by the academic guild. It is the common fate of scholars who commit the unpardonable sin of writing in a way that nonspecialists can understand. - Fr. Richard Neuhaus

Ted Stevens is officially the Senate's longest serving Republican in U.S. history. It's worth noting — though hardly news to anyone — how political longevity is so closely associated with a steady diet of pork. - Jonah Goldberg of "The Corner"

Our society is so free and permissive, and people have so many options to choose from that they cannot make their own decisions effectively. Individuals need life structure. A life lacking in comprehensible structure is an aimless wreck...That is why, for many people, a job is crucial psychologically. By making clear demands on their time and energy, it provides an element of structure around which the rest of their lives can be ordered. - Alvin Toffler "The Third Wave"

After the lance-thrust that ends his earthly life, his existence is completely open; now he is entirely 'for', now he is truly no longer a single individual but 'Adam', from whose side Eve, a new mankind, is formed...The open side of the new Adam repeats the creative mystery of the 'open side' of man: it is the beginning of a new definitive community of men with one another...The fully opened Christ, who completes the transformation of being into reception and transmission, is thus visible as what at the deepest level he always was: as 'Son'. - then Cardinal Ratzinger