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When the mob gathers against Horton, the argument that his cause must be ended and the speck destroyed is a familiar one: it must be done for the sake of the children! This is screamed by the marmish Kangaroo and echoed by every last animal in the forest. When all other political arguments fail in real life, of course, this is precisely what happens. The children are rhetorically nationalized by the demagogue and anyone who disagrees is painted as an enemy of virtuous childhood. - from "Horton Hears a Who" review on Lew Rockwell, via Eric Scheske
We do not doubt the good faith of their objections; we hope our critics are right and hope that it is we who have misread the situation...But the key sticking point is that these critics deny what we find undeniable: the bishops indulgently beaming at the little ones with Liquid Plumber in their sippy-cups. - - Diogenes at "Off the Record" on rarity of Catholic hierarchy to warn laity of spiritual dangers (via Mr. Beres)
Americans these days tend to either wallow in sentimentality, or to despise it entirely, which only proves that our society is losing its balance. - Jeff of Stoney Creek Digest
The Stanford Review discusses how Stanford University rejected a proposal to invite then-Cardinal Ratzinger to lecture at the university in the 2000-2001 school year. The newspaper alleges ideological concerns played a role...I am reminded of the passage in More's Utopia where he berates the English aristocracy for poorly educating their people and then punishing them for committing the crimes for which their lack of education has prepared them. If these Stanford professors and their like prattle on about the vulgarity and ignorance of American Christianity, they should acknowledge that acts like the refusal of a venue to a future pope ensure that American religious discussions remain at a crassly elementary level. - Kevin Jones of Philokalia
I think the question of length [of liturgy], so bluntly put, is the wrong question and actually sort of …embarrassing, maybe? Especially when you consider, say, the normal length of many Orthodox or Eastern Rite liturgies - every Sunday. And also because of course, historically, the Easter Vigil has always been long - as in all night long, if you go back far enough. In some monasteries, it is still all night long...No, the better question is, as Fr. Martin elaborates in his post, is what elements of the Vigil, as lived out in our parishes, are reflective of artistic and homiletic excesses rather than truly at the service of God through the liturgy? - Amy Welborn, on complaints about the length of Easter Vigil
[I] was slowed, however, by a particular paragraph in which we learn that "Botros spent three years bringing to broad public attention a scandalous — and authentic — hadith stating that women should 'breastfeed' strange men with whom they must spend any amount of time...the logic being that, by being 'breastfed,' the men become like 'sons' to the women and therefore can no longer have sexual designs on them." Finally, a Muslim tenet I might be able to embrace. With minimal enthusiasm, of course. - Bill of Apologia
The real issue is this: Who would you rather have in charge of the defense of the United States of America, a group of people who never served a day overseas in their life, or a guy who served his country honorably and has three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star on the battlefields of Vietnam? - Howard Dean in 2004, who is presumably supporting McCain this year (via Bill of Summa Minutiae)
During the Easter Vigil Mass, when entire liturgical year seemed to be crashing down around my ears, the only thing I noted from Father's homily was his point about St. Mary Magdalen's tears. She saw Our Lord in the garden, but did not recognise Him because all she could see was her own sorrow. In the same way, we have the chance to encounter Our Risen Lord every day, but we do not see Him because we, too, are blinded by our own sorrows... I was content to be bland, unremarkable and flat for the rest of my life; I really thought it was the best I could do. Then my godmother turned her shrewd gaze on me and became one person who didn't think I was disappointing, even with all the objectivity of distance. Something else I had been accustomed to believing was that self-esteem doesn't matter. Wasn't humility the real virtue? Now Antony points out that St. Peter had the same wrong ideas when he refused to let Our Lord wash his feet. God does not want us to esteem ourselves more than we're worth, His own life having been priced at thirty piece of silver; but then again, He suffered and died to redeem us from sin, so He shouldn't want us to esteem ourselves less than we're worth. - Sancta Sanctis
Because I have a degree in economics I have learned to distrust the entire field of economics, and to treat new economic theories with extreme caution. However, what these people call "binary economics" sounds remarkably similar to Catholic distributism. - Jeff of Stoney Creek Digest
Collectors often decried how money had ruined their hobby, making it hard for them to form meaningful friendships through their cards. Money, however, made the hobby not only profitable but also more serious, more instrumental, and therefore more manly. The same collectors who complained about greed often bragged in the same interview about the value of their cards. Yet money, in turn, made the hobby less akin to child's play and more like work: lonely, competitive, unfulfilling, and alienating. - - Author John Bloom in A House of Cards (1997)
Coptic priest Zakaria Botros's motive is not to incite the West against Islam, promote 'Israeli interests,' or 'demonize' Muslims, but to draw Muslims away from the dead legalism of sharia to the spirituality of Christianity. Many Western critics fail to appreciate that, to disempower radical Islam, something theocentric and spiritually satisfying — not secularism, democracy, capitalism, materialism, feminism, etc. — must be offered in its place. The truths of one religion can only be challenged and supplanted by the truths of another. And so Father Zakaria Botros has been fighting fire with fire. - NR article via Bill Luse
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