Current Events

Uttering idle words from a reprobate mind

Clinging to strange promises, dying on the vine

Never bein’ able to separate the good from the bad

Ooh, I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it

It’s makin’ me feel so sad

Dead man, dead man

When will you arise?

Cobwebs in your mind

Dust upon your eyes

Satan got you by the heel, there’s a bird’s nest in your hair

Do you have any faith at all? Do you have any love to share?

The way that you hold your head, cursin’ God with every move

Ooh, I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it

What are you tryin’ to prove?

Dead man, dead man

When will you arise?

Cobwebs in your mind

Dust upon your eyes

The glamour and the bright lights and the politics of sin

The ghetto that you build for me is the one you end up in

The race of the engine that overrules your heart

Ooh, I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it

Pretending that you’re so smart

Dead man, dead man

When will you arise?

Cobwebs in your mind

Dust upon your eyes

What are you tryin’ to overpower me with, the doctrine or the gun?

My back is already to the wall, where can I run?

The tuxedo that you’re wearin’, the flower in your lapel

Ooh, I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it

You wanna take me down to hell

Dead man, dead man

When will you arise?

Cobwebs in your mind

Dust upon your eyes

--Dead Man, Dead Man, from Shot of Love, by Bob Dylan

Caeli Enarrant Gloriam Dei et Opera Manuum Eius Adnuntiat Firmamentum

If you have ever spent time in St. Louis in the Summer, you will know just how glorious the weather was this past weekend. Temperatures in the high 70s and low 80s without a trace of humidity. Sunny skies and a fair breeze. It's enough to make the hardest-hearted atheist write the Summa Theologiae.

If you have ever spent time with me, you will know my idea of yard work is to take the cover off of the grill. But Saturday morning found our whole family outside trimming trees, weeding the garden, and clearing out some unpleasant growth around the fence line. And I'm sure you will have felt this feeling before, everyone working together, making shorter work of things, seeing the immediate result of your efforts. A team effort. After that, we cleaned up and had a great time outdoors with friends, with great conversation and conviviality.

Then came Sunday, with the weather still glorious. High Mass at the Oratory with the temperature inside just fine. Beautiful Mass. Confession. Conversation in the hall. Then home, and back outdoors. I'm sure the local birds and squirrels were on red alert to see me outside so much. They'll talk about it for decades. Made some BBQ ribs and the whole family played outside. We even ate outside-- again, if you know me, this is perhaps a sign of the apocalypse. 

Then family Rosary and children to bed. A great, great weekend.

Why am I writing this?

The whole weekend just begged for thanksgiving. And so I give thanks to God. If one weekend in this vale of tears can be so good, I really hope I make it to Heaven.

Back to work.

Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and Act of Consecration

Blessed feast day to all of you. 

Today is a first class feast of Our Lord, and so the abstinence obligation is not in force today.  If you have not yet assisted at Mass, note that there is a Solemn High Mass at St. Francis de Sales Oratory tonight at 6:30pm.  Members of the Society of the Sacred Heart may obtain a plenary indulgence, under the usual conditions, if they assist at Mass today.

May we all find rest and mercy in the pierced Heart of Christ, which He suffered to be opened as a wellspring of love for us.

Consecration of the Human Race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Most sweet Jesus, Redeemer of the human race, look down upon us humbly prostrate before Your altar. We are Yours, and Yours we wish to be; but, to be more surely united with You, behold each one of us freely consecrates himself today to Your Most Sacred Heart. Many indeed have never known You; many too, despising Your precepts, have rejected You. Have mercy on them all, most merciful Jesus, and draw them to Your Sacred Heart.

You are King, O Lord, not only of the faithful who have never forsaken You, but also of the prodigal children who have abandoned You; grant that they may quickly return to their Father's house lest they die of wretchedness and hunger.

You are King of those who are deceived by erroneous opinions, or whom discord keeps aloof; call them back to the harbor of truth and unity of faith, so that soon there may be but one flock and one Shepherd.

You are King of all those who are still involved in the darkness of idolatry or of Islamism; refuse not to draw them all into the light and kingdom of God. Turn Your eyes of mercy toward the children of that race, once Your chosen people. Of old they called down upon themselves the Blood of the Savior; may it now descend upon them a laver of redemption and of life.

Grant, O Lord, to Your Church assurance of freedom and immunity from harm; give peace and order to all nations, and make the earth resound from pole to pole with one cry: Praise to the Divine Heart that wrought our salvation; to It be glory and Honor forever. Amen.

-- Pius XI

In Canada, "You Have the Right to Free Speech, as Long as You're not Dumb Enough to Actually Try It"

with a nod to The Clash...

I present the following write-up and link from Taki Mag's regular The Week That Perished post:

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SAY “TRANNY” IN CANADA, GO TO JAIL

The nation of Canada huddles jealously north of the USA and has all the personality of a frozen dinner. Because its residents are deeply ashamed that America gets all the attention while the world needs constant reminders that Canada even exists, Canadians work their tangled guilt complexes out through nonstop America-bashing and highly public displays of cultural suicide.

In Canada, “Human Rights” mean you have no right to disagree with even one iota of what the government defines as “Human Rights.” If you say that some Muslims like to blow up people—which is true—this is obviously because you hate Muslims and want to blow them up, so the best thing to do is to toss you in a jail cell and let you stew about the fact that “hate speech” is not free speech, and you’re an idiot for ever thinking it was.

Last week, by a rollicking margin of 67-11, Canada’s Senate passed Bill C-16, which amends the nation’s absolutely unnecessary Human Rights Code to include “gender identity” and “gender expression” as things which you are officially no longer permitted to hate. Perhaps most depressingly, the transparently insane expression “the sex they were assigned at birth” is now enshrined in Canada’s legal canon:

People may identify with a concept of gender that is aligned with the sex they were assigned at birth, or they may identify with a gender that is different from their sex assigned at birth….The bill is intended to protect individuals from discrimination within the sphere of federal jurisdiction and from being the targets of hate propaganda, as a consequence of their gender identity or their gender expression. The bill adds “gender identity or expression” to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights Act and the list of characteristics of identifiable groups protected from hate propaganda in the Criminal Code. It also adds that evidence that an offence was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on a person’s gender identity or expression constitutes an aggravating circumstance for a court to consider when imposing a criminal sentence.

In other words, if you refuse to submit to some mental case’s demand that you refer to them in their preferred pronoun of “xe,” “xir,” or “zip-zop-boobity-bop,” you are committing a hate crime against them and deserve to be treated like a mangy pit bull in a rusty animal shelter.

“Hatred…is a most extreme emotion that belies reason,” the bill states. We disagree. In several ways, hatred can be the most reasonable response to something. What belies reason is the idea that men who think they’re women are anything more than delusional men.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau... tweeted his glee over the bill’s passage:

Great news: Bill C-16 has passed the Senate – making it illegal to discriminate based on gender identity or expression. #LoveisLove

“Love is Love.” Can’t argue with much there. Then again, genitals are genitals. And boys are boys. And girls are girls. And the whole world has gone crazy.

A Rare Moment of Sanity in the City of Saint Louis

We briefly interrupt our city's descent into barbarism with some cautiously optimistic news. A city judge has issued an injunction against the City of Saint Louis, halting Lyda Krewson's number one priority-- the removal of the Confederate monument in Forest Park. Evita's Lyda's krews were halted mid-operation yesterday, even as steel plates were bored into the granite top to facilitate a crane to hoist it into oblivion.

Whenever a judge, even a lowly circuit court judge, shows respect for the rule of law these days, I admit to being pleasantly surprised. As a lawyer, I guess I shouldn't be. But there it is.

No further destruction can be done to this work of art until a hearing on July 6 to consider the question of ownership. The Daughters of the Confederacy gave deed of ownership to the Missouri Civil War Museum, which--get this-- wants the monument, will pay to move the monument to its location, and will pay to clean it up.  It would cost the city nothing. 

Remember when Lyda said that the delay in her Great Leap Forward was  caused by lack of funds, and how she eventually said some public money would be required to remove it? So one might expect a grateful city to thank the museum for taking such a thorny problem off its hands?  

No. That is what a decent and sane person would do. We're talking about Lyda Krewson and the Board of Aldermen. They don't want anyone to actually ever see this monument again. So, they will spend my tax dollars, maybe yours, too, to fight this in court. The Post-Dispatch covers the story here. 

The inmates are running the asylum, and they just happen to be the Soviet Politburo--without the charm.

"The wonder in all this question, is not our loving and longing for God, but that He should have first loved us."

Every living being thirsts after happiness; and yet, and because of that, it aspires only after the good of which it is capable; for it is the necessary condition of happiness that, in order to its existence, there must be the full contentment of the creature's desire. Hence, in that great act of creation which the Scripture so sublimely calls His playing in the world, when, with His almighty power He prepared the heavens, and enclosed the depths, and balanced the foundations of the earth, we are told that divine Wisdom secured the harmony of the universe by giving to each creature, according to its degree in the scale of being, an end adequate to its powers. He thus measured the wants, the instinct, the appetite (that is, the desire) of each creature, according to its respective nature; so that it would never have cravings which its faculties were insufficient to satisfy. 

In obedience, then, to this law, was not man, too, obliged to confine, within the limits of his finite nature, his desires for the good and the beautiful, that is, his searching after God, which is a necessity with every intelligent and free being? Otherwise, would not certain beings have to place their happiness in objects which must ever be out of the reach of their natural faculties?

Great as the anomaly would appear, yet does it exist: true psychology, that is, the true science of the human mind, bears testimony to this desire for the infinite. Like every living creature around him, man thirsts for happiness; and yet, he is the only creature on earth that feels within itself longings for what is immensely beyond its capacity. 

Whilst docile to the lord placed over them by the Creator, irrational creatures are quite satisfied with what they find in this world; they render to man their several services, and their own desires are all fully gratified by what is within their reach. It is not so with man; he can find nothing in this his earthly dwelling, which can satiate his irresistible longings for something which this earth cannot give, and which time cannot produce; for that something is the infinite. 

God Himself, when revealing Himself to man through the works He has created, that is, when showing Himself to man in a way which his natural powers can take in; when giving man to know Him as the First Cause, as the Last End of all creatures, as unlimited perfection, as infinite beauty, as sovereign goodness, as the object which can content both our understanding and our will-- no, not even God Himself, thus known and thus enjoyed, could satisfy man. This being, made out of nothing, wishes to possess the Infinite in his own substance; he longs after the sight of the face, he ambitions to enjoy the life, of his Lord and God. The earth seems to him but a trackless desert, where he can find no water to quench his thirst. 

From early dawn of each wearisome day, his soul is at once on the watch, pining for that God who alone can quell his desires; yea, his very flesh too, has its thrilling expectations for that beautiful Infinite One. Let us listen to the psalmist, who speaks for us all: 

'As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so my soul panteth after Thee, O God! My soul hath thirsted after the strong, living God: when shall I come and appear before the face of God? My tears have been my bread, day and night, whilst it is said to me daily: Where is thy God? These things I remembered, and poured out my soul in me: for I shall go over into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God. With the voice of joy and praise, the noise of one that is feasting. Why art thou sad, O my soul? and why dost thou trouble me? Hope in God, for I will still give praise unto Him: the salvation of my countenance and my God.'

--from the entry for Corpus Christi, The Liturgical Year

For the Fatima File: A Reluctant but Necessary Snapshot of the Church's Destruction

I'm sure you picked up on the recent period of light posting, which I think I'm past at long last. But independently of that, I have tried-- and I mean reeeeallllly tried-- to limit my posts on the usual, daily disaster coming out of the current occupant of the See of Peter. Some reasonsfor this I've given before.

Thus, posting daily or weekly in order to beat the same dead horse isn't productive and serves to cause despair at the risk of pride. However, I still think it is important to point out the egregious things being done by Francis for several reasons: 1) The Church is the Bride of Christ and deserves to be defended; 2) There could be, I suppose, some Catholics who still haven't figured out the total disaster this is; and, 3) I don't want anyone to think that prolonged silence on my part means I no longer oppose and am no longer dismayed by the horrible and ongoing destruction.

So, to sum up, it is with some reluctance yet some compulsion that I post this link to a true, and truly devastating piece by thegreat Christopher Ferrara at Fatima Perspectives. 

You should read it, and pray. The destruction is ongoing and gaining all worldly momentum. Only Our Lady can save us, as she so pointedly said at Fatima.

St. Louis City's Politicians Want to Shove. Abortion. Down. Your. Throat.

What are we going to do about this?

A longtime reader sent me this email about more city baby-killing shenanigans. Just as the State legislature is trying to save the City from itself by overturning the "abortion sanctuary city ordinance", the city is trying to pass more unjust ordinances to make it harder to protest against the murder of babies in St. Louis by trying to create more ways to arrest, prosecute and otherwise persecute pro-lifers. 

In addition, he calls attention to another proposed ordinance that seeks to tax non-profits. 

He says it well, and I present the entire email here:

Sir,

    I hope this note finds you well.  A couple of issues have cropped up lately that you may already be well-familiar with, but if not, you might want to bring them to your readership's attention:

1) The St. Louis Board of Aldermen held a hearing on BB34, the bill creating "buffer zones" for "health care facilities", on Tuesday, June 13.  The progressives of the Board, citing an epidemic of "sidewalk harassment" and "traffic hazards" (strangely, Planned Parenthood never offers video evidence despite its nearly omni-present cameras) are actually hoping this bill will protect Planned Parenthood's revenues from the efforts of pro-life sidewalk counselors.  You might want to urge your readers to contact their alderwoman/alderman - aldermanic members have cited mail volume previously as an influence on their votes.  Finally, if BB34 does eventually pass, your readers might want to consider boycotting the City to the extent they can.

2) Alderman Steve Conway is floating the idea of a 0.5% payroll tax on non-profits with more than 20 employees to fund police retention and hiring.  The City has money to move obscure monuments, maintain under-used bike lanes, and upgrade stadiums.  It taxes my charitable donations already by not offering a charitable deduction on the earnings tax, thus deciding the City warrants 1% of that money because it briefly touched my account on the trip from my employer to my chosen cause.  It taxes City residents who work in the County at the full 1%, even though we do not use City services for 1/3 of the day (and our increasing property taxes presumably cover the cost of watching over our homes).  It taxes County residents who work in the City at the full 1%, even though they do not use City services 2/3 of the day.  Despite all of this, when it comes to that most basic governmental function of providing security, the City needs to extract money from charities to make that happen.  And nor should small charities take comfort, even if they never cross the threshold from "valuable community asset" to "freeloader" by hiring that 20th employee; once the law is changed, it becomes much easier for it to eventually be amended down to non-profits with a handful of employees.

    Please urge your readers to contact their alderwomen/aldermen and attend the listening sessions.  If this tax passes, they might wish to consider doing some shopping outside of the City, so that the sales tax lost offsets the payroll revenue gained.

Thanks much for your consideration.

God bless,

Bryan

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As an aside, I wanted to report that the results of our latest poll are in, and an overwhelming 100% of those responding agree that Lyda Krewson should be impeached.  100%! Take that, Lyda.

Corpus Christi

A blessed feast day to you all.  One of the greatest days on the Church's calendar, proof of the love and humility of God.

Yes, it is today, as it is every year on the Church's ancient calendar. Yet we all have an opportunity to show our love and devotion to our Eucharistic Lord in processions on Sunday-- the novus ordo feast is deferred to Sunday, and the traditional Mass centers in the Archdiocese both will celebrate an External Solemnity of Corpus Christi, with procession, on Sunday.

St. Francis de Sales Oratory will process with the Eucharist after 10am Solemn High Mass. The procession will traverse Ohio, Sydney, Iowa and Lynch streets, with Benediction.

All Saints in University City will conduct a procession after the 11:30am Mass, and part of this procession will occur down Delmar Avenue in the Loop.  That is an interesting juxtaposition, indeed.

Go to the Oratory, process, then head to U City and process again. And blessings to all who process with Our Lord this weekend.

Auxilium Christianorum

Thou, Most Holy Virgin, who dost evermore stand before the throne of the Most Holy Trinity, and to whom it is granted at all times to pray for us to the most beloved Son, pray for me in all my necessities; help me, combat for me, give thanks for me, and obtain for me pardon of all my sins; help me especially at my last hour, and, when I can no longer give any sign of the use of reason, then do thou encourage me, make the sign of the cross for me, sprinkle me with holy water, and fight for me against the enemy. Make in my name a profession of faith; favour me with a testimony of my salvation, and never let me despair of the mercy of God. Help me to overcome the wicked enemy; and when I can no longer say, "Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I place my soul in your hands, say it for me; and when I can no longer hear human words of consolation, then do thou comfort me. Leave me not before I have been judged; and if I have to expiate my sins in purgatory, O pray for me instantly, earnestly, and admonish my friends to procure for me a speedy enjoyment of the blessed sight of God. Lessen my sufferings, deliver me speedily, and conduct my soul into Heaven with thee, that, united with all the Elect, I may there bless and praise my God and thyself for all eternity.

Amen.

Hail Mary (thrice)