The Empty Chair

Homily for the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time

Cycle C





Earlier this week, I read an article which brought home to me in a vivid and disturbing way just how dangerous it is to be a young person today. All sorts of dangers and temptations surround them, and powerful forces are working hard to corrupt and mislead them. To be blunt, our youth culture has become degenerate.

The fact is, we don't have to look very hard or very far to see the evidence of this. The most popular kind of music among young people today is "gangsta rap", which glories in violence, degradation, and exploitation. It assaults the very idea of social bonds. One of the biggest fads today is body piercing: It's no longer enough for some people to wear one or two, or even three earrings, but now some young people pierce their noses, their eyebrows, their cheeks, and even less mentionable parts. But it goes even farther, to things like branding, or something called "tongue splitting", in which people have their tongues surgically split in two, so as to resemble that of a snake. A serious problem among young women today is "cutting": these girls cut themselves deliberately, mutilating their bodies.

All of these kinds of self-mutilation, all of this degradation, is symptomatic of something. It didn't just come out of nowhere. These things are symptoms of deep emotional and spiritual pain. According to pychologists and therapists who have worked with these young people, the thing that is universal among them is a feeling of total disintegration, a feeling that the world is meaningless, that their lives are meaningless. They feel that everything is random, and nothing really matters. Another thing these young people have in common is rage: uncontrollable, almost inexpressible rage. And these feelings of meaninglessness and rage are so overpowering, so overwhelming, that the only way they feel they can get relief is to inflict physical pain on themselves.

Now, some of you parents here this morning might be thinking "hey, my kids aren't doing any of that stuff." And some of you young people here today might be thinking "I'm not doing any of that stuff." Well, good! Thank God for that! Thank God for preserving you or your kids from that kind of spiritual poison. But, I bet that many of you wouldn't have to think very long or look very hard to discover that you know some young person who is caught up in those things.

Where are these things coming from? Why are some of our young people caught up in this soul-destroying behavior? There are several reasons for this, I think:

We all know that kids need stability. They need firmness, limits, structure. They need guidance. They need to know where the boundaries are. And have we, as a society, given them those things? I'd have to say, in all too many cases, the answer is no.

We've broken up their families with divorce.

We've confused them about sex by creating a society in which anything goes. We've told them "you're going to do it anyway. We're not going to bother teaching you about virtue and self-control and the preciousness of sex." We've just thrown contraceptives at them.

In too many cases they've learned that their lives are meaningless, because they've never heard of the One who gives life meaning.

We've told them, and we've shown them, that their worth lies not in who they are, but in how much stuff they can collect; whether they're wearing the right clothes, or the right shoes. Whether they listen to the right music, or drink the right soft drink.


But one of the greatest reasons for this underlying sense of meaninglessness, for this rage among so many young people, among the "Gen-X'ers" (those who are under 30), is the fact that our young people, those under 30, as a Gen-X'er recently wrote, are the first generation that our society has systematically tried to wipe out through the holocaust of abortion. If you think I'm exaggerating, if you think I'm being "extremist" by saying something like that, consider this: since 1973, when abortion was made legal by the Supreme Court, we have killed 38 million children through abortion. 38 million! That's more people than Hitler and Stalin managed to kill.



That brings me to these young people sitting up here this morning. You see, since 1973, in our nation, abortion claims the life of 1 out of every 4 children conceived. One out of four children conceived today will not survive to birth because of abortion. One out of four. And that child, that fourth child, would have been sitting in in that empty chair. That empty chair would have been filled by a child, by a young person, if it hadn't been for abortion. That child might have been your neighbor, your own child's classmate. He or she might have been your nephew, or your cousin, or your niece. That empty child might have been filled by a child who'd be your paperboy, who'd grow up to be a doctor, a teacher, a missionary, a mother, or even a priest. But that child won't be any of those things, because he isn't here.

Now, the supporters of legalized abortion like to use phrases like "women's rights", or "freedom of choice." Those phrases are deceptions; they're smoke and mirrors. Smoke and mirrors designed to hide that empty chair. Smoke and mirrors designed to obscure the child who isn't there.



Phrases like "reproductive rights" and "the right to choose" are abstractions. But that empty chair is very concrete, it's very real.

Whenever you hear phrases like "abortion rights", or "a woman's right to choose", I want you to think of that empty chair.

At any moment from conception to birth, a child's life can be snuffed out by abortion. That fact sends a message to our young people, a disturbing and corrosive message.

It says "You're only here because we decided to allow you to be here."

It says "You aren't supremely valuable, you aren't of inestimable worth." Because if you were, we would have done a better job of protecting your unborn brothers and sisters.

It tells our young people, "life is cheap, and easily thrown away."

Frankly, I'm not surprised that a lot of our young people feel meaninglessness and rage. I'm not surprised at all.

We heard Our Lord say in the gospel today:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me,
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives,
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable the Lord.

(Luke 4:14-21)

Our society is captive to the embrace of Death. Our nation is in poverty: Poverty, in the midst of the richest nation on earth! For as Mother Theresa said, "it is a great poverty to decide that a child must die so that we might live as we wish."

Our nation is blind to the dignity and humanity of the weakest and most vulnerable among us: the unborn child.

Every year, in our nation, millions suffer the ultimate oppression at the hands of abortionists.

In St. Paul's Letter to the Corinthians, we heard that we are the members of Christ's Body. As Christ's voice, it is for us to bring glad tidings to the poor. It is for us to proclaim liberty to captives.

Our challenge is this: Will we proclaim liberty to those captive to the Culture of Death? Will we be Christ's eyes, and see the dignity and humanity of the unborn child? Will we be Christ's hands, and reach out to protect those innocent lives?

Will we say to our young people, and to the world, "I WILL choose life!"?

Explorare Googles Ope!

Google has a Latin Version!

There you can "Favente Fortuna" in your web searches.

Everything is there, like your hints: "navigabulis plerisque inserendi clavem pulsare satis est, ne potius in tessera strepites".

Even the "Vincula sub Patrocinio" are there.

Make it protocollum tuum!

It's Not Like the Media Is Biased Or Anything...

The media is always trying to assure us that it's fair, balanced, objective, etc. So I'm sure that those objective professionals at KATU in Portland, Oregon, can explain how their coverage of today's March for Life is objective and balanced and accurate.

Today, hundreds of thousands of people went to Washington, D.C. to express their support for the dignity and humanity of the unborn. The scene in Washington looked something like this:



So, in their fair, objective, accurate report on the March, KATU provides this:



Nahh, there's no bias in the Media.

The March For Life



And I mean not just the annual March today in Washington, D.C., but the struggle, the battle, for the dignity of human life, which we are waging against the Culture of Death in which we are immersed.

Where are we, 31 years after Roe v. Wade?

I hate to say it, but it seems to me, as far as the nation as a whole goes, not much progress has been made. The organs of the dominant culture are just as implacably anti-life as they were 10-20 years ago. Catholics themselves, according to the surveys, are just as likely to support Abortion-On-Demand, and even have abortions, as the rest of society. If we can't get our own people "on board", how can we hope to change the broader culture?

And in the political sphere, I am beginning to think that Pro-lifers have been led down the garden path. I have labelled the Democratic Party the "Party of Death", and I still think that's the case: Their one and only real commitment is to the Slaughter of Innocents. But the Republicans can hardly be called the "Party of Life". The Republicans have managed to fob off pro-lifers with promises and platitudes for years now, while delivering next to nothing. And Republican commitment to the Pro-life cause is shaky as it has never been before. For the first 2 years after George W. Bush was elected, I thought that he was waiting to "solidify" his base before taking substantive pro-life action. But I don't think so anymore. I don't think he's going to deliver anything else. His behavior today tells the story. Pro-lifers should take cold comfort in his phone call to the March today: He could not have signalled his intent to keep pro-lifers at arms length any more clearly. He wasn't even physically in Washington today. And I don't believe for a moment that was an accident. It's not like the date of the March wasn't known well in advance.

So where, if at all, are signs of hope to be found? Well, it seems to me, that there is hope in our youth. I watched a little bit of the Mass for Life in Washington on EWTN last night, and I was struck by how many of the faces in the crowd were under 30. My own experience leads me to have hope: The Gen-X'ers and younger people are beginning to catch on to the fact that their generation has been savaged by abortion. Victor Lams put it bluntly last week:

... [T]he Boomer generation was the first generation to really selfishly turn on the next generation (my generation) and try to wipe it out through the holocaust of abortion and contraception. The boomers looked/do-look at the very existence of the Gen Xers as a threat to their youth ("Who are these youngsters? I'm the kid! I get the sex and the toys!")...

When young people get wind of what has been perpetrated on them, they're horrified and angry. I find that the following exercise brings the point home, especially with 12-14 year olds: When I talk to them about abortion, I'll have them sit so that every third or fourth chair amongst them is empty, but in it is either a name tag with the name left blank, or a cutout drawing of a face, with no features drawn on it. Then I tell them about what happened in 1973, and how, since then, we've been killing 1 out of 4 unborn children by abortion. I then point at those empty chairs, and blank nametags, and tell them: Those chairs are empty because the people who would have been there never had the chance to live. And those kids, the kids who died before they were born, would have been your classmates, your friends, your cousins, maybe even your brothers or sisters. That gets the message across. And it's a message that sticks. It's a sobering thought to realize that you exist only on the sufferance of society.

If enough of those kids get the message, then one day abortion will be ended, because they won't be party to murdering another generation.

A Thought Experiment

Several people have either sent me e-mails or left comments defending The West Wing against my criticisms of yesterday.

I readily grant that the show is well-written and acted. But a show can be well-written and acted and still have an agenda. And the agenda is the engine driving TWW.

But imagine this: What if "The West Wing" had a conservative President as protagonist, and an equally smart, beautiful, dedicated band of people striving to bring about School Vouchers, an end to Affirmative Action, opening up the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, and a Human Life Amendment? And imagine that the president's opponents, in that case liberals, were portrayed in a manner similar to the way conservatives are portrayed in the current show. The hue and cry from the outraged Left would reach the heavens. Critics would be having fits of apoplexy, and would demand the show's cancellation, and the immediate banishment or execution of its cast, writers, and producers.

Now Here's a Celebrity With Some Depth And Substance



Did you know that Britney Spears was an expert in Solid-State Physics?

Well, never underestimate what a girl can do when she sets her mind to it. She won't rest on her accomplishments in singing and acting. At Britney's Guide to Semiconductor Physics, she will guide you in learning about the vital laser components that have made it possible to hear her super music in a digital format.



At first, Britney admits, it was hard to understand things like valence bonds or n-N and p-P Heterojunctions:



But pretty soon, she was able to rattle off radiative transmission calculations off the top of her pretty little head:



Don't let phrases like "Finite Barrier Quantum Well" or "plane wave electric field" scare you! With a little hard work, anyone can understand semiconductor physics.



Britney says "It's a Snap!"

Just Honoring Her Wish

"A Conversation With Michael Schiavo"


A reader sent this to me, and I thought it amusing and worth passing on:


Q: Michael, you stated your wife Terri said "I wouldn't want to live like that". Yet, she is breathing on her own, not dying, not suffering from any terminal disease. Do you realize if you pulled her feeding tube, she would die from starvation and dehydration? What do you call that?

MS: just honoring her wish.

Q: Let me put it another way, Michael. Suppose Terri said she wanted you to put a loaded gun to her head and pull the trigger, would you go ahead? What do you call that?

MS: just honoring her wish.

Q: Perhaps we should try this .... Michael, suppose Terri said she wanted you to give her a push into the path of a moving freight train, would you go ahead? What do you call that?

MS: just honoring her wish.

Q: Alright Michael, suppose Terri said she wanted you to jump out of an airplane without a parachute, would you go ahead? What do you call that?

MS: hey, but she never said that.

Q: Don't worry about it Michael, go ahead anyway. We'll tell the world you were "just honoring her wish".

This conversation is fictitious, but, unfortunately, that doesn't mean it isn't true.

Update On Terri Schiavo,

or,

Being a Judge Means Never Having to Say, "I was Wrong"

My article titled "Killing Terri Schiavo" is now out in the January issue of Crisis Magazine. If you don't subscribe to Crisis, you might buy, beg or borrow (don't steal) a copy of it. In the article I examine some of the legal and medical issues in her case, and demonstrate how Terri has been the victim of a judicial and medical establishment that has embraced the pro-death agenda. In my research for the article, it became plain to me that a serious miscarriage of justice has been perpetrated by Judge Greer et al. One notable way in which the Florida courts have ridden roughshod over Terri's rights is in the manner they have handled the guardians ad litem in her case: Several attorneys have informed me that the normal procedure is to have such a guardian appointed to represent the person's interest. But Terri's court cases have consistently gone to trial without an independent guardian ad litem to represent her. As I write in my Crisis article, the first guardian ad litem, Richard Pearse, said some things in his report which George Felos, attorney for Michael Schiavo, didn't like, so Felos tried to get rid of him:

In February of 1999 George Felos filed a "suggestion of bias" against Pearse, and demanded he be removed as guardian ad litem. The judge then hearing the case, Bruce Boyer, took no action on Felos' "suggestion of bias" nor on Pearse's report. In April of that year, after waiting four months without hearing from the judge, Pearse filed a request that he either be given further instructions or discharged. He reiterated his concerns about Michael's guardianship, and also noted that there would be due process difficulties if the case proceeded to trial without Terri having an independent guardian ad litem. Judge Boyer's response was to discharge Pearse without appointing a successor. The case then proceeded to trial before Judge Greer, without him appointing a new guardian ad litem .

Well, now it looks like the same thing is happening again. In the latest proceeding, Governor Bush asked the most recent court-appointed guardian, Jay Wolfson, to investigate 10 issues related to Terri's case, including such things as the circumstances of the injuries which led to her brain damage. Governor Bush also asked Wolfson to make a determination as to whether Terri and Michael could be divorced. Mr. Wolfson had also, in his report to the court, advocated that swallowing tests be done on Terri, as well as other measures to determine whether there is any likelihood that therapy could improve her condition.

All of these questions, and the request for a swallowing test, are highly inconvenient to Michael Schiavo and his attorney, George Felos. If Michael and Terri can be divorced, then Michael is sunk, and Felos loses the pro-death test case he longs for. If a swallowing test is conducted by honest and independent doctors, then Michael will almost certainly be sunk as well, because such a test will reveal that Terri already is swallowing her own saliva (about 2 to 2.5 liters per day, like most normal adults) and can therefore swallow liquids. If she can swallow liquids, then she can probably re-learn to swallow solid food.

But these questions and the request for a test are also inconvenient to the Florida courts, because honest answers to them will reveal the bias and judicial incompetence, if not outright misconduct, of Judge Greer and, to a lesser extent, Judges Boyer and Baird.

And so, the response of the courts has been, once again, to discharge the guardian ad litem. Once again, there is no independent advocate representing Terri. The Schindlers have petitioned the court to re-instate Jay Wolfson so that he can complete the investigation into Terri's case. Predictably, George Felos opposes the re-instatement, saying that Wolfson had already completed the investigation. Felos has relied upon misinformation and outright deception to make his case, and can't afford to have any further inconvenient facts come to light.

What this case is now about is the combined efforts of George Felos and the judges of this case to prevent Governor Bush and the Schindlers from re-visiting the questions of fact in Terri's case. In my opinion, the maneuverings regarding the constitutionality of "Terri's Law" are just a smoke screen in front of those questions of fact.

You see, Judge Greer made some highly dubious, and indeed almost unaccountable findings of fact in this case. His judgment that Michael's assertion that Terri "wouldn't want to go on living" in her condition met the standard of "clear and convincing" proof is one egregious example of what can only with charity be described as a number of "counter-intuitive" decisions.

But in our legal system, once a judge has made a finding of fact, that finding is all-but unassailable, no matter what evidence might come to light subsequently showing that finding to be erroneous or even absurd. Being a judge means, in a very real sense, never having to say "I was wrong".

Governor Bush and the Schindlers are using the opening given them by "Terri's Law" and the governor's intervention to try to re-open the case and re-visit the rulings that Judge Greer made regarding Terri's diagnosis and regarding her putative wishes. And, as I have written before, there is ample reason to doubt the validity of those judgments.

It is precisely because of the objective weakness of those judgments and the flimsiness of the evidence behind them, that the Florida judiciary will do almost anything to prevent them from being re-examined. A small waft of truth will bring down that house of cards. So the tactic of the judges will be to keep the windows closed on, and the light off of, the matter.

And so the Florida courts, wittingly or not, are locked in common cause with George Felos. They both need the same thing, albeit for different reasons. And that is why I am not at all sanguine about the outcome of Terri's case as long as it is in the Florida courts. Neither the Schindlers nor the attorney for Gov. Bush, Ken Connor, are optimistic, either. Judge Baird has clearly signalled his intentions by refusing to allow a new trial to present or consider evidence in the case.

It is almost a certainty that Judge Baird will rule that Terri's Law is unconstitutional. Judge Baird all but declared himself on the matter before there was even a hearing. That his evident bias didn't disqualify him is appalling, but not surprising. The arguments he gives for his ruling may be of interest to legal pundits, but even if he has no plausible reasons the outcome will be the same. As far as the judiciary as concerned, it is necessary that Terri's Law be found unconstitutional. They will allow no governor nor legislature to brook the unfettered exercise of judicial power. Once Terri's Law is declared unconstitutional, that puts an end to the inconvenient questions and demands of Gov. Bush and the Schindlers. Once Terri's Law is declared unconstitutional, the inconvenient findings and recommendations of Jay Wolfson will be rendered moot.

As soon as that ruling is given, George Felos will ask for an order to again remove Terri's feeding tube. It will probably be granted. Felos will try to get Terri's death order on a "fast track", so as to limit the opportunities for further legal maneuvering. Gov. Bush and the Schindlers will ask for a stay of the death order pending appeal, but many involved in the case think Judge Baird is not likely to grant it. And the Florida appellate courts, in all likelihood, will also decline to issue stays. Their interests also lie the way of Terri's death. At that point the only hope is in a Federal intervention.

Once Terri is dead, then all the inconvenient, unanswered questions lose their interest and relevance. Felos knows that against the fact of Terri's death, none of those problematic issues will have much actuality. Most people will shrug their shoulders and move on. And Felos and his comrades at the Hemlock Society and Death-with Dignity" will have their test case, and the legal means to continue apace their offerings to Death The All-Embracing.

I'm back

After the busyness of Christmas and the New Year, I was just exhausted and needed to take a break from blogging. But I'm back, at least for now. I have a couple of big projects looming which will probably result in a curtailment of my blogging later this month. But in the meantime, I'll try to edify and entertain.

Sancte Stephane, Ora Pro Nobis!

I hope all of you had a joyful and blessed Christmas! Mine was busy, but wonderful: I love celebrating the Masses of Christmas. I enjoyed Christmas dinner with some parishioners, as there wasn't enough time for me to travel to be at home for Christmas this year.

Today is the feast of St. Stephen the Protomartyr:



I used to be puzzled at celebrating this feast on the day after Christmas. It seemed to me that, after the joy and exaltation of Christmas, to celebrate the feast of a martyr was sort of a comedown. I mean, it's not as though we know the actual date of Stephen's death, so the Church could have picked almost any day. But this date is not a coincidence. There is a fittingness to this date, as St. Fulgentius (465-533) tells us in a homily for this day:

Yesterday we celebrated the temporal birth of our eternal King: today we celebrate the triumphal passion of his soldier. Yesterday our King, having put on the garb of our flesh, came from the sanctuary of His Mother's virginal womb, and mercifully visited the earth: today his soldier, quitting his earthly tabernacle, entered triumphantly into heaven... Yesterday Jesus was wrapped, for our sakes, in swaddling clothes: today Stephen was clothed with the robe of immortal glory. Yesterday a narrow crib contained the infant Jesus: today the immensity of the heavenly court received the triumphant Stephen... The place of honor amidst all who stand round the crib of the new-born King belongs to Stephen, the proto-martyr, who, as the Church sings of him, was "the first to pay back to the Saviour the death suffered by the Saviour." It was just that this honor should be shown to Martyrdom; for Martyrdom is the creature's testimony and return to the Creator for all the favors bestowed on him: it is man testifying, even by shedding his blood, to the truths which God has revealed to the world... Now the glorious martyr-band of Christ is headed by St. Stephen. His name signifies the Crowned, and a conqueror such as he could not be better named. He marshals, in the name of Christ, the white-robed army; for he was the first, even before the apostles themselves, to receive the summons, and right nobly did he answer it.

Christ is Savior and Lord. He is King, and the Shepherds and Wise Men acknowledged his Kingship. But Christ did not rule from a throne, but from the Cross. He did not wear a crown of gold and gems, but a crown of thorns. He is Triumphator, but His triumph came through suffering and death. So Stephen points the way for us, to follow Christ to glory!

Carmina Solemnitatis Nativitatis Domini

That's "Christmas Carols in Latin", for you Latin-challenged folks...


Aquafolia Ornatis

"Deck the Halls"

Aquafolia ornatis,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Tempus hoc hilaritatis,
Fa la la la la, la la la la
Vestes claras induamus;
Fa la la la la, la la la la
Cantilenas nunc promamus,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.


O Parve Vice Bethlehem

"O Little Town of Bethlehem"

O parve vice Bethlehem,
Quam tacite dormis,
Et spectant alta sidera
De caeruleis caelis.
Sed in obscuris viis
Tu hodie tenes,
Aeterna luce fulgente,
Annorum omnes spes!

Nam Iesus Christus natus est;
Et laeti angeli
Infantem sanctum mirantur
Dum dormiunt pop'li.
O stellae, conclamate
Nostrum Redemptorem,
Atque laudes Deo Regi,
Mortalibus pacem!


And, of course:

Rudolphus, Reno Nasus Rubricatus

"Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer"

Reno erat Rudolphus
Nasum rubrum habebat;
Si quando hunc videbas,
Hunc candere tu dicas.

Omnes renores alii
Semper hunc deridebant;
Cum misero Rudolpho
In ludis non ludebant.

Santus Nicholas dixit
Nocte nebulae,
"Rudolphe, naso claro
Nonne carum tu duces?"

Tum renores clambant,
"Rudolphe, delectus es?
Cum naso rubro claro
Historia descendes!"

For all your Latin Carol needs, go here.

Re-Defining Sex

My friend Jenny Roback Morse is pretty cool: she's an economist, a good Catholic, a mom, a writer, and all-around smart lady.

She has a pair of articles at NRO, the first of which is "Love and...Marriage and the Meaning of Sex".

A revolution in the definition of sex has been going on for the last generation or so. Until recently, sex was understood, at least implicitly, as having a communal function, and society had an interest in defining the proper boundaries of sexual behavior. But, Morse argues, that has changed:

...For many people in modern America, sex has little or nothing to do with building community of any kind. Sex is a purely private matter, in the narrowest sense of private. Sex is a recreational activity, and a consumer good. My consumption of this good, my enjoyment of this activity, is a completely private matter that should be viewed analogously with other goods and activities.

This redifinition is having repercussions throughout society, and is at the heart of the debate over such issues as Gay "marriage". Jenny's article is right on mark, as far as I'm concerned. Read it and see why!

Having a Blog is Funny, Sometimes

You can encounter all sorts of different people.

Commenter Don is certainly that. And at first, his comments were kind of interesting and amusing. He reminds me of the "Jack" character from "Will & Grace": Someone who goes through life in a state of perpetual ferment and drama, utterly unaware of how insubstantial and ludicrous he is.

When Don started up with the all-but-inevitable name-calling (more on that in a moment), I was tempted to ban him. But I decided not to, for two reasons: (1) I didn't want to provide him with an excuse to pose as The Grievously Suffering Martyr, silenced for being a Prophet of the Gay cause. (2) Don is a lightweight. Banning him would be like using a shotgun to get rid of a pesky fly.

See, in Monday's post "Ideology as History", I quoted actual statements from important figures in Greek history which give the lie to the gay activists' contention that the ancient Greeks thought, like the fashionable parrots of the Zeitgeist, that homosexuality was the Most Wonderful Thing in The Universe. In fact, they didn't, as yet one more quote, from Plato's Laws, will illustrate:

[636c]...One certainly should not fail to observe that when male unites with female for procreation the pleasure experienced is held to be due to nature, but contrary to nature when male mates with male or female with female, and that those first guilty of such enormities were impelled by their slavery to pleasure.

Here, the gay activist's ideology, that is to say, his mythos, runs up against the brick wall of fact. And so he can either (a) refute the facts adduced, (b) ignore the facts and proceed as thought they didn't exist, or (c) attempt to shout down the person adducing the facts.

Don (nor the other gay advocate who commented), I will note, did not adduce a single actual argument challenging my demonstration that the ancient Greeks did not accept homosexual behavior as "normal". Instead, he chose options b and c.

Don illustrated the truth of Ann Coulter's dictum (from her book, Slander) that Leftists (and homosexual activists are simply a species of Leftist), when confronted with facts inconvenient to them, don't argue. They attempt to shout down the opposition and resort to name calling.

And in the 40 or so comments Don posted over a couple of threads, we certainly get a lot of name calling. Unfortunately, most of it is rather derivative, consisting of worn out and unimaginative calumnies such as:

I am a "hater". (Anyone who disagrees with a Leftist must be doing so out of hate.)

The Church, and people who advocate moral standards and accountability, want to "control" people.

The Church is engaging in "Nazism" against gays. (It is an established rule of Internet discourse that the person who introduces comparisons of "nazis" or "fascists" to his opponent at that moment has lost the argument).

The Church has abused women and continues to do so.

God "made" people gay.

The Church, which is powerful and evil and wicked enough to do all those bad things, is nonetheless about to crumble into oblivion.

And so on, ad nauseam. And of, course, those of us who embrace the traditional standards of Christian morality are "bigots", and "fools", and "brainwashed".

Of course, he is saying all these things, including telling one commenter to "burn in hell, dear", because he is filled with Jesus' LOVE: "L.O.V.E. YOU IDIOTS ! LOVE !"

Of course, the more shrill his screams are, the more absurd he becomes. That's why I don't ban him.

Don, in short, is a troll. It is always a capital mistake to engage a troll in rational argument, as you would a reasonable person. The troll is not interested in rational argument: he is usually a monomaniac intent only on shouting his mania to all around him. So I will ask my readers to please observe the common-sense rule applied to trolls: Don't feed him. I'm confident that sooner or later, he will say something so abusive or outrageous that I'll have to ban him. But let's not hand him the opportunity.

Hooray for Me!

Sometime last night or early this morning I turned over 100,000 hits on my blog counter!

Thank you for your support!

Blug

That's my neologism for plugging a blog. Blog + Plug = Blug.

Or perhaps, a better neologism might be Plog. Plug + Blog = Plog.

Although I seem to recall that Victor Lams already used Plog for something else. If you read this, Victor, or if anyone else remembers, let me know.

At any rate, the Blog I wish to Blug is that of my good friend and classmate, Fr. Dave Hudgins.

Dave's a good guy and great priest, and you can read his thoughts over at The Great Commandment. Go pay him a visit!

Ideology as History

I wasn't going to post anything today. Monday is my day off, and I had planned on indulging myself in relative idleness in view of the fact that last week was very busy and that I will get even busier as we near Christmas.

But sometimes a piece of nonsense comes along so egregious that comment, correction, and debunking is necessary.

I am speaking of some of the assertions made in a recent New York Times book review, linked yesterday by Mark Shea.

Edward Rothstein, in his efforts to offer unconfined adulation to Louis Crompton's Homosexuality and Civilization, repeats uncritically Crompton's assertions regarding homosexuality in ancient Greece, and illustrates that the Manhattanite chattering classes owe their conception of history more to trends of pseudo-intellectual fashion than to actual reading.

Crompton, in his book, wants to posit that "homosexuality is associated with the inner workings of civilization itself". Since homosexuality is at the very core of what it means to be civlilized, it shouldn't surprise us to learn that homosexuals had things just peachy before that horrible old Christianity came on the scene; until just a few decades or so ago, when we finally began shaking those Christian bugaboos off our enlightened intellects.

And so, he trots out the now all-but-unquestioned canard that in ancient Greece "homosexuality had an 'honored place' for more than a millennium".

This. is. utter. nonsense.

I know you've heard from shows on the Discovery Channel and read in Cosmo that homosexuality was an accepted, "normal" part of Greek society, but that assertion is complete poppycock.

Anyone who asserts that the ancient Greeks looked at homosexuality as "normal" is either ignorant or is blinded by ideology. And any honest classical scholar will admit it.

I studied Classics and Patristics in graduate school at the Catholic University of America in Washinton, DC, whence I have an M.A. in Classics. I also studied the Classics in college at the University of Illinois. I labored for years reading Plato, Xenophon, Euripides, Plutarch, Homer, etc. in the original Greek. And I can tell you without equivocation that the ancient Greeks did not view homosexuality as "ok".

Now, it is true that they didn't look at homsexual behavior with the same degree of abomination as say, did ancient Israel. And they wouldn't have labelled it a "sin against nature", as would Thomas and the scholastics. At best, it was something they made jokes about. And the failure to abominate hardly constitutes approval. There's a wide ground between calling homosexuality an "objective disorder" and granting it an "honored place" in society.

But don't just take my word for it. Let's look at what some notable Greeks themselves said. This is how Xenophon, in his Memorobilia, describes Socrates' reaction to Critias' homosexual desire for Euthydemus:

Nevertheless, although he [Socrates] was himself free from vice, if he saw and approved of base conduct in them, he would be open to censure. Well, when he found that Critias loved Euthydemus and wanted to lead him astray, he tried to restrain him by saying that it was mean and unbecoming in a gentleman to sue like a beggar to the object of his affection, whose good opinion he coveted, stooping to ask a favour that it was wrong to grant. [30] As Critias paid no heed whatever to this protest, Socrates, it is said, exclaimed in the presence of Euthydemus and many others, “Critias seems to have the feelings of a pig: he can no more keep away from Euthydemus than pigs can help rubbing themselves against stones.”

It is important to note that Xenophon places this account in relation to describing Socrates moral rectitude and virtue, and in his reactions to "base" conduct. Secondly, Socrates points out that it would be "wrong" for Euthydemus to grant the favor Critias sought, and that it is "mean" for Critias to go mooning after him. Finally, even in ancient Greece one did not compare sentiments which have an "honored place" in society to the "feelings of a pig."

Xenophon also describes how the legendary Lawgiver of the Spartans, Lycurgus, dealt with the prospect of homosexual "recruitment" of boys in the ephebate [the training program for boys of about 15-19]:

If someone, being himself an honest man, admired a boy's soul and tried to make of him an ideal friend without reproach and to associate with him, he approved, and believed in the excellence of this kind of training. But if it was clear that the attraction lay in the boy's outward beauty, he banned the connexion as an abomination; and thus he caused lovers to abstain from boys no less than parents abstain from sexual intercourse with their children and brothers and sisters with each other.

Xenophon, Constitution of the Lacedaimonians

Again, it is hard to reconcile the supposed "honored" place of homosexuality with its description as an "abomination" on par with incest.

Plutarch, in his Alexandros, relates that when Alexander was asked by the governor of one of his provinces in Asia Minor, in an attempt to curry favor, if he would like him to send "...a young man, the likes of whom for bloom and beauty did not exist." Alexander replied, "Why you vile man, what past deeds of mine have you witnessed that would make you think I would be interested in such pleasures?" Note that Alexander did not reply with a modern, "tolerant" response, like, "Well, "I'm not interested in that sort of thing, not that there's anything wrong with that."

Finally, Nikos Vrissimtzis, the author of a recent best-seller in Greece, Love, Sex and Marriage - a Guide to the Private Life of the Ancient Greeks, said in a BBC report:

"Contrary to popular opinion, that world was not a paradise for homosexuals, and paedaracy was held in such contempt that it was very heavily punished... Homosexuals were not, as many believed, openly accepted by society. They were marginalised and punished by law," Vrissimtzis says. "For example, they could not enter the ancient Agora [the business and government center of a Greek city] or participate in ranks and rituals involving the state.

He also said, "Ancient Greece was not a liberal society."

And in that last remark lies the crux of the issue. It is the typical tactic of sexual libertines, including homosexuals, to try to create a mythos of some ideal society which embraces the degeneracy that they want to establish here and now. Liberals want to be able to point to some utopia, and will make one up if necessary. Margaret Mead tried to do it with the Samoans and was eventually proven a fraud. The gay activists have been trying to do it with ancient Greece, and are also perpetrating a fraud.

Something Really Does Stink In Pinellas County, Florida

Sorry, but everything I see coming from Florida: the egregious rulings of Judge Greer, the topsy-turvy rulings of the Appellate courts, the lamentable lack of investigation into the circumstances of Terri's injuries, leads me to believe that it is a cesspool of corruption.

And now, outrageously, a disabled teacher has been fired in Pinellas County, Florida, almost certainly because of her outspoken support for Terri's right to live. Pinellas County is the same county in which Terri resides in her hospice. It's the same county which has on it's circuit bench Judges Greer and Baird. It's the same place in which death-dealing attorney George Felos has his practice.

CNS News reports:

Rus Cooper-Dowda told CNSNews.com Wednesday morning that the Pinellas County School Board voted six-to-one to fire her Tuesday night, citing "job perforrmance" as the reason. The veteran teacher claims she was terminated in retaliation for sharing her opinion about the Schiavo case in response to a reporter's question.

Rus Cooper-Dowda is disabled herself, and has written eloquently about Terri's case. At one time she was in a similar situation to Terri's:

At age 30, the teacher contracted a severe case of lupus that left her unable to speak and with very little control over her motor functions. She listened helplessly as doctors incorrectly diagnosed her as being in a Persistent Vegetative State, the same condition some physicians believe afflicts Terri, and described her chances for recovery as "hopeless."

"I could hear all that," Cooper-Dowda recalled. "It took a huge effort to finally communicate, 'I'm in here!' And I barely survived."

Though she could not speak, Cooper-Dowda would use her finger to write the word "no" in the air when doctors discussed removing her life support. Those same doctors diagnosed her attempts to communicate as "seizure activity" and sedated her. According to Cooper-Dowda, the harder she tried to communicate with her caretakers, the more heavily she was sedated.

The curiosity of one nurse saved Cooper-Dowda's life, she said.

"She refused to believe that the systematic pattern of tapping and blinking and moving and moaning was not communication," Cooper-Dowda recalled. "So, when I went to Terri Schiavo's October 2002 hearing ... I saw the videos for the first time and I was writing about it and I thought, 'That could have been me,' and then I thought, 'Oh, it was me!'"

Cooper-Dowda's firing seems to follow a little too closely her remarks made to a reporter about the Terri Schiavo case:

I did a very brief interview, offsite, on my own time, not identifying as a teacher, where I said, 'As a disabled Floridian of faith, female, with disabilities, this is scary,'" Cooper-Dowda explained. "And I was really clear that 'you cannot say I am a teacher' and the reporter was disappointed because I teach special ed[ucation], but agreed."

But, unknown to her, many of her students were watching the news that evening, and the word of her appearance spread quickly. At a faculty meeting the next day she heard, among other things, that she didn't "fit in", that teachers "with public opinions like that don't fit in." She was also labelled a "religious wacko" by some of her colleagues and superiors. She was told by her principal, various teachers, etc. that "Teachers aren't allowed to have opinions, especially about Terri Schiavo, and especially if you're already a seminary grad[uate]".

Things really got bad, she said, when some copies of a booklet she had written about Terri Schiavo appeared on campus.

After that I couldn't get the most accepted basic support like needed room supplies, memos about meetings, campus police help when any of my kids needed to be removed for violence or assistance for students hurting themselves regularly," Cooper-Dowda alleged. "Finally, I was given less than a day to hand deliver a resignation for 'personal reasons' or be fired for 'not fitting in.'"

She is contemplating legal action against the school board, but, unless she can mount a federal case, she'll have to bring it before the judges of Pinellas County. Any guesses as to the likelihood of her getting justice there?

A More High-falutin' Kind of E-mail Scam

Here's an excerpt...


Mlle Rama Kinta

J’ai l’honneur de venir par le biais de ma lettre vous
informer mon désir ardent d'entamer une relation
d’affaire avec vous.

Je m'appelle Rama Kinta je suis la fille unique de feu
monsieur Kinta Alfred avant qu’il ne soit empoisonner
par son associer au cour d’un dîner d’affaire était un
grand exportateur de café et de cacao baser au Ghana
avant le décès de papa a la clinique Gospel il m’a
appeler a son chevet pour me faire part d’un grand
secret.

Il m’a fait savoir qu’il avait fait un dépôt d'une
importante somme d'argent de 10 000 000$ de dollars
(DIX MILLIONS DE DOLLARS ) dans la garderie d'une
compagnie de sécurité en cote d’ivoire Mais la
compagnie de sécurité ne connaît pas le contenu de la
caisse par ce qu'il avait déclaré le contenue du
coffre comme étant des objets de valeur familiaux et
non de l'argent pour des raisons de sécurités j’ai en
ma possession les clefs du coffre et tous les
documents officiels du dépôt.

Sure, they've got $10,000,000 deposited somewhere on the Ivory Coast.

I guess they figured if their pitch was en francais, I'd somehow fail to notice that it's a scam.

The Topsy-Turvy Land of Florida Courts

Apparently, in the Florida judicial system, the hieratic powers of its black-robed masters have reached so far as to be able to make darkness light, day into night, and suspend the laws of logic which bind us mere ordinary mortals.

Consider the following:

The trial judge in the Terri Schiavo case, George Greer, ruled that Michael Schiavo's testimony that Terri "wouldn't want to go on living" is "clear and convincing", in spite of it being corroborated only by Michael's brother and sister-in-law, whose corroboration was only gotten into court by a last-minute dodge by attorney George Felos, which violated the rules of civil trial procedure. Greer also ignored substantial contravening testimony against Michael's contention.

The appeals court in Florida keeps Felos on the case, in spite of the above violation, as well as Greer's violation of the rule against ex parte communications, by having impromptu news conferences in his chambers when counsel for both sides are not present.

Now, the Florida Appeals court has ruled that Circuit Judge W. Douglas Baird is to remain on the Terri Schiavo case, in spite of evidence that he is biased.

Judge Baird, before any hearings have been held in the matter of "Terri's Law", the legislation which allowed Gov. Jeb Bush to intervene and order Terri's feeding tube restored, has made statements that he believes the law is "presumptively unconstitutional."

To the ordinary person, that sounds like the judge has pre-judged the case. But to Florida Appeals judges, who apparently use a secret code which sounds like the English language, but conveys different meanings, such utterances from Baird are "not improper".

Bush criticized the decision, saying in a statement that "it appears the court has determined that prejudging a case before evidence is presented is acceptable in Florida."

What's really going on is this: the black-robed masters of the Florida judiciary, being accustomed to the unfettered power to call black white by their fiat, are mad as hell that the Florida legislature and Gov. Bush have challenged their ability to exercise raw power, and order an innocent woman's death by judicial ukase.

So now they are going to try to punish Bush, and they will not rest until Terri is dead, if for no other reason than to demonstrate who our masters really are. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And there is no one in this country who exercises power more absolute than a judge, particularly at the appellate level. And once they have tasted the heady brew that is the power over life and death, most will do almost anything to keep it.

Polls vs. Truth

Yesterday, Patricia Anderson, attorney for Bob & Mary Schindler, issued the following statement in response to the St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald poll which reported that sixty-five percent of the poll's 800 respondents disagreed with Governor Jeb Bush's order to reinstate Terri Schiavo's feeding tube.


PATRICIA FIELDS ANDERSON, P.A.
Attorney at Law
 

Any first-year political science student knows that poll results are only as good as the bias of the questioner. 
 
The fact is that unless Florida law is changed to honor only written advance directives, we will all see other cases like Terri Schiavo, in which a spouse, now living with another woman with whom he has had two children, suddenly and  conveniently remembers years after the fact the disabled spouse's wishes in the matter.  If we, as a society, are prepared to accept these remembered wishes as a cover for getting rid of seriously disabled persons, where is that line going to be drawn?  Who's next?  Children with cerebral palsy?  Alzheimer's patients? People who wear contact lenses?  Are the lives of the disabled less valuable?

Pat Anderson is on to a very important point: if we are going to allow half-remembered, uncorroborated (I will not dignify Michael Schiavo's last-minute production of his brother and sister-in-law with the term "corroboration") casual statements to dictate life and death decisions, many of those people writing opinion pieces and answering pollsters that they think it's OK to starve Terri may come to rue their offhanded comments. Some one of their relatives or children, in a few years, may be able to say, "Well, I remember Mom telling that pollster she thought it was OK to pull the plug on Terri Schiavo, so I guess we can just let that pneumonia run its course and finish her off."