Monday, monday.

Just thinking about terminology and stuff.

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I broke my own rule last night - and I had just been to confession too. I bashed Nancy Pelosi, and mocked her claim that she is an "ardent Catholic." I get annoyed when other people do that, and now you see, I'm just as guilty as the next person. "Lord, who will be admitted to your tent and dwell on your holy mountain? He who... does not slander with his tongue." - Ps. 15. I apologize to Mrs. Pelosi and all of my readers.

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Committee rule.

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Today happens to be the commemoration of one of the martyrs of the French Revolution, the legacy of which we continue to experience and celebrate. On this date in 1794 Blessed Marie De La Dive Du Verdier was guillotined. Blessed Marie was a 70 years old widow. She and her daughters, along with her sister-in-law who was a Benedictine nun, recently expelled from her abbey by the anti-Catholic Jacobin regime, were eventually arrested by the same. Imprisoned at Angers, Marie was the first to die, followed by the others in the days and weeks to come. An old lady and her old sister-in-law, along with her unmarried daughters. Can you imagine their shock and indignation over the government's invasion of her home, the confiscation of the madame's property, culminating in their heroic deaths? These and thousands more died simply because they remained faithful to the Catholic faith. (For some reason I thought of how old ladies today must go through security at airports, sometimes being frisked and all of that. I suppose old people can be rather threatening.)
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Protective custody.
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I watched 60 Minutes last night. One of the stories featured Bob Simon's exposition of the Israeli occupation of Gaza, including the settlements established by Jews who seek to take the land for Israel, and keep Palestinians restricted to an impoverished ghetto existence. The Israelis seem to function much as the Nazis had in Europe during WWII. Soldiers occupy homes and imprison the occupants for days on end. Palestinian freedoms are taken away; they cannot travel freely, nor get to their jobs, while Israelis have built modern hill towns and highways only Jews may use. A woman mayor of a Jewish settlement was defiant about remaining and using the settlement system to confiscate Palestinian territory, because the Bible says it belongs to the Jews. If Iran and Hezbollah get their way, she and the other Jewish settlers just might fry one day.
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Government intervention.
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Remember David Koresh and the Branch Dividians who lived in that compound at Mt. Carmel, Texas? The government rolled in and destroyed the complex and many people were burned to death.
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Marriage laws.
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Remember those fundamentalist polygamists? When the state came in and took all the children away because of allegations of sexual abuse?
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Change.
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I wonder if Catholic hospitals could be nationalized for refusing to provide contraception and abortion services?
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It could happen.