All rightey then! She's back on the best dressed list.

The Obama's presented beautifully today as they met the Holy Father - Mrs. Obama followed protocol perfectly and looked very dignified.

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I'm proud of them.

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H/T to Whispers in the Loggia.

When things get really bad...

I think of St. Maximillian Maria Kolbe and the Militia of Mary Immaculate:

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In 1912 St. Maximillian was sent to Kraków, and in the same year to a college in Rome, where he studied philosophy, theology, mathematics, and physics. He earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1915 at the Pontifical Gregorian University, and the doctorate in theology in 1919 at the Pontifical University of St. Bonaventure. During his time as a student, he witnessed vehement demonstrations against Popes St. Pius X and Benedict XV in Rome and was inspired to organize the Militia Immaculata, or Army of Mary, to work for conversion of sinners and the enemies of the Catholic Church through the intercession of the Virgin Mary. - Source

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O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee, and for those who do not have recourse to thee, especially the enemies of the Church and those recommended to thee. Amen. - St. Maximillian

Assman

Wow! I hope this guy's daughters never get punished with a baby.

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Sarkozy reportedly remarked to the Prez; "Oui! - How you say, that is what a normal one looks wife - I mean like!"

Shepherds...

"Woe to the shepherds of Israel who have been pasturing themselves!" [Ezekiel 34: 2]

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Did you hear the one about the Archbishop who gave the Canadian PM Communion and didn't think anything was wrong with that scenario...

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"'I'm sure he (Harper) didn't mean any desecration or nothing of the sort. Somehow, the gesture was misunderstood. I think he should have been briefed by the protocol of what has to be done in a Catholic ceremony.'"

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Ayeaaah! You're the Archbishop - so brief the guy! WTF?!

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Archbishop Andre Richard, head of the Moncton archdiocese, said Thursday it's considered "sacrilegious" for non-believers to take part in the rite, but only if it is meant out of disrespect. (Who the hell made that up?) "In the context, it's obvious that no disrespect was meant, I'm quite sure," he said in a telephone interview. - Source

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"God's gonna get him for that one."

The Ugly Americans

The first family and their entourage.
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In the 1958 novel, The Ugly American, a Burmese journalist says "For some reason, the people I meet in my country are not the same as the ones I knew in the United States. A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land. They isolate themselves socially. They live pretentiously. They're loud and ostentatious." - The Ugly American, by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer.

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Can't say that about the Obama's, they just show up badly dressed - every where... jus' ordinary folk. They obviously do not isolate socially either - or do they? Is every State trip going to be a family affair in this Administration? No doubt dressing inappropriately is not pretentious - but is it arrogance? Could be - 'we are the first family - this is how we are'. I don't care if it's summer and really hot in Rome, a t-shirt and little shorts is pretty much street urchin dress - and who's the guy looking like a gangsta in the gym clothes? I know, probably Secret Service - it's still street life.

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Shelley can carry all the $6000 handbags she wants - she has no class. People may think my assessment harsh or unfair, but this family is representing the American people when they go abroad. When you are working you should dress appropriately - if not modestly - even when you are 10. These trips are not State funded vacations - or are they?

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Photo source.

Stephen Harper puts the host in his pocket

He extended his hand as if he were just shaking hands - there was absolutely no reverence - and why was he given Communion in the first place - he is a Protestant?
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This incident is good reason for abolishing Communion in the hand and putting a stop to the free for all that occurrs at Communion time in Roman Catholic churches.
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Don't forget that Roger of Taize was given Holy Communion by Cardinal Ratzinger at JPII's funeral - I don't know what that was about, but situations like it give the impression anyone can do it. (Think the Protestant Clinton, the apostates Kerry and Pelosi, et al.) Thank God, as Pope, the Holy Father has changed the way he distributes Communion - to those who kneel and on the tongue.

The Martyrs of Gorcum.

They were killed by Calvinists.
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Have you ever been accused of being a Calvinist or a Jansenist lately? It is the fashionable, albeit shameful, accusation to make now days - especially as a criticism of Catholics with an old fashioned morality - you know, those papists who long for a proper Mass, advocate pro-life politics, or who reject same-sex marriage legislation and arbitrary hate crimes bills. How the tables are turned today. But I digress...
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By 1572, the Netherlands had fallen culturally and politically into Protestant hands, and Catholics of the country became objects of persecution for Lutherans and Calvinists alike. As town after town fell to Protestant control, the Catholic clergy of the area were arrested and often tortured. The goal of this mistreatment was not death, but apostasy.
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In June of 1572, the town of Gorcum (modern Gorinchem, 20 miles west of Rotterdam) fell into the hands of Calvinist pirates, and immediately they arrested nine Franciscan priests. Later, two Franciscan lay brothers, three secular priests, and an Augustinian canon were also arrested. Eventually four more priests were added to their number. These included two Norbertines, another secular priest, and John of Cologne, a Dominican friar working outside of Gorcum. After hearing of the arrests of the Franciscans, St. John disguised himself and traveled to Gorcum to console his brother priests with the sacraments. He was eventually caught and imprisoned along with them.
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The pirates demanded that these nineteen priests and religious deny the Real Presence and the authority of the Pope. They refused, much to their captors’ distress. Despite a plea for leniency from William of Orange, the Dutch prince and leader of the Protestant Rebellion, the Calvinists of Gorcum transferred their prisoners to nearby Brielle, where they were martyred outside of town in a dilapidated shed. Their bodies were horrifically desecrated both before and after their deaths, out of mockery for their priesthood.
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One of the secular priests killed was notorious for his unchastity. When accused of this by his captors, he offered his famous reply, “Fornicator I always was, but heretic I never was.” - Source
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I like that: “Fornicator I always was, but heretic I never was.”
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People can call me what they like too.
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July 9 is the memorial of the Martyrs of Gorcum. They all chose death rather than renounce their faith in the Blessed Sacrament and Papal supremacy. Imagine that.

Death and dying.

A litany...

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Loss.

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Lost.

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The abyss.

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Salvation uncertain.

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The damned...

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Meaninglessness.

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Failure.

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Finality.

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Emptiness.

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Spiritual nothingness.

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Purposelessness.

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Nothing.

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Abyss of non-existence.

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Annihilation.

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Oblivion.

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Vacuous emptiness.

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Falling.

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Falling.

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Falling.

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Falling.

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Falling.

The funeral...

Michael Jackson's.
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I watched some of it - I wasn't going to, but I did. Overall, it was well done - it never became the spectacle I expected. (Well, Mariah Carey was inappropriately dressed, but she always is.) Some aspects of the program were sad to the point of disturbing - a couple of times I had to leave the room, finally, I just stopped watching. It creeped me out. 'The guy is dead and this is a performance,' I thought.
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The service was so emotion driven, and at times insipidly sweet, it felt oppressive. An unhealthy sense of nostalgia or melancholy seemed to permeate every aspect of the event. It seemed so superficial, so secular, so earth-bound, and terribly pretentious. I felt a sense of spiritual nothingness, a vacuous emptiness while I watched the performance.
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I came away from the funeral coverage a bit sobered by the strangeness of the event, yet feeling great pity for his children.
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I don't want to hear another Michael Jackson song, news report, eulogy, ever again.

Trappist Martyrs of Atlas

Were they really martyrs or victims of friendly fire?

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One reason martyrs are not immediately canonized is that the Church must be convinced they had been killed for the faith. The Martyrs of Atlas, 7 French monks, were killed about 10 years ago in Algiers, presumed to have been executed by Islamic extremists, the only remains found being their heads:

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"During the night of March 27-28, 1996, seven monks of the Cistercian Monastery of Our Lady of Atlas, near the village of Tibhirine in Algeria, were abducted by Islamic fundamentalists. Their abduction was claimed by a radical faction of the GIA (Groupe Islamique Arm�) in a communiqu� dated April 18, 1996 and published on April 27. In a second communiqu�, dated May 23, the GIA announced that the monks had been executed on May 21, 1996. Their remains were identified and their funeral Mass was celebrated in the Catholic Cathedral of Algiers on Sunday, June 2. They were buried in the cemetery of their monastery at Tibhirine on June 4, 1996." - Source

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I wasn't aware there were other theories regarding the monks death until today:

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"PARIS (AFP) — President Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday he was determined to find the truth of who was really behind the 1996 abduction and beheading of seven French monks in Algeria, which has been blamed on Islamists.

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"I want the truth. Relations between major countries are based on the truth and not on lies," he said, adding that he would release any classified documents on the killings which investigators might ask for.

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The move came a day after potentially explosive revelations that a French general told investigators the Algerian army killed the monks by mistake when it raided an Islamist camp and the French state covered up the tragedy.

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Critics have long been suspicious of the official French and Algerian view that the Trappist monks were killed by the Islamic Group Army (GIA) at the height of a decade of Islamist violence that left at least 150,000 people dead.

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The Paris prosecutor's office opened an inquiry in 2004 into the massacre of the monks after a civil suit was filed by the family of one of the men and by a senior member of the monks' order.

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Patrick Baudouin, lawyer for the plaintiffs, said Monday the latest allegations were proof there was an attempt at "dissimulation on the part of the Algerian authorities and certainly on the part of the French authorities." His comment came after a source close to the probe leaked remarks allegedly made to French investigators last month by General Francois Buchwalter, who in 1996 was France's military attache in Algiers.

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The now-retired general said Algerian army helicopters, hunting Islamist rebels, opened fire on a camp they spotted in the mountains near the monks' hilltop monastery in Tibehirine, 70 kilometres (45 miles) south of Algiers.

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The helicopter crews realised afterwards that not only had they hit members of the armed group but also the monks, Buchwalter said, according to the source." - Story

Summer reading.

The Naughty Archbishop.

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We intellectuals love to share with the Community College graduates what we are reading for the summer - and believe you me - you ignoramuses, it is so not an Oprah's book club selection either.
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Of course I'm just finishing my re-read of Brideshead Revisited - I might have said, my revisit... oh, oh, ah, ah, ah, ohhhhhhhhh! Oh you funny man you! And I've long thrown the Divine Comedy in the dumpster - what was with that Dante guy anyway?
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No, now I'm breaking the spine of Weakland's memoir... his tell all - Hollywood Wives style summation of his life.
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Seriously, with all due respect to his office, A Pilgrim In a Pilgrim Church by Archbishop Weakland is a fascinating, if not at moments, difficult read - in a heart-wrenching sort of way. I just picked it up this afternoon and I've been jumping all over the contents ever since, reading here and there, as well as beginning at the beginning. I think it is an important book historically, and definitely absorbing in the revelations by such a prominent figure in the American Episcopate. I have a million thoughts on his 'revelations' and the scary thing is - I know what he is talking about. I don't think I ever met him - but it sure seems as if I did. (In other words, he wasn't alone in his vision, mission, agenda for the Church.)
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I recall when he was named Archbishop of Milwaukee, I thought to myself, "Oh good, a monastic Archbishop - he will restore things as they should be!" Oh, oh, oh, ha, ha, ha, ha, ohhhhh, oh, oh, ah, ah, ah, oooooooooooo! - such a silly boy!
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So far, the memoir is helpful towards understanding the tragedy of the Archbishop, as well as the dysfunction of the post-Councilor Church in the U.S.. It's a real page turner. The really sad thing is - from what I gather - the Vatican knew. They knew the problems with Weakland and the other progressives - but nothing was done.

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Bark like a blog!

Reconstructing Catholic identity.

St. Anthony returns to Modesto church.
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A statue of St. Anthony, once removed from the church of St. Stanislaus due to the re-emergence of the ancient iconoclast heresy following the spirit of VII, has now been reinstalled. Read on - as to the reason why the statues were removed in the first place:
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All that is known is that after the reformations of Vatican II were handed down in the 1970s, priests often removed the statues of saints to help parishioners focus on the celebration of the Eucharist instead.
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"Before Vatican II, the Mass was in Latin," said the Rev. Ramon Bejarano, pastor of St. Stanislaus. "Because they didn't understand the Latin, people were praying devotions to the saints or saying the rosary during Mass. Some priests and parishes decided to move the statues out so people could concentrate and have active, full participation in the Eucharist." - Story
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Huh?
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The reformation of Vatican II? People didn't understand the Latin? So they wreckovated the churches in order that people could concentrate and have active participation in the Eucharist? That's what all that was about?
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This past weekend my pastor has taken to enhancing the Mass by adding explanatory prayers before the offertory and other parts of the Mass. After the gifts are brought up and the altar is prepared, he ad libs something like, "As we prepare the altar... let us bring our hearts, our cares our sorrows, etc., joining them to this bread and wine..." I don't know what else. He is a good priest and means well, but I really have to agree with Fr. Z - PLEASE: Just say the black and do the red.

Old sinners have a lot to teach us.

Alessandro Serenelli.

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After about 6 years into his sentence, the man who killed Maria Goretti experienced a profound conversion in prison after the blessed Marietta appeared to him in a dream, smiling upon his tortured soul. The saint assured him of her forgiveness and Alessandro finally experienced a sense of peace and penitence. Before that moment he had been tormented and filled with contempt for all that is good. His life had been debased by his passions, which he indulged in pornography leading up to the attack upon Maria. After the saint appeared to him, he became a different man. Upon completion of his prison sentence, Serenelli was accepted as a Capuchin tertiary and lived in the monastery, laboring as the friar's gardener and handy man. He was reconciled to the townsfolk, and more importantly to Assunta, Maria's mother, whom he accompanied to the canonization of her daughter.

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Alessandro Serenelli died on May 6th, 1970 in the Capuchin convent of Macerata. He left the following testimony, dated May 5, 1961, as his spiritual legacy:

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"I'm nearly 80 years old. I'm about to depart.

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"Looking back at my past, I can see that in my early youth, I chose a bad path which led me to ruin myself.

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"My behavior was influenced by print, mass-media and bad examples which are followed by the majority of young people without even thinking. And I did the same. I was not worried.

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"There were a lot of generous and devoted people who surrounded me, but I paid no attention to them because a violent force blinded me and pushed me toward a wrong way of life.

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"When I was 20 years-old, I committed a crime of passion. Now, that memory represents something horrible for me. Maria Goretti, now a Saint, was my good Angel, sent to me through Providence to guide and save me. I still have impressed upon my heart her words of rebuke and of pardon. She prayed for me, she interceded for her murderer. Thirty years of prison followed.

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"If I had been of age, I would have spent all my life in prison. I accepted to be condemned because it was my own fault.

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"Little Maria was really my light, my protectress; with her help, I behaved well during the 27 years of prison and tried to live honestly when I was again accepted among the members of society. The Brothers of St. Francis, Capuchins from Marche, welcomed me with angelic charity into their monastery as a brother, not as a servant. I've been living with their community for 24 years, and now I am serenely waiting to witness the vision of God, to hug my loved ones again, and to be next to my Guardian Angel and her dear mother, Assunta.

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"I hope this letter that I wrote can teach others the happy lesson of avoiding evil and of always following the right path, like little children. I feel that religion with its precepts is not something we can live without, but rather it is the real comfort, the real strength in life and the only safe way in every circumstance, even the most painful ones of life." - Alessandro Serenelli

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From John Paul II:

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"Maria Goretti, so illuminating with her spiritual beauty, challenges us to a firm and secure faith in the Word of God, as the only source of truth, to remain firm against the temptations of this world."

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"Young people, look at Maria Goretti, don’t be tempted by the tempting atmosphere of our permissive society, which declares, everything is possible. Look to Maria Goretti, love, live, defend your chastity."

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"Young people, don’t be afraid to carry the torch of your life, light and ideals into modern society."

The Apotheosis of Michael Jackson

The media event of the century...

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Al Sharpton was in Los Angeles Sunday preaching on Michael Jackson's contribution to the Civil Rights cause - according to the Rev., Oprah wouldn't be the success she is without Michael. He was also accusing Jackson's detractors - anyone in the press who brought up all the scandals in their coverage - as being racist and hate-filled. In death Michael is being rehabilitated and mythologized beyond all imagining. Sharpton:

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The Rev. Al Sharpton has delivered a sermon in Los Angeles where he called for nationwide "love vigils" for Michael Jackson on Tuesday.

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The civil rights activist addressed congregants at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church on Sunday.

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Sharpton is urging people to gather in schools, community centers and churches to honor Jackson on Tuesday, when a public memorial service will be held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. - AP

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My biggest surprise yet regarding the eulogies piling up in honor of Jackson came from Vox Nova with the most over-the-top post I have ever read on that blog: Michael Jackson: The Man in the Mirror.

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Reflecting on the 1980s and early 1990s, one labors to imagine a more heroic episode in history’s hard march against tyranny. Liberty sprang up amidst a near bloodless convulsion, and took a daring but peaceful step forward. It was in the intensity of this revolutionary fervor that the artistry of Michael Jackson towered as a beacon of light for those struggling to be free. - Gerald Campbell

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I will never again be embarrassed about anything I post on my blog.

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Most recent beatified model of purity.

Bl. Albertina Berkenbrock (1919-1931)
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From the Holy See website:
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"Albertina Berkenbrock was born on 11 April 1919 in São Luís, Imaruí, Santa Catarina, Brazil. She was baptized on 25 May 1919 and confirmed on 9 March 1925. She made her First Holy Communion on 16 August 1928.
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Albertina grew up in a devout family. She willingly helped her parents at home and on the land. At an early age she learned to pray with deep devotion and was strong in the practice of her Catholic faith. She spoke of her First Communion Day as the most beautiful day of her life and had special devotion to Our Lady and to St Aloysius Gonzaga, a model of purity and the Patron Saint of São Luís.
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At school Albertina was a model for her peers and a cause of admiration to adults. Her teachers especially praised her spirituality and morals, superior to children of her age. She was a diligent student who knew her Catechism and kept God's Commandments.
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At home, when her brothers teased and taunted her, as siblings do, she would not retaliate. With her Christian upbringing, even the childhood games she played reflected her deep religious sense. She played happily with the poorest children and shared her bread with them.
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At home, she was especially loving to the children of an employee of her father; while unknown to her, that man would become her future assassin.
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One day when Albertina was searching for a runaway bullock she came across Maneco loading beans into his cart. When she asked him if he had seen the bullock he pointed in the wrong direction to entice her to a place where he could satisfy his lust without attracting attention.
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Innocently, Albertina followed Maneco's directions and came to a wooded area. On hearing twigs cracking she turned, thinking it was the bullock, and found herself face to face with Maneco. She was petrified.
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He informed her of his intentions but she firmly refused him. Albertina fought hard for her virtue. Even when he threw her to the ground, she did her best to cover herself. Furious at having been morally defeated by the young girl, Maneco grasped her by the hair and slit her throat with a knife." - Finish reading here.
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Image source.
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Also: News report on Youtube. Another here.