For Whale Oil: Why women become nuns

Whale Oil expresses amazement that a women who used to go out with British PM David Cameron has entered a nunnery. Whale wonders if David Cameron was a "dud root", in his words.

So I thought a short film on why women enter convents to become nuns was in order. Something about giving a radical witness to Christ and not about "roots", dud or anything else, at all.

Related link: Was he a dud root? ~ Whale Oil Beef Hooked

Revenge of the Forsaken Gods

Fr Barron comments on the new movie, "Bully", that hasn't been released in New Zealand yet, but looks like it's coming soon according to Flicks. He says it's very hard to watch it without an intense feeling of helplessness and sadness. What he found especially troubling was the cluelessness of the adults involved - they seemed to have no idea what to do.



He then goes on to mentioning Dr Leonard Sax who wrote Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences.  Fr Barron mentioned this book in one of his YouTube videos and as a result, Dr Sax sent him another one of this books (which I have as well), Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men.  My title, Revenge of the Forsaken Gods comes from Boys Adrift, which Fr Barron talks about in the above YouTube on this post.

Fr Barron starts by asking what happens when we forget something that our ancestors knew, what happens when we forgot that boys just don't naturally become men.  The ancients knew that boys had to go through a very conscious and disciplined process, which tests them, which awakens their courage, which tests their perseverance; and after this they are able to become men who can make a contribution to the wider society, who can face the challenges of life with courage, who can become people of selflessness and service.  Otherwise boys remain in a narcissistic attitude, self-protective attitude or in our terms the sort of slacker attitude, or they become bullies.

Yes, the lack of testing and guidance of boys in our culture led by mature men has a lot to do with the bully phenomenon.  Boys need mature men to model for them what it means to be a man.  When that's lacking, the energies that these boys have get unfocused (ie the slacker dude) or they become focused in an unhealthy way, so all this energy becomes violence against the weak.  They need the proper process to direct their energies toward the good of the community instead and towards a selfless love and protection of the weak and the innocent.

Fr Barron quotes Dr Sax who says that you might not be able to turn a bully into a flower child, but with the right mentoring and initiation, you might be able to turn a bully into a knight.

A new kid on the block

Quid Deinde? What Next?

This is a new venture of mine, a new style of blog and of blogging perhaps.

The kick-off is now and a new game has started.

This was born out of frustrations with Blogger and Wordpress along with a freedom of spirit - the need not to be tied down by others conceptions of what I might want.

And to loosen some of the shackles that technology is building around us - with ever more intrusive demands for information from us we might not particularly want to hand over.

What this will lead to I do not know for sure but it is going to be fun - so come on over.

Quid Deinde indeed.

The Girl Who Played With Fire

From the Wiki, a story about socialism and taxation:

"Pomperipossa in Monismania" (also called Pomperipossa in the World Of Money) is a satirical story written by the Swedish children's book author Astrid Lindgren in response to the 102% marginal tax rate she incurred in 1976. It was published starting on 3 March 1976 in the Stockholm evening tabloid Expressen and created a major debate about the Swedish tax system.

The marginal tax rate above 100% which was dubbed the 'Pomperipossa effect' was due to tax legislation which required self employed individuals to pay both regular income tax and employer's fees.

The story, a satirical allegory about a writer of children's books in a distant country, led to a stormy tax debate and is often attributed as a decisive factor in the defeat of the Swedish Social Democratic Party - for the first time in 40 years in the elections later the same year.

Countries that try such high marginal income tax rates now would be doomed to fail faster, so it has become necessary to increase taxes through a variety of channels so the effect is much harder to detect. Income tax, FBT, GST, ETS, provional taxes, fuel excise, import duties, compliance costs, rates, forced superannuation deductions, tolls, and so it goes.

And to answer another important question, yes, I think Steig Larsson couldn't resist throwing in a casual link between Lisbeth and Pippi, but another blogger thinks the comparison a little too ludicrous. Obviously, as ludicrous as a 102% tax rate, so not totally out of the question then.

Poly bigots

There are of course, polygamous relationships, where a man who keeps multiple wives living under the same roof will consider they are in a valid marriage with all of those wives.

Now, whilst I do not object to people forming whatever consensual relationships they choose, one guy keeping multiple women doesn't meet with my understanding of the word "marriage", and I'm not inclined to change the definition just to pander to their social engineering. Equally, I'm not inclined to say de facto relationships mean exactly the same thing as a marriage. and quite a few people in de facto relationships happen to prefer such a differentiation too, for that matter. My line of thinking can be seen merely from the fact we have different words to indicate different meanings. We differentiate between marriage and de facto, or marriage and polygamous marriage.

The burning question in today's society though, is am I permitted to consider such relationships as something other than marriage? Must the definition of marriage be changed to fit what polygamists insist is equal to marriage in every meaningful sense of the term, or are we permitted to have a different opinion? Are we permitted to hold fast to our understanding of the meanings of words, and argue to hold those meanings, without being branded a "poly bigot" for not playing along with harem builders?

Parents, not states, had duty to educate children, Vatican reminds UN

The UN is not going to like the Vatican reminding them that children don't belong to the State.

The Vatican’s delegation to the UN has decried a “disconcerting trend” to “downplay the role of parents in the upbringing of their children, as if to suggest somehow that it is not the role of parents, but that of the State.”

At a UN meeting on population and development, the Vatican delegation called attention to the 250,000 Catholic schools around the world that “assist parents who have the right and duty to choose schools inclusive of homeschooling, and they must possess the freedom to do so, which in turn, must be respected and facilitated by the State.”

Related link: Parents, not states, had duty to educate children, Vatican reminds UN ~ Catholic Culture

Trial of Anders Behring Breivik, day eight, yesterday

Norway killer Anders Behring Breivik trial: day eight as it happened

It was the last day that Breivik was testifying, now it's going to be victim testimony.

Massive Moscow protest

You wont see this on the News, this is not a protest the Western media have much interest in covering but it is never the less a protest.

It is a protest against attacks on the Church by the rabid secular and the protesters numbered in the tens of thousands.

The protesters greeted each other "Christos Voskrese!" - Christ is Risen!, in honour of the Paschal season.

Times are a changing.

Anders Behring Breivik trial, day seven

Norway killer Anders Behring Breivik trial: day seven as it happened ~ The Telegraph

Remembering

Great image for today...

The story -

“In the Company of Heroes” is a painting based on more than just Matt Hall’s masterful creativity—this moment actually happened.
In Dec. 2004, Valor Studios funded a charitable trip to bring six of the Band of Brothers veterans to Germany to meet and greet the troops of the 1st Armored Division, just back from Iraq. Buck Compton, Babe Heffron, Bill Guarnere, Don Malarkey, Earl McClung, and Shifty Powers participated.
After two days in Germany, on the 60th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, our tour traveled to Bastogne to revisit the veterans’ old foxholes with today’s soldiers. But, on the way to Bastogne, our host, now-SGM Billy Maloney, arranged a special moment for the veterans . . . a visit to Luxembourg American Cemetery where their fallen comrades are buried.
“In the Company of Heroes” depicts this moment. Wading through countless crosses and stars of David, Bill, Babe, Don, and Earl found the spot first, the headstones of their buddies.
There, in silence, Babe remembered his best friend John Julian. Don Malarkey would break down at the cross of his friend, Skip Muck. And Bill and Earl remembered the faces of Alex Penkala and others. The veterans would later agree: this was the most poignant moment since they left the continent of war in 1945.
When they returned home, over the years, the men asked us to commemorate this moment in a painting. None pressed harder than Wild Bill and Babe (call it South Philly persistence).
So, here it is, the moment that only the veterans witnessed—but what they want all of us to see—when they stood again, in the company of heroes.

Click on the image for a larger version.
The website and story.

Whale Oil attacks the Catholic Church again, this time over nuns

Cameron Slater starts his post with:

The Catholic Church is cracking down on uppity nuns who dare to voice an opinion.

He then quotes a Daily Beast article, the whole angle of which is

... the nuns’ main infractions weren’t sins of the flesh or succumbing to vices. Instead, the offending nuns were simply speaking their minds.

and staying silent on hot button issues such as

... abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, and the ordination of women. Their silence is interpreted as endorsement, so by not speaking out against such “evils,” the report says the sisters are effectively showing their approval.

Whale Oil finishes off his post by saying that women are sometimes better than men, because "they don’t bugger little boys in the confessional".

The Catholic Church dealing with anything other than sex abuse by priests is seen by Whale Oil as an opportunity to repeatedly point out some priests have abused boys.  Yes, we know.  Yes, many things have been put in place to deal with and prevent that sort of thing from ever happening again.  However, sex abuse doesn't just spring from a vacuum - there are serious moral problems that allow a person to do that sort of thing, and those moral problems start small and they grow and grow until perversions occur.

That is what has happened with a great number of American Catholic nuns.  Some of their leadership have have lost their way (specifically the Leadership Conference of Women Religious) and are being herded back into the Catholic fold.  If they don't want to be Catholic, they are quite welcome to leave.  However staying and pretending to be Catholic is not an option, and it shouldn't be an option no matter how much the outside world believes in the same things that these nuns believe in. So having opinions that are not Catholic opinions and then pretending those opinions are valid Catholic opinions is something the Vatican should deal with in some way. Otherwise, what would the Catholic faith be but a giant free-for-all of opinions!

For more, please read from WDTPRS
LCWR having a bad day. Vatican Names Archbishop Delegate to continue watching LCWR and Network
Nuns gone wild: A trip down memory lane

Related link: Cracking down on nuns ~ Whale Oil Beef Hooked

New 'Study' Retreads Old Gay Narrative

According to WND, a new study has been done that suggests that those who are against the practice of homosexuality are actually closet gays. According to one commenter, this narrative was tried 40 years ago, and is as silly now as it was then.

A new study that claims opposition to homosexuality means a person probably is a closet homosexual is nothing more than a rehash of propaganda used in the 1970s, according to a former liberal who now warns of the “gay” agenda.
“This is so old-hat, they were saying this in the 1970s when I was a liberal progressive. This was standard indoctrination talking points about homosexuality even back then,” said Linda Harvey, founder of Mission America. “This has been around for 40 years and they are now bringing it back around.”

So how did they perform this test? By flashing words on a computer monitor and timing how fast the recipients of the test clicked.

The study was conducted using college students whose sexual orientation was determined by self-identification and how they performed a split-second task. They were shown words and pictures on a computer screen and asked to put them in “gay” or “straight” categories. Prior to the trials, the participants were shown either the word “me” or “others” for 35 milliseconds.

After this they were shown pictures of straight and “gay” couples and the words “gay,” “straight,” homosexual” and “heterosexual” while a computer tracked their response times.
According to the authors, people who had a faster reaction with words “me” and “gay” were deemed to be homosexuals regardless of their stated orientation.

The authors concluded people who declared themselves to be heterosexual, while the reaction time indicated they were homosexual, often reacted with hostility to “gay others.” The study claimed hostility to the “gay” lifestyle by these individuals reveals that homophobia is possibly a result of a suppressed homosexual orientation.

Sounds like voodoo science to me. I would have liked to have seen 'Extra Terrestrial' as an option to have been flashed on the screen as well, just to prove how many people are really space aliens and not from Earth as they claim.

Anders Behring Breivik trial: day six

Norway killer Anders Behring Breivik trial: day six

Breivik has apologised for killing innocent people in the bombing.

I would like to offer a large apology to those who were injured or even killed in the bombing of an Oslo government building, as they were just passing by and had no political connections.

Teaching

Very good article over at PJ Media written by a teacher about the state of education in the U.S, student entitlement, and the politicization of subjects by professors intent on pushing their own agenda, rather than teach the subjects they are supposed to be teaching.

Not only was my students’ writing appalling, but I soon encountered their resentment at being told about it. “Who are you to tell me I can’t write?” was the attitude — once expressed in those very words. More than one student insisted that her other teachers had always rewarded her with high marks for her “creativity.” Most believed themselves more than competent. After sitting with one young woman explaining the cause of her failing grade, I was befuddled when her only response was a sullen: “This doesn’t exactly make me feel good.” When I responded that my job was not to make her feel good, she stood haughtily, picked up her paper with an air of injury, and left my office without another word. In her mind, I later realized, I had been unforgivably cruel.

I was up against it: the attitude of entitlement rampant amongst university students and nurtured by the utopian ideology that permeates modern pedagogy, in which the imposition of rules and identification of errors are thought to limit student creativity and the fostering of a hollow self-esteem takes precedence over the building of skills on which genuine self-respect might be established. In the Humanities subjects in particular — and in English especially, the discipline I know best — such a philosophy has led to a perilous watering down of course content, with self-validation seen as more important than the mastery of specific knowledge.

With this philosophy has come a steady grade inflation. The majority of students in English courses today can expect a B grade or higher merely for warming a seat and handing in assignments on time. The result, as I soon discovered, was a generation of students so accustomed to being praised for their work that when I told them it was inadequate, they simply could not or would not believe me. They seemed very nearly unteachable: lacking not only the essential skills but also the personal gumption to respond adequately to criticism.

Read the whole thing...

You complete me

An aspect of our society is to reduce everything down to the individual. Every man is an island and all that. On the other hand, we have that classic phrase from Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire: "You complete me".

What if a husband and wife were not just two people, two desiring units of indifferent gender, living for an indefinite time in the same house, but the perfection of male and female as if "marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman"? Perfection thus understood is not another form of individualism. When man and woman are made one flesh, they belong to each other. I am my wife's husband, and she is my wife – not just a little on the surface, or according to a legal contract, but to the very depths of our being. Likewise, I do not play at being father as a "role." I am a father. My wife does not play at being a mother. She is a mother.

If marriage is to have meaning, we shall have to embrace again this revolutionary truth.

--Benjamin Wiker - The Meaning of Marriage

Breivik Quote of the Day [UPDATE]

Breivik on the island of Utøya, about to start with his killing spree.

"When I took the weapon in my hand, it was like 100 voices in my head saying 'don't do it, don't do it."

From day five of the trial.

UPDATE: It's Saturday in Oslo today, so no more trial until Monday night NZ time.

Michael Voris on Practising Catholics in NZ

Michael Voris in Auckland, New Zealand, talking about the size of the Catholic population here and the small percentage of actual practising Catholics (15% of 15% of the population of NZ attend Mass every Sunday).

He noticed that every session he had in Auckland, that more and more people came, and he put that down to preaching the Truth of the Faith. Truth is far more interesting than happy clappy kumbaya lemon meringue Catholicism.

Yes, totally agree. Growing up, there the Faith to me became more and more bland. It's only my rediscovery of it recently that has shown that version to be a complete lie. No wonder there are so few practising Catholics in NZ. I wonder how many left out indifference and boredom? Or needing something more and going elsewhere to get it?

Anders Behring Breivik trial, day five

Anders Behring Breivik trial Day Five

First news report is that today will be the most difficult day so far, as the evidence will focus on the shootings and how Breivik was radicalised.

The ability to see through things

Fulton Sheen on the Divine Sense of Humour. He defines humour as the ability to see through things; those who have it see the world like a window, it's transparent and they look out onto another world. He talks about how Jesus never took anything seriously except the salvation of souls. 

Here's Part II and Part III, with a total listening time (including the first part above) of just over 20 minutes.  

This episode was first screened on American television in 1959.

A related thought

The Breiviks of this world treat what is wrong with the world far too seriously.  The world is full of evil and injustice - it always has been.  Killing just contributes to that, it never solves anything, and those that might want to follow in Breivik's footsteps aren't ever going to solve anything with more evil.  What they really need is a divine sense of humour to help them see more than just this world.

Breivik 'Trained' By Playing Video War Game

I know Lucia is covering the Breivik trial, but I saw this and had to comment on it.

Apparently, Breivik says that playing video games like Tour of Duty, 'trained' him for his killing spree.

Anders Behring Breivik has described how he "trained" for the attacks he carried out in Norway last summer using the computer game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

The 33-year-old said he practised his shot using a "holographic aiming device" on the war simulation game, which he said is used by armies around the world for training. "You develop target acquisition," he said. He used a similar device during the shooting attacks that left 69 dead at a political youth camp on the island of Utøya on 22 July. Describing the game, he said: "It consists of many hundreds of different tasks and some of these tasks can be compared with an attack, for real. That's why it's used by many armies throughout the world. It's very good for acquiring experience related to sights systems."

He added: "If you are familiar with a holographic sight, it's built up in such a way that you could have given it to your grandmother and she would have been a super marksman. It's designed to be used by anyone. In reality it requires very little training to use it in an optimal way. But of course it does help if you've practised using a simulator."

I have heard it said before that the military in different countries uses computer game for training as a simulation, and this story kind of confirms it for me. I know those who will say that video games are harmless, and I'm sure some of them are, but I'm sure that some of them can also condition the players a certain way. If you do something again and again it becomes second nature.

For anyone who wants more info about the links between video games and violent young offenders, I suggest reading the interview with David Grossman HERE (snippet follows, but the whole thing is worth reading)

No Right Turn launches bigot attack at Judith Collins

This is No Right Turn's reasoning. Rainbow Wellington asked Judith Collins her opinion on various issues, including the redefinition of marriage. Judith replied that:

The Government has no plans to introduce same-sex marriage in the current Parliamentary term. As you are aware, there is considerable diversity of opinion on same-sex marriage.

NRT translates this into: "Or, translated, "there are bigots and National wishes to pander to them".

He then goes through Judith Collins' voting record on marriage related issues and finds she comes down on the the conservative side, so she's a bigot as well. Nice. As I've found there are some people that believe if you don't agree with them, you're a bigot. A difference of opinion on certain sacrosanct issues of liberal morality are just not allowed.

Related link: Collins on same-sex marriage

Previous related post: The intimidation of bigotry, where the charge of bigotry is used as a form of intimidation

Anders Behring Breivik trial Day Four [UPDATE]

Live link: Anders Behring Breivik trial, day four

Today they "will focus on the events leading up to 22 July last year and the bomb in the government quarter of Oslo."

While I was waiting for it I read the father's story. Anders is the son of his father's second wife (the father is currently married to no 4). The marriage only lasted until a year after Anders was born and then the mother left. Apparently it's very easy for women to be single mothers in Norway and that's what his father thought his second wife actually wanted. And then when Anders was four, it was found that his mother was emotionally harming him, but that wasn't enough for his father to be able to gain custody.

UPDATE 9:22am This post was linked to a live update page of the trial last night between 7pm and 2am NZ time. Strangely enough, there seems to be a delay of an hour as 8am Oslo time should be 6pm our time.

Never before has there been a generation of men so unsuitable

I couldn't resist, I had to buy The Three Marks of Manhood: How to be Priest, Prophet and King of Your Family for my Kindle. I had linked to the book as part of a blog post about a YouTube clip on Masculinity. The book piqued my interest and after reading the sample, I thought what the heck and bought it.

It's not very often that books make me laugh out loud, but this one did. After talking about the need for a resurrection of true Christian patriarchy (where the husband is the priest, prophet and king for his family), the author states:

Yet never before has there been a generation of men so unsuited to the establishing of an authentic Christian patriarchy. The Western male in particular, the erstwhile head of Christian culture, is found to have pawned his patriarchy for pleasure. He is thoroughly inculcated in the values of extended adolescence, and even where he rejects certain extremes of "playboyism", he has nonetheless, as a whole, acquiesced to the assaults of an hedonistic, immodest, and pornographic society; to the dominating search for pleasure and entertainment; to the beckon of a consumeristic society and the sophisticated toys it proffers; to contracepting his seed; and to the shirking of his duty to lead, protect, and provide for the family.

Sounds hopeless, really ... except that with God, nothing is impossible.

Yes, it is precisely because there has never been a time so desperately in need of men able to answer the call to Christian patriarchy, nor a time when there has been such an unsuitable selection of these men, that Christians may justifiable expect an unparalleled outpouring of God's miraculous grace and favor on Christian manhood, and on the family he is called to lead.

I'm sure the beginning of this outpouring of grace is the book itself.  So, people, men in particular, if you buy this book, consider yourself prompted by grace!

Catholic Lord of the Rings

Michael Voris in Auckland, talking about the Catholic background of the Lord of the Rings which is "an inventive myth about Catholic truths".

What I found amazing was that Tolkien said that March 25th is the date when Frodo cast the ring into the fires; this is also the date of the Annunciation and is also considered the date of the death of Our Lord on the Cross - and the ring represents original sin. Woah!

Sorry everyone, Michael is no longer here. If I'd known his itinerary last week, I would have posted it.

Anders Behring Breivik trial, day three [UPDATE]

Anders Behring Breivik trial, day three  - Wednesday 18 April

UPDATE 1:15pm, 19 April 2012: This post linked to the above article last night which was updated every minute with live updates. Presumably Day Four of the trial will start this evening.

It certainly makes for interesting reading.  There is a summary at the top, but not everything of interest is summarised.

Previous days:
Anders Behring Breivik gives evidence - Tuesday 17 April
Anders Behring Breivik trial - Monday 16 April

Michael Voris in Auckland

Michael Voris was in Auckland just recently (not sure if he's still there) when he recorded this YouTube video. He talks about the Catholic Church coming back to life as she has done many times before. It's not totally apparent now, but will seem very obvious soon. Soon, of course, could be ten years or so, but in the two thousand year history of the Church, that's nothing. Not that he gives a time-frame, that's my guesstimate, especially when it comes to the extremities of the world such as New Zealand.

Medal of Honor and Sainthood

Another heroic priest, whose sister-in-law couldn't image as anything other than just a normal parish priest. Yet, when given the opportunity he showed complete selflessness and heroism.

On 2 November 1950, Father Kapaun made the decision that led to his death.

The Korean war chaplain was in the middle of a firefight, with the American forces overrun by Chinese soldiers outside a crossroads town called Unsan in North Korea.

Lighting forest fires to frustrate US reconnaissance planes, the Chinese surrounded the Americans and pressed in, attacking with small arms, grenades and even bayonets.

Meanwhile, Chaplain Emil Kapaun, a Catholic priest from a farming village in Kansas, gathered the wounded in a dug-out shelter made of logs and straw.

When American officers ordered the able-bodied to retreat, Father Kapaun, a 35-year-old captain, refused to leave the wounded.

As the Chinese soldiers began lobbing grenades into the dug-out, Kapaun negotiated a surrender.

"Father Kapaun had several chances to get out," Warrant Officer John Funston later told a Catholic priest who collected accounts of Fr Kapaun's actions in Korea, "but he wouldn't take them."

His capture and forced march northward with hundreds of other American prisoners was merely the beginning of Father Kapaun's trial, an ordeal that ended in his death from starvation, cold and lack of basic medical care at a prison camp in North Korea six months later.

For his heroism, a group of Kansas politicians are pushing to have him awarded the Medal of Honor, America's highest military decoration.

Reports of Kapaun's selfless bravery have got him short-listed for another rare high honour: the Catholic church has named Kapaun Servant of God, the first step toward sainthood, and the Vatican has opened a formal inquiry into whether he merits canonisation.

Related link: Recognition finally for a warrior priest's heroics ~ BBC

Masculinity Allows Femininity to Blossom

I get regular emails from YouTube telling me that Catholic Citadel Media has sent me a video, the above is the latest one. I quite like them, though I'm not really the target audience as such. These videos are really for men and this one references a concept from the Three Marks of Manhood: How to be Priest, Prophet and King of Your Family by Dr. Gregory C. Dilsaver; that in order for femininity to blossom, men need to provide a framework for women to feel safe being feminine. That totally makes sense to me.

Norwegian killer epitomises evil

There is no justification for what Anders Breivik did in Norway when he conducted a killing spree of unarmed teenagers last year. Now his trial has started and the world will watch and will be subjected to his rationalisations (that he acted in self-defence!) and be horrified and people will wonder, are there more of him out there?

There might well be. It would take a person who has heart of stone and regards his enemies as less than human to do something like what Breivik did.  He has identified himself with the Knights Templar*, much like an anti-Christ figure who pretends to be good, but is in fact evil.

I think as a result of his actions it become harder for any one identified as "right-wing" to get their message out. We will become associated with Breivik, even thought we are nothing like him and condemn his actions in the strongest terms. The Norwegians may be televising his trial for many reasons, but I'm sure the propaganda value figured highly into their decision. At least they won't be showing his testimony.

Related links:
Breivik Admits Massacre, Claims Self-Defense ~ Time
Tears of a mass murderer: Norwegian killer Breivik breaks down as film of his hero Vlad the Impaler is played (but stays stony-faced as court describes way he slaughtered 77) ~ Daily Mail UK
Has pictures of some of the 77 killed and some videos of the trial, included Breiviks's apparent right-wing salute.

***

*The Knights Templar (as they were intially set up) were a devout religious order of soldier-monks who fought in the Holy Land against the Mohammedans. They didn't rampage through their own towns killing the children of politicians with whom they disagreed. This is the problem with non-believers using Christian imagery and traditions - they see only the external and miss what is really important.

If you want to know more about the Knights and want to be assured of an accurate history, I strongly recommend this book by French historian Regine Pernoud: The Templars Knights Of Christ. I've linked to the Kindle edition below, but if you prefer paper copy, just follow the link on Amazon to the paperback page. Also, have a look at this page on the Catholic Encyclopaedia: The Knights Templars and my previous post that includes the foreward to the book below: Correctly the mythology around the Knights Templar.

Buggery is never Ok and Heroic Priests

Last week I made a brief comment on Whale Oil Beef Hooked regarding a story Cameron Slater had commented on whereby a priest who was encouraging heresy had been prevented from continuing in spreading his dissent. Cameron's comment on that story was that, "Pity they blackballed this guy rather than stopping the buggering of altar boys."

I am unaware of any priests that have publicly promote the "buggery" of altar boys. Crimes of this nature are normally done in secret, and the Church lead by Pope Benedict XVI has gone a long way in cleaning herself of this type of filth. Furthermore, buggery is never Ok, as alluded to in Cameron's blog post title: Buggery OK but talking about Women Priests gets you silenced.

The truly positive aspect of the sexual abuse scandals that have plagued the Church have been a change in heart of most people in regards to the severity of sexual crimes against children. The secular world for a long time had been getting very lax protecting children and not severely punishing those who transgress, often preferring treatment to imprisonment. Now, the focus on the Church has reinvigorated our sense of outrage against those who would destroy a child's innocence, and the truth that treatment generally doesn't work for child sex offenders is more well known. Long may it continue.

Reinvigorated however, does not mean completely awake, unfortunately. Maybe it will even eventually stop the German Government from promoting paedophilia. Oh, if only people were more outraged about this sort of thing when it doesn't involve the Catholic Church.

***

I think it's easy to forget that most priests are profoundly good men who when given the chance will act heroically, such as Fr. Thomas Byles on the Titanic.

Amidst all the tales of chivalry from the Titanic disaster there is one that’s not often told.
Fr. Thomas Byles

It is that of Fr. Thomas Byles, the Catholic priest who gave up two spots on a lifeboat in favour of offering spiritual aid to the other victims as they all went down with the “unsinkable” vessel.

A 42-year-old English convert, Fr. Byles was on his way to New York to offer the wedding Mass for his brother William. Reports suggest that he was reciting his breviary on the upper deck when the Titanic struck the iceberg in the twilight hours of Sunday, April 14th, 1912.

According to witnesses, as the ship went down the priest helped women and children get into the lifeboats, then heard confessions, gave absolution, and led passengers in reciting the Rosary.

Agnes McCoy, one of the survivors, says that as the great ship sank, Fr. Byles “stood on the deck with Catholics, Protestants and Jews kneeling around him.”

“Father Byles was saying the rosary and praying for the repose of the souls of those about to perish,” she told the New York Telegram on April 22, 1912, according to the website devoted to his memory, FatherByles.com.

Fr. Byles went down with the Titanic, giving his mortal life to ensure that those who were going to die with him didn't lose their eternal lives. That's really what the priesthood is all about, and those who spread heresy are jeopardising that.

Related link:
Buggery OK but talking about Women Priests gets you silenced ~ Whale Oil Beef Hooked
The untold story of the Titanic’s Catholic priest who went down hearing confessions ~ LifeSiteNews

Another one whose ancestors were NOT at Agincourt

Read it and weep: British Peer Lord Ahmed suspended after 'offering £10m bounty on Barack Obama and George Bush'.

Now the ordinary Englishman, whose Nation and Heritage is being despoiled by an empty headed elite and whose forbears fought at Agincourt, Trafalgar and El Alamein must be shaking his head in disbelief as to how such a one became an English Peer, as his livlihood is shipped to China or India and English is no longer even spoken in many parts of his homeland - something that nobody ever voted for I'd posit.

The people who are responsible for this are traitors pure and simple, traitors who among other things self servingly removed the appropriate penalty for treason.

Shameful and disgraceful.

A movie the Boston Globe hated

Their review is here.

Picture of the day

Pascha 2012

Xristos Anesti

Botox and Manliness

After reading The Privilege of being a Man, I was struck by a growing number of business men in NZ using botox to improve their looks.

Dr Cattin said businessmen were the main group among Botox patients.

"[They] are unhappy with lines that make them look irritable and it alters the way people respond to you. When you're in a management position it's important that your face backs up what you are saying because we tend to read faces rather than question what people are saying.

"The way people respond to us, especially in a position of authority, is very much influenced by what we look like. I wouldn't say it's vanity at all. I would say it's a practical issue reflecting work needs."

But in the The Privilege of being a Man, the writer argues that vanity is a vice men are generally protected from, unless they find elaborate ways of justifying it as above.

Another special privilege of being a man is that he does not have to be ruled by fashion or be preoccupied about clothes or style. Compared to women, most men own a limited wardrobe and only a few combinations of apparel. Jackets, slacks, shirts and ties do not radically go out of vogue. Other than basic grooming, cleanliness, haircuts, and shaves, manly men do not spend inordinate time preening themselves or modifying their wardrobe to be in proper fashion.

In general, men who are not foppish do not think of themselves as beautiful, lovely, or glamorous and thus are saved from the snare of vanity. They do not gaze at their reflections and ask, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?" ...

Hopefully this botox thing won't take off more than it appears to be doing now.

The Intimidation of Bigotry

Yesterday I was involved in a debate on the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog with regards to Cameron Slater's post That explains a lot, whereby he decided that a new study that found people who exhibited homophobia were more likely to experience same sex attraction themselves explained why every time he posted on "marriage equality the bigots come out of the woodwork and hurl[ed] all sorts of abuse."

I posited the theory that maybe some of those who oppose the homosexual agenda (gay marriage, teaching children about gay sex, adoption to same sex couples) and engage in these conversations might have more of an idea of the sexual struggle involved. Many people do not even realise that they can struggle against sexual temptations, and engage in promiscuous behaviour and watch pornography and are oblivious to the fact that these behaviours are harmful to them, and prevent them from having meaningful and fulfilling relationships. Temptations are just temptations if you don't give in to them, but to the liberal a temptation means "repression" - a Freudian view of sexuality where your temptations need to be acted upon for sexual and emotional health.

However, the problem seems to be that anyone who believes that any sexual activity outside of true marriage is harmful (and sinful), especially homosexual activity, is a bigot.

Andrew Sullivan's Non-Threatening Jesus

Basically, Fr Barron concludes that the Jesus Andrew Sullivan wants is the Jesus that the powers that be of this world are far more comfortable with - a non-threatening Jesus whose followers keep Him to themselves.

Commentary on this article: Andrew Sullivan: Christianity in Crisis ~ The Daily Beast

Car crushing and the Scape-goating Mechanism

Over the last week days I've had some incoming links from readers of Whale Oil Beef Hooked coming over to this more quiet and serene part of the Blogosphere to see what type of site I hail from. Most of them flee; one look is enough as far as I can tell from StatCounter.

I'm not really encouraging them, beyond a link I made last week to an old post of mine on car crushing and why I found it disturbing. After reflection, I think the post is now inadequate to my position three years later. In it, I wrote of the logical reasons as to why car-crushing is wrong, but the visceral were not mentioned.

Fr Barron's discussion on The Hunger Games movie (currently running at the theatres here in NZ)and it's connection to the scape-goating mechanism where he says:

...by this mechanism we choose someone to blame, someone to isolate, someone to ostracise, at the limit, someone to kill. We discharge our anxiety, our tension, our fear onto that person or that group. In that process ... we come to a kind of peace. Which is precisely why this kind of activity is sanctioned so often by the state, and by religion.

... made an internal connection for me as to why car-crushing is so disturbing. The car becomes the scape-goat for all our problems. When it's crushed, we feel something has become sacrificed and we come to a sort of peace whereby we feel all is right in the world again. The baying for the "blood" of the car made that desire for vengeance on it clearer, even though the car itself has done nothing wrong. This crushing and the fact that people wanted the crushing is the potential beginning of worse scape-goating victims to come. We start with cars, who knows what is next? Maybe garden centres that refuse to stay closed when the law decrees they should? No, it'll will be something that belongs to a marginal group that the vast majority of the population feels will never touch them. I hesitate to predict what that something might be.

Related links:
Wrong car seized for crushing ~ Radio New Zealand
Stupid boy ~ Whale Oil Beef Hooked

ZenTiger's definitive post on this: House Crushing

Pity that Rick Santorum didn't make it

It's a pity that Rick Santorum has stepped down from the Republican presidential candidate race. Even though he did have quite a bit of support and lasted longer than expected, it was still not enough.

As a New Zealand radio presenter said a month or so ago when talking about Santorum (sorry, I can't remember which one, but he was on NewsTalkZB before 6pm), he's really scary. Really scary because he was against abortion and "hated" gays because he was against "gay marriage". That's like saying that people that are against extending paid parental leave hate women and babies. Thought, I would have thought that anyone who was for abortion hated babies, but that's just me.

Anyway, a nation of heretics is just not ready for a traditional Catholic presidential candidate. Yet.

Related link: Rick Santorum lasted longer in the GOP race than anyone predicted ~ CBS News

Bruce Springsteen and the Catholic world view of contrary positions

This is such a helpful explanation - at least I know that I'm not insane. :)

An authentic Catholic worldview is one that does not blink, but has both eyes wide open to the fullness of the real world, in all its horror, beauty and mystery. It is a worldview that insists on the following. Mary is both Virgin and Mother, that Jesus is both God and man—without being more of one than the other. Faith and reason are not opposed, but live in harmony. We human beings are both sinners and saved, all at the same time. And death is life. The Catholic worldview holds two contrary positions together because to take one away would be to deny the fullness of the truth. We Catholics have a name for the position that denies the truth of one reality for the sake of the other—we call it heresy.

Bruce Springsteen, a lapsed Catholic with an undeniable Catholic worldview, released a new record earlier this month titled “Wrecking Ball.” Last week he was the keynote speaker at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas. At the tail end of his speech, his Catholic imagination took over as he addressed the audience of about two thousand up-and-coming musicians. Here’s what he said:

So rumble, young musicians, rumble. Open your ears and open your hearts. Don't take yourself too seriously, and take yourself as seriously as death itself. Don’t worry. Worry your ass off. Have unclad confidence, but doubt. It keeps you awake and alert. Believe you are the baddest ass in town—and you suck! It keeps you honest. Be able to keep two completely contradictory ideals alive and well inside of your heart and head at all times. If it doesn't drive you crazy, it will make you strong. And stay hard, stay hungry and stay alive. And when you walk on stage tonight to bring the noise, treat it like it's all we have—and then remember it's only rock 'n' roll.

Read more: Music: Springsteen Can't Hide His Catholic Past ~ Word on Fire Blog

Parental leave just grows the State

There are a few posts in the Blogosphere on Labour's new parental leave bill, where they are going to attempt to have parental leave on the birth of a baby extended to one year six months.

Personally, I disagree completely with the idea of parental leave. If it's important to a society that women stay home to look after their babies, then, that society would make sure that the wages given to a married man were up to the task. As we seem to have created an economy where it is difficult if not impossible for most women to stay home to look after their children, getting the tax-payer to fund the birth of children and the employer to keep the job open is imposing an unreasonable burden on everyone and entrenches the status quo, which doesn't help anyone except the ever-growing and intrusive State.

Rather than getting the State to pay, it would be nice if politicians started looking at how to encourage stable couples to have children and rewarding them for that by letting them keep more of their own money, rather than taking money off these people to fund the dysfunctional.

And how on earth did we change from having a single earner economy to a dual earner economy? I've heard Muldoon did it, but I don't know how.

Perfect love is incredible

... If Christ is right, and the greatest love is to lay down one’s life for one’s friends, then it seems that the essence of all love is this willingness to sacrifice the self for the sake of another: to put the “me” under the heel of your boot and to crush it into a pulp. Even if we aren’t actually being martyred for the sake of our friends, all love has this common factor at its root: self-sacrifice. And if the purpose of our life is to attain to perfect love, then it isn’t good enough to be “nice” or “good” or a “decent chap.” This is pansy stuff. Perfect love means that our entire life, everything that we do, every breath we take, every thought we think, every move we make, is an act of love directed at another: whether our neighbour or God. Perfect love means to be a burning flame of love, to so completely empty ourselves of all self-seeking that the only thing that is left is love – or, in other words, God. This, in fact, is how all the famous mystics talk about the purpose of our life: to literally become a god, by emptying ourselves, and letting God (who is Love) enter in and take the place of the self: to become perfect conduits of God’s love. This is perfection.

Like the writer of this piece, I don't even come close to this either. I am too, a total wretch.

Related link: Sin and the decent chap

Atheists and the Cross (update)

In his blog post, Patrick Coffin writes about going to an atheist convention to ask publicly ask Richard Dawkins to come on his Catholic radio show as a guest, to discuss his atheism to a large international audience.  Dawkins declines.

What really stood out for me in his post is the effect of Jesus on the cross on a roomful of atheists.

... At one point, in the context of making fun of the events of Good Friday, one of the Powerpoint images was Jesus on the cross — a shot of Jim Caviezel in the extremity of The Passion of the Christ. Dawkins paused and looked up at it, as did the whole crowd. Time stood still. For one terrible moment, it was like Dawkins’ pants had fallen down. A wave of fake-sounding, nervous guffaws spread throughout the hall. Clearly, the image of the Suffering Servant was kept up on the giant white screen for too long. A bit too much for a bit too long. Dawkins segued to a derisive crack about the sadism of the bloodthirsty Christian deity.

But it was too late. Something had happened in that room. I have no empirical evidence for this observation but there it is. Something happened. Some tiny backfire infiltrated the proceedings.

The sight of the crying, bereft and abandoned Jesus was enough to break the hard heart of a rough Roman soldier on the Day when the real crucifixion went down. God willing, we’ll read of similar breakings, and mendings, in our day.

Which links back into my last post - Christians, wear your crosses (and the crucifix is far more powerful!)

I'm going to also have to see if the debate between Dawkins and Cardinal George Pell of Australia mentioned in the post, which apparently happened yesterday, (or maybe it's happening today American time) is online somewhere. That should be interesting, to say the least!

Update: Yes, there was a debate. You can read about it and watch it here.

Related links: Crashing an Atheists' Love-In ~ Patrick Coffin
Catholic Answers Live - 2 hour daily radio show hosted by Patrick Coffin

Wear your cross

Cardinal Keith O'Brien is now calling on more Christians to wear a cross in public. His homily for Easter Sunday was released ahead of time to the news media.

Britain's most senior Catholic cleric has called on Christians to wear a cross every day as "a symbol of their beliefs" and to combat the marginalisation of religion in modern society.

I've been wearing a crucifix (a cross with Our Lord on it) every day for years. Sometimes it gets me some very odd looks, such as the time I was sitting in a garden centre cafe in Miramar and this woman was just staring at me from another table. I figure that right now, Christians are pretty much invisible, and showing that I am one (Catholic no less, because of the crucifix) is necessary just to remind people that we are still here and amongst them; normal, every day people who believe in Jesus Christ.

“So often the teachings of Jesus Christ are divided and ignored; so often those who try to live a Christian life are made fun of and ridiculed and marginalized,” the cardinal says in his homily.

“Perhaps the more regular use of that sign of the cross might become an indication of our desire to live close to that same Christ who suffered and died for us, and whose symbol we are proud to bear.”

“Whether on a simple chain or pinned to a lapel, the cross identifies us as disciples of Christ,” he adds.

It's not just a piece of jewellery.

He will say: "I know that many of you do wear such a cross of Christ, not in any ostentatious way, not in a way that might harm you at your work or recreation, but a simple indication that you value the role of Jesus Christ in the history of the world, that you are trying to live by Christ's standards in your own daily life."

His comments come as two women, who say they were discriminated against when their employers barred them from wearing the cross, are fighting to get their cases heard at the European court of human rights.

The only warning I have to give with regards to wearing a cross is make sure you're doing it for the right reasons.  Wear it because you are identifying yourself as a Christian so that others may be reminded of Jesus - don't wear it for political reasons.  Sometimes it's difficult to distinguish between the two; the test for me is who or what do I think of when I put it on.

Catholic cardinal calls on Christians to wear their crosses every day ~ The Guardian
Cardinal O’Brien exhorts Christians to wear crosses ~ Catholic News Agency

Easter Sale - Kidney, only $3,000 (hardly used)

Must be the worst thing in the world to sell your kidney for an iPad and then get to the shops to discover they are closed for Easter. These are the kinds of consequences we need to consider by keeping shops closed. I just hope the guy selling his kidney kept enough margin for the unlimited download plan - or are more body parts reserved for that cost?

Equally, the middlemen buying the kidney now face a stiff fine. Add a thousand bucks to that if they resold it on Easter Friday.

This started out as a religious holiday that upsets liberal sensibilities, but could it morph into a more introspective look at rampant consumerism and materialism? Probably not.


Related Link: Freedom to Shop (A previous post with a good range of comments from both sides of the debate, and some consensus on the value of a public holiday: "Personally, the absolute best thing I like about public holidays is that the world slows down just for a moment. There's something more calming and pleasurable about a day with the family when you know the work is not necessarily piling up in your absence.")

We don't need no education

Front page news: Secret Story of Violence in Schools - teachers being beaten up and bullied for their lunch, their cars vandalised and no doubt suffering wedgies on a daily basis. So what do these educational "institutions" do about it? Nada. Nothing. Worse, some teachers are allegedly urged not to report on an alarming increase of violence in schools. One big cover up.

A few pages over, and the headlines scream "Wagging school the daily deal for 29,000" and we read quotes like:

"Sometimes you get stoned, sometimes you can't be bothered and sometimes you are hung over from the night before"

That from a 14 year old!

But it's not just the students, with recent news that a pedophile had been working the schools, fabricating job history and identities to stay one step ahead of the institional bureaucracy by inventing complex cover stories like "you mean my evil twin brother?" or, according to one Principal who was very suspcious but failed to act, saying the bureaucratic process was just too onerous. Then back to the students - at one school, some bullies sexually violating students with teachers ignoring the increasing incidents of violence in and around the school.

At the other end of the spectrum - teachers that groom students for sex. Problem is, in some places, this is legal. The almighty secular society that on paper frowns upon such stuff as allowing people in positions of authority to sexually exploit those below the age of consent apparently haven't cared enough to make such activities illegal, but maybe one day soon. So when this teacher setup house with an 18 year old student, groomed for several years (and said teacher left his wife and three children) it wasn't illegal. However, the undying love affair didn't last after another claim of sexual abuse came to light.

Let's face it - the education system is totally stuffed; it is corrupt; it is filled with out of control bullies; with pedophile teachers and teachers who are grooming children for sex; with unreported violence; with cover-ups and bureaucratic processes that assist in cover-ups; with examples where apathy becomes a valid excuse for doing nothing.

Time to close down the schools. They produce nothing of value and the only news we hear about them indicates they are corrupt cesspits of crime.

/satire

He is Risen!

He is risen: he is not here. Behold the place where they laid him.

Real gardeners and Good Friday shopping

Camelia Paradise Joan flowering in my garden today

I doubt that gardeners need to go plant shopping on Good Friday. Most of the work gardening is in digging and weeding and pruning and mulching and watering. Being able to put a new plant in the ground is just icing on the cake; something that can take 5 to 15 minutes once everything else is done.  Real gardeners always have something to do it their gardens; if they can't get to the shops then it doesn't matter, there's always work to be done, the shops can always wait.

So, it seems to me almost unbelievable that it is a great inconvenience to gardeners if they can't get to the garden centre to buy plants on a Good Friday once a year.  Why not wait until Saturday? Don't they already have plants that they've bought earlier and not planted, or other things they can do in the garden in preparation? Or can't they appreciate just having a day where they are not gardening?

Or are the people that visit garden centres on Good Friday not gardeners and just desperate to shop even if it's only just for plants? If that is the case, surely it would be better for garden centres to retain the status quo where most other shops don't open, thus staying an oasis in the Easter desert for the distraught shopper who has nowhere else to go on a day where nothing much else is open.  Once Good Friday is turned into just another shopping day, the garden centres will lose their edge, even if they no longer have to pay a fine for opening on a non-shopping day.

However, logic appears to have no place in this debate.  It's turned into a war between the secularists on the one side and those that just want everyone to be able to have a holiday together with those that actually celebrate Good Friday on the other.  What is wrong with retaining a holiday tradition of no shopping?  It seems as if any link to religious traditions just drives some people nuts.

Related links : Nursery enjoys a good Friday and Garden centre says Easter trade essential

***

This year, I couldn't do much of anything on Good Friday as I was sick.  Nausea and a headache will do that to me.   Instead of being tempted by gardening, I just watched The Passion of the Christ and shared in the suffering.

***

My current gardening project is putting a buxus hedge to box in my roses that live on the outside the bedroom walls.  This is my attempt to make the whole area look tidier, and especially hide the weeds if I haven't got around to getting to them for a while.  As you may be able to see below, I haven't finished.

Benedict XVI: Pride is the very essence of sin

Good Friday

Holy Thursday

HOLY THURSDAY is the most complex and profound of all religious observances, saving only the Easter Vigil. It celebrates both the institution by Christ himself of the Eucharist and of the institution of the sacerdotal priesthood (as distinct from the 'priesthood of all believers') for in this, His last supper with the disciples, a celebration of Passover, He is the self-offered Passover Victim, and every ordained priest to this day presents this same sacrifice, by Christ's authority and command, in exactly the same way. The Last Supper was also Christ's farewell to His assembled disciples, some of whom would betray, desert or deny Him before the sun rose again.

Related link: Holy Thursday - The Last Supper ~ Catholic Online

Men and bikinis and the moral order

Last week I had an intense conversation on Crusader Rabbit about women volley-ballers having the choice to wear more than a bikini (or a full body-suit) due to pressure from more "conservative" countries who may have teams competing in the upcoming Olympic Games in London this year.

KG took the position that these "conservative" countries (most likely Islamic) have no right to tell us (ie the West) what to do; they should fit in with our conventions, especially since there is very little in the way of reciprocation from them with regards to what we expect to be able to do when in their countries.

In principle, I agree with his position to some extent when what we expect from them is reasonable and what they expect from us is unreasonable. However, I disagree that they are always wrong in what they ask for from us. Even a stopped watch is right twice a day, and in this case, asking that women be able to wear more than a bikini (and less than a full body suit) is reasonable and should not be dismissed out of hand just because of who is asking.

The problem with the bikini is that it is basically underwear invented by a French man who worked in his mother's underwear shop in the late 1940's. No respectable woman of that time would model his new invention for him, so he had to resort to hiring a stripper who had no qualms with wearing nothing at all, so the bikini was more than she was used to. Somehow along the way, women of the Western world have taken to this level of undress when swimming, hanging around on the beach ... and playing volleyball. However, the bikini causes men to look at a woman as if she is an object to be acted upon rather than a person who has control of her own actions, therefore wearing a bikini changes a woman in the mind of a man from a person to a thing.

Men are more likely to think of women as objects if they have looked at sexy pictures of females beforehand, psychologists said yesterday.

Researchers used brain scans to show that when straight men looked at pictures of women in bikinis, areas of the brain that normally light up in anticipation of using tools, like spanners and screwdrivers, were activated.

Scans of some of the men found that a part of the brain associated with empathy for other people's emotions and wishes shut down after looking at the pictures.

Those 1940's French models had it right - no respectable woman should wear a bikini - and giving women a choice not to wear a bikini while playing volleyball is something all conservative men should endorse, no matter who raised the issue in the first place.

The first Conservative principle is that there is an enduring and eternal moral order. Veer off from this moral order and you get trouble. Go back to the moral order and society functions well. This moral order is not subject to relativism - what is true for Western Christendom will be true for any other society as well. Moral people are self-governing and therefore can more easily resist an overreaching government. Immoral people are more easily ruled by their appetites and passions and therefore can be manipulated into accepting more government control in their lives. So the moral order is vital. (see our about page for more)

In West, destruction of the moral order is clearly under-way, and if we need reminders from other cultures about what we used to believe then I would consider that God's way of helping us find our way again and keeping us humble. It's one thing to take advice from people you admire, it's a another completely to be "reprimanded" by those whom we find seriously lacking in other areas of life, and who find themselves unable to control themselves if their women aren't covered up like tents.  But in this case, we should just suck it up, because those conservative countries are right.

Related link: Sorry chaps, there's a volleyball cover-up: Competitors can now wear shorts and T-shirts after complaints from conservative countries ~ Mail Online

I think it's the Boomers that are surprised that teenagers aren't sex-crazed animals

There is surprise today that teenagers in New Zealand are not wild sex addicts drinking and drugging themselves into early deaths. Could it be that women's magazine sponsored research is not reliable (Kiwi girls most promiscuous in the world), or that parental control is still stronger than hoped and all the sex mad break free when they leave home.

However, a third of 12 to 18 year olds being sexually active is still very high, in my opinion. I wonder if there is a breakdown of ages. I tell my boys that they should not be having sex until they are ready to be fathers. Actually, I tell them a lot more than that, the purpose of sex (it is more than just pleasure) and needs to be treated as a sacred activity reserved for marriage only.

That's not what sex education in NZ teaches them. Sex is apparently a fun activity that just needs "protection" to be enjoyed without worry. The assumption being that teenagers are going to do it, so they may as well enjoy it. Can you imagine if the same rationale was being applied to robberies. "Here, we expect you to steal, so when you break into people's houses, make sure you wear gloves and a balaclava."

I have read that young people today are getting more conservative than the generations before them (see Teens tired of liberal parents). I wonder if this is a result of Gen-X parents (like me) who saw the devastation that the Baby Boomers let loose on society and have tightened up their parenting to ensure their children do not make the same mistakes they themselves made.

There is an advantage to teenagers becoming more conservative - teenage pregnancy and abortion rates go down. In the US, the conservative states have lower teenage pregnancy and abortion rates than the liberal ones do (see Teen Pregnancy Is Higher in Red States Than in Blue States).

Which reminds me of a weird conversation I had with some ladies a few years back, all of whom were older than me. They were lamenting how conservative their teenage children were. One lady was trying to convince her 17 year old daughter to lighten up her studies, get a boyfriend and have some FUN. Her daughter was having none of it and her mother was very concerned it would make her girl really boring. My children were still very young at the time (the oldest was about 8 or 9), so my opinion in that group was dismissed out of hand, but I was standing there, shocked, wondering what planet these women had come from. This was years before I became Catholic again.

Now I know that the ladies that I had this conversation with were Baby Boomers (on the younger end), a strange generation that rebelled from their parents apparently restrictive ways and inflicted their liberalism upon the West.  Trying to talk to many of them about sexual morality is like banging your head against a brick wall.  Result being, we'll be cleaning up their mess for years to come.

Related link: Survey busts myth of teen sex, drugs ~ Stuff

Fr Barron on the Hunger Games and Human Sacrifice

A new movie, called The Hunger Games has recently been released onto the big screens in New Zealand.  It's set in a future world where young people are selected from 12 rebellious districts as "tributes" to fight to the death on live television.  It's reminiscent of ancient times, when human sacrifice was not uncommon.

Father Barron, in the video clip above, talks about why this story line is resonating with audiences today, and how Chrisitianity (when people are really living it) prevents human sacrifice from re-emerging in our cultures.

Why is it, that this dynamic of human sacrifice is so prominent in our culture ... from ancient times to today ... Rene Girard uncovered this dynamic ... discovered what he called the scape-goating mechanism ... tensions arise within human communities ... how do we solve the problem ... by this mechanism we choose someone to blame, someone to isolate, someone to ostracise, at the limit, someone to kill. We discharge our anxiety, our tension, our fear onto that person or that group. In that process ... we come to a kind of peace. Which is precisely why this kind of activity is sanctioned so often by the state, and by religion.

However in the Bible, the way out is shown. At the heart of the New Testament is a scape-goating victim, however this is not sanctioned by God, instead God identifies with the victim. That is how the scape-goating mechanism is unveiled and disempowered.

And now a new vision of life emerges ... which is based upon love and forgiveness and compassion and connection, and especially identification with the victim.
They don't play the game. Now it's deeply disconcerting to the powers that be...

Human sacrifice emerged right at the heart of those civilisations [Aztec and Roman].

See, I think we comfort ourselves, or flatter ourselves and we say of that could never happen ... I like the fact that the Hunger Games is set in a futuristic society where human sacrifice has re-emerged

I would argue that what keeps human sacrifice at bay is none other than Christianity.

When it re-emerges in Christian societies, then those societies have lost their way, they've lost their connection with the heart of the Christian faith. You can see that in times gone past when witch burnings became popular, or the gruesome killing of heretics, or today where we have millions of unborn babies sacrificed so that society can continue to believe that human sexuality can be let loose from love and commitment.

It looks like a very interesting movie.  I'm going to have to go and see it.

Related link: Fr. Barron comments on "The Hunger Games" (SPOILERS) ~ Word on Fire

Religious liberty being squeezed in the US

Hattip: WDTPRS

Here we see religious liberty, represented by a Catholic bishop being squeezed by the Omnipotent State, whose every demand must be obeyed, while the media acts like a blind man who sees and hears nothing.

This seems to be mainly because anything to do with sex has to be liberalised, no matter the consequences to society and the freedoms we all take for granted.

The new kind of orthodoxy that pervades our mass media involves a range of attitudes toward religion—from indifference to distrust to disdain, much of them rooted in the politics of sexuality. This is dangerous because pulling down a moral framework is always easier than building one up.

Indeed.

Related link: Interview with Archbishop Charles Chaput - On Religious Liberty and Public Faith