Recta Ratio

The feast of the founder of the Society of Jesus.

Despite 7 years in a Jesuit-run institution (and 19 years in Catholic schools generally), I can honestly say that most of what I learned about the Faith I picked up on my own after school.

The Jesuits have been just about the least significant influence on my religious life. I only had Jesuits for very limited classroom experiences. In my freshman year in college, my Honors Program course (BC's great books semi-curriculum for the best students) was taught by a fellow who started the first semester as Father M. By January he was out of the order and simply Professor M. In my sophmore year, I had two semesters with and older Jesuit, since dead, Father Mahoney. But the topic was Modern European Diplomatic History. Not much faith inter-action there. Then in my last semester of law school, I had a course taught by the law school's only Jesuit (he retired after that year) on Conflicts of Law. Not much faith interaction there. All partly my fault. I took nothing in the philosophy/theology cluster, sine I was a wiz at history and wanted to pad my GPA for law school admission, then in law school wanted to pad my GPA for a job (but it didn't work). I certainly did not seek out Jesuit input in my 7 years at BC.

But still, after 7 years you would think that something more would have rubbed off. No. And the sad thing about it is that, with the state of the Jesuit order, Fathers Fessio and Hardon aside, that may not have been a bad thing.

Probably won't hit the net until tomorrow afternoon, but I wanted to make note that, in addition to being Lammas, the Feast of St. Peter ad Vincula, the feast of the First Fruits of the Harvest, it is also the feast of St. Alphonsus Liguori. Over at Recta Ratio: The Yahoo Group, St. Alphonsus is featured on the front page for the weekend.

Look for Lammas blogs in the afternoon tomorrow.

The terrific Father Sistare of Not So Quiet Cathoilc Corner  is now publishing his sermons at Padre's Pulpit. 

Good riddance. 

Hope the door doesn't impact their posteriors as they leave.   And they can take the filthy maggot-infested WTO-style protestors with them.  And the military/police garrison.

Now the snipers can come off the roof of the statehouse, the black hawk helicopters can stop patrolling overhead, we can ramp down from total police state to free society, people can drive the Central Artery,  and use the North Station commuter rail hub, and businesses around North Station can open again.

You would think that 50,000 extra mouths in town would have helped local businesses.  Nope.  Trader Joe's in Copley Square, right across from the Sheraton which had hordes of Democrats staying there had its worst week since it opened, according to the manager.  That would be because everyone with a brain who lives here fled the city a week ago.  And delegates get so many freebies, they had no need to go grocery shopping. 

Guess what New York?   Your Yankees may be in first place, but you're gonna have to put up with even more crap with the incumbent President's party setting to party there next month.  Take my advice:  flee for the week. 

The sister of Lazarus who did all the work while her sister Mary listened.

Always been more of a Martha than a Mary, myself. 

I would say that the overriding issue for them is maintaining the "right" to babies in the womb. Enthusiasm for Kerry and Edwards is very distinctly secondary (in fact, is there anyone really who would go out of their way for Kerry without prospect of reward?) .

The Clintons the other day "promised" to get Kerry elected. I suspect that will have the same result as the numerous promises made by the Clintons (focusing "like a laser beam" on the economy in the first one hundred days, and having an "FDR-Like 100 Days" producing lots of legislation, none of which happened, thank God).

In fact, if their goal is to get Hilary! (TM) elected president in 2008, I suspect they will be less than half-hearted in helping Kerry this year. They will do the absolute minimum required of a former President and First Lady of the nominee's party. They don't want Kerry in the way as an incumbent president in 2008.

The Clintons' lack of interest in Kerry has more than carried over to the delegates. I don't see any real enthusiasm for Kerry. Let's be frank, he is not a warm lovable guy. He is an aloof, cold cross between Thurston Howell III (speech patterns and income) and Lurch (physical appearance) with just a little Bill Clinton (the JFK fixation and the appeal to certain women). So he's got that 60s TV thing going on. And not much beyond that.

He has no real personal following. No one is fiercely loyal to him. And he has managed to position himself on both sides of every important issue for the last 30 years (except abortion, to which he is fiercely loyal) so that there is not much enthusiasm for him among the rank and file. He was the last guy left standing in the primaries, after Clark and Dean imploded, the guy with the most money.

If anything, these delegates, lackluster as their hopes appear to be, are more enthusiastic than they have any right to be. Had the President been campaigning vigorously and competently since January, as Kerry has, they would be so far in his dust as to justify throwing in the towel now (kind of like '96 for us). It is only the incompetence of the Bush campaign so far that has given them any hope. With the economy OK, and a successful war going on (heck, we have taken ove rone the the largest countries in the world at the cost of less than a battalion of men: perfectly acceptable losses for such a great gain, losses on the order of 15,000 killed would not be extraordinary), Bush should, by clearly articulating a vision for the next four years, be safe as can be.

The Democrats' only real chance this year, despite what the polls say now and will say in the next month, and the "buzz" around Boston (a hot bed of leftist enthusiasm), is an al Qaeda attack before the election that can clearly be blamed on a lack of vigilance on the part of the incumbent administration. Absent that, I think that I can confidently predict that when the President emerges from the odd cocoon of silence and miscommunication that has enveloped him for most of this year (and he should next month), he will win re-election handily, and bring along a gain of about 2 GOP seats in the Senate, and 4 -5 in the House.

You read it here first. Though I've been reading it on the faces of the delegates I see on the streets.

Not sure if this is correct, as we still seem to be splitting 50-50 on the presidential race this year.

Political correctness run amok.

Martyred by the Communists in Spain during the civil war there in the 1930s.

At least in my British Army, there are plenty of Scottish regiments (42nd Regiment of Foot, or the Royal Highland Regiment, known as the Black Watch, 21stRegiment of Foot or Royal North British Fusileers, 71st Regiment of Foot or Fraser's Highlanders, 74th Regiment of Foot or Argyle Highlanders, 84th Regiment of Foot or Royal Highland Emigrants , to name just a few). 

In fact, the problem for non-Scottish officers trying to further their careers was that there were too damned many Scots in high places promoting other Scots (and not Englishmen, or Irishmen, or Welshmen).  This was true even of regiments that were not Scottish!

Confirms that I am, indeed, the model for Perfessor Cosmo Fishhawk. 

But you have to read it today, as the link changes daily.  Click it tomorrow, and you get a different strip. 

So they should not have been in the country at all, let alone accessing the air transportation system.  Or is it just too tiresomely politcially incorrect to point that out?  God knows some people have been laboring mightily for the last 40 years to turn this country into a flophouse for every poxed lay-about in the Third World and their extended families (none of whom ever have or will contribute a single thing to American society and culture except a supply of drug couriers, more bastard children, higher welfare spending, and the wonderful experience of no longer hearing English spoken in large parts of the country).  

Sorry, in my world, your  visa expires:   Bye-Bye.  The INS ought to be noting when a visa expires, and if the visa-holder is not back in his Thrid World hell hole as a matter of record, we ought to be finding them and making sure that they are gone.  Round them up and hold them until they are deported. 

Don't care if labor costs go up a little bit, as all the illegal immigrants working as maids and landscapers disappear.  I think we can deal with that.  God knows the people employing the ones who do work could afford to pay a little more per hour for the hired help, and forego one or two  extra toys.

So are they being  held pending deportation? 

If not, why not? 

What, are the Paulists the Maryknolls (think Nicargua, 1983, and liberation theology) of the start of the 21st century now?

OK, I'm ticked off enough with the Paulists to write that story about the Mass I attended at their center in Boston last September, the Eucharistic celebration that would put most conservative Catholics' teeth to grinding, the kind of think Michael Dubriel would lap up for his new book, the one that managed to hit almost all the wrong notes.  Look for it late tomorrow or Wednesday.  Lucky I took notes.

This one won't be for the liturgically sensitive.

Not the Democrats (though all of the above apply to them, too).

John at the Inn At the End of the World called my attention to the plans of the Labour Government to scuttle the entire British military in wartime.  Four RAF squadrons are to disappear, along with 12 RN vessels, and all the Scottish regiments are to be merged into a single entity (and that is not the only ridiculous reduction for the army).

Without saying a word about the desecration this is to the traditons of fine Scottish regiments...

Insane.  Crazy.  Perverse.  Idiotic.  Feckless.  Irresponsible. 

And that is just what Churchill would say about such a plan to trim the military back in a time of war. 

Britain will be left with the conventional striking power of such feared world military powers powers as Vatican City, Andorra,  and Lichtenstein if cuts of this nature, utterly unnecessary in an age of rising government revenues, become a reality (and the nature of the labour majority almost guarantees passage.

Heart of Oak?  Not anymore.  More like Pancreas of Parchment.   The British Lion will become the ultimate Paper Tiger. 

 

I'm not the only one behind enemy lines this week. 

On Friday night I was walking up Boylston Street, and passed a couple of men dressed in flamboyant evening gowns:  Democrat Party at Play.

The city is not just insane, with armed troops and law enforcement of every variety everywhere, but filled with true-believing left-wingers, the sort of brain-dead flotsam and jetsam that take it as an article of faith that Kerry will win. 

Friday, it all ends.  I can hardly wait.

 

Saint Anne's information is here.

Saint Joachim's is here.

And yesterday, I didn't blog, so I missed St. James the Greater, patron of my parish in Salem.