Recent Posts

Wednesday, 11 July 2012

For a Catechist....

Whaah,  shur, even we can understand the Catechism!




I could not resist this, because of a recent commentator's note.

The Laity and Sippy Cups #2

I have written before on the laity, especially here on this link, and I am distressed at the increasing anti-intellectualism which I am seeing in Catholic adults.

We have the CCC and the Compendium, the encyclicals, bible studies, faith formation material and of course, the Bible. There are no excuses for ignorance.

I am an unusual Catholic of my generation as I grew up reading the Bible in my family, but so did my parents and even my Luxembourgian and Czech ancestors. We, perhaps, were different in our love of the Scriptures and our lack of fear. I, for one, and I am 63, never, never was denied access to the Bible in elementary Catholic school and I never heard a priest say we should not or could not read the Bible.

But, I am convinced that the proliferation of information on private revelations has to do with a lack of real catechesis. We in the West have the highest levels of literacy. Again, the information available to the average Catholic abounds on the Internet. If one has time to follow daily the private revelations, one has time to follow the daily readings, read Scripture, read the CCC.

No excuses. And, as I remind many people in a week, we are responsible for our own souls. STOP the blame game. My several Irish friends, young and old, insist on blaming the priests and the culture.

Get over it! Here is some tidbit from the homily given at the Mass of the beatification of Cardinal Newman on September 19th, 2010:

...what better goal could teachers of religion set themselves than Blessed John Henry’s famous appeal for an intelligent, well-instructed laity: “I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it” (The Present Position of Catholics in England, ix, 390)


The Pope gets it, and St. Paul gets it.

Milk then meat, says St. Paul in l Corinthians 3:2. Not poison....I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able,3for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? 4For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not mere men?



A question of civilization and I told you so...

I told you so....I said this would be a real possibility.
http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/what-would-they-do-to-pyramids.html


Muslim clerics are calling for the destruction of the pyramids. Look at my last post on this link above and read this bit from Front Page Magazine online.

From
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/raymond-ibrahim/muslim-brotherhood-destroy-the-pyramids/


According to several reports in the Arabic media, prominent Muslim clerics have begun to call for the demolition of Egypt’s Great Pyramids—or, in the words of Saudi Sheikh Ali bin Said al-Rabi‘i, those “symbols of paganism,” which Egypt’s Salafi party has long planned to cover with wax.    Most recently, Bahrain’s “Sheikh of Sunni Sheikhs” and President of National Unity, Abd al-Latif al-Mahmoud, called on Egypt’s new president, Muhammad Morsi, to “destroy the Pyramids and accomplish what the Sahabi Amr bin al-As could not.”
This is a reference to the Muslim Prophet Muhammad’s companion, Amr bin al-As and his Arabian tribesmen, who invaded and conquered Egypt circa 641.  Under al-As and subsequent Muslim rule, many Egyptian antiquities were destroyed as relics of infidelity.  While most Western academics argue otherwise, according to early Muslim writers, the great Library of Alexandria itself—deemed a repository of pagan knowledge contradicting the Koran—was destroyed under bin al-As’s reign and in compliance with Caliph Omar’s command.
However, while book-burning was an easy activity in the 7th century, destroying the mountain-like pyramids and their guardian Sphinx was not—even if Egypt’s Medieval Mamluk rulers “de-nosed” the latter during target practice (though popular legend still attributes it to a Westerner, Napoleon).
Now, however, as Bahrain’s “Sheikh of Sheikhs” observes, and thanks to modern technology, the pyramids can be destroyed.  The only question left is whether the Muslim Brotherhood president of Egypt is “pious” enough—if he is willing to complete the Islamization process that started under the hands of Egypt’s first Islamic conqueror.
Nor is such a course of action implausible.  History is laden with examples of Muslims destroying their own pre-Islamic heritage—starting with Islam’s prophet Muhammad himself, who destroyed Arabia’s Ka‘ba temple, transforming it into a mosque.
Asking “What is it about Islam that so often turns its adherents against their own patrimony?” Daniel Pipes provides several examples, from Medieval Muslims in India destroying their forefathers’ temples, to contemporary Muslims destroying their non-Islamic heritage in Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Malaysia, and Tunisia.

There is more....and POTUS supports this present regime in Egypt. Also, see this article on Mali again.





Global surveillance companies in Britain, ACTA, and the EU

I have three posts in one here. Three issues, the last being a selling out of sovereignty in Europe, have or are about to take away freedom of speech in many countries. The West is blind. These speech issues have hit the technology industry in England. In case you have not been following this here are two links here and several more below. The problem is surveillance and a government's right to follow cellphone calls, tweets, and other global networking. Remember last year when Obama stated that no cell phone call was private? Well, he is "technically correct". Of course, my concern would be that any tyranny could instantly take away freedoms we take for granted in the West. It is already and has happened in the East.


On the ACTA, a law Obama wants passed and an agreement he has already signed with the UN.

Global Internet censorship is here.  SOPA and PIPA have been stopped (at least for now) in the United States, but a treaty known as ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) is far worse than either of them.  ACTA was quietly signed by Barack Obama back on October 1st, 2011 and most Americans have never even heard of it.  But it could mean the end of the Internet as we know it.  This new treaty gives foreign governments and copyright owners incredibly broad powers.  If you are alleged to have violated a copyright, your website can be shut down without a trial and police may even show up at your door to take you to prison.  It doesn't even have to be someone in the United States that is accusing you.  It could just be a foreign government or a copyright owner halfway across the world that alleges that you have violated a copyright.  It doesn't matter.  So far, the U.S., the EU and seven other nations have signed on to ACTA, and the number of participants is expected to continue to grow.  The "powers that be" are obsessed with getting Internet censorship one way or another.  The open and free Internet that you and I have been enjoying for all these years is about to change, and not for the better.
So how come the U.S. Senate never voted on ACTA?  Doesn't the U.S. Constitution mandate that all treaties must be approved by a two-thirds vote in the Senate?
Of course it does.
But Barack Obama has gotten around this by calling ACTA an "executive agreement".....
One of the big problems with ACTA is that it is way too broad and way too vague.
Vague language allows authorities to "interpret" the law any way that they see fit.
This can often lead to selective enforcement.  Websites that authorities like will be left alone, while those that they don't like will be harassed or completely shut down.
ACTA was written in secret and it has been pushed through very, very quietly.  The following comes from a recent CNN article....
Like many trade agreements, ACTA is a confusing mess. Even its signatories don't agree on how it's supposed to work. The way it's been pushed forward has also been unruly -- talks have been held in secret, without any kind of legislative oversight or input from citizens or public-interest groups. The public only became aware of it in 2008, a couple of years after discussions began, when Wikileaks published a discussion paper. Since then, drafts of the pact have been released to the public, each successively less onerous to critics. Reportedly, though, big media and pharmaceutical lobbyists have been privy to the talks all along

And, last but not least, EU Governments have stepped into the censorship business. READ this. 
The document is aimed at child porn, a good thing, but the problem is two-fold. First, it gives control of the Internet to a Council not a sovereign nation, and two, this type of censorship never works and has not worked.I might add that many pedophiles have been arrested and convicted because of online activity. This will force them underground and the problem will continue. However, censorship will be in place to be used against other things, such as so-called "hate speech". When it comes to censorship, the Catholics should be very, very concerned....


Paris, June 8th, 2012 - In an unanimous decision, EU Member States have decided to promote website censorship at the global scale under the pretext of tackling child pornography. This dangerous initiative must be denounced by lawmakers and citizens: Europe cannot give up on its commitment to the rule of law by legitimizing Net censorship internationally...The Council of the EU adopted conclusions on "a Global Alliance against Child Sexual Abuse Online". Due to a last-minute addition, the document calls for:
"facilitating measures to remove or, where appropriate, block websites containing child pornography".
So far, thanks to the EU Parliament, the EU had successfully avoided promoting website blocking as a tool against child abuse, these measures being inefficient and even counterproductive. The Parliament even imposed important safeguards on Member States who did choose to implement at the national level.
This new initiative marks a dangerous regression: regardless of the goals invoked, website blocking is extremely dangerous for freedoms online, leading to collateral censorship of perfectly legitimate content, and runs counter to the most important principles of the rule of law1.


"It is baffling to see that no EU government opposed the adoption of these conclusions, which legitimize Internet censorship across the world and will therefore have disastrous consequences for freedoms online. In spite of the strong reservations expressed by the European Parliament, governments choose to force through website blocking with the adoption of this document. Such censorship is ineffective for its stated aim and paves the road for other damaging attacks against the free Internet. Only through citizen mobilization will we be able to make our governments accountable and eventually safeguard a universal Internet." said Jérémie Zimmermann, co-founder and spokesperson of the citizen advocacy group La Quadrature du Net.

Freedom of Speech No Longer in Toronto

Today is Free Speech Day on this blog. I have collected items from many countries of the suppression of free speech, all which have happened in the past few days. The world is turning to tyrannies of various sorts and many. many Catholics are asleep.

One reason Catholics do not seem to care is that some tolerate evil. Let me quote again Revelation 2:20, a passage I have quoted most frequently since visiting England:


"But I have against thee a few things: because thou sufferest the woman Jezabel, who calleth herself a prophetess, to teach, and to seduce my servants, to commit fornication, and to eat of things sacrificed to idols."


Catholic brothers and sisters, if you tolerate evil, you are sinning by contributing to evil.

Silence is consent. From LifeSiteNews online:

TORONTO, Ontario, July 9, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Canadian pro-family leaders have expressed outrage over the treatment a sidewalk preacher received at the hands of the Toronto Police Force during the recent Gay Pride parade. As many as 12 police officers surrounded the preacher, who was peacefully spreading Gospel messages, and shut him down, forcing him to vacate the area.
“The Gay community is free to walk around nude on the streets, violating Canada’s Criminal Code, but a preacher is not free to stand up and preach that ‘God loves you’. It’s a pretty dangerous country when it comes to that,” said Dr. Charles McVety, Evangelical minister and show host of The Canadian Times, to LifeSiteNews.
On Canada day, preacher David Lynn and his team from Christ’s Forgiveness Ministries had set up a portable microphone system on a small cart, near the corner of Yonge and Wellesley, from which they preached and handed out religious tracts and free bibles. Lynn told LifeSiteNews that he was there at the parade to preach to the LGBT community about the love of God.
“Jesus died for the entire world,” he said. “Everybody has an opportunity to be saved, including people at the Pride parade. There is no difference between them and me. I am a sinner just like they are. I wouldn’t have wasted my time if I didn’t think God’s loves them, if I didn’t think that there is hope for them.”
But Lynn’s Gospel message earned him the ire of parade participants and attendees. Video cameras captured Lynn’s interactions with attendees at the event and subsequent police intervention.
At one point, Lynn was surrounded by as many as 12 officers.
“Guys, everybody, by staying listening to it you’re helping him get his message across. If you ignore him, it all goes away,” shouted officer T. Adams to the crowd that had gathered around the preacher.
“You’re promoting hate,” Staff Sergeant R. Pasini, 4528, said to Lynn at one point.

There is more. Go here. If you are an adult, watch the video.

St. Benedict

In my Monastic Diurnal and in the NO, today is the feast, and for Benedictines at St. Michael's, a solemnity, of St. Benedict.


To all the Benedictine priest-monks, brother-monks and nuns, all abbots and abbesses,
Happy Feast Day. Happy Name Day to Pope Benedict XVI.

Freedom of Speech a Rare Commodity in the Maldives?


To be a blogger is dangerous and if it gets too dangerous, as it did in 2009 for me, I shall pray about the future. Thankfully, I have few cranks responding and to date on this blog, only one threat. However, if one plays on the beach in the public, one must expect some beach-balls on the head. Here is a news item from the Great Spencer. Can the Maldives' economy withstand a drop in tourism because of such violence?

NEW DELHI - The Maldives' best-known blogger, who nearly died in an attack outside his home last month, has blamed resurgent Islamists for the assault and fled the country.
Ismail Rasheed, known locally as the blogger "Hilath," was on his way home from prayers on the evening of June 4 when three men grabbed him from behind and one of them stabbed him in the throat.
The 37-year-old former journalist with leading daily Haveeru, who had upset the Indian Ocean nation's increasingly influential religious hardliners, slumped in a pool of blood outside his front door in the capital Male.
Rushed to hospital, he remained in intensive care for days where doctors brought him back from the brink. His trachea - but not a vital artery - had been sliced clean through.
"I was attacked because I advocate secularism. The Islamists want Maldives to remain a 100-per cent Islamic country," he told AFP in an interview conducted via Twitter and email in the past few weeks.
The free-speech advocate has been literally silenced. He was unable to talk in person or over the telephone because doctors have advised him not to speak while his throat heals.
Fearful for his future safety, Rasheed has since fled the country and is considering seeking political asylum.
"The Maldives is not safe for me anymore," he said, declining to disclose his present whereabouts....

Tuesday, 10 July 2012

From Doug Giles..and a request from readers


And I add, what were you like on your wedding day?
This is a great set of bullets on ladies in marriages. From working with women in the past whose marriages were on the rocks or had failed, I know these are real obstacle to peace and love. A Catholic woman of virtue would have enough prudence to avoid such faults, or at least repent and change. Would a reader like to make a column of ten points for husbands? Sadly, I know some men in the last category of a slow emotional tortuous death. Women will answer for these sins on the day of judgement, and, yes, we are judged on such. Remember, only the perfect gain heaven. 
If some of you ladies want to know how you can suck the life out of your marriage and drive your good husband to insanity, or to the bar, or into the arms of another woman, or to a divorce attorney, or just shrivel him up into a conquered quail who inwardly loathes you as he dies a slow, emotionally tortuous death, well then . . . this is your lucky day.
.......
1. Nag your Husband. One way to torture your hubby is to be a nerve grating, contentious, non-stop dripping faucet of faultfinding and finger pointing.
2. Criticize your husband in public. Yep, publicly shame him. Become an expert at unveiling anything about your spouse that’ll cause him to want to jump in front of a speeding bus.
3. Keep Him On a Short Leash. By short leashing your mate with insane limits your man will quickly feel like a stupid son, controlled by you, his new petulant mommy.
4. Become a Drama Queen. Make the atmosphere of your home tense. Make it crazy. I mean … crazy.
5. Hate his Friends. Sever the ties your companion has with those who have walked to hell and back with him because now . . . it’s all about you. You especially want to steer him clear of friends who feel the liberty to shed light on you, the interesting wife.
6. Hate his hobby. Your goal is to joy steal any pleasure that can be had by the poor schlep. And anyways you don’t want him to enjoy anything that you don’t like. [take away fishing pole]
7. Cut him off sexually. It’s not enough to rag and ridicule him and then run his friends off. No, you must go the second mile and turn into the Sex Nazi. No sex for you!
8. Get your family involved in your marriage. Forget this leave and cleave stuff the Bible dictates. If you want your union to unravel then you’ve got to gang tackle your husband with “The Family.”
9. Never apologize. If, in the odd event you do something that hurts your husband never, I mean never, apologize. You . . . apologize? Please.
10. Do we really need a number 10?

One Victory for Free Speech in Denmark

There was one victory in Denmark on a free speech issue and you can translate the article here. Although not brand new news, it is significant. Lars Hedegaard was acquitted of hate speech. However, the fact that this case even went to the Danish Supreme Court shows the seriousness of the issue. Here is the penal code and a list of links. Tomorrow, I shall have a list of threats to free speech across the globe.

PENAL CODE SECTION 266 B

A person who publicly or with intent to disseminate to a wider circle makes statements or any other communication by which a group of persons is threatened, insulted or degraded on account of race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion or sexual orientation shall be punished by fine or imprisonment for up to 2 years.


Non-Cat-lovers can skip this post


One of my young friends sent me these. He is twelve. I was fooled, for a minute...


Well, we know our Papa loves cats... and the cat is Gracey...



I am so glad I am a Catholic....thanks to Andrea for these....


How about some dog shots?

Important Link--Paul on the Life at Conception Act

http://nationalprolifealliance.com/rlacw_petition.aspx?pid=th2b&npla=I1ACAQ12I



Check out this link. Rand Paul is trying to overturn Roe v. Wade. Listen to this video. Please.

The End of France... will happen under Hollande...

Ah, the Hollande effect. In case you missed this, France will most likely see the passage of, not civil unions, but marriage. This means that the traditional definition of marriage will be irrevocably destroyed. Here is a snippet.

REUTERS - France’s new Socialist government is to legalise same-sex marriage next year, a junior minister said on Friday, reflecting a shift in public attitudes in the majority Catholic nation.
President Francois Hollande, who took office last month, had pledged to legalise gay marriage and adoption during his election campaign but had given no timeframe.
Since Hollande’s Socialists won an absolute majority in parliamentary elections two weeks ago, the conservative UMP party, which had opposed the measure under former president Nicolas Sarkozy, can do little to stop it.
"Within a year, people of the same sex will be able to marry and adopt children together," Dominique Bertinotti, junior minister for families, told the daily Le Parisien. "They will have the same rights and duties as any married couple."
A law granting full marriage status to gay couples would bring France, which currently provides only for same-sex civil unions, into line with fellow EU members Denmark, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden.
It would also mark a profound change in French society, where more than two-thirds of people still describe themselves as Roman Catholic, according to a 2010 survey by pollster Ifop.

Hollande is being true to his socialist agenda which is strongly anti-religion, as all true socialists are. He is particularly keen to be the next great socialist tyrant of Europe. He is on his way. I believe he is a communist, not merely a socialist.

There is some objection, but I am afraid that it is a small minority.


"We are convinced that young people’s development requires the presence of a mother and a father," said Thierry Vidor, head of the Familles de France umbrella group, which represents some 70,000 families, and campaigns for traditional family rights.
"We will take action to try to show that this measure is ultimately dangerous for society."

A Gramsci win for France...


The Ekdromoi

As a history teacher, a long time ago, I taught Classical History, Greek and Roman, both at an advanced high school and at the college level. Today, because of a conversation, I am thinking about the Battle of Marathon. The interesting thing is that there is a bit of a mystery as to how the Athenians won that battle against many, many more Persians. Some historians believe that a small group of men from the army of the Persians defected and told the Athenians of the battle plans. Another historian wrote that the superior Persian cavalry left, tired of a stalemate and the Athenians only had to fight the ground troops. Whatever the reasons, the victory was established by the hoplites in the phalanx position, the first soldiers who met the resistance. Now, all hoplites were freemen and middle class as they had to bring their own armor. They were called "iron men" because of the breast plates and helmets. Spears were the main weapons and the first attack, followed by hand to hand sword fighting.

A hoplite was not a slave. He was well-trained and very strong. He had to run into battle with heavy gear and he had to be accurate.

The light runners were called the ekdromoi. They were the out-runners, with only spear and shield. They did not have the breastplate or armor. The drawing above shows the iron men. It is hard to find a drawing of an ekdromoi and the only one I found, on a Greek vase, was a bit too graphic for this blog. I am fond of this group of hoplites, as they were very fast runners and went first, having to be extremely accurate and yet in an irregular formation in order to confuse the enemy.

These hoplites would clear the way for the iron men.

One of the books I taught was the adventures of Xenophon and this book, Anabasis,  or The Persian Expedition, was always a class favorite. In his story of the Ten Thousand, the ekdromoi played a key role. If you have not read the book, do. I love to teach this book.

My point of all this is that some of us in the battle for souls are the hoplites. We are not the generals, nor the strategists. We are the freemen who bring our own weapons into the battle, fighting freely, winning over great odds.

This is the spiritual warfare of the Church Militant. We have all the armor and skills we need through the sacraments of baptism and confirmation. We have all the strategy from the Teaching Magisterium of the Church. We have grace and the virtues. We only need to respond to wherever we are called.

I love Gimli's line in The Return of the King, "Certainty of death, *small* chance of success... What are we waiting for?"


for NS

Monday, 9 July 2012

Rowan Williams on Today's Debate--Audio

http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/canterbury//data/files/resources/2557/120709-Archbishop-speaks-in-Synod-debate-on-women-bishops.mp3

Church Times on Delayed Vote on Women Bishops

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2012/6-july/news/uk/synod-postpones-final-decision-on-women-bishops



The Second Church Estates Commissioner, Sir Tony Baldry, gave Synod a warning. He said that there was "no way that I am going to be able to explain to the [House of] Commons that when this Church had voted by 42 dioceses to two, that it was not possible for the Synod to manage to develop a Measure which commands the support of the whole Synod; and in particular commands the support of those who campaign for such a Measure."
He said that Parliamentarians were familiar with the concept of "ping-pong" when the Commons and Lords could not agree, and suggested that during an adjournment "the usual channels" should "use the space and time to resolve the outstanding differences".

I am so glad I am a Catholic. The argument is over Clause Five, an amendment stipulating this:Clause 5(1)c stipulates that a new code of practice being drawn up should include official guidance on how to ensure that "the exercise of ministry by those [alternative] bishops and priests will be consistent with the theological convictions" of the parish which has objected to a woman.
Its defenders say that this wording is merely making explicit what was already implicit in the draft legislation. But others says it is enshrining in law the very prejudices against which supporters of female bishops have battled so long. It would, they say, create a two-tier system in which not only women, but men who ordained women or who had themselves been ordained by women, would be considered second rate.
Not everyone, even fellow supporters of the cause, agrees with them; they have been accused of nit-picking at a crucial stage, and exposing the Church of England to yet more censure for its slow-moving decision-making.http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/05/church-england-vote-women-bishops

Update on Anglican General Synod As Of July 9th

I am having trouble on my computer getting the live feed from the General Synod to work today. Here is today's update.  From the General Synod Website. Here is today's update. Final approval is pushed forward to the Autumn on women bishops.


Adjournment motion passed - draft Measure sent back to House of Bishops for further consideration General Synod has passed a motion (by 288 votes for to 144 votes against with 15 recorded abstentions) today, to adjourn the Final Approval debate on the draft Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure to enable the amendment made in May to clause 5 to be reconsidered by the House of Bishops. The House will meet for that purpose in September. When it does so it will have power to amend the part of the text of the draft Measure previously altered by the amendment it made in May to clause 5.
The Archbishops have confirmed that, following reconsideration by the House, the General Synod will meet in November (19-21) in London to resume the Final Approval debate in the light of the House of Bishop's consideration.
The Bishop of Dover the Rt Revd Trevor Willmott, on behalf of the Steering Committee successfully moved the motion this morning proposing that the debate on the motion for the Final Approval be adjourned.
Also here are article from two newspaper in Britain: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/church-backs-away-from-women-bishops-debate-7924528.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/09/church-of-england-female-bishops




New Ordinariate Liturgical Texts

The Vatican has announced new Liturgical texts for the Ordinariate. These are the first of several planned, including a Mass which is being developed under some secrecy. 


I hope this move will encourage more Anglo-Catholics, especially today, to consider crossing the Tiber.


I also hope that the bishops of the world accept the Ordinariate as the Pope intended this group to be.


The first liturgical texts approved for worldwide use by the Personal Ordinariates for former Anglicans have been promulgated by the Holy See. The Order for Funerals and the Order for the Celebration of Holy Matrimony are to be used by the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in the United Kingdom; the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter in the United States and Canada; and the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross in Australia. 
Drawn from the classical Anglican prayer book tradition, the texts incorporate elements of the Anglican patrimony now in the full communion of the Catholic Church. "We welcome with gratitude these texts, which bring into Catholic liturgical life some of the most beloved and memorable texts in the Book of Common Prayer. These texts have blessed and comforted generations of English-speaking Christians and will be deeply appreciated in the Ordinariate communities," said Monsignor Jeffrey N. Steenson, Ordinary for the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter. 

Feminism's Greatest Failure

woman burned in attempted honor killing
I am disappointed and a bit miffed at my fellow sisters, not all, not A, or NS or C or B, but most the women of the Western World.

In America and in England, except for a few, very few, women are not outraged and speaking out against the rising violence and harassment of women in the Middle East and Far East. In this regard, the feminist movement has FAILED.

Yesterday, on several news sources, a report of young women, students in Egypt, being harassed by men for not wearing a veil and being in trousers, was promulgated. The major media does not cover these stories. A woman was shot in Kabul for have a relationship with a politician, shot nine times. The politician was not shot.

In Nigeria, women, children and men who are Christian were killed on the weekend.

In Sudan, sharia law will be the law of the land, taking away liberties from women primarily, and from Christians. This is in today's news sources from Christian sites.

In Indonesia and in Saudi Arabia, girl's schools were burned as it is against Islam to educate women, and in the second case, girl's were allowed to burn to death. The last episode, which happened in January, was covered by very few news agencies.

No one is reporting these abuses but about six sites which I found, and all are Christian based. Why? And, why are not the feminists in America, Great Britain and other European countries outraged at the increasing violence against women?

Feminism has failed because the movement is not really about civil rights for women. It is about "me".

There is an older but good article on how feminism has failed American women as well. See here.

Women die, girls die, and more will unless the Women of the West respond now.

In the past week, I have had may posts, as many as seven or nine a day. Take a minute to scroll down. A reader sent me this link to add to the post.http://itsybitsysteps.com/16-year-old-amina-filali-who-was-forced-to-marry-her-rapist-commits-suicide/

For the Ordinariate


Begging for the Ordinariate is a bold way of telling you all that many of the families who came in, especially the wives and children of the good priests, have suffered great losses.

Some left pensions.

Some left houses and the right to property.

Some left gifts.

Please consider going to the Ordinariate website and donating something. These good Catholics suffered to come into the Church. Bless them and you. www.ordinariate.org.uk

Answer to yesterday's quiz

Old Kabul Road


Woman milking her goat in Kabul
Man selling things our of his trucks 


Answer to yesterday's quiz on where the photos were taken: Kabul. And, look at parts of the city and how the women dress now...after the Taliban and the Russian war. Can the West take back what was civilized?