George W Bush Welcoming Troops Home

This man still knows how to lead. God Bless him, and our heroic troops.

Anne Rice's "Christianity"

This is my third post in a row about Anne Rice and the conversation about her relationship with Christ and Christianity.  This is a short discussion on linguist fallacies, with quotes from Anne Rice's website and links to a few other things.

I find this topic intriguing because as a part time logician the use of words is critical to good communication. Misusing words, or misunderstanding the words used, results in a slew of linguistic fallacies. The fallacies that most often confuse the debate between Catholicism and Protestantism are equivocation, distinction without a difference (what I call difvocation); and strawman. But Anne Rice has succeeded in using the same with Christian milieu in general and not particularly one institution toward another. She's lumped them all together. Which is easy to do considering the fallacious nature of so much of the communication in Christianity, even out of the Catholic hierarchy.

Equivocation occurs when the same word is used by two parties but the two parties have underlying definitions that are different. When an Evangelical Protestant claims to be "saved" it means something much different to a Catholic, who would reserve the term to mean their arrival for eternity in heaven. The term comes from the concepts of "Equal Vocalization".

Difvocation is the opposite of Equivocation. I coin it from the concepts of "Difference in Vocalization." When two different words are used but they have essentially the same meaning, but two or more parties claim there is a difference, there tends to be an argument over nothing.

Strawman is when an opponent raises an objection to someone or something by citing a false claim about it, and then striking it down. The argument is not real; it is made of straw.

All three of these fallacies are evident in the statements below that Anne makes. And when Christians and non-Christians try to interpret what she says, more of the same miscommunication occurs. Or worse, just because someone else is confused doesn't mean we need to politely respect their ignorant and misinformed opinion. Why should anyone be tolerant of evil or ignorance? Doing so is like asking people to put on blinders to be led around by the blind. (You don't want to act superior, do you? This person is blind, don't make them feel bad just you can see. Be humble. Pretend you're blind, too.  It's okay to fall down and hurt yourself; think how the blind person feels.)

Now, don't get me wrong. I like this woman, her romantic instincts, her boldness, her writing, and her marketing savvy -- a lot...to say nothing of the fact that she married a man named "Stan." She can't be all that bad.  I think, however, she's instinctively brought to the forefront a fabulous marketing scheme that has involved both her old fans, her confused fans, and her Christian fans. She's better at marketing her own books than her publisher, I think. And at the forefront of that expertise is controversy.

But the mistake she makes, in the long run as a writer, is that she has scarified honest communication about truth for hype. She is ultimately, as all authors are, most interested in what is true. If she doesn't seek truth in her writing, readers will stop reading her. Thus, she has herein stumbled. What I discovered in my own research and is revealed in The Moral Premise, applies to all story telling, not just movies. Perhaps she doesn't realize this at first, but eventually she must. I hope.

From Anne's website, AnneRice.com:

Anne's Statements Regarding Christianity as Posted:

For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being "Christian" or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to "belong" to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten ...years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.
07/28/10

As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I'm out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of ...Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.
07/28/10

My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn't understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.
07/29/10

I quit Christianity in the name of Christ on this page so that I could tell my readers I was not complicit in the things that organized religion does. I never dreamed others would be so interested, or that they would feel the need to talk about their own religious struggles. But they do. And the public conversation on... this is huge, and I think important.
08/08/10

A Bit of Analysis:

First, her beef is with organized religion, which is different than her persistent claim to still be a follower of Christ. She says "I quit being a Christian" and then says "I am a follower of Christ". This is difvocation. There is no historically difference; nor is there today in the usage of those two words/phrases. She can be justified (to some degree) in saying, "I quit being a named member of any organized Christian body, such as the Catholic Church." Even most of us in the Catholic Church can understand that sentiment, although not for the reasons she later states. I've had my run in with bishops and find some egomaniacs and not worthy of the office. But that doesn't seperate me from being a Christian, or a member of the Church. Because Judas was an Apostle did the other 11 leave Christ? (Well, shortly there after ten of them did leave Christ, for a time, but that had nothing to do with Judas. Indeed, In John 6:66 we read that many left Christ... but that had to do with protesting the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine of communion. )

Second, let's take the terms "anti-gay," "anti-feminist," "anti-life," and "anti-Democrat." [I'll leave "anti-artificial birth control" and "anti-secular humanist" for another time. There is less misunderstanding of these latter terms, although what I say next may apply to them as well.] These are examples of equivocation, or can be. Being gay or homosexual can refer to a person's moral disposition (in theological terms concupiscence) or it can refer to an active life style lived without remorse. The Catholic Church is pro gay in the first definition, but anti-gay in the latter definition, just as it is loving and embracing of all sinners who recognize and seek redemption from any moral weakness.

The same can be said of the other phrases, but perhaps with some clarifications. There are as many different kinds of "feminism" as there are pant-suit designers. (Fewer every year.) A feminist in the classic sense is anyone that considers women equal to men in intelligence, ability, and dignity. Jesus Christ fits that mold. Jesus was a feminist. He talked with women and protected them when no other man would.  There are "radical feminist," on the other hand, who think women are the same in their primary physical characteristics and should have masculine physical identities, including he "right" to use urinals. I don't think the "Christians" Anne is upset with have a corner on the market for being for the former or against the latter. Women are different from men in primary and secondary gender characteristics and both should be celebrated for their values to each other and society.

With regard to the "anti-life" and "anti-Democrat" designations, I cannot guess what she means, but it seems the same sort of identifications and linguistic fallacies apply.

In short, there are very specific group of people, perhaps true bigots, whom she is upset with, or whom she seems to be upset with, and to make such general statements seem out of her character.

All of her statements, however, do easily embrace the strawman fallacy, and that this is so obvious is probably the reason Christianity Today published a short interview with her without comment. The confusion of terms and identity is gross, not subtle. She criticizes perhaps the Catholic Church, but she over generalizes (another fallacy) all of Christianity, with it tens of thousands of belief systems. Certainly there are Christian organizations who believe as she would want them to believe, who call themselves Christians and a part of Christianity. Yet, she rejects them as well. Very strange behavior for an author. Who knows maybe this will start yet another Protesting denomination, the Church of Anne Rice.

It is a false understanding, and therefore a "strawman argument," to say of Catholicism that it is anti-any human being, and particularity "anti-life." It's easy to say that the Catholic Church does not endorse a number of planks in recent Democratic platforms, especially in regard to abortion and artificial birth control. But there's no general logic (as she claims it) that applies to the concept of being Democrat.

Oh, one more -- "anti-science." Dang this is strange. Catholicism (and thus Christianity) established science. What many of us Catholic scientist types object to is how many in the science community have become political and irrational, throwing out the scientific method and ignoring clear scientific evidence that refutes their political agenda. Last I checked the Vatican was the only established religion that has a working cosmological observatory. And the hosts of world-renowned Nobel prize winners who were Catholic is astonishing. Indeed, Christian's who are scientists have an discover advantage over atheists. The atheist believes in random disorder, and the Christian believes that the universe follows an understandable order and structure imbued by benevolent intellignece. When a scientists makes a hypothesis to test, he or she assumes an order that can be known. By definition every scientists that makes a hypothesis based on past patterns and knowledge is proclaiming there is an intelligent design(er) to the universe. To discard the benevolent intelligence behind nature is to make one incapable of forming a hypothesis.  Q.E.D.

Moral Relativism

That Anne is embracing moral relativism is almost too obvious to even mention. If she is a follower of Christ then she either must follow what Christ taught which included a number of charters to individuals to lead a Church infallibly. That she certainly does not understand. It may well be that she's hanging around with, was hanging around with, a lot of protesters in both the Protestant and Catholic resistance. Such friends can be very confusing.   Pray that she sees, and begins to understand the difference between what people do, in the name of Christ (as she is even doing), and what Christ has commanded in the infallible charter He gave his Apostles that those that followed.

Anne, there's a huge difference between what people of "faith" do and what the Church infallible "teaches." The biggest mistake you can make is saying, "I love Christ and guess what, He taught exactly what I believe."

Anne Rice, Catholicism, and Dave Armstrong's Defense

Is Anne just a marketing genius, or has senility set in. And yet the juxtaposition of vampires and Catholicism has some intriguing and "novel" possibilities.

Last week when the news broke about Anne Rice "leaving Christianity but still embracing Christ," I wrote that I thought someone had hijacked her Facebook blog. We had enjoyed all three of her post-vampire Christian books and I had read some of her vampire fare. And the announcement and other words attributed to her do not sound rationale.

For you that don't know, Anne Rice is the popular author of "The Vampire Chronicles," and other such books from which several successful motion pictures have been made. She's a master at marketing as much as writing, with a personal staff larger than her publisher employs on her behalf.

A few years back she returned to the Catholicism of her youth. Her re-conversion made headlines in both vampire and Catholic/Christian circles. After her re-conversion she swore off writing vampire novels although she still justified their promotion because they honestly chronicled her journey in the dark looking for the light. Indeed her later vampire stories are about her vampire protagonists searching for redemption, something they cannot find by virtue of the story genre to live eternally as the damned. They are cursed monsters needing salvation. Viewed from that perspective there's value in Anne's books that came out of her period of atheism.

SIDEBAR - CATHOLICISM, VAMPIRES, AND ZOMBIES

The juxtaposition of Catholicism and vampire lore has some intriguing story potential. I've been involved as a consultant on a movie project that examines the "origin" and eventual redemption of vampires one step further than Ms. Rice's effort. The movie effort attempts to correlate the vampire's thirst for blood with the Christian's thirst for Christ's real presence in the blood of The Eucharist. The image of a vampire drinking human blood in search for life -- juxtaposed with a Catholic drinking Christ's redemed blood in Mass seeking eternal life, is poignant to say the least.  In John 6:53-56 we have these shocking words of Christ:

Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. (Jesus)

So shocking was this teaching that many of Christ's followers left never to follow Him again (John 6:66). Historians suggest that Jewish law which forbade eating meat  that was bloody, was the reason so many found this teaching repulsive.

It's not without purpose that Vampires (human blood suckers) and Zombies (human flesh eaters) are the two most popular horror genre in film. There are a lot of confused Catholics out there looking for meaning to the ritual of the Mass. Catholic teachers have done a poor job explaining it so it's up to filmmakers, I guess.  

Allow this sidetrack to continue for another paragraph. Jon Springer is the Catholic horror filmmaker form St. Paul, MN. Back in 2003 he produced a short B&W film called LIVING DEAD GIRL. The film begins with the typical zombies going crazy, biting people, and turning them into the living dead, walking around town looking for another human to bit and spread the curse. But then, this particular zombie girl comes upon a strange man standing on the street corner. It's Jesus. She attacks, taking a bite out of his arm. She, rather than He, falls to the ground. And a moment later she's resurrected as back to normal, healthy human, again. The message is clear. Society, in general, is like the living dead. But when we take a bite of Christ, and make him (literally) part of our life, we find life. It is Christ's flesh and blood that gives life.

BACK TO SCENE - ANNE RICE AND DAVE ARMSTRONG

Anne followed her re-conversion by three wonderful Christian books. "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt" was her first person telling of 7-year old Jesus' trip with his family from Egypt back to Roman occupied Galilee. "Christ the Lord: Road to Cana" was the first person telling of 32-year old Jesus' beginning of his public ministry.  Both are great reads, I recommend them, highly. During this time Anne also wrote a personal book about her childhood as a Catholic youth in New Orleans, her lapse into atheism with famous husband and intellectual Stan Rice, and then her reconversion to Catholicism. It's titled "Called Out of Darkness". The book is most valuable for her description of Catholicism through the eyes of a young girl in romantic and mystical New Orleans.

Then, suddenly it seemed, a week ago, Anne announced that she's given up Christianity and the Catholic Church... but she still loves Jesus Christ. (Huh!?)

Her reasons were the typically, trite, irrational tripe about being fed up with hypocrites and transferring their misguided comments and lifestyles on the whole of Christian thought and philosophy.  Or, in her case, misunderstanding Church teaching about loving sinful persons at all costs but hating the sins that such persons commit. Anne's son is a gay homosexual author. And as she should, she loves her son. But she can't seem to separate the sin of humankind from the teachings of Christ and his Church. Or, as Dr. Ray Guarendi says in his popular DVD, WHY BE CATHOLIC? the scariest religious position today is not the atheist, or new age, or other fringe groups, but the mainstream Christian who says, "I love God, and he's just like me."

Now, this is a "smart" woman, or so I thought. Well, upon her "anti-Christianity" announcement (or "deconversion") , the blogosphere was awash with stories, praise, condemnations, Monday quarterbacking, and debate about this "turn of events". Especially of interest is the strange and irrational reasons this celebrated author gives for rejecting Christianity but still embracing Christ. Frankly, I still think her Facebook page has been hijacked (because I expect more intelligence from her), but evidently she appeared on The Joy Behar Show in person to discuss this whole thing. (Joy Behar... makes "sense.")

ENTER DAVE ARMSTRONG

Dave Armstrong (and wife, Judy), is a friend(s) and author of a number of fine books on Catholic apologetics that I sell on Nineveh's Crossing, and one I'm editing for publication. Dave was not familiar with Anne Rice, but he caught wind of her "reasons" for "leaving Christianity" and... well, Dave can't turn down an easy Internet post when Catholicism can be defended. (It'll be a chapter in a future book of his, no doubt.) His website was perhaps the first Catholic apologetic website in the world (goes back to the mid-1990s), and he's making a writing career out of the fodder. Dave's writing is thoroughly organized,  accessible, smart, and relevant. I've hired him several times to write material for Nineveh's Crossing (our study guides all have his touch).

So, Dave did his usual thorough job at refuting the several irrational arguments against Christianity and Catholicism that Anne takes, and posted a thorough defense of Catholicism and Christianity on his blog. . You can read his initial blog entry in a post titled: The Deconversion of Novelist Anne Rice: Straw Men, "Baby/Bathwater" Mentality, Sexual Liberalism, and an Irrational Held, Apologetics-Free Faith   LINK HERE

Then the drama sets in. Anne reads Dave's post, or part of it, and writes on her Facebook blog:

Here's a rather critical, and well written discussion of my leaving organized religion for Christ. 

And then she gives a link to Dave's post (as I have give you above)

Within 24 hours Dave is besieged by comments (pro and con) on his blog,  as is Anne on her Facebook page. Dave has posted some of the comments at his post: Anne Rice's Facebook Followers Irrationally and Intolerantly Attack Yours Truly for Criticizing the Lack of Adequate Reasoning for Her Deconversion.   LINK HERE

All of this I'm very happy about... for Dave and for Catholicism. There's nothing like controversy to get people thinking or talking about what is true.

And there's nothing like Dave's very clear, easy to read defense of the faith. I can only hope that Anne (and thousands of others) take Dave's arguments to heart, and perhaps read a few of his books. All of which are on sale (15% off) at Nineveh's Crossing, naturally. HERE: http://www.ninevehscrossing.com/DALibrary.php 

Best to all of you.

Stan

Anne Rice's Blog is Hijacked

Anne Rice's blog's claim of her "deconvesion" from Christianity is one of the most stupid explanations of not being something I have ever read. She claims she's done being a Christian and at the same time saying she loves Christ. It would make sense if she'd disclaim and trash the hypocrites in Chrisianity, but that is not what these posts are saying.  It's as if someone has hijacked her blog.


I have read a great deal of her writings both before and after her reconversion to Catholicism. And nothing in these recent posts of hers makes any logical sense. It's almost as if she had someone close to her write these posts who is totally ignorant of Christian doctrine and most of all Catholic teaching and wants to lash out.   I heard recently that she was bedfast with illness. Perhaps her her delusion or incapacity someone is taking advantage of her blog. Time will tell.

For anyone of her "intelligence" to create such obviously inaccurate strawman arguments is childish if not adolescent. She's lauded for her research in the many books she's written. So, it's hard to figure that she's done no research into Christian or Catholic teaching before she came back to it.  Is she so dumb as to listen to "Christians' on the fringe and embrace their ideology as if it was an accurate reflection of Christian or Catholic theology?

If you claim to love Christ, Christ says "You will obey me." Christ also said to his Apostles, the first Church elders, "He who is against you, is against me." People have a choice, they can choose to follow God's will as expressed by the moral teachings of the Church Christ left in charge, or they can be their own little God. 

The quote most open to question, if it came from her at all is this:

I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life.

As a simple critique, let's stick with Catholic Christianity since Protestant theology is all over the map on these issues.

Christianity teaches us to love gays, but not their sexual perversion. We are to love those that hate us. Christianity is not "anti-anybody" but it is "anti-sin."

The most renowned feminist (moderate, not radical) was Jesus. He gave women their status of equal value to men before Western laws did. Christianity is "feminist" at its core, as long as you eliminate the fringe of the feminist movement that think women should use urinals.

Christianity isn't against birth control when used naturally, but it is against disrupting the natural working of marriage and life. It is a contraction to be FOR artificial birth control and FOR life. Why? Because artificial birth control can induce abortions of an embryo.

Christianity isn't anti-Democrat, although it is against some of the planks in the current Democrat platform, like the right to abortion. But Church teaching steers far clear of anything that is political. It's just that politics and state laws sometimes infringe on the God given human rights and the dignity of life.

Christianity may be against "secular humanism" if by that term she is referring to a philosophy that expressly excludes God.  The Church is an articulate support of humanism in it s Christian form.

Christianity invented science. The Vatican is the only faith with an astronomical observatory active in research. It's the "secular humanism scientists" and their egos that dislike God that claim Christianity excludes science.  All the great science discoveries of the past came from practicing Christians and most of those were Catholic. And don't get me into the Gallieo controversy; that was a person thing, not a doctrine thing--dig below the surface to understand that.  Truth comes by FAITH AND REASON the Church has proclaimed all its existence. REASON includes science by definition.

And her final salvo, "I refer to be anti-life".  Right. Who really wrote this? Not anyone with a brain larger than a walnut.

Anyway, I don't want to take anymore time to do again what my good friend Dave Armstrong has done wonderfully.  Check out his detailed analysis of this with all the links you could want. GREAT JOB DAVE.

Entitlement Programs Need Some "Behavior Modification"

"Spend-Spend-Spend" is the mantra typically bandied about by fiscal conservatives to describe pro-entitlement liberals. The rationale often cited to justify entitlement programs is that it's the Christian thing to do. The government is simply trying to meet the needs of the disadvantaged, so the argument goes. Christians who are staunch Democrats argue that the rich have an obligation to house, feed, and care for the poor. It's what Jesus would do; and there are plenty of Bible verses and even Catholic social teaching texts to back it up. But keeping the argument at that shallow depth is fraught with logical fallacy and danger.

The situation government usually finds itself in reminds me of Dave Lewis Crawford's song "BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION BLUES" about a little girl whose parents drop her off at grandma's house for the weekend, and the kid is spilled rotten. One of the verses goes like this:

She'll have Cheese Puffs for breakfast
and Gummy Worms for lunch
She's gonna have chocolate cake for supper
Drink up all of that fruit punch
She can wear a hundred dresses
She can do her grandma's hair
She can run the remote control
And She can sit in any chair
She'll be princess for the weekend
Mom and Dad won't have a clue

You can imagine how to modify the lyrics for government spending.

I've heard that employment suddenly rises where unemployment benefits run out. Now there are some folks that are just unemployable. I have a friend that seems normal, graduated from a prestigious engineering school with honors, is kind, and smart. But he's mentally unstable and can't keep a job. But there are many who as long as there's a check coming in that allows them to be lazy, they will. And then there's the "help" in the form of cash that can be spent for DVDs, alcohol and lottery tickets instead of food. When a Child Protection Services agent enters a home to investigate child abuse, the first thing they look for is "food" in pantries and refrigerators.  "What is the priority in this home?" the CPS lady is asking. Is the home secure (is the roof patched), and are the inhabitants dressed in a clean, protective clothing?

Our little girl visiting her grandmas is like a lazy citizen running to the government for "help." The kid doesn't need help, she needs some behavior modification, which is just what she gets when the weekend is over.

It's a long short ride from her grandma's house today
Now she's got to get used to not getting everything her way
There'll be no cheese Puffs for breakfast.... 
She's got those coming home from grandma's
Behavior Modificationary Blues.

Dave Armstrong's 150 Reasons I'm Catholic

I'm publishing a book; "Dave Armstrong's 150 REASON'S I'M CATHOLIC." We're months away from sending it to the printer. But I advanced the cover design because we need to print new "catalogs" (actually just a 3 fold brochure), and I wanted Dave's book in it. Rather than write a long post about this, which I would not have done until the book was out, Dave did it for me. So, H E R E' S DAVE.

http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2010/07/150-reasons-im-catholic-book-covers-and.html

If you think the cover at right is strange, wait until you see the Protestant version... Dave has an image at the bottom of his blog.

FAMILY TIES Meets CARIAD in Lake St. Clair

We've been sailing in the Great Lakes out of Detroit for about 10 years aboard our 41-ft ketch FAMILY TIES. Our good friends Garrett and Lauren Meyers have their 41-ft sloop CARIAD nearby. And although we've been out in each others' boats, we've never had the boats out together. On Saturday Pam and I were flying out into the lake when my cell phone rang and Garrett announced he was sailing toward us on our starboard quarter. After a while we started taking pictures of each other with our iPhones.  We missed the shot of Pam fending off his boom when we got sort of close to each other.  Click on any of the images for a larger shot.

Canadian Navigator

Took some time Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon to do some sailing. We frequently dodge Great Lake freighters, one of the treats of sailing the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair.  As I entered the Lake yesterday, this is what greeted me. We've seen this ship often as she hauls cargo from the upper Great Lakes to ports in Lake Erie. This day she was headed for Toledo. Double click on image for larger shot of whole vessel. Click HERE for the ship's page at MarineTraffic.com and click on the Long./Lat. to see where the ship is currently located.

What Catholics Really Believe BOOK SURVEY

Would you help us by taking a survey about a book we are ready to print? We've been working on in off-and-on for 3 years. It's finally ready to go to the printer, but which printer and how many copies should we print? The responses to this survey will help us a great deal. Thanks. Click on the following link for the survey, and you'll also see samples of the inside of the book.

TAKE THE SURVEY

Gomez Bodes Well For Los Angeles

This short blog has a deep arc, reiterating some recent sad events in my professional life, and ending in some hope, evidenced by the article accessible by the link in this blog's title.

Mentally, I came into the Catholic Church whooping and crying for joy in the fall of 1997, and formally and physically at the Easter Vigil 1998. The Honeymoon lasted until the late summer of 2009 when I was scandalized by the work of three bishops and their curia in an attempt by over 100 individuals under my leadership to produce a dramatic short movie for Christian television on a pro-life matter. The Honeymoon ended.

The experience heavily reinforced a conclusion arrived at in 2000 that it was the American Catholic bishops that were most responsible for the presence of abortion in the U.S.. There is a natural moral law at work that without correction and strategies biased in action the vacuum will be filled by the opposition. Had the bishops been characterized by backbone they would have long ago avoided what Cardinal Ratzinger and the Early Church Fathers describe as "mute dogs" who, to avoid conflict, let poison spread. It is a characteristic of shepherds that Ratzinger finds "repulsive". (SALT OF THE EARTH, Ignatius, page 82). I like Benedict XVI.

So, I have been more critical of American bishops and I am not their ardent supporter. I have stopped giving money to any diocesans based effort because I've seen up close the power hungry greed of their middle bureaucratizes, and I have a few letters from more than one bishop that speaks directly to or implicates the calumny that runs a muck in the offices of American bishops.

The most recent evidence of this is how the USCCB lately has FINALLY spoken out against the Obama Health Care efforts because of how it funds abortion. WAY too little, WAY to late. About 70 years too late. And we're suppose to think the bishops are moral leaders? I wish it were true.

So, I confessed my grave misgivings to one particular curia leader (whom I know to be conservative and pro life and working herself to a pulp for good causes) who works for Archbishop Gomez in San Antonio. She felt sad for my conclusions and then endorsed her boss as not fitting that unfortunate model.

Now, a couple months later Gomez is appointed to take over for Mahoney in L.A. ... and many of my conservative friends would love to see Mahoney disappear into the woodwork because of his lackadaisical action with respect to orthodox, pro-life, Catholic conservatism.

The linked article (click on the title to this blog) suggests entirely that may happen. Let's pray.