Category: Blithe Spirit

Beware the extreme Muslim

They’ve done it before, will do it again, won’t stop.

Allah’s animals can’t stop. They won’t stop. Sura 9:5, the verse of the sword, commands them to “slay the idolators wherever you find them, and take them, and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush.” No “pagan” throat is safe: American soldiers, worldly journalists, innocent schoolgirls, Jewish teenage boys and Christian missionaries alike are all targets of Sura 47’s call to “smite the necks” of the unbelievers.

They did not get the message that Islam is a religion of peace.

How priests can save their souls

From Ezekiel 33, the first reading for today:

Thus says the LORD:
You, son of man, I have appointed watchman for the house of Israel;
when you hear me say anything, you shall warn them for me.
If I tell the wicked, “O wicked one, you shall surely die, ”
and you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked from his way,
the wicked shall die for his guilt.

But if you warn the wicked,
trying to turn him from his way,
and he refuses to turn from his way,
he shall die for his guilt,
but you shall save yourself.

It’s a hard saying, who can endorse it?

It will not be interpreted that way from many pulpits, if from any. Indeed, as with many OT selections, it will be passed over in silence.

A judge who ruled in favor of same-sex marriages makes funny argument

Judge Richard Posner arguing vs. ban on same-sex marriage got cute:

“Heterosexuals get drunk and pregnant, producing unwanted children; their reward is to be allowed to marry. Homosexual couples do not produce unwanted children; their reward is to be denied the right to marry. Go figure.”

But issue is whether same-sex adoptive or surrogate parents are good for the child, not whether they want children. As for being advised to go figure, isn’t there a formality norm for court judgements?

From Catholic pulpits tomorrow, Romans 13 on love’s benchmarks

Some tests of love for neighbors:

Reading 2ROM 13:8-10

Brothers and sisters:
Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another;
for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery;
you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet, ”
and whatever other commandment there may be,
are summed up in this saying, namely,
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Love does no evil to the neighbor;
hence, love is the fulfillment of the law.

It’s not love and do what you want (as long as you love, it’s all right); but if you love people, you won’t do these things — adultery, murder and its affinities, theft, and “coveting,” that is, envying what they have and whom they are joined with.

I’d like to hear this point made tomorrow. I’d like to know it’s heard from a lot of pulpits.

Those Vatican archives haven’t been secret for a long time

Not since 1881, and anyhow secret doesn’t mean secret:

Secretum, the Vatican says, translates more accurately to “personal” than to “secret” and refers to the private letters and historical records of past popes. In fact, the archives haven’t been secret since 1881, when Pope Leo XIII opened them up to scholars.

There’s more more more about them in this intriguing* piece in the new all-Catholic news source Crux.

——————–

* That is, quite interesting, not wrapped in or full of intrigue, of course.

The Mike and Lisa show: How judges are picked in Cook County

Oak Park Republicans

Mike Madigan made a little list of lawyers he considered “excellent” candidates for associate judges’ jobs and passed it on to the 275 Cook County judges, who decide.

About half of those on Madigan’s list made political donations to his daughter, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, the state’s highest law enforcement official.

Campaign contributions are common among lawyers vying for judgeships and are typically not large — but enough to indicate the donor recognizes the value of political participation.

It was this way in 2011. Did Lisa M. investigate this process? Can we imagine her doing so, state’s highest law enforcement official or not? Short answer is no. So is the long answer.

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