IMMINENT DANGER

12 March 2013
Feast of St Gregory the Great

The BBC news service last evening did a short piece on the Conclave which, as of this writing, has already commenced.  Amidst the usual banalities coming from the mouths of the TV talking heads viewers were shown a number of Cardinals, walking toward the Vatican in preparation for the momentous gathering.  All of them were sporting wide smiles and a back-slapping affability.  Many waved happily toward the cameras as they walked by.  None of them had the appearance of a worried doctor visiting the bed of a mortally wounded patient.

That no one in that group of Cardinals seemed to have a sense of the seriousness of the situation, nor any kind of apprehension over the serious danger that the Church and the souls of billions are in, leaves me with a sense of dark foreboding.  None of their public utterances have been anything other than the same upbeat cliches one often hears from corporate executives just prior to the collapse of their corporations.  Their demeanor is one of jollity, completely unwarranted confidence in the health of their "corporation" and a sense of fun (and self-importance) that they are all together enjoying a lovely holiday in Rome where the food is excellent and the wine superb.

Many in the Catholic blogosphere have adopted the same demeanor.  Bloggers speak of "Super Tuesday" or "Be Very Not Afraid" or  some such thing to describe the beginning of the election of a man who will be Christ's Vicar.  No unease among those bloggers.  "The Holy Ghost will handle it", so they assure us.

A Catholic should have Hope.  A Catholic has no grounds for optimism.

There is everything to hope for;  there is nothing to be optimistic about.  A cursory look at many of the movers and shakers now sitting in the Sistine Chapel should be enough to convince the Catholic realist that  we had better be prepared for what may befall us.  Several weeks ago The Eye Witness cautioned its readers that there is no assurance that the Holy Ghost is going to make the final selection of Supreme Pontiff.  The other day the more eminent thinker Mr Robert de Mattei made the same observations much more forcefully.  Brother Andre Marie over at St Benedict Center enlarges on that  with some thoughtful observations pointing out that while the Holy Ghost showers graces upon the electors there is no guarantee that those men will cooperate with those graces.

Consider.  Some of the Cardinals in that Conclave today are sympathetic to the scourge of homosexuality.  I will name three: Timothy Dolan, who allows sexual miscreants to have their own special "masses" in his New York diocese; Roger Mahony, who did his very best to allow to continue the buggering of adolescent boys by some priests in his diocese; Donald Wuerl, who talks piously out of one side of his mouth while encouraging this unspeakable vice to flourish in his diocese even going to the lengths of publicly humiliating a simple priest for refusing to give Holy Communion to a sexually deviant Buddhist (This month marks the one year anniversary of that shocking event - one year in which nothing whatever was done to discipline Wuerl over this outrage).

There are Cardinals voting who never think about the salvation of non-believers.  There are Cardinals who are so terrified by the media that they daren't speak a word about  the mortal sins the world is awash in.  There are Cardinals who promote false ideas like "liberation theology".  There are Cardinals so afraid of the Jews and their considerable influence that they refuse to attempt to lead these tragic people out of the darkness and into the Church.  There are Cardinals whose grasp of Catholic theology is scant at best.  There are some who are Protestants at heart, some who despise the very traditions that have nourished the Faith for twenty centuries.

There are public embarrassments like certain American Cardinals, some of whom have brought with them to Rome a retinue of publicists and sycophants, arranging press conferences and "schmooze" sessions.  The electioneering going on is ludicrous. Yet more proof that not too many ecclesiastics have a grasp of the gravity of the situation if, indeed, they ever did.

If that is insufficient to crush the happy optimism of some Catholics about the conclave I give you characters like balloon Cardinal Christoph von Schonborn.  There is Daneels and O'Malley.  We point this out so that we remain realists not optimists.  Optimists are busy preparing Pope parties to celebrate the election;  Realists are praying.

Then, of course, there are some fine men in that group.  They have their cheering sections among many Catholics.  We join them in their cheering.  But we will remain watchful.

The abdication of Pope Benedict was a shocking event, given all the circumstances.  A father has left his children alone.  No one knows why he renounced the See of Peter.  It is very possible we will never know.  But we do know that this action is going to have long term effects.  For those in the Vatican, used to breaking traditions with grand insouciance, it is a mere bump in the road.  For others the feeling of uneasiness over this is deep.

Yes, we are in imminent danger.  We realize most who are reading this are already doing so, but please pray for the Church, again and without ceasing.  We have heard that the Society of St Pius X has recommended a day-long fast today.  We applaud that.

We are now in the month dedicated to Saint Joseph, terror of demons and Protector of the Holy Church.  Our little blog here asks everyone to take advantage of what this month can mean for the good of the One, True Faith.

[Above clip from the 1951 MGM production of QUO VADIS.  St Peter is portrayed by dear, old Finlay Currie.  The music was by Miklos Rozsa.]

St Gregory the Great, ora pro nobis.

[UPDATE: March 12, evening....Several hours after posting this the invaluable Ars Orandi blog site alerts us to this striking exchange between Robert Moynihan and an unknown Cardinal.  This Cardinal understands, it would seem, the frightening seriousness of what is going on.  Please read this remarkable piece.]

SIMPLE TRUTHS FROM THE PATRIARCH

The Eye Witness offers this as an antidote to the deluge of propaganda emanating from the United States and Israel.  From the Maronite Patriarch of Antioch, Cardinal Bechara Rai:

"Both Christians and Muslims in the Middle East venerate the figure of the Pope, no matter who he is. Criticisms against him simply do not exist. The Pope is the Pope and it makes no difference to them whether he is American, Spanish, Italian or other."

Words to ponder.

I wish the Conclave would look to the East this time around (and I don't mean New York).   Mary, Help of Christians, ora pro nobis.

Here's the whole interview, from the Vatican Insider.

(Please don't show the Patriarch's words to Jihad hunters Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller and David Horowitz.  The poor dears might have collective heart failure.)

THE UNUTTERABLE STUPIDITY OF DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME

The never ending farce of DST, aka "daylight savings time", is about to descend upon us again this weekend.  It is just impossible to keep a bad idea down.

My father once explained to his children the whole idea behind this World War I relic, all the time shaking his head as to why it has continued so long.  At a young age, therefore, I began to have my doubts as to the wisdom of this yearly ritual.  The doubts continue because none of the supposed benefits of DST have yet to be noticed let alone proven.  It doesn't save energy.  It doesn't help the economy.  It doesn't make plants grow better.  It doesn't do anything other than satisfy the power lusts of the clowns and ignorami who infest Congress.

DST is just one more gift we have been given by our wise and knowing masters, along with fluoridation, genetically modified food, mandatory health insurance, napalm, abortion and sodomy.

Farmers hate it.  And small wonder.

Oh, but it gives us an extra hour of light after work.  I am at a loss to know why this should be considered important to people.

For years I sat depressed thinking I was one of the only few who failed to see why we continue this yearly folly.  But in recent years others have begun, at last, to speak up, trying to bring this to the end it so richly deserves.  Russia (God bless 'em) has eliminated it due to very good reasons.  A number of US states have called it quits.  There is even an online petition to cease this idiocy once and for all.  Are people actually waking up (pun intended) to the detrimental effects of this?  I believe that they are.

Now even the irrepressible Dr Mercola has chimed in on DST, and in a way that should send shivers up and down your spine:  he has some pretty interesting evidence that on top of everything else wrong with this nonsense there are even health risks involved.  After years of wondering why I felt so drained and "off" after this Spring time change Dr Mercola provides some fascinating answers, and those answers should be seriously studied.  I am not one who looks at Mercola as a sort of medical messiah.  But he cannot be dismissed.  Read what he says and compare the risks with that extra hour of daylight after work.

The Benighted States of America stumbles on its merry and self-destructive ways in so many areas that it is getting harder and harder to keep track of it all.  I am not convinced that the USA is not a lost cause.  It very well could be.  But sometimes doctors can take a man with one foot in the grave and make him well again, so there is always hope for this Land of the Misguided.

That hope is based on the fact that the only Thing which can heal such decay is religion.   It is that same religious Thing that gave life to Europe and to all civilization.

THE CIA'S NEW FACE

Mr John Brennan, pictured above, is our new CIA director, in charge of assassinations, subterfuge, mendacity and spying on innocent people the world over.

Oh, sorry.....my mistake.  Here is his actual photo:

I was confused for a moment 



[Ed: The top photo is taken from one of the most frightening television programs ever aired, "The Incredible Doktor Markesan" from the brilliant 1960s anthology series, Thriller.  The lower photo is of one of the most frightening people ever to wield unlimited and unchecked power in a rogue nation.]

THE NEWS MEDIA FROLICS OF 2013

In recent days and weeks all the major news sources have been screaming this and similar headlines: "We need a modern Pope!"

OK, gentlemen of the press, we'll get right on that for you!

(In other words:  yawn.)

THE ERROR OF COLLEGIALITY

Sobering words from the catechism of Saint Pius X:

Q.  Who is the Pope?
A.  The Pope, who is also called the Sovereign Pontiff or the Roman Pontiff is the successor of St Peter in the See of Rome, the Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth, and visible Head of the Church.

Q.  Why is the Roman Pontiff the Visible Head of the Church?
A.  The Roman Pontiff is the visible Head of the Church because he visibly governs her with the authority of Jesus Christ Himself, who is her invisible Head.

Q  What is the dignity of the Pope?
A.  The dignity of the Pope is the greatest of all dignities on earth, and gives him supreme and immediate power over all and each of the pastors and the faithful. 

Sobering words indeed.  Those words were for all intents and purposes abandoned in the years 1962-1965.

In the most recent issue of Anthony Fraser's Apropos from Scotland (#30/31, Feast of the Purification) there appears an incisive commentary by French Catholic intellectual and journalist Arnaud de Lassus entitled "Aide-Memoire on Vatican II", being an English translation by Mr Fraser of the article which first appeared in Action Familiale et Scolaire, No 221, June 2012, from which the above quotation from the catechism comes.  It is an important overview of Vatican Council II, the 50th anniversary of its beginning which would be the subject of much discussion in the months that followed.

It was not an altogether encouraging assessment of that gathering.

The author, with much clarity of thought, guides us through firstly the chronology of Vatican II, its history, the status of its documents and their characteristics, its opening to the world (with a concomitant closing to the supernatural) and finally a judgment of the Council itself.  In that overview de Lassus dissects what he calls the Conciliar trilogy: religious liberty, Collegiality and Ecumenism.  I will reflect in this post only on the second part of that "trilogy", Collegiality, but will at the same time encourage my readers to write for a copy of this issue of Apropos.  Put simply, what the author is saying is that Vatican II's teaching on collegiality was a fundamental break with the history and tradition of Christ's Church, changing it from a Divinely instituted Monarchy to nothing more than a mere aristocracy.

The document that formulated this change was, of course, Lumen Gentium.  It intended to give to the Bishops in union with the Pope a singular power that they have never possessed, infallibility.  Using this newly-created phantom power some Bishops have ridden roughshod over the Catholics in their individual dioceses and over nearly every traditional Catholic practice of twenty centuries. By signing on to this notion recent Popes have essentially emasculated themselves when it comes to firm Church government. 

The traditional doctrine of papal infallibility states that the Pope alone enjoys the charism of infallibility when defining a matter of faith and morals to be held by the whole Church.  He does not require the consent of the world's Bishops when exercising this power.  He can include them if he wishes to, but he does not need to for the dogma to be ratified by Heaven.  The First Vatican Council in its constitution Pastor Aeternus states that infallibility is "the prerogative that the Only begotten Son of God deigned to enjoin to the highest pastoral office."  The highest pastoral office is that of the Papacy, and that alone.  "There is in the Church a single supreme authority, that of the Pope", writes de Lassus.

But Lumen Gentium attempts to change all that.  This Conciliar text would have two supreme authorities in the Church: the Pope acting alone, and the Episcopal College acting with its head.  Thus has aristocracy entered into and undermined the most sacred Monarchy upon the earth.  For the Vatican II fathers the Pope is only President of the College of Cardinals, a sort of Queen Elizabeth acting as the figurehead of Parliament.  Says de Lassus:

     "Collegiality thus understood introduced, into the government of the Church, a form of 
     aristocracy to replace the Pontifical monarchy."

Small wonder that Modernists like Yves Congar could say, "The Church has peacefully had its October Revolution". That this revolutionary idea has become the norm we have the recent example of writers and commentators referring to Pope Benedict's recent surprising decision as a "resignation".  In reality it is nothing of the kind; it is an abdication, a renunciation of the See of Peter, and of far more serious portent that that of a CEO or a mere President resigning his office.  Some perceptive writers have pointed out that Benedict's shocking move called into question the sacredness of his Office.  And so it has.  But for those who have drunk deeply of Vatican II thinking this crucial point was not noticed.  Also unnoticed is the misplaced faith in the general run of Bishops that many Catholics now have, thanks to VII's fateful Lumen Gentium.

This is what spurred writers like de Mattei and others recently to implore Benedict not to abdicate.

Did the Holy Father, himself a notable mover and shaker at the Council, fall victim of this new idea of collegiality which brought him to make such a momentous decision?  Was he himself believing that he was no more than a figurehead able to resign whenever he felt he had had enough?

Collegiality has bred a certain arrogance, so it would seem, among many Bishops.  Note their defiance and/or ignoring of Humanae Vitae and more recently Summorum Pontificum.  It has bred a callousness, a hardening of the heart which primes them to ignore the pleadings of the faithful to bring their diocese into order, to put a stop to liturgical abominations, to rein in heretic priests, nuns and Catholic colleges.  It breeds men like Donald Wuerl who believe they have the authority to publicly humiliate a good priest for refusing to give the Sacred Species to a public sinner, and it breeds men like Joesph Bernardin, Rembert Weakland and Roger Mahony.  These men have become their own popes while the only Authentic Pope has often tragically let them get away with murder, sometimes literally.

The primacy of Peter was the object of the attack.  Lumen Gentium provided the means by which that attack proceeded.

Cardinal Siri sums up these issues rather succinctly:

     "There was no doubt that some came to the Council with the intention of directing the
     Church towards Protestantism, without Tradition (e.g. Scripture alone) and without
     the primacy of the Pope.  Regarding their first aim they created no little confusion;
     as for their second aim they tried to advance the argument for collegiality."
     [La Giovinezza della Chiesa, Pisa 1983, page 205.]

The other two prongs of that "trilogy" are well described by de Lassus in this article and I cannot recommend a reading of it highly enough.  But returning to that second prong, how Vatican Council II called into question the very primacy of the Pope with its idea of "collegiality" is something that is of such vital importance to the Church of Christ, outside of which there is no salvation, that it cannot be ignored by either the clergy or the laity without doing even more serious damage to an already bleeding Church.

Arnaud de Lassus sees quite clearly that for the Church to return to any kind of normalcy these three Conciliar concepts, that of religious liberty, collegiality and ecumenism, are going to have to be authoritatively, and infallibly, tackled by a Pope sometime very soon.

Our author, Arnaud de Lassus, closes with this quote:  "Not to resist error is to approve it, and the truth is oppressed when it is defended feebly." (Pope Innocent III)

MARCH 2, 2013

It does seem like a good idea to begin again the First Saturday Mass and devotions.  I would imagine that since Heaven went to such extraordinary lengths, begun in 1917, to impress upon us the need to do so, it probably means we should take note.

I consider myself very fortunate that there is an ancient rite Mass in my town at a diocesan Church available nearly every day of the week, and twice on Sundays.  For those not so lucky find the most sensible, quiet New Mass you can find on this approaching First Saturday. 

It is an opportunity we might make use of. 

This coming Saturday, March 2, 2013, would be a propitious time to start again these devotions.  There is no need to explain why.

SARTO, SI; RAMPOLLA, NO

Sarto, aka Pope St Pius X

Cardinal Rampolla, almost a Pope

The villains are busy.

They are all staking their claims and making their demands and veiled threats. It grows more amusing every day if one forgets the seriousness of the state we are in.  Let us take a brief survey.

The worldwide media (and let us never forget the telling fact that the world’s major media is controlled by, essentially, six or seven people) is letting the Church know what’s in store for Her if a courageous, strong-willed Pope emerges from the Conclave.  They are discreetly signaling a non-stop media attack.

The Modernists in the Church are letting us know what kind of a man they want to have: one that will continue the “legacy” of post-Conciliar Catholicism, which presumably means chaos, scandal and financial catastrophe, coupled with doctrinal ambiguity and more liturgical banalities.

The Lavender Mafia is not exactly hiding its special brand of nasty little threats.  Disgraced Archbishop Rembert Weakland is an excellent source of information on this unpleasant subject.  That he is still a Bishop “in good standing” even now and with nary a peep from Rome does seem to indicate, as one perceptive writer noted, that "he knows where all the bodies are buried".

The everlastingly unsatisfied Jews are making it clear with honeyed phrases that the new Pope had better be putting their concerns at the top of his agenda from the moment the white smoke appears from the Vatican chimney.  

The painted harridans and trulls who make up many of the female religious orders aren’t keeping their hopes for the next Papacy under their hats (I was going to say wimples, but that sort of thing went out with kneeling).  

The blacks have been demanding one of their own in the papacy, apparently, as if the Vicar of Christ is to be chosen along equal opportunity rules established by the Stupidocracy.  (Cardinal Turkson seems to be thinking along similar lines.)  Now that they’ve got a president why not a Pope, too?

The average go-with-the-flow Catholics being interviewed by the local TV news readers at their parish bingo games are offering their valuable and insightful recommendations as to who should be Christ’s Vicar on earth.  One such lady in Milwaukee on camera suggested, between mouthfuls of chicken, that Dolan is the right man for the job.

The Left wing in Europe has their candidate, the Vienna balloon Cardinal, Christoph von Schonborn. 

Other Catholics, of the supercilious "neo-Catholic" variety, who have grown comfortable with the pervading chaos, are offering their strong suggestions, which can be boiled down to a simple “Let’s stay right where we are”.

Surely the Las Vegas betting barons are even now preparing their odds sheets.

Finally we have to realize with horror that some very dicey Cardinals will be entering that conclave, Cardinals who are, to put it charitably, a little fuzzy about what constitutes Catholicity. [This just in: Cardinal Keith O'Brien says the new Pope should let priests marry.  Another solid thinker enters the Conclave!] The list would include Cardinals Kasper, Levada, Re, Lehmann, Schonborn, Wuerl, Mahony and even jolly Timothy Dolan who to this day is still permitting a special homosexual-friendly “Mass” in New York.  (There are some good men in that group, too.  May they and the hand of God prevail.)

No one knows how this will turn out.  I certainly don’t.  But I know this is not the time for complacency, or in sitting back and “letting God take care of it”.  I am troubled by the non-serious attitude being displayed on so many Catholic websites and blogs about this grave situation, an attitude which can be described as a sort of cheerful expectation akin to a US presidential election.  Is there no one recommending falling upon one's knees in earnest supplication to Our Lord that He will have mercy on his suffering Church and send us the man needed to clean up this mess?  Are we all simply presuming upon God's mercy?  Alas, there is no ironclad guarantee that I am aware of that the man who emerges from the Conclave will be God’s choice.  Unless I am very much mistaken the election of a Supreme Pontiff is not an infallible act protected by the Holy Ghost.  In 2,000 years we have had great Popes, average Popes, weak Popes and a few outright bad apples.  We could get an Arius.  To be sure God can act to prevent the election of a candidate whose occupancy of Peter’s Chair would have been a disaster for His Church, as the famous case of Cardinal Rampolla indicates.  In that case the electors chose Rampolla, but God chose Sarto, who became Pope St Pius X.  Can we just presume God will so act again? 

I do not believe this is the time for playing guessing games as to who will walk out onto that Vatican balcony, or in silly discussions about what skin color the new Pope might have.  I believe that we are already one week into Lent and that if we haven’t yet begun to offer our Lenten penances for the intention that God spare us from a Rampolla and give us instead another Sarto then we had best start now. 

I am at a loss to know what more people would have to see happening in and to God's Church before they begin to realize that the situation is dire.  We now witness the spectacle of the German Bishops approving the "morning after pill" for rape victims (we also await Benedict's authoritative response to this outrage), with all the usual fog-laden language that has become the norm since "the Council".

Is the stench at last becoming noticeable?

"APROPOS", A SAD FAREWELL

It is with a very heavy heart that we write that today we received in the mailbox the final issue of perhaps the finest Catholic journal produced in the English language, Apropos, edited by Scotsman Tony Fraser.  To say that the absence of this publication will hurt the cause of printed truth would be a distinct understatement.  Of the tiny handful of publications still in print that had a sensus Catholicus Fraser's Apropos was head and shoulders above the rest.

When Tony's father, the great Hamish Fraser, died in 1985 many in the Catholic world, including this writer, felt orphaned.  Hamish had been publishing his invaluable publication Approaches for over twenty years, providing English-speaking readers with the cream of European Catholic analysis and in so doing kept us informed and in a fighting spirit ("Keep on praying and punching", was one of his oft-heard endearing remarks).  Hamish tackled issues great and small with that uncanny sense of what was the most important thing to talk about at that particular moment.  He didn't merely react to events in Church and State and then write about them; he wrote about things long forgotten which he brilliantly showed were still relevant to what has happening in the here and now.  A former Communist who had a famous conversion he became so thoroughly Catholic that it was astonishing.  To read him and learn from him was to become a better Christian.  It is one of my joys in life that I had the honor to know him fairly well during the last half-dozen years of his life, even having the pleasure of hosting him in my own home on one of his American visits.   His Catholicity, his erudition, his delightful sense of humor made him more than a journalist covering the most important issues of the day; it made him our second father.

Hamish Fraser

Every ninety days a new issue of Approaches would arrive and all other matters were put on hold.  I had to read it through from cover to cover, with all the additional supplements therein.  Hamish brought us English translations of brilliant thinkers such as Jean Madiran, Arnaud deLassus and the best of Italian,Polish, indeed worldwide Catholic thought.  Insights from Geoff Lawman, Michael Davies, Fr Hugh Thwaites, B.A. Santamaria, Victor Kulanday were found in Approaches.  Catholic news from Australia, Italy, England, Japan, India, the US, Germany, Russia, Ireland and of course Scotland filled those wonderful pages.  But God took Hamish Fraser from us on the Feast of All Saints, an appropriate day in my opinion, and his publication ceased.  The void left was a terrible one.

Thankfully Hamish's son Tony took over shortly thereafter and continuing his father's sterling journalistic efforts called his publication, Apropos.  Tony did yeoman work over the next quarter century taking over the work of his father.  With each issue it grew in stature, and in a short few years was on a par with the excellence of his father's great work.  Tony continued to bring us the best of European, indeed worldwide Catholic opinion, something lacking in every other Catholic publication.  Most journals that take a serious look at the state of the Church tend to concentrate only on their own countries, the American ones being the worst offenders...offenders in the sense that they tended to concentrate only on what was happening in America, important to be sure but not the be-all and end-all of the discussion.  This aspect of both Hamish Fraser's and Tony Fraser's work was perhaps the most important.  In their publications you found opinions and evaluations you found nowhere else, thanks in large part to their indefatigable translation efforts.  If you wanted an accurate view of what worldwide Catholic opinion was, you read Apropos.

But time, the horrendous economy and the internet eventually began to take their toll and it became harder and harder for Tony to continue on.  Readers became more comfortable with instant internet news and less enamoured of careful, thoughtful analysis provided by the printed page.  While the printed page is not going to go away, because there will always be people who want to slow down and reflect upon what they are reading, too many people opted for the internet and that, combined with outrageously rising costs, sealed the doom of this small but vital publication.   We can only hope that Tony Fraser's fine mind will still contribute to the discussion of all things Catholic on his website.  If the prodding of this writer has anything to do with it, please God he will.

We can only lament the loss of something so valuable.  But while lamenting I would recommend to every Catholic, or non-Catholic, reader to write to Tony for back issues.  I have a complete collection of them and I can assure you that there is in those pages an astonishing array of exceptional articles, particularly those translated from other languages.  You will find in them an excellent resource of sound Catholic thought.

I regret that I have to be writing these words.  I had hoped that this day would never have come.  Tony Fraser's publication helped Catholics like myself keep sane and calm in a world of chaos.  The internet, important as it is, has not yet matched what was found in the work of the Frasers.  With the loss of Apropos there is now one less crucial voice represented on the printed page.  Are there any other publications we can support out there that face Catholic issues honestly and without sentimentality?  Yes, there is still Christian Order out of London which is another English language publication of high excellence, edited brilliantly by Mr Rod Pead.  Subscribe to the printed version, please.  We need to support them.  The internet has much of interest but much more of outright junk.  The guiding hand of a level-headed editor is needed to sort out the good from the bad.  It may sound hypocritical to single out for criticism the Catholic blogosphere, which is loaded with poorly-reasoned, emotional, dare I say "reactionary" writing, much of it on a childish level.  The amount of bad Catholic thinking out there is astonishing.  There are Catholic Republican blogs, there are Catholic "this-is-how-I-feel-today" blogs, there are Catholic Zionist bogs (an oxymoron if ever there was one), there are flippant blogs, Catholic Democrat blogs, everything under the sun.  Many are nasty or snotty or supercilious.  They seem, alas, to outnumber the sound and sensible ones.  This is yet another reason why we must lament the loss of printed publications like Apropos, and why we must support great ones like Mr Pead's Christian Order.

I salute Tony Fraser for what he has done.  I encourage him not to ever put down his pen.  And I thank him from the bottom of my heart.