Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Besides, it's only bad when priests do it

Yet another scandal of men shagging post-pubescent boys, this one involving the producers of the BBC's "Dr. Who" television show. The comments in the Daily Mail's account of it are mostly supportive of the perpetrators. This one will blow over soon, I suspect; the miscreants are neither Catholic priests nor conservatives so the story has no legs in today's media.

The estimable Walter Russell Meade at the American Interest does some plum crazy speculating what may be the real reason behind these seemingly never-ending scandals, positing ideas that no serious modern intellectual wound entertain for a fleeting minute.
The more we hear about what was going on in the era of sexual liberation, the more the Catholic scandals look like a symptom of the times rather than a special pathology of the Church. The BBC was apparently a hotbed of abuse for underage female and male fans, and revelations about abuse in schools, the Boy Scouts, Jewish organizations and other institutions in which adults regularly interact with youth keep coming to light.
It’s almost enough to make a person think that when a society casts sexual restraint and self control to the winds, the young and the weak become victims of a culture of exploitation and gratification. It’s almost enough to make someone wonder if unbridled and socially glorified libertinism rather than celibacy is the leading cause of the sexual exploitation of minors.

Besides, it's only bad when priests do it

Yet another scandal of men shagging post-pubescent boys, this one involving the producers of the BBC's "Dr. Who" television show. The comments in the Daily Mail's account of it are mostly supportive of the perpetrators. This one will blow over soon, I suspect; the miscreants are neither Catholic priests nor conservatives so the story has no legs in today's media.

The estimable Walter Russell Meade at the American Interest does some plum crazy speculating what may be the real reason behind these seemingly never-ending scandals, positing ideas that no serious modern intellectual wound entertain for a fleeting minute.
The more we hear about what was going on in the era of sexual liberation, the more the Catholic scandals look like a symptom of the times rather than a special pathology of the Church. The BBC was apparently a hotbed of abuse for underage female and male fans, and revelations about abuse in schools, the Boy Scouts, Jewish organizations and other institutions in which adults regularly interact with youth keep coming to light.
It’s almost enough to make a person think that when a society casts sexual restraint and self control to the winds, the young and the weak become victims of a culture of exploitation and gratification. It’s almost enough to make someone wonder if unbridled and socially glorified libertinism rather than celibacy is the leading cause of the sexual exploitation of minors.

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Why won't this man just go away?

Cardinal Mahony bravely mocks the previous pope, who no longer has power over him.



That's rich (in two senses) coming from someone who spent $250 million to build the ugliest church in Christendom.


Instead of sniping at Benedict XVI why isn't His Eminence giving copious and continual thanks to almighty God he isn't tweeting from a jail cell--and shutting the hell up the rest of the time? The man is a disgrace.


Why won't this man just go away?

Cardinal Mahony bravely mocks the previous pope, who no longer has power over him.



That's rich (in two senses) coming from someone who spent $250 million to build the ugliest church in Christendom.


Instead of sniping at Benedict XVI why isn't His Eminence giving copious and continual thanks to almighty God he isn't tweeting from a jail cell--and shutting the hell up the rest of the time? The man is a disgrace.


Tuesday, March 12, 2013

The smoke of Satan

Father Zuhlsdorf provides the definitive answer to those wondering how the black smoke at papal enclaves is produced.


The smoke of Satan

Father Zuhlsdorf provides the definitive answer to those wondering how the black smoke at papal enclaves is produced.


Monday, March 11, 2013

Fun and Games

To while away the time while the papal conclave works on discerning whom God has chosen to be our next pope, you might want to play the swell new game over at the CatholicVote.org website called the Pope Name Predictor. If you guess right, you could win an iPad!

I chose Hadrian the Seventh. I don't think I'm going to win.


Fun and Games

To while away the time while the papal conclave works on discerning whom God has chosen to be our next pope, you might want to play the swell new game over at the CatholicVote.org website called the Pope Name Predictor. If you guess right, you could win an iPad!

I chose Hadrian the Seventh. I don't think I'm going to win.


Friday, March 08, 2013

You reach a point where you have to put your foot down

Diane Feinstein, Democrat Senator from the State of California, points out an unintended consequence of the domestic use of military drones, one too gruesome to even contemplate and for which all decent souls in our nation will surely demand an immediate remedy.
Feinstein said that without regulation, it could be quite possible someday to see drones “hovering over the homes of Hollywood luminaries, violating [their] privacy [emphasis added]."She called it a “work in progress” and said that the Intelligence Committee is trying to draft legislation surrounding the weapon.
Oh, the horror.

H/t to Michael J. Russell, for this and the one below.

You reach a point where you have to put your foot down

Diane Feinstein, Democrat Senator from the State of California, points out an unintended consequence of the domestic use of military drones, one too gruesome to even contemplate and for which all decent souls in our nation will surely demand an immediate remedy.
Feinstein said that without regulation, it could be quite possible someday to see drones “hovering over the homes of Hollywood luminaries, violating [their] privacy [emphasis added]."She called it a “work in progress” and said that the Intelligence Committee is trying to draft legislation surrounding the weapon.
Oh, the horror.

H/t to Michael J. Russell, for this and the one below.

That about wraps it up for the Da Vinci Code

THE VATICAN first dipped its toes in the digital ocean when it joined Twitter and soon it will be taking the plunge by providing the content of its entire library online.
More than 40 million pages of Vatican records will be preserved in digital format, including 80,000 historic manuscripts and 8,900 rare "incunabula", early form books published prior to 1501.
Other documents that will be made available online include: The Sifra, a Hebrew manuscript written between the end of the 9th Century and the middle of the 10th, one of the oldest Hebrew codes in existence. Greek testimonies of the works of Homer, Sophocles, Plato and Hippocrates will also be digitised along with the famous incunabulum of Pius II's De Europa, printed by Albrecht Kunne in Memmingen in around 1491. The Vatican will also be digitising a document known as "The Code-B" which is one of the oldest existing manuscripts of the Greek Bible which is believed to have been written in the 4th Century.


Alas even silver bullets and stakes through heart never rid the world of conspiricists, but this part especially should make life a tad more diffy for them.

So it's understandable that this is kind of a big deal and a huge step forward for The Vatican.

Timothy Janz, scriptor gracius for The Vatican said in a documentary last year that people often incorrectly think the Vatican library is where secrets are stored.

"The point of the library was the exact opposite," he said. "It was to make information accessible."


On the other hand, having the entire Vatican archive at their disposal will simply provide conspiricists with more food for fervid thought. It also should make it easier to refute them, though.

That about wraps it up for the Da Vinci Code

THE VATICAN first dipped its toes in the digital ocean when it joined Twitter and soon it will be taking the plunge by providing the content of its entire library online.
More than 40 million pages of Vatican records will be preserved in digital format, including 80,000 historic manuscripts and 8,900 rare "incunabula", early form books published prior to 1501.
Other documents that will be made available online include: The Sifra, a Hebrew manuscript written between the end of the 9th Century and the middle of the 10th, one of the oldest Hebrew codes in existence. Greek testimonies of the works of Homer, Sophocles, Plato and Hippocrates will also be digitised along with the famous incunabulum of Pius II's De Europa, printed by Albrecht Kunne in Memmingen in around 1491. The Vatican will also be digitising a document known as "The Code-B" which is one of the oldest existing manuscripts of the Greek Bible which is believed to have been written in the 4th Century.


Alas even silver bullets and stakes through heart never rid the world of conspiricists, but this part especially should make life a tad more diffy for them.

So it's understandable that this is kind of a big deal and a huge step forward for The Vatican.

Timothy Janz, scriptor gracius for The Vatican said in a documentary last year that people often incorrectly think the Vatican library is where secrets are stored.

"The point of the library was the exact opposite," he said. "It was to make information accessible."


On the other hand, having the entire Vatican archive at their disposal will simply provide conspiricists with more food for fervid thought. It also should make it easier to refute them, though.