Monday, May 4, 2009

Beauty And The Beasts


Pin The Tail On The Bigot


“Beauty is truth, truth beauty”

John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

When the Culture of Death attacks the Catholic Faith, it attacks all of it. That every spear-carrier in the cultural death squads has his assignment was recently demonstrated in – of all places -- the recent Miss USA pageant.

Precedent does not encourage us to expect much of such endeavors. In 2007, a Miss Teen South Carolina was asked why some American schoolchildren could not locate the United States on a world map. Blonde Caitlin Upton was clueless, and came unglued:

I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don't have maps, and, uh, I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq everywhere like, such as and I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., er, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our children.

But they’re not all ditzes. In 2009 Miss California, Carrie Prejean was on track to win Miss USA until a judge noticed that she attended San Diego Christian College. So he asked her, ““Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit. Why or why not?”
Prejean did not fall prey to the South Carolina syndrome. Her answer was direct: “In my family, I think that … a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised and that’s how I think it should be -- between a man and a woman.”

Little did Miss Prejean know that her questioner was a “celebrity blogger.” In California that apparently means flaming homosexual -- in this case a Mr. Perez Hilton. And Hilton wasn’t Carrie’s only problem on the five-judge panel. “Holly Madison” is a Playboy bunny. Another judge, Alicia Jacobs, later admitted that Prejean would have won if she hadn’t forgotten that “at least two people on the judges panel are openly gay. Another judge has a sister in a gay marriage. Her very own state pageant director, Keith Lewis is an openly gay man.”

Phew! Well, Mr. Hilton later observed that Prejean’s answer had “offended millions of Americans,” so naturally MSNBC and CNN immediately invited him to pontificate further on her bigotry. He obliged, calling her a “dumb b***,” asserting that she had “half a brain,” and said he “would have stormed onto the stage and ripped off her tiara if she had won.” He topped off assorted vulgarities with this: “I don’t want her talking about Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, because that's offensive.”

After “celebrity” Perez’s performance, the “gay rights” crowd cheered him as a hero. Which brings to mind a few timely truths. First, Satan hates truth and beauty. Perez’s foul-mouthed “justifications” are reminiscent of the vile epithets channeled by the demon in The Exorcist through the possessed Regan MacNeil. Secondly, homosexuals are unusually violent in their relationships, according to medical personnel in gay communities; they are also petty and vindictive. This is not a “homophobic” observation, but a clinical acknowledgement of reality that Catholics (including bishops, alas) need to understand when confronting the “gay rights” crowd. One must bear in mind that, like other intrinsic evils that the bishops address with more frequency, sodomy has profound consequences. Third, “gays” are rank cowards. Perez later insisted that “Yes, I do expect Miss USA to be politically correct.” But Miss Prejean sees it differently. She told the Today show that “it's not about being politically correct; for me it was being biblically correct.”

Miss Prejean’s sentences more than parse. She is just the kind of woman that homosexuals hate: smart, beautiful, talented, grounded, and Christian. Perez’s routine is just the latest national outburst of gay cowardice. Miss Prejean, on the other hand, stood her ground. “This happened for a reason,” she said after the contest. “By having to answer that question in front of a national audience, God was testing my character and faith. I'm glad I stayed true to myself.”

Another Looming Threat Awaits The Bishops

As a generation of pro-abortion politicians who were raised Catholic approach old age, the prospect of death – memento mori! – rears its ugly head. And therewith arises a question that vexes even the most prudent prelate: where do we bury these people?

This is not a merely hypothetical question. Back when Joe Biden was running for president in 1988, he was lifting weights in the Senate gym and thought he had pulled a muscle. Fortuitously, his doctor discovered that Biden had suffered a near-fatal injury and was able to save him in the nick of time. Ditto Teddy Kennedy, who escaped an untimely death not once but twice – first, when Indiana Senator Birch Bayh pulled him from a fatal plane wreck in the wilds of Alaska in 1964, and then five years later, when Kennedy managed to free himself from a sinking automobile and make it safely ashore after a tragic accident in Massachusetts.

So the grim reaper haunts us all – and, when the roll is finally called up yonder for all the Catholic pro-aborts, what will the bishops do to -- shall we say -- address the question of the disposition of their remains?

Canon Law is clear on the subject: “Church funeral rites are to be denied to the following, unless they have given some sign of repentance … Apostates, heretics schismatics … [and] Other manifest sinners to whom a church funeral could not be granted without public scandal to the faithful.” [1184.1, .3].

On the one hand, public supporters of the “intrinsic evil” of abortion [USCCB, Faithful Citizenship, 2007] are certainly “manifest sinners to whom a church funeral could not be granted without public scandal to the faithful.”(Please note that the 1983 Code of Canon Law prudently adds the helpful phrase, “to the faithful” in order to distinguish Catholics who embrace the Magisterium from the editorial board of the New York Times, or the panel of judges at the Miss USA contest).

On the other hand, the death of some of these political luminaries might occasion a funeral so grandiose that bishops will be fighting for seats in the bleachers.

What to do? Again, we turn to Canon Law. “If any doubt occurs, the local ordinary is to be consulted and his judgment followed.” [1184.2].

Well, I think we’d all agree that that makes it perfectly clear.

Not Exactly Henry At Canossa

Notre Dame’s spokesman admits that the university owns its own jet, but assures me that University president John Jenkins, C.S.C., did not use it to fly to Washington on April 21 to meet with Obama at the White House. Rather, Fr. Jenkins was in town for a “development” meeting. However, other developments are not so innocuous. Bishop John M. D’Arcy, in whose Indiana diocese Notre Dame is located, has written a stern letter admonishing Father Jenkins to correct the errors which Fr. Jenkins distributed to the public regarding his justification for the invitation of Obama to the university’s commencement exercises. Moreover, the good bishop chides Fr. Jenkins for a “serious mistake” – specifically, in extending the invitation, Jenkins “fail[ed] to consult the local bishop who, whatever his unworthiness, is the teacher and law-giver in the diocese.”

4 comments:

James Redford said...

Hi, Chris. I'll here assume for the sake of discussion that this entry is your writings, and not a repost of something someone else had written. If that assumption is false, then feel free to correct me.

Regarding your comment that "'gays' are rank cowards": actually, it's been my experience that the bravest people I've ever met were "gays": specifically, male-to-female transgendered people.

It's been my observation in life that the most cowardly of people are usually those who mass-society regards as the bravest, i.e., soldiers. Mass-society regards them as the bravest of souls because they're "willing" to sacrifice their very lives in the act of war. But as God unambiguously teaches us--via the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ--those who engage in strife against another are rebuking their claim to eternal life.

Yes, divine forgiveness exists, and I certainly hope that many of those soldiers asked Jesus for forgiveness in their last dying moments. But their warring acts themselves unmistakably damned them, according to the doctrine of God. It's only divine grace that could overcome their self-inflicted damnation.

So we see that, according to the doctrine preached by Jesus Christ, the most cowardly of people are those who society regards as the bravest. As these people--many of whom dare call themselves Christian--are rebuking the clear teachings of the Lord of all existence. They've been worked up into such a scared frenzy by the government that they disregard Jesus Christ's clear teachings on these matters. And so they go off to war, and thereby damn themselves.

Why do they do so? How could they do such a thing? The reason is because they're cowards. They're the ultimate coward: someone who is so scared, or so beaten into submission, that they'll forgo their claim to eternal life in order to please their fellow men. No greater coward than that exists: someone who rebukes their eternal life in order to conform to society. In order to not be called out; in order to not be a sore thumb; in order to please their neighbors. Further, in order to not be tortured (since the consequences of declining to be a war-making servant of the state can often be quite severe, even in our modern society).

Their heads are so puffed up by the government's propaganda that they think that they are helping to save the world--or their country, as the case may be. So propagandized are they that they don't seriously consider their own souls. This is the thing to do; society is all for it; now go for it. Don't stop to think, just do it. Do it.

They forgo their own souls in order to conform to society's expectations. They damn themselves because they're too damn scared to stick up for themselves. Indeed, they have no knowledge of what it means to stick up for oneself and stand one's ground, as that is how they were raised. So they go along with the crowd because, hey, that's what the crowd is doing.

They're rank cowards in the ultimate sense: they're too scared to fight for their own souls. They're too scared to stick up for themselves, and proclaim their God-given liberty.

Instead, they become slaves to war. They become slaves to Satan. All because they were too afraid to do the right thing: to go against the grain; to go against society.

James Redford said...

Now contrast that deplorable state with that of sissies, i.e., obviously feminine males. They're the butt of society's scorn: a target that everyone can feel comfortable in making fun of. Yet what is their crime? To answer that question: absolutely nothing.

They're guilty of the same crime that our Lord Jesus is guitly of: being innocent, yet standing out.

They stand out as something different, and so society hates them.

I agree with you that Satan hates truth and beauty. And society is now being inducted into a suicidal position. Satan seeks to destroy existence itself.

I will here note that all the major advancements of the so-called "gay society" have been brought about by the sissies: it was the drag queens and trannies who first faught back during the Stonewall riots. It was the males in high heels who had the balls to take on the government's head-crackers.

All the original language within the gay community is driven by the queens. Popular sayings such as "You go, girl!," "Miss thang," "Oh, no you didn't" are the product of the queens. Such sayings may be inane, but it took balls to formulate them. That is, it took someone who didn't give a flip about what people think to create such sayings.

And when I say they "didn't give a flip," I mean they actually put their lives on the line. They willingly laid their lives down in order to see a brighter future. It was the trannies who did this, yet the "gay community" gets the benefits. And the "gay community" largely rejects the sissies who created their movement, as they regard feminine males as being a plight upon them--something to be rejected.

So what is at work here? Is Christ's message at work? Or are the values of this world ar work?

The answer is that Christ has always shown us the way: "Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 7:12).

This ultimate social ethic which Jesus commanded everyone to follow is commonly known as the Golden Rule. An equivalent formulation of this is love your neighbor as yourself (see Matthew 19:19; 22:36-40; Mark 12:28-34; Luke 10:25-28). Another equivalent formulation of this is Jesus’s Commandment that we love one another as He has loved us (see John 15:12,17; 13:15,34,35; 1 John 3:11,12,23; 4:11,20,21). Everything that Jesus ever commanded people to do can be logically reduced back to this one principle.

It is as Paul said: within what appears to be the greatest weakness is contained the ultimate power. God is at his strongest when we, as humans, make ourselves weak. What society regards as weak and shameful, God regards as the greatest and most glorious.

Chris said...

"God is at his strongest when we, as humans, make ourselves weak."

Well, this is very interesting theology. I think it's when we fully reduce our ego that we maximize the power of God within us, allowing Him to strengthen us through His Sanctifying Grace.

However, when we flaunt our ego, flout God's Law, and proudly assert our right to sin, it doesn't make us any stronger. It just makes us sinful, and, as such, outside the reach of Sanctifying Grace until we repent, express a firm purpose of amendment, and go to Confession.

James Redford said...

Chris, you are absolutely correct in your reply. That is a statement that God can endorse fully.

But do know that the only sin that has ever existed is *not* doing unto others as you would have others do unto you (Matthew 7:12; Luke 6:31). This ultimate social ethic which Jesus commanded everyone to follow is commonly known as the Golden Rule. An equivalent formulation of this is love your neighbor as yourself (see Matthew 19:19; 22:36-40; Mark 12:28-34; Luke 10:25-28). Another equivalent formulation of this is Jesus’s Commandment that we love one another as He has loved us (see John 15:12,17; 13:15,34,35; 1 John 3:11,12,23; 4:11,20,21). Everything that Jesus ever commanded people to do can be logically reduced back to this one principle.

Regarding my previous comments on the ultimate weakness containing the ultimate power, consider the Earthly fate of the true lord of all that exists. He didn't combat against the inculcated soldiers who whipped Him and who guided Him to the cross. He was nailed upon the cross naked, in order to demonstrate the power of the state by embarrassing its victims in their execution. He might as well have been as one of the many thousands of our males put into the current U.S. government prisons that are homosexually anally gang-raped without condoms or efficacious lubrication and exist as sex-slaves every day during their stay, not a few of them receiving lethal sexually-transmitted diseases in the process.

Most rape victims in the U.S. are not females (even with all ages combined), but are grown men, due to the jail and prison system in the U.S. Due to this U.S. system, almost three times the number of female rape victims in the U.S. are males. For those figures, see Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights by Nadine Strossen, Professor of Law at New York Law School and President of the ACLU (New York University Press, 2000), and Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women by Christina Hoff-Sommers, Ph.D. (Simon & Schuster, 1995).

Interestingly, the U.S. has the highest prisoner population of any country in the entire world. This is both in terms of absolute numbers, as well as on a per capita basis. (And I have reams of official statistics I can provide on this if anyone should challenge me.) So much for the "Land of the free."

But this all raises the question of why Paul preached that within weakness is contained the ultimate power (2 Corinthians 12:10; 13:4).

The reason is because we, as humans, don't actually have control over our lives--although some delusional souls like to pretend otherwise. We can be dragged off the streets and thrown into a jail-cell where we can have the daylights raped out of us. And that over and over again, for many years on end. And that most especially here in the good ole U.S. of A.--that great beast.

So our value and self-worth is not to be found in this world, since we do not have control over what happens to us in this world. Jesus Christ showed us that: He demonstrated to us that what this world regards as the most weak, the most cowardly (since Jesus did not fight back, which this world considers to be the ultimate cowardice), the most debased, most degraded, the most unworthy, are what God considers the most glorious.