Found elsewhere on the Curt Jester's blog, I recommend checking out this post about some recent comments made by "Father" Richard McBrien about high-profile converts to the Church. I'm hesitant to call this man "Father" because he honestly never acts like one. In fact, I find his comments very inflammatory, and not in a good way.

And is it just me or does McBrien not even look like a priest at all? He has the face of a man stuck in the '60s with the attire of a Protestant televangelist.

No more rumors. The Vatican has confirmed that His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI has completed the motu proprio, which will allow all priests to say the Tridentine Latin Mass without permission from their bishops. Father Tim Finigan from the blog Hermeneutic of Continuity writes:

The Vatican Press Office has issued a communiqué on yesterday's meeting between the Pope and various Bishops as reported on Kath.Net and followed up on Fr Z's blog, here and lots of other places. But the announcement is also an official confirmation that the Motu Proprio will be published in a few days once it has been sent to the Bishops round the world with an indication of its subsequent coming into force. ("entrata in vigore" - I like the sound of that.)

And of course, the secular media is eating it all up. I like the Curt Jester's entry for "Build Your Own Motu Proprio Story". Sounds like the NYTimes took notes from him.

• 
  

• Some people feel nostalgic for the Latin Mass.
• In the Latin Mass the priest faces away from the congregation and prays, sometimes in a whisper, in Latin, a language unfamiliar to most of the world’s one billion Roman Catholics. Unlike in the new Mass which is celebrated in the vernacular with the priests facing their congregations.
• Because two generations of American Catholics are accustomed to hearing the Mass celebrated in English, it's unlikely most will want to switch to a liturgy that is longer, more formal and celebrated in a language they don't understand.
• Pope Benedict is taking the church back to before Vatican II and removing the reforms of the Council. Liberal, reform-minded Catholics are concerned about these rollbacks to progress made.
• Some prayer for the Tridentine liturgy are offensive to Jews.
• The Rev. said .
• The groundbreaking Second Vatican Council opened the door to worship in the local vernacular.
• The Latin Mass involves a diminished role for women as altar servers and eliminates progress made in women's equality since Vatican II.
• These changes will only aggravate declining Mass attendance by introducing a liturgy not relevant to the times.
• Insert comment by former America editor Thomas Reese now a fellow at Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. (Make sure you mention he was forced out of the editorship by Pope Benedict.) If you can't get in touch with Thomas Reese for a direct quote just mention something about clash of cultures between conservative priests and liberal congregations.
• Pope Benedict has been receiving resistance from the Bishops in France, England, and Wales who worry about the change dividing the church.
• But liberals are deeply wary because a number of the rite's adherents are associated with ultra conservative groups that oppose the radical reforms ushered in by the Council.
• The proponents of the old Latin mass are said to number no more than 2 percent of Catholics, and polls show that the majority of Catholics embrace the reforms of Vatican II. There seems to be no demand for it.
• Insert a comment from a proponent of the Tridentine Rite at the bottom of your piece.

Just mix and match and you will have a story ready to go to press in minutes. If you need some more fluff you can always mention once again how no one knows Latin anymore. You can always do a man in the street interview outside of a Catholic Church after Mass. Though contrary to what you might think don't ask younger Catholics their opinion on this, look for someone with gray hair to get a good quote on why this change is bad.

Well, folks, I think I'm checking back in to life now. Maybe. I've spent the last couple weeks just trying to enjoy everyday life without thinking too hard.

Random thought for today: I spent a $2 bill today for a soda. I was worried that the cashier wouldn't accept it. I heard from a friend that he tried to spend a $2 bill, but the cashier didn't believe $2 bills were real, and called the manager, who just took it because they thought it was counterfeit. According to Wikipedia, the $2 bill isn't really that rare.

"The most significant evidence of the $2 bill's reawakening would be that, in 2005 alone, 61 million $2 bills were printed by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing. This is more than twice the number of $2 bills that were printed between 1990 and 2001."

Ah, seems like I'm back to normal, thinking about something too hard.

This article from Psychology Today is great. Shannon once told me that "people don't fully mature until they're 25", which I find to be totally ridiculous. I've always been of the opinion that high school and college perpetuates the stage of adolescence. According to this psychologist, the stage of adolescence isn't just being perpetuated: it was totally invented.

Trashing Teens
Psychologist Robert Epstein argues in a provocative book, "The Case Against Adolescence," that teens are far more competent than we assume, and most of their problems stem from restrictions placed on them.

By:Hara Estroff Marano

Psychologist Robert Epstein spoke to Psychology Today's Hara Estroff Marano about the legal and emotional constraints on American youth.

HEM: Why do you believe that adolescence is an artificial extension of childhood?

RE: In every mammalian species, immediately upon reaching puberty, animals function as adults, often having offspring. We call our offspring "children" well past puberty. The trend started a hundred years ago and now extends childhood well into the 20s. The age at which Americans reach adulthood is increasing—30 is the new 20—and most Americans now believe a person isn't an adult until age 26.

The whole culture collaborates in artificially extending childhood, primarily through the school system and restrictions on labor. The two systems evolved together in the late 19th-century; the advocates of compulsory-education laws also pushed for child-labor laws, restricting the ways young people could work, in part to protect them from the abuses of the new factories. The juvenile justice system came into being at the same time. All of these systems isolate teens from adults, often in problematic ways.

Our current education system was created in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and was modeled after the new factories of the industrial revolution. Public schools, set up to supply the factories with a skilled labor force, crammed education into a relatively small number of years. We have tried to pack more and more in while extending schooling up to age 24 or 25, for some segments of the population. In general, such an approach still reflects factory thinking—get your education now and get it efficiently, in classrooms in lockstep fashion. Unfortunately, most people learn in those classrooms to hate education for the rest of their lives.

The factory system doesn't work in the modern world, because two years after graduation, whatever you learned is out of date. We need education spread over a lifetime, not jammed into the early years—except for such basics as reading, writing, and perhaps citizenship. Past puberty, education needs to be combined in interesting and creative ways with work. The factory school system no longer makes sense.

What are some likely consequences of extending one's childhood?

Imagine what it would feel like—or think back to what it felt like—when your body and mind are telling you you're an adult while the adults around you keep insisting you're a child. This infantilization makes many young people angry or depressed, with their distress carrying over into their families and contributing to our high divorce rate. It's hard to keep a marriage together when there is constant conflict with teens.

We have completely isolated young people from adults and created a peer culture. We stick them in school and keep them from working in any meaningful way, and if they do something wrong we put them in a pen with other "children." In most nonindustrialized societies, young people are integrated into adult society as soon as they are capable, and there is no sign of teen turmoil. Many cultures do not even have a term for adolescence. But we not only created this stage of life: We declared it inevitable. In 1904, American psychologist G. Stanley Hall said it was programmed by evolution. He was wrong.

How is adolescent behavior shaped by societal strictures?

One effect is the creation of a new segment of society just waiting to consume, especially if given money to spend. There are now massive industries—music, clothing, makeup—that revolve around this artificial segment of society and keep it going, with teens spending upward of $200 billion a year almost entirely on trivia.

Ironically, because minors have only limited property rights, they don't have complete control over what they have bought. Think how bizarre that is. If you, as an adult, spend money and bring home a toy, it's your toy and no one can take it away from you. But with a 14-year-old, it's not really his or her toy. Young people can't own things, can't sign contracts, and they can't do anything meaningful without parental permission—permission that can be withdrawn at any time. They can't marry, can't have sex, can't legally drink. The list goes on. They are restricted and infantilized to an extraordinary extent.

In recent surveys I've found that American teens are subjected to more than 10 times as many restrictions as mainstream adults, twice as many restrictions as active-duty U.S. Marines, and even twice as many as incarcerated felons. Psychologist Diane Dumas and I also found a correlation between infantilization and psychological dysfunction. The more young people are infantilized, the more psychopathology they show.

What's more, since 1960, restrictions on teens have been accelerating. Young people are restricted in ways no adult would be—for example, in some states they are prohibited from entering tanning salons or getting tattoos.

You believe in the inherent competence of teens. What's your evidence?

Dumas and I worked out what makes an adult an adult. We came up with 14 areas of competency—such as interpersonal skills, handling responsibility, leadership—and administered tests to adults and teens in several cities around the country. We found that teens were as competent or nearly as competent as adults in all 14 areas. But when adults estimate how teens will score, their estimates are dramatically below what the teens actually score.

Other long-standing data show that teens are at least as competent as adults. IQ is a quotient that indicates where you stand relative to other people your age; that stays stable. But raw scores of intelligence peak around age 14-15 and shrink thereafter. Scores on virtually all tests of memory peak between ages 13 and 15. Perceptual abilities all peak at that age. Brain size peaks at 14. Incidental memory—what you remember by accident, and not due to mnemonics—is remarkably good in early to mid teens and practically nonexistent by the '50s and '60s.

If teens are so competent, why do they not show it?

What teens do is a small fraction of what they are capable of doing. If you mistreat or restrict them, performance suffers and is extremely misleading. The teens put before us as examples by, say, the music industry tend to be highly incompetent. Teens encourage each other to perform incompetently. One of the anthems of modern pop, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana, is all about how we need to behave like we're stupid.

Teens in America are in touch with their peers on average 65 hours a week, compared to about four hours a week in preindustrial cultures. In this country, teens learn virtually everything they know from other teens, who are in turn highly influenced by certain aggressive industries. This makes no sense. Teens should be learning from the people they are about to become. When young people exit the education system and are dumped into the real world, which is not the world of Britney Spears, they have no idea what's going on and have to spend considerable time figuring it out.

There are at least 20 million young people between 13 and 17, and if they are as competent as I think they are, we are just throwing them away.

Do you believe that young people are capable of maintaining long-term relationships and capable of moral reasoning?

Everyone who has looked at the issue has found that teens can experience the love that adults experience. The only difference is that they change partners more, because they are warehoused together, told it's puppy love and not real, and are unable to marry without permission. The assumption is they are not capable. But many distinguished couples today—Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, George and Barbara Bush—married young and have very successful long-term relationships.

According to census data, the divorce rate of males marrying in their teens is lower than that of males marrying in their 20s. Overall the divorce rate of people marrying in their teens is a little higher. Does that mean we should prohibit them from marrying? That's absurd. We should aim to reverse that, telling young people the truth: that they are capable of creating long-term stable relationships. They might fail—but adults do every day, too.

The "friends with benefits" phenomenon is a by-product of isolating adolescents, warehousing them together, and delivering messages that they are incapable of long-term relationships. Obviously they have strong sexual urges and act on them in ways that are irresponsible. We can change that by letting them know they are capable of having more than a hookup.

Studies show that we reach the highest levels of moral reasoning while we're still in our teens. Those capabilities parallel higher-order cognitive reasoning abilities, which peak fairly early. Across the board, teens are far more capable than we think they are.

What's the worst part of the current way we treat teens?

The adversarial relationship between parents and offspring is terrible; it hurts both parents and young people. It tears some people to shreds; they don't understand why it is happening and can't get out of it. They don't realize they are caught in a machine that's driving them apart from their offspring—and it's unnecessary.

What can be done?

I believe that young people should have more options—the option to work, marry, own property, sign contracts, start businesses, make decisions about health care and abortions, live on their own—every right, privilege, or responsibility an adult has. I advocate a competency-based system that focuses on the abilities of the individual. For some it will mean more time in school combined with work, for others it will mean that at age 13 or 15 they can set up an Internet business. Others will enter the workforce and become some sort of apprentice. The exploitative factories are long gone; competent young people deserve the chance to compete where it counts, and many will surprise us.

It's a simple matter to develop competency tests to determine what rights a young person should be given, just as we now have competency tests for driving. When you offer significant rights for passing such a test, it's highly motivating; people who can't pass a high-school history test will never give up trying to pass the written test at the DMV, and they'll virtually always succeed. We need to offer a variety of tests, including a comprehensive test to allow someone to become emancipated without the need for court action. When we dangle significant rewards in front of our young people—including the right to be treated like an adult—many will set aside the trivia of teen culture and work hard to join the adult world.

Are you saying that teens should have more freedom?

No, they already have too much freedom—they are free to spend, to be disrespectful, to stay out all night, to have sex and take drugs. But they're not free to join the adult world, and that's what needs to change.

Unfortunately, the current systems are so entrenched that parents can do little to counter infantilization. No one parent can confer property rights, even though they would be highly motivating. Too often, giving children more responsibility translates into giving them household chores, which just causes more tension and conflict. We have to think beyond chores to meaningful responsibility—responsibility tied to significant rights.

With a competency-based system in place, our focus will start to change. We'll become more conscious of the remarkable things teens can do rather than on culture-driven misbehavior. With luck, we might even be able to abolish adolescence.

The Adolescent Squeeze

Before 1850, laws restricting the behavior of teens were few and far between. Compulsory education laws evolved in tandem with laws restricting labor by young people. Beginning in 1960, the number of laws infantilizing adolescents accelerated dramatically. You may have had a paper route when you were 12, but your children can't.

1600s

• 1641 Massachusetts law prohibits people under 16 from "smiting" their parents

1800s

• 1836 Massachusetts passes first law requiring minimal schooling for people under 15 working in factories
• 1848 Pennsylvania sets 12 as minimum work age for some jobs
• 1852 Massachusetts passes first universal compulsory education law in U.S., requires three months of schooling for all young people ages 8-14
• 1880s Some states pass laws restricting various behaviors by young people: smoking, singing on the streets, prostitution, "incorrigible" behavior
• 1881 American Federation of Labor calls on states to ban people under 14 from working
• 1898 World's first juvenile court established in Illinois—constitutional rights of minors effectively taken away

1900s

• 1903 Illinois requires school attendance and restricts youth labor
• 1918 All states have compulsory education laws in place
• 1933 First federal law restricting drinking by young people
• 1936 & 1938 First successful federal laws restricting labor by young people, establishing 16 and 18 as minimum ages for work; still in effect
• 1940 Most states have laws in place restricting driving by people under 16
• 1968 Supreme Court upholds states' right to prohibit sale of obscene materials to minors
• 1968 Movie rating system established to restrict young people from certain films
• 1970s Supreme Court upholds laws restricting young women's right to abortion
• 1970s Dramatic increase in involuntary electroshock therapy (ECT) of teens
• 1980s Many cities and states pass laws restricting teens' access to arcades and other places of amusement; Supreme Court upholds such laws in 1989
• 1980s Courts uphold states' right to prohibit sale of lottery tickets to minors
• 1980 to 1998 Rate of involuntary commitment of minors to mental institutions increases 300-400 percent
• 1984 First national law effectively raising drinking age to 21
• 1988 Supreme Court denies freedom of press to school newspapers
• 1989 Missouri court upholds schools' right to prohibit dancing
• 1989 Court rules school in Florida can ban salacious works by Chaucer and Aristophanes
• 1990s Curfew laws for young people sweep cities and states
• 1990s Dramatic increase in use of security systems in schools
• 1992 Federal law prohibits sale of tobacco products to minors
• 1997 New federal law makes easier involuntary commitment of teens

2000s

• 2000+ New laws restricting minors' rights to get tattoos, piercings, and to enter tanning salons spread through U.S.
• 2000+ Tougher driving laws sweeping through states: full driving rights obtained gradually over a period of years
• 2000+ Dramatic increase in zero-tolerance laws in schools, resulting in suspensions or dismissals for throwing spitballs, making gun gestures with hand, etc.
• 2000+ New procedures and laws making it easier to prosecute minors as adults

Currently spreading nationwide:

• New rules prohibiting cell phones in schools or use of cell phones by minors while driving
• Libraries and schools block access to Internet material by minors
• New dress code rules in schools
• New rules restricting wearing of potentially offensive clothing or accessories in schools
• New laws prohibiting teens from attending parties where alcohol is served (even if they're not drinking)
• New laws restricting teens' access to shopping malls
• Tracking devices routinely installed in cell phones and cars of teens
• New availability of home drug tests for teens
• New laws prohibiting minors from driving with any alcohol in bloodstream (zero-tolerance)
• Proposals for longer school days, longer school year, and addition of grades 13 and 14 to school curriculum under discussion

A must-read editorial on liberals and excommunication from the Wall Street Journal: A Liberal Mix of Religion and Politics. It relates a story about how, although today's liberals condemn the Church's power of excommunication as "undemocratic" or even "political extortion" and cite separation of church and state, the liberals of yesterday praised the same Church for excommunicating conservatives who opposed the Church's plan of de-segregating Catholic schools during the 1960's.

A Liberal Mix of Religion and Politics
When Catholic politicians face excommunication.

BY DIMITRI CAVALLI
Friday, June 8, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

In a recent issue of the Rhode Island Catholic, a diocesan newspaper, Bishop Thomas Tobin condemned Rudy Giuliani's position on abortion: "As Catholics, we are called, indeed required, to be pro-life, to cherish and protect human life as a precious gift of God from the moment of conception until the time of natural death. As a leader, as a public official, Rudy Giuliani has a special obligation in that regard."

The issue of how the Catholic hierarchy in the U.S. should deal with the problem of pro-choice Catholic politicians came up last during the 2004 presidential election. Some bishops warned Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, that he should not take Communion in their dioceses because of his support for legalized abortion.

But this problem has been discussed for decades. Most bishops have resisted calls to excommunicate such politicians or even to impose lesser sanctions, including denying them Communion. The very idea of these actions appalls most liberals, both inside and outside the Church. They consider ecclesiastical punishment undemocratic, an attack on personal conscience and a violation of the separation of church and state. "I believe the church has a role in guiding parishioners and people in public life, but I don't believe the Church should be using the sacrament of Communion as a political weapon," Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D., Conn.), a pro-choice Catholic, recently told the Connecticut Post. There was a time, however, when most liberals applauded the bishops for disciplining Catholics, including politicians, who opposed the Church's teachings.

In March 1962, Archbishop Joseph Rummel of New Orleans announced that all Catholic schools in the archdiocese would be integrated starting that fall. At the time, eight years after Brown v. Board of Education, public and private schools throughout Louisiana were segregated. Rummel, who condemned racial segregation as a sin in 1956, found that his plan met organized resistance among Catholic parents. The opposition was led by Leander Perez, the president of the Plaquemines Parish council and one of the most powerful political bosses in the state; Jackson Ricau, the executive director of the South Louisiana Citizens Council, which opposed all integration efforts; and B.J. "Una" Gaillot, the president of Save Our Nation, an organization that asserted that the Bible mandated racial segregation.

On March 31, 1962, the archbishop sent letters to Messrs. Perez and Ricau and Mrs. Gaillot warning that if they continued to oppose his efforts "through word or deed," he would excommunicate them. Mrs. Gaillot made the ailing 85-year-old prelate's letter public. On April 16, Rummel carried out his threat and announced the excommunication of all three.

They objected, of course--making arguments that seem familiar today. Mr. Perez invoked democratic principles, stating that "the vast majority of [Catholic] parents" supported racial segregation. He also saw Rummel's action exclusively in political terms, saying "we cannot recognize any threat of excommunication by any temporary officers of the church on matters especially which have nothing to do with religion, but which are used as threats to impose forced racial integration or communistic regimentation of our children." Mr. Ricau insisted he was simply following his conscience. "I have done nothing but fight for racial integrity, as is my prerogative under the Constitution," he said, "and to tell the truth about the controversial compulsory integration movement." Finally, Mrs. Gaillot argued that the excommunication was unjustified because Rummel never "refuted that God demands segregation of the races in His Scriptures."

Rummel and Archbishop Joseph Ritter of St. Louis had previously used the threat of excommunication to suppress lay Catholic opposition to civil rights. In 1956, Rummel warned Catholic lawmakers in the state legislature that they would face excommunication if they voted to mandate the segregation of all private schools, including Catholic ones. In the same year, he forced the Association of Catholic Laymen, which was established to oppose his initial desegregation efforts, to disband by threatening its members with excommunication. In 1947, when "separate but equal" was still the law of the land, Ritter threatened to excommunicate any Catholic who took legal action to block his plan to desegregate Catholic schools in St. Louis.

How did liberals react to Rummel's actions? "We salute the Catholic Archbishop," the New York Times editorialized. "He has set an example founded on religious principle and response to the social conscience of our times." An editorial in the Nation applauded Rummel's initial excommunication threat and cited Ritter's action in 1947 as a precedent. Certainly, it seems, liberals don't really mind mixing religion with politics as long as it's their political agenda being promoted.

Rep. DeLauro, Mr. Giuliani and other Catholic politicians may choose to see ecclesiastical punishments as blunt political weapons used to club them into submission on a controversial issue. For the bishops, however, such punishments are imposed as a last effort to be taken against those who, in their judgment, are publicly flouting the laws of the church.

Mr. Cavalli is a free-lance writer in New York.

To commemorate yesterday, June 6, the 63rd anniversary of the D-Day invasion:

SUPREME HEADQUARTERS
ALLIED EXPEDITIONARY FORCE

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have
striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The
hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.

In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on
other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war
machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of
Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well
equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely.

But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of
1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats,
in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their
strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home
Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions
of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men.
The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to
Victory!

I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in
battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!

Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great
and noble undertaking.

SIGNED: Dwight D. Eisenhower

And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming....

I had been meaning to post this video since it came out two days ago, which I saw on American Papist. Lightning strikes the CNN building right before presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani attempts to explain the relation between his Catholic faith and abortion, and the other candidates start backing away from him.




See also CatholicsAgainstRudy.com.

I rarely if ever post about personal issues on this blog, but now, issues in my life have taken a turn for the worse, and I'm left completely, utterly destroyed. Please pray for me that I may not spiral out of control.

For the first time since I've become a Catholic, I am afraid.

It really does exist after all. From CWNews: Papal documents on China, Latin Mass due soon. The Pope has completed a message to the Catholic Church in China (which to this day remains illegal and in persecution from Communist authorities), as well as the motu proprio which, of course, will allow all priests to offer the old Tridentine Latin Mass with or without the permission of their bishops.

Here are some more signs of the winds of renewal blowing in the Church.

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "I do not come as a politician but as a priest." Minneapolis and St. Paul will get a new archbishop, John Nienstedt, and his reputation for being firm and "not throwing any curveballs" is promising.


More to add to the "Catholic bishops growing backbones" category: Bishop of Rhode Island condemns Giuliani's abortion stance. Excerpt:

Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island received an invitation in the mail recently from none other than Rudy Giuliani. The politician was inviting the bishop come to a fundraising dinner for his presidential campaign, but Bishop Tobin did more than just politely decline.

Instead of sending a non-descript RSVP to inform Giuliani that he would not attend, the prelate wrote him a scathing letter to turn down his offer.

According to the diocesan newspaper, the Rhode Island Catholic, Bishop Tobin was already greatly “distressed” before he received the invitation to the fundraiser and was planning on writing about the matter already. The bishop also explained, “But then I received an invitation to attend a fundraising luncheon for presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, and that absolutely confirmed my decision.”

Tobin went on to explain why he felt the need to write a response. “I have no idea why I received an invitation to Giuliani’s fundraiser. I don’t know the [former] mayor; I’ve never met him. I try to avoid partisan politics. But most of all, I would never support a candidate who supports legalized abortion.”

The bishop said of the politician’s standpoint on abortion, “Rudy’s public proclamations on abortion are pathetic and confusing. Even worse, they’re hypocritical.”

Wowzers!

Solidarity plans strike to stop holy-day retail openings. Polish workers are going on strike to protest companies which force employees to work on holy days such as this upcoming feast of Corpus Christi, which in Poland will be observed on Thursday (unlike here in the U.S., where it's just moved to Sunday for convenience). I normally have a personal distaste for worker strikes; I don't know why; but I believe this is for a good cause, especially in a country where Catholicism permeates the entire culture.

The Pope and the President of the United States will meet on June 9 to discuss, among other things, the Iraq war and the situation of Christians in Iraq.

It's no coincidence, then, that yesterday, a Catholic priest and three deacons were murdered in Mosul, Iraq. One of the commenters on that article left a link to this article from 2005, in which the murdered priest, Father Ganni, spoke at length on how the only thing that sustains those persecuted Christians in Iraq is the Eucharist; an appropriate topic for this upcoming feast of Corpus Christi.

"Last August in St Paul Church, a car bomb exploded after the 6 pm mass. The blast killed two Christians and wounded many others. But that, too, was another miracle—the car was full of bombs but only one exploded. Had they all gone off together the dead would have been in the hundreds since 400 faithful had come on that day."

"People could not believe what had happened. The terrorists might think they can kill our bodies or our spirit by frightening us, but, on Sundays, churches are always full. They may try to take our life, but the Eucharist gives it back."

"On December 7, the eve of the Immaculate Conception, a group of terrorist tried to destroy the Chaldean Bishop's Residence, which is near Our Lady of the Tigris Shrine, a place venerated by both Christians and Muslims."

"They placed explosives everywhere and a few minutes later blew the place up. This and fundamentalist violence against young Christians have forced many families to flee. Yet the Churches have remained open and people continue to go to mass, even among the ruins".

"It is among such difficulties that we understand the real value of Sunday, the day when we meet the Risen Christ, the day of our unity and love, of our [mutual] support and help."

"There are days when I feel frail and full of fear. But when, holding the Eucharist, I say 'Behold the Lamb of God Behold, who takes away the sin of the world', I feel His strength in me. When I hold the Host in my hands, it is really He who is holding me and all of us, challenging the terrorists and keeping us united in His boundless love."
"In normal times, everything is taken for granted and we forget the greatest gift that is made to us. Ironically, it is thanks to terrorist violence that we have truly learnt that it is the Eucharist, the Christ who died and risen, that gives us life. And this allows us to resist and hope."