Social Isolation Growing in U.S., Study Says

I'll summarize this:

TV, ummm TV ...
Video games
Internet

To further compound matters are

No stay at home moms to develop neighborly relationships
Did I mention that nobody spends time outside of their homes meeting their neighbors because of

TV, ummm TV ...
Video games
Internet

Its interesting that they mention bowling leagues ... I am all for them for the very reason that it is one of the few places I meet new people.

Postings will be sparse for the next few weeks because my personal life has become somewhat demanding.

BTW, Happy Birthday to me (33) and happy feast of St. Cyril of Alexandria -- one of my favorite saints.

Anglican split 'has become necessary'

A split in the Anglican Communion is inevitable the Bishop of Rochester has said, as issues such as gay and women bishops continue to divide the global Church.

The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali's comments came as the US Episcopal Church - which ordained the first openly gay bishop in 2003 - chose Katherine Jefferts Schori as its first female head.

Not to mention the Episcopal Convention Condemning the Bible as 'Anti-Jewish'

I so pray that many conservative Episcopalians would come home and be a blessing to the Catholic Church. They have GOT to be asking why this isn't happening in the Catholic Church (at least doctrinally).

Some Thoughts on the Apologetics Subculture Outstanding. Every person interested in apologetics should read this.

St Vitus's Cathedral belongs definitively to church - Apparently all of the legal battles are final and the Church now owns the cathedral.

Changes in the Catholic church - YAY!!!! Now people are hedging bets on how long it will take before the changes show up at our local parishes.

Church handled 'Da Vinci' well, says marketing professor

In an episode of Detroit Cardinal Adam J. Maida's talk show, "Dialogue," that aired on the Catholic Television Network of Detroit, the cardinal urged Catholics to adhere to the truth of Christ, despite popular media's tendency to mix it with fiction for entertainment purposes.

"In many ways, this is a good opportunity for us to catechize, to evangelize, to explain," the cardinal said. "These questions brought up in the novel have been with us for 2,000 years. What we need to understand is that ... in the end ... these are matters of faith, not fiction ... and faith is a gift given to those who can see Jesus as the Son of God. That's our reality."

Democrats lead passage of pro-life bill in Louisiana This is the enigma of the Southern Democrat and why so many Catholics in Louisiana remain Democrats. The fact is Republicans ought to be scared out of their wits by Democrats taking the "legal but rare" line and actually moving to do something about abortion in this country. I am hopefully optimistic here. A step away from the killing of millions to the killing of thousands is progress in the right direction. Democrats for Life has a proposal that, while it would not make abortion illegal, would reduce the number of abortions in this country by 90%. If that plan were successful, then I promise you Republican voters who have justified their votes almost solely on the pro-life issue are going to feel alienated.

Charismatic Catholicism and Protestantism

Charismatic?

Talk about Charisma!

More on the Church's Response to Pentacostals

I have covered my opinion on the whole Charismatic movement in an entry titled Charismatics and His Church: problems and praises

The Anti-Catholic Origin of Public Education and Prohibition So public schools were begun to mandate indoctrinating Catholics with Protestant teachings? ... links to an article on it.

Catholic bishops to consider Mass changes

But some worry about changing a fundamental rite of worship that is so much a part of Catholic identity, especially now.

It is amazing how progressives mysteriously turn into traditionalists when their novelties are at stake, but when the traditions of the Church are at stake, jettisoning them is the first order of business.

You want something SO much a part of Catholic identity? How about some music that is older than the 60's? ... Chant would be nice ... Toss in a little Latin as well to tie us to the past. If you were REALLY concerned about identity you wouldn't have led the charge to throw every aspect of a mass that Catholics had grown accustomed to over centuries ... you know ... the ones that made OBVIOUS the doctrines of the faith? In 1962 it was fine ... today it is not ...

Whatever ...

Dodos, dinosaurs and declining birth rates - HT to Mark Shea

Question: What big idea of 2006 will be extinct in 2036?
Answer: We will be happier and richer if we reduce our birth rate.

I cannot think of a better investment in our future than our own children ... and its not about having so few that I can afford to send them all to college.

And from HMS we have The Population Sink

As fertility rates decline, populations, then economies, then military power, then world influence, diminish.

I think this trend is going to change in short order and let me point out why. I took the 1800 fertility rate of 7 and used it as the basis of a series of assumptions. I also took a rate of 5% for percentage of people that believe currently that contraception is immoral. In Canada, based on a recent poll (source), that number is actually 8%.

If those who do not contracept have a fertility rate of 7 and those who do contracept have a fertility rate of 2 and we start with 1 person in 20 who does not contracept AND we make the assumption that 5% of contracepting parents kids "convert" to the non-contracepting position, while non-contracepting parents pass this teaching on to 60% of their kids, watch what happens.

Gen 0: 1/19 or 5% believe contraception is immoral
Gen 1: 6/39 or 13.3% believe contraception is immoral
Gen 2: 29/91 or 24.1% believe contraception is immoral
Gen 3: 131/254 or 34.0% believe contraception is immoral
Gen 4: 575/850 or 40.3% believe contraception is immoral

From that point it grows slowly to 46% by the 10th generation, at which point we are dealing with millions of people from the original 20. The most significant amount of swing in belief would occur in the first 4 generations.

If I cut the 7 fertility rate down to 5 the percentages are as follows

Gen 0: 5%% believe contraception is immoral
Gen 1: 11.6% believe contraception is immoral
Gen 2: 18.8% believe contraception is immoral
Gen 3: 25.1% believe contraception is immoral
Gen 4: 30.0% believe contraception is immoral

My point is that IF non-contracepting couples have children AND IF they pass their values on this trend will change and the society will begin to adopt values shared by non-contracepting couples over those of contracepting couples.

Essentially, contracepting couples are killing their culture and heritage. I take obvious note of the major assumptions here, however, I think they are not at all unreasonable because the majority of parents not contracepting today are intent on passing their values, particularly this one, on to their children.

See also Roe effect extends to contraception?

The Duh! item of the day ... Children perform better if mother stays at home

So you believe everything you read eh?

Examine the Two-Statement Rule

First I make a ridiculously false statement, like the one about Constantine striking three days out of February. Then, under a different name, I make the same statement in another book, citing the first book as my source in a footnote.

Now I’ve made the statement true ...

HT to Happy Catholic
Pictures at a crucifixion

Among the finds was the a third-century rendering of Calvary — the earliest ever found.

Been short on time. I had an opportunity to answer a question about what got me interested in the Catholic Church which caused me to write a VERY concise conversion summary.

Here is what got me interested ... the whirlwind short version.

I attended a Billy Graham evangelical church. I got irritated that they wanted to "save Catholics" because "Catholics teach that their sins can be forgiven through indulgences". I knew this was wrong. That was seed #1. I left and I became Episcopalian after getting married. My wife and I discovered that all Christian churches agreed with the Catholic Church in 1930 on contraception. That was seed #2. I read the 39 Articles in the Book of Common prayer and got bent out of shape, mostly about not seeing marriage as a sacrament amongst other beliefs that seemed more akin to the church I used to attend. Seed #3. Then, upon prodding, I discovered that everyone I went to church with differed WILDLY on beliefs and the Episcopal church had few stances on doctrine. Seed #4. Then the reading started. I figured that I had to let Catholics defend their faith rather than taking someone elses word for it.
I read "Rome Sweet Home"
I read "Fundamentalism vs. Catholicism"
I read "Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic"
I watched two tapes of a show that aired on EWTN called "Household of Faith" that detailed common objections to the Church. I realized I agreed with most of it already. I got really excited at the possiblity that the Church founded by Christ on Peter really existed.
I defended infant baptism against the Funadmentalist position using Martin Luther as a source. Seed #5 was found in my reading.
I started reading Dave Armstrong's website. I found his essay on the ECF's and Catholic Distinctive doctrines. Seed #6. At this point I picked up Jurgens' "Faith of the Early Fathers" from my parents. I was stunned. This was the sinker. The early church was Catholic. I read the intro to Newmans Essay on the Development of Doctrine.
Everything else I struggled with was elementary in the sense that I felt at that point to be honest in my relationship with Christ required assent to the Catholic Church.

So

Seed #1: Protestants very frequently misrepresent the Church
Seed #2: History of Christian teaching on contraception
Seed #3: Downplaying of sacramentality of marriage
Seed #4: Diversity of belief on "essentials" within Protestantism was disturbing.
Seed #5: The Catholic Biblical case is solid.
Seed #6: The Catholic historical case is undeniable.

That about sums it up.

Got back from Tucson Arizona yesterday. Fascinating place ... I hope to blog about it soon. For now, here is a collection of items to read.

Amerians Lack Patience - New Study Shows -- interestingly it took me nearly a week to get this up. It had nothing to do with patience or lack thereof. Sloth maybe ...

Bishop Bruskewitz tells it like it is

Can the Da Vinci Code destroy an event?

Your daily dose of Patristics items from FathersOfTheChurch

Fresh translation of St. Clement of Rome’s Letter to the Corinthians - Must read ...

The Primacy of the Church of Rome: Documents, Reflections, Proofs ... see also a good post by Elliot Bougis titled "And you can quote me!" on the Eastern Fathers in reference to the primacy of the Church of Rome.

Protestants rethinking birth control

I hope Mark Shea is wrong in saying that "the day will come when the Church will be damned, not for covering up pedophilia, but for condemning it". Somehow, I fear that he is right ...

Christianity: Vagueness or a list of rules? - "Young people must be taught that Christianity is not a bodiless, abstract faith; nor is it a series of prohibitions, Pope Benedict XVI told a Rome audience on Monday evening"

You cannot make this stuff up - Curt Jester skewers another new, ummm, building project ... supposing to ... attempt to be ... a Catholic Church.

Out for tonight ...

IF we were charting we would look like this:


For those of you not familiar with NFP that means that NUMBER FOUR is on the way!!!

that, if I adhered to, I would have more readers.

Maureen has 7 habits of effective blogging.



I know nothing about being a super influential blogger but I HAVE picked up a few things in two years of doing this. If I adhered to my own seven items I would have far more readers ...

Here are mine

1. Narrow your focus. When I first started blogging I intended to stick with Catholicism and the documenting of my conversion. My traffic died when I started focusing on my severe weather interest. I refocused and have kept my blog more on topic. My focus is: Catholicism - within that; marriage, family, homeschooling, conversion, Early Church Fathers.

2. Post comments on and link to other blogs. Also, use the trackback feature (mine is broken right now and it hurts to have such an important feature disabled) ... This personal interaction lets people know that you are interested in their blog and not just interested in traffic from their blog.

3. Post frequently and consistently -- preferably at least daily. If your brain is suffering from a lack of creativity or just plain fatigue, collect some items of interest on other blogs and link them.

4. Increase your incoming links. Use Technorati and TTLB Ecosystem. Join relevant blog rings and groups (see column to the right under the TTLB Ecosystem). This ensures blog search engines place you high on search items relevant to your blog. Many of my hits come from Yahoo and Google search results.

5. Invest the time in setting up an aggregator (Bloglines is a good online one and I use RSS Bandit). This allows you to monitor scores, if not hundreds of related blogs without actually having to navigate manually to all of them. Bottom line. Keep up with this technology. It gives you a leg up on finding stories and items unique to your niche. FWIW I use Google Reader now.

6. Invest the time in maintaining a blogroll (Bloglines is useful here as well). Link to blogs you read regularly and especially to friends you pick up in blogland that link to you. See also my post on setting up a "fresh blogroll"

7. Include some occasional local flare and outside interests. Note the word occasional. This allows people to know more about who you are but do not allow this to detract from item #1 (FOCUS) ... My list of local churches to visit drives an amazing amount of traffic through my blog.

Some reading ...

Debunking The Myths of Katrina
via ++ relapsed catholic

Overall I think there is some good information in this article, however I take exception with ONE item they label a "myth".
MYTH:"This is a once-in-a-lifetime event."--New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin, press conference, Aug. 28, 2005

The article then argues that
It was "just" a Category 3.
Wilma and Rita proved it was an average storm by standards of how storms are now (comparison to two storms is statistically negligible)
Andrew and Camille were worse because they were Cat 5s.

If ANYTHING Katrina outlined the overly simplistic nature of the Saffir-Simpson scale. We are talking about a storm that produced more deaths than any storm in 75 years, produced the highest surge measured on American soil and produced BY FAR the highest $$$ figure in losses for a hurricane in American history. If that does not qualify as a once in a lifetime event, I don't know what does. It is downplaying the magniture of the whole event.

The significance of hurricanes is not determined by a sigle number. It is determined by a whole myriad of conditions coming together at the same time. There are a handful of places where Cat 3 or higher storms cause this kind of a problem. It just so happens that one of them was hit this past year.

I have said this other places and I will say it again ... Hurricane Stan was a Category 1 and killed as many or more people than Katrina. You likely didn't know that.

It doesn't take a Category 5 to be the top storm.

---

Finally, I know someone who was in the Convention Center. Lets just say that the overblown press coverage more accurately detailed the dire conditions inside the building than the "just a few people died" cleanup piece published by local papers days later. The situation was horrible regardless of whether or not the numbers were more correct in the later piece.

In other hurricane prep news ... You are on your own

As Hurricane Season Looms, States Aim to Scare

TIME quote

The editors of TIME, like those who A. M. Rosenthal worked for back in the 1950s, would surely not normally consider this news. But on a day that the German Pope came to Auschwitz to ponder God’s silence, that surprising explosion of colors seemed well worth reporting.

Uganda and now Zambia?

Church-run programs making inroads on AIDS in Zambia

Yes. Its true. Abstinence and fidelity are societal behaviors we want to encourage.

Left to read

Investigating NFP: The Great Embryo Killer?

If Momma Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy

And for our flight to Tucson later this week ... Travel and toddlers. They go together like nitro and glycerin

work in progress .. to collect and organize thoughts on the topic

I want to thank the many parents who visited and commented on my question below.

In the previous entry I detailed my public school experience in terms of competition and asked homeschool parents whether lack of competition proved to be a problem of the movement. There are a few more points I want to clarify and then I want to attempt to answer the question given what I have read from the comments below and in discussion with other homeschool parents.

First off, my educational experience was unusual. I would label it an excellent public school experience. It was supported by the parents, well funded by local industry and it produced a high percentage of students who went to and completed college. Most of the top 10% graduates went to Ivy League schools. Almost everyone in my class had scholarship money to go to college and the two students (of 157) who didnt go went into the military to raise money for college. The competitive environment I encountered was artificially created by collecting the high achievers into groups. The number of students which drove me to peform better was small (the HSEP school at my high school consisted of about 30 students with an ACT average of almost 28 -- in 1991, for reference). If I had gone to a normal public high school, as many of my friends in college did, I might not have encountered this type of competition (in fact I very much doubt so). Many of my friends in college had to adjust to the rigors of college because they were not driven in high school.

My wife went through a similar environment. Consider that given the above, we will NOT be sending our kids to public school. We had some of the best of what the public school system has to offer and still find homeschooling to be a preferable option for our children.

Which brings me to motivation.

A high level of competition in academic areas can be demonstrated by the performance of homeschooled children in actual academic competitions. The most obvious example of this is the spelling bee competitions. I have been assured by parents that ample opportunity exists to expose children to the necessary environments to drive them to excellence. This is part of the normal social environment sought out by homeschool parents. Still, to me this differs from the socialization question (**1) which to me focuses on the ability of children to participate effectively in society and develop the necessary social skills to do so. The competition aspect focuses more on performance against peers of the same or similar ages. This begs the question: Why limit competition to your age group? Furthermore, doesn't the parent know best how to inspure their own children and seek out the opportunities necessary for intellectual growth?

The homeschool solution for kids who thrive on competition
1. Seek out competitive environments, both academically and athletically to challenge your children to perform in such environments.
2. Get high school kids to take classes at a local community college
3. Set high expectations for children who need them. It doesn't take 30 kids of the same age to do that.
4. Siblings offer competition
5. Self-motivation and competition against yourself cannot be discounted (the runner analogy)

**1 Homeschooling: So what about socialization?

See also Negative aspects of homeschooling

Thinking out loud here ...

I think, possibly, I have come up with a decent criticism of homeschooling. I realize that most of the arguments against homeschooling (socialization and whatnot) are suspect at best. However, I am starting to wonder if a lack of competition is healthy?

Let me explain (and this is not to brag about me)

In elementary school I was always near the top in the class. My parents decided to try and get me into the magnet program, which is where they take the best students at all of the schools and bus them to two schools collecting the so called academic elite. I got in. When I got to middle school I was an average to slightly above average student. I was actually intimidated by the number of kids who were more intelligent than I was. In high school, the competition got worse. I don't think I graduated in the top half of my class. Bottom line is, I had to deal with the stark reality that I wasn't really as smart as I thought I was. By high school, I realized that if I was going to amount to much, I was going to have to work my tail off. That was a necessary realization for me. There were clearly others who could skirt by on their brains far more than I could. Even for them at some point they have to work hard to reach their potential. This competition was good for me and it drove me to actually work harder. There were people there who performed at a high level and I could see that.

How am I going to approximate this at home? Is it even necessary? I read somewhere recently about a homeschooled boy who started studying special relativity at the age of 13. Stanford took him in a heartbeat because he had demonstrated a drive to tackle hard subject matter on his own. Did he need the competition or did the love of learning drive him to excellence? If he had the competition, where did he get it? I don't know. I might be looking at the competition aspect all wrong. Maybe athletics is a better place to drive home that point rather than in academia. Then again, I know with bowling, competition is ultimately with yourself, however, you are not going to get really good at that without help (actual or competitive) from people who are better than you are.

If any of you homeschoolers are reading this I would like your input. The more the merrier.

Pope ends Poland trip with poignant visit to Auschwitz

A brilliant rainbow lanced a leaden sky as Benedict, an aide holding an umbrella over his head, later paused before each of the 22 plaques at the Birkenau annex's International Monument to the Victims of Fascism.

I just thought this was interesting.

Contrasts In Media Treatment of The DaVinci Code and The Passion - HT: Jimmy Akin -- you know, one of the main things I have noticed in this whole bit is the conspiracy aspect of it. In my reading of various debates dealing with Christian history there has always been a surprisingly large number of people who believe the whole line of reasoning that the fact that their churches cannot be proven to exist PROVES that there was a major conspiracy by the Catholic Church to cover them up. Quite simply, lack of evidence = evidence. The Da Vinci Code and its strongest supporters fall in the same camp. In a more disturbing light, consider the following:

If Dan Brown wrote a novel about the Holocaust it would probably look like this:

Almost everyone with any sense would dismiss a book along those lines. The interesting point about this entry is that the generally accepted credibility amongst historians of the sources is likely similar. The difference is, many people want desperately to believe the Da Vinci Code is true because the claims of the Church haunt them. Without a solid moral standard to hold to, morality becomes a matter of taste. The Catholic Church openly teaches exactly the opposite of that. There is a reason this Pontiff rails against the "dictatorship of relativism".

One final (and I mean final) thought on DVC -- I have been disturbed in my reading over the last week or so at the number of Protestants who dismiss the Code as something that ONLY attacks the Catholic Church and that somehow their beliefs escape unscathed. Most obviously, the Divinity of Christ is attacked, without which almost every form of Christianity is reduced to rubbish. I am always shocked at the number of anti-Catholics who have decided to use a story that undermines even their own faith in the search for bullet points against the Catholic Church.

I third this ...

This issue of National Review contains William F. Buckley's May 9, 2006, column, in which he writes the following:

Of course Bush can hardly endorse unrestrained capitalism and pursue the grace of Christ. Those who worship capitalism to sacramental lengths are defiantly anti-Christian, like Ayn Rand and her unholy Objectivists, and that branch of libertarianism which acknowledges only the market as authority, practical or moral.

Lifted shamelessly from turtleheart.net

The idea of pawning off the requirement to "love our neighbors" to private enterprise to get us off the hook of having to perfom acts of charity has always been disturbing to me. Now, replace "private enterprise" with "the government" -- still disturbing. Glad to see it in print.

My favorite anti-homeschooling argument

Dealing with bullies is part of normal life and you can only expose your children to that aspect of life at its full potential at SCHOOL ... Ummm, yeah folks -- learning to deal with bullies is NOT NORMAL

The School of Hard Knocks Makes you stupid -- I guess that is a variation on sin makes you stupid. The right order of things is, well ... RIGHT. If everyone were living saints we wouldn't have to deal with bullying. I think God would be perfectly thrilled if all of the sudden bullying were eliminated because of a mass conversion of the world. But we would sure miss that character building ... and besides, my hypothetical scenario isn't reality.

Just because reality dictates that we have to deal with SOME adversity doesn't mean we need to further introduce our children to the colder nature of it in order to better build character. It will be there. There is no point in looking for it.

The Celiac solution

Instead, he took only the Precious Blood.

Imagine that!!! As My Domestic Church notes, there were no headlines. See my previous entry "why wheat?"

Finally, yet another interesting ECF post over at FathersOfTheChurch

St. Clement of Rome’s First Letter to the Corinthians possibly written before 70 A.D???

When I was trying to put together my ECF chart I noticed that the dating of the Didache is considered quite contentious so my decision on the site was to go with the latest date that I could find as I figured it served the purposes of my site quite well. Since then I have noticed that the consensus falls usually before the year 100.

Mike Aquillina has a most fascinating recent blog entry on the Didache.

How old is the Didache? Most scholars place its composition between A.D. 60 and 110. However, one of the top scholars alive, Enrico Mazza, argues very persuasively that the liturgical portions of the document were composed no later than 48 A.D. If he’s correct, that means that our oldest liturgical texts pre-date most of the books of the New Testament.

make sure to read the comments on the dating of the document

Psalm 127
A song of ascents. Of Solomon.
1 Unless the LORD builds the house,
its builders labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchmen stand guard in vain.
2 In vain you rise early
and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat—
for he grants sleep to [a] those he loves.

3 Sons are a heritage from the LORD,
children a reward from him.

4 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are sons born in one's youth.

5 Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
when they contend with their enemies in the gate.

Little did we know in the time leading up to our wedding that this Psalm would play such a key role in defining who we are.

... more later ...

I would be remiss in not posting something about the Fr. Maciel ruling by the Vatican since my blog gets a significant number of hits from searches related to Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi.

So what happened?

"...After having attentively studied the results of the investigation, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, under the guidance of the new prefect, Cardinal William Joseph Levada, decided - bearing in mind Fr. Maciel's advanced age and his delicate health - to forgo a canonical hearing and to invite the father to a reserved life of penitence and prayer, relinquishing any form of public ministry. The Holy Father approved these decisions.

from Vatican News Service via American Papist ..

Fortunately American Papist has succinctly summarized the reaction from both the MSM and St. Blogs: Fr. Maciel removed from ministry: reactions & commentary

Morning reading ... comments later ... maybe. Possibly more reading later.

Toward a Proper Understanding of the Catholic Just War Tradition

Study: Church has healed from scandal

Contrarian couples

An excellent article on the slow but steady growth in the number of people who are choosing not to contracept. The article even makes mention of a person who converted to Catholicism for this very teaching.

Puts a tear in my eye every time. I love being Catholic. HT to Curt Jester

I am sick today ...ugh ...

Anyway, some reading

Through And Through A compelling work of fiction about a priest and a quite unusual confession.

National Review: Idle Speculation - AIDS, condoms, and the Catholic Church.

A good point from Mark Shea on the whole "Isn't it just fiction?" retort from Da Vinci Code supporters

I proposed a fictional film in which all the homosexuals in the world were engaged in a vast conspiracy to destroy Western Civilization.

"That would be offensive."

No duh.

The *only* time people fall for this notion that a fictional story which goes out of its way to malign and defame a billion people is "just fiction" is when it bashes Christians. The only time such people believe it will have absolutely no effect on what people think is with the Da Vinci Code. Try making a modern fictional film in which blacks are all watermelon-eating Stepin Fetchit dunces, or Jews are all conniving lechers and you will (rightly) get a storm of protest because these lies are pernicious and do real damage. But declare Christians the suckers of a 2000 year old Vatican conspiracy of murder and lies in the service of "the greatest coverup of all time", blaspheme Jesus and call all Christians fools for believing in him: that's just fiction.

Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, converts to Catholicism

Science is on the side of attachment parenting

She argues that the practice common in Britain of training children to sleep alone from a few weeks old is harmful because any separation from parents increases the flow of stress hormones such as cortisol.

Her findings are based on advances in scientific understanding over the past 20 years of how children’s brains develop, and on studies using scans to analyse how they react in particular circumstances.

For example, a neurological study three years ago showed that a child separated from a parent experienced similar brain activity to one in physical pain.

Catholic England: Pugin, Newman, the new Catholic aristocracy and classical liturgics

What we pass on to our children A response to common criticism that if you have too many kids you will not be able to afford college for all of them

It is clear then from this chapter that Jesus was teaching us to be ready and what to do with our time here on earth. He was saying that the time and talent we have been given is for serving each other here on earth.

That's not to say that education isn't important, or even helpful in pursuing those goals, but rather that as parents, our main goal for our time with our children is to teach them to be ready to meet Jesus, to develop their talents in a way that will be pleasing to God, and to live a life that gives Him glory. Anything else, is just extra.

The race is towards Christ, not worldly success.

Differences between Catholicism and Protestantism

A pretty good basic overview, especially in terms of the Anglican church. Authored by Serge

The Real Da Vinci Code - A riot even if you are not a programmer.

Marty Haugen, Call Your Canonist
- "If a lector learns to play the guitar, he shall also be instructed to confess it. If he does not return to it, he shall suffer his penance for seven weeks. If he keeps at it, he shall be excommunicated and put out of the Church."

Eleven new priests for Denver, largest ordination class in 40 years - I bet they are orthodox as well. Good news indeed!!!

Add-on to Bettnet - "The baby was conceived within the first week of the marriage, quite the efficiency!" - I'll say ... Congrats are certainly in order.

Bell falls through tower at former Portland church

You Must be a Home Educator if....

So here we go ... weeks and weeks of people fighting about the Da Vinci Code are upon us ...

Contentious Notions: Are They True? - Inaccuracies in the Da Vinci Code. Basically a liberal rag saying what the rest of us already knew. HT to Katolik Shinja

How The Da Vinci Code Doesn't Work - HowStuffWorks.com. HT to The Curt Jester

I suggest visiting Amy Welborn's blog during this time - open book

Miracles: Evidence of God's Existence

If I were an atheist, I think I would save my money to buy a plane ticket to Italy to see whether the blood of Saint Januarius really did liquefy and congeal miraculously, as it is supposed to do annually.

(click the link to finish reading it)

Patristics blog

Did I mention that I love Patristics ... I also love the Fathers of the Church blog. A couple of good recent posts ...

Honest pagans on the historical Jesus
The Early Church Fathers on Breastfeeding? Here is a quick summary

Mike Aquilina - Breastfeeding imagery. Didnt have stigmas about it. Incidence of it much higher. Public. Metaphor for Gods grace, sacraments, especially Eucharist - God feeds us with His own substance.
Odes of Solomon
St Clement of Alexandria "Jesus as the milk ..."
Book of Steps
St Augustine - natural rhythm in breastfeeding (mutual need)

Its only a few minutes right at the end. Take the time to download the file and listen to it.

Recent polls show Americans shifting to pro-life attitudes

I had a talk with a liberal friend of mine the other day and I noticed, as I am noticing more and more, a tendency of liberals to think "you know, there are way too many abortions". It seems that willingness to concede that there should, in fact, be severe limitations is one that a tremendous majority of folks will go for, including a growing percentage of those on the left side of the aisle. Democrats for Life spelled out a plan for pushing to eliminate 90% of existing abortions while still retaining the legality of it. It is a far cry from perfect. It is certainly a step in the right direction.

Ummm myself?! on marriage

Someone paid me a nice complement today and said that I write good things about marriage. He even suggested that I write a book. He was looking for something that I had written elsewhere. I looked up some items that I transferred to my blog. Here are the items I know I posted in that venue that are also here.

A crush: How it consumes us and why it is different from the love that makes a marriage work
On Being Single ... from a married guy
The best of my unsolicited advice about getting married
No kissing before you get married
Never fight
Nice guys finish in heaven