When Saint Anne’s had to shut down exactly two years ago, we had to get creative. I learned for the first time everrr that we could live stream our Masses on our Facebook page by simply using my iPhone! Wow! Who knew? I certainly didn’t know!
Then I thought to myself, how do I keep my parishioners engaged with the parish. We stepped up on-line giving which our parishioners stepped up to the plate. I did robo calls weekly.
Then we had drive through Blessings with Holy Water and Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament for each car filled with people who drove by. This included Palm Sunday when we passed out palms to each car as well as Easter Sunday! And yes, we had baskets for people to drop their collection into.
I think all of this kept my parishioners engaged and gave them a feeling that the clergy cared about what was happening with the disgraceful closing of our churches!
However, I went underground and had Masses for small groups of our candidates and catechumens to bring them into the Church during Holy Week and Easter Week of the shut down. So there!
I am proud of Richmond Hill. We never had a mask mandate and at Mass we never required masks and we got back to normal seating, taking up of collections, sign of peace well before our suburb in Savannah whose government freaked out until relatively recently. And Richmond Hill had a lower percentage of illnesses and deaths compared to those places that did freak out.
54 comments:
Father McDonald,
You get an “A” for effort!
F-. Thank you for contribution to the duration of the pandemic and the rise of variants.
From Yale Medicine..
"Strict measures are critical for slowing the spread of the disease"
"But toward the end of 2020, a steady increase in cases in the U.S. was becoming what some described as a third wave (or, maybe, a third peak), if not a continuation of a single wave that started in the spring and never stopped. As cold weather drove more people indoors, many government officials around the country halted some of the plans they had to reopen, implementing new restrictions that included curfews, limiting the number of people who could gather indoors, and establishing mask mandates."
Failing to follow common sense precautions enabled further transmission of the virus. With that came the variants.
Your hubris earns you an F- to be sure.
I see your germn and pandemic phobias still paralyze you and crest fear and trepidation the spirit of Satan
If we truly believe that divine worship is divine, then there is nothing to worry about. Our Lord will take care of all and provide for our needs. I'm not a believer in the hysteria beyond common sense either.
It is a shame that during the Great Fast (Lent), the barbs still fly. We began the fast with vespers where we ask each other for forgiveness for past transgressions both known and unknown (Prosti Menya, Forgive Me). Perhaps that mentality could be adopted here.
At least we know Father K is following the science and not sharing the chalice nor holding hands at Mass!
"If we truly believe that divine worship is divine, then there is nothing to worry about."
Baloney.
If that were the case, then those of us who believe would never have life-saving surgery, wear a seat belt, avoid drinking bleach, and we'd run with open scissors everywhere, since our Lord will take care of all and provide for our needs.
That's not what I'm saying.
How can our Lord present in the consecrated species separately, or together in the chalice foment contagion? I trust that no harm will result as a result in my participation at divine services.
To suggest that transfers into secular activities, consumption of poisons, corrective and/or lifesaving surgery doesn't make sense particularly when I led my comment with divine.
Sophia Here: God Bless you Fr. McDonald for finding ways to Spiritually nurture your flock because as a good shepherd you realized how extremely harmful it was for them to be so completely deprived of this care. You realized that they would need much more than groceries and toilet tissue if they were to survive this very challenging, scary time mentally and spiritually ok. You instinctively understood the concept of "Deaths from Despair". I knew about the Holy Water and Blessed Sacrament Father, because you mentioned them in this Blog. That was moving enough! I was quite touched by that! But that your chapel was open for prayer and that you celebrated Underground Masses for small groups of Candidates and Catechumens so they could be brought into the Church during Holy Week and Easter Week! Wow! Mind-blowing! You really get what it means to be a good Shepherd. I do hope your Parishioners fully appreciate your devotion and commitment to their Spiritual well-being and let you know that-frequently.
ByzRus,
Enjoying Father Secular’s snark? Keep in mind he used to pound his fist insisting that there was no risk to the common chalice until the “political science” changed!
The Lord present does not foment contagion. Contagion, as we know, is, in the case of vioruses, in the air. It does not come from the Lord.
Do churches collapse on people at worship? Do violent men kill archbishops as they celebrate mass - think St. Thomas Becket at vespers or St. Oscar Romero at mass.
Is God's providential care and protection for His faithful only operative during "divine worship"? Do we not pray for that care to be over those who serve in the miltary on the battlefields, over fire fighters as they battle a blaze, over missionaries as they teach the Gospel to children in the middle of the day?
There is ALWAYS risk to the use of a common chalice. I have never claimed there is none. To say I did is a lie.
There is a risk to driving a car, but you keep driving. There is a risk to air travel, but you keep flying.
That a risk exists is NOT the question and never has been.
So glad you finally get an A+ from me that we don’t live our lives in fear and we anti maskers and anti social distancing and anti ideologyization of Covid were right. Interest how silly hysterical liberals are saying nothing about Ukraine’s completely maskless situation.
Fr K you used to pull up ersatz study after ersatz study showing there was no risk. If there is any risk to the practice it should not be done, particularly because of the elderly. Ironic that our forebears had better sense than modern day man (liturgical “progressives!”)
One last thing, oh tiresome “liberal” Father K. Abortion is not “healthcare” the ultimate big lie!
TJM - You are lying again.
From among the studies I have cited state I quote:
"In summary, the risk for infectious disease transmission by a common communion cup is very low, and appropriate safeguards—that is, wiping the interior and exterior rim between communicants, use of care to rotate the cloth during use, and use of a clean cloth for each service—would further diminish this risk." (Risk of Infectious Disease Transmission from a Common Communion Cup, American Journal of Infection Control, VOLUME 26, ISSUE 5, P538-539, OCTOBER 01, 1998)
"Currently available data do not provide any support for suggesting that the practice of sharing a common communion cup should be abandoned because it might spread infection."
(J Infect. 1988 Jan;16(1):3-23. doi: 10.1016/s0163-4453(88)96029-x.)
"Within the CDC, the consensus of the National Center for Infectious Diseases and the
National Center for Human Immunodeficiency Virus, Sexually Transmitted Diseases,
and Tuberculosis is that a theoretic risk of transmitting infectious diseases by using a
common communion cup exists, but that the risk is so small that it is undetectable."
"In summary, the risk for infectious disease transmission by a common communion cup is
very low, and appropriate safeguards -- that is, wiping the interior and exterior rim
between communicants, use of care to rotate the cloth during use, and use of a clean cloth
for each service -- would further diminish this risk."
Officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said inquiries about Communion cup dangers have been small but steady over the years.
“Theoretically, there’s a risk,” spokeswoman Bonnie Hebert said. “But the risk is so small it’s probably undetectable.”
Etc.
"Very low" "Undetectable" "Might spread" "So Small"
All of the studies I cite say there is minimal risk. NONE of the studies I cited asserts that there is "no risk." None.
As for the studies being "ersatz," you are in no position whatsoever to gainsay the CDC, The Linacre Quarterly, The Journal of Infection, the American Journal of Infection Control, or ANY other scientific publication.
You are a liar.
Father K,
So you really don’t care that there is a risk, particularly to the elderly. Your body of evidence is hardly convincing. The CDC has not distinguished itself during the pandemic, giving contradictory guidance and frequently reversing itself and the other organizations you mentioned have been politicized and support the political left’s agenda irrespective of the truth. . Speaking of liars, you are living a lie, just like priest sexual abusers are, inasmuch as you support and vote for a Party that:
1) Promotes abortion as “healthcare” and actively raises money on the promise it will continue the holocaust of the unborn
2) Demands taxpayer money be used to pay for abortions even during a pandemic no less
3) Actively targets any remaining pro life Democrats like Congressman Lipinski in Chicago to replace him with another abortion drooling fanatic
4) Establishing Abortion Provider Appreciation Days
Ya, I’m the liar and you are not. I pity you
Father McDonald:
I am truly glad that your parish has had a relatively good experience with Covid. You are fortunate to have a parish in an area that is relatively unscathed by the virus. But you must realize that not everywhere in the United States is like that. Conditions and circumstances vary from place to place. How else could close to one million people have died from Covid-19 in the United States?
More generally:
Regarding protective measures taken by the Catholic Church, it is impossible to prove a negative—that is, how many people did not contract Covid due to those measures. However, we do have some evidence regarding the absence of such measures in other contexts, and indeed in other denominations. To distinguish the Catholic Church by relying on the Real Presence or other special Divine Favor seems foolhardy. As the expression has it, “God came to take away our sins, not our minds.”
Father Kavanaugh:
As you probably noticed, I did finally follow your example and no longer interact with TJM directly. You wavered today, however, perhaps beguiled by a relatively civilized exchange on anther thread, and you see what happened. TJM was just waiting to pounce again about abortion. He is the ultimate reductionist thinker—he sees everything through abortion tinted lenses, incapable of acknowledging that as Catholics we can agree on the evil of abortion (although perhaps disagree on prudential methods to reduce/eliminate it), but so obsessed with the Great Leader that he will always play the A card to urge everyone to vote Republican, no matter the circumstances. One can be forgiven for wondering, if Putin were a Republican presidential candidate over here, whether TJM would urge us to vote for him too because it is so “evil” to vote for the Democratic Party and Putin must be a “real” Christian as proven, for example, at his rally today.
Fr. K....Regretably, I won't witness who will get the A+ and the F- at personal judgement. But I have an idea. Don't you get tired of your self righteous belligerence?
Christiane - Defending oneself against false accusations isn't self-righteousness or belligerence.
Mark - I know TJM's M.O. well. When it's a simple matter of facts, as it is in what I have stated about the Common Cup, I think that restating those facts can be helpful. No, it won't be helpful to TJM, but maybe it will be to others.
I see Mark, our resident member of Leftwing World, formerly known as Academia, where free speech and objective facts no longer apply, feels compelled to defend his fellow lefty.
I could take you seriously if you can explain why you vote for a Party which requires its elected officials to support Intrinsic Evils as defined by the Catholic Church? “But for Wales?”
Fr K does not like me pointing out his utter hypocrisy. I don’t put up with his fantasy world reinforced by a corrupt national media which sanitizes facts to hide the truth about Democrats and the left. He can’t handle that there were no hot wars during President Trump’s time in office or that working men and women achieved economic gains they had not seen in decades
These are the folks who vote Democratic these days:
1) people who think the planet will be dead in 10 years unless we stop using fossil fuels while China and India increase their usage by orders of magnitude
2) people who think there are 27 63 fill-in-the-blank-with-over-2 genders
3) people who identify as a string of a dozen letters starting with LGBTQ
4) people who have been indoctrinated into marxism at universities the past 20+ years
5) people who think you are a Nazi if you disagree with them and that Nazis should be crushed by the government
6) people who think arson, looting and rioting is speech, but when republicans talk it is 'violence'
7) The same ones whose jobs, contracts and benefits/welfare payments depend on the big Marxist state.
8) and last and least, old and not very sharp democrats who still think against all evidence the party is the 'party of the working man
TJM has asked me to explain my voting patterns. I have voted for both Republican and Democratic presidential candidates, as well as for neither. I have not, I will not, and I cannot vote for Trump. I respect my fellow Catholics who have voted for him, especially when their vote is motivated by their position on abortion and other good faith beliefs. All I ask in return is a reciprocal regard. I have explained many times on this Blog that my voting is guided by the USCCB document Faithful Citizenship and my conscience. It is good enough for their Eminences. It is not good enough for TJM. So, which of us is more Catholic? It is a rhetorical question.
Despite apparent, intimated protestations to the contrary, TJM seems uninterested in the truth, only in superficial slogans and Trumpian talking points. I am compelled to draw this conclusion from his steadfast refusal to engage in rational, reasoned conversation about any issue, in which I have invited him to participate many times. Better yet would be good faith, serious conversation in which we respected one another’s humanity as broken people redeemed by Christ, in which we would transcend superficial slogans and taking points, which would exhibit our deepest values and commitments, and which could serve as a preparation and foundation for such rational, reasoned conversation. I have written about such matters at length, both here and elsewhere, in an effort to make a small contribution to healing our diseased and dysfunctional body politic. But no such conversations are possible with those who converse in bad faith.
TJM - I am very grateful that I don't live in the unhealthy and unpleasant world you have created for yourself. And, also, I hope no one other than you has to live there. Peace.
Mark,
For me my vote is guided by the 10 Commandments and Church Teaching. If that is irrational, so be it. No amount of sophistry works with me. The Democratic Party has morphed into a crime organization, and that began with the arrival of the Clintons, who are simply well educated grifters. Strange hardly anyone contributes to their Foundation since 2016, now that they have no real influence to sell. Why aren't they being investigated for their role in the sale of uranium to Russia? The Biden DOJ is utterly corrupt, calling parents terrorists, because they don't want their children to be exposed to racist nonsense like Critical Race Theory, all the rage with the leftists who have infiltrated education. Their latest mission is to teach gender theory to kindergartners and grade school children. The evil just keeps piling up.
Fr K,
Your inability to get along with our genial host and others on this website and not contributing much beyond snark, displays a lack of introspection and self awareness. Most modern day "liberals" are an unhappy lot, perpetually offended, and you fit right in with them.
Mark,
You may find this interesting. It pretty much ends the myth that the New York Times is special when it is nothing more than a leftwing viewspaper and discrediting this information before an election was by design. It also shows that the current Administration is utterly corrupt and makes President Trump look like an altarboy by comparison. If any of his children had been involved in activities as sordid as these, this would have been in the news 24/7 just like the fake Russian Collusion story.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/03/the_new_york_times_signals_the_end_of_bidens_road.html
Mark, Some people who say they follow Church teaching present as Church teaching that which is demonstrably not Church teaching. Some of the examples we have heard on this blog are:
1) Darwinain evolution is opposed to Church teaching and Catholic must not accept it.
2) Quo Primum (Pius V 1570) forbids any and all changes to the mass from that year to eternity.
3) The Bible is to be understood literally. Genesis says the world was created in six days, therefore Catholics must believe that it took six 24 hour days.
4) Certain acts are objectively immoral and the person who commits those acts is, without regard to any mitigating circumstances, condemned to hell if he/she does not receive sacramental absolution.
5) Catholic are obliged to believe in Limbo.
6) Catholics may ignore the teaching found in the Second Vatican Council because Vatican Two was merely a "pastoral" council.
7) The Church forbids voting for a candidate who views or positions on a variety of topics do not square 100% with the teachings of the Church.
None of these are doctrine, despite the protestations of those who wish they were.
Regarding the "American Thinker" website: "In the aftermath of Donald Trump's loss in the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, the American Thinker promoted a variety of false conspiracy theories and claims of election fraud as part of the Republican Party's attempt to overturn the election result. Faced with a lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems, Lifson [one of the founders of the website] acknowledged that the site had relied upon "discredited sources who have peddled debunked theories". The American Thinker likewise admitted that its election claims were "completely false and have no basis in fact" and that "it was wrong for us to publish these false statements.""
And: "Under threat of litigation, in January 2021 American Thinker published a retraction of unsupported stories it published asserting that Dominion Voting Systems engaged in a conspiracy to rig the 2020 presidential election against President Donald Trump, acknowledging, "These statements are completely false and have no basis in fact.""
Think again about the American Thinker.
One reason that it is so difficult to engage in rational, reasoned conversation with people like TJM is their constant use of what appears to be projection. To some extent we are all probably guilty of unconscious projection, but TJM practices projection in spades. For example, he says that sophistry will not work with him, implying, to be charitable rather than cynical about it, that he really believes that others are practicing sophistry and he isn’t. But one would be hard pressed to find a more paradigmatic example than TJM of a bullying, bellowing, ranting Thrasymachus-like figure (whether Plato’s portrayal of the sophist known as Thrasymachus in Book One of The Republic is historically accurate or poetic license is a different question).
I propose a little experiment to discover whether TJM is really interested in serious conversation and someone who is guided by the Ten Commandments and Church Teaching in his voting. I invite him to read and then comment seriously on the following document that seeks to explicate the Church teaching on the intrinsic evil of racism, including systemic racism, articulating when he does so his fundamental beliefs about race and how the Great Commandment applies to the question of racism, including systemic racism, in the context of the culture to which we belong, here the United States:
https://thejesuitpost.org/2020/07/catholic-101-should-a-catholic-be-an-antiracist/
Mark,
It is difficult to engage when all your sources are left of center as are Father Ks. Would you vote for a Party that discriminates against minorities? Then why would you vote for a party that engages in the most egregious form of discrimination - denying the right to be born. As a European you should be embarrassed by the extreme abortion laws in the US. If the Democrat Party lost the Catholic vote you can be assured Nancy Pelosi would be wearing a mantilla and carrying a rosary while protesting outside abortion facilities
Mark - "All your sources are left of center" says TJM.
Yet he posts from a source that spreads fringe, right-wing LIES, that disseminates LIES from other fringe, rigth-wing sources, and that has to retract and apologize for these fringe right-wing LIES in the face of lawsuits brought by the party about which they lied.
But YOUR sources are "left of center."
As for my sources, only a seriously off kilter person can consider the CDC, the Linacre Quarterly, The Journal of Infection, the American Journal of Infection Control to be "left of center."
Fr K,
It is hard to take a man of the clothe seriously which votes for the party of:
Abortion
Gay Marriage
Transgenderism
I could go on. Do you fail moral theology. You also sound like a State Worshiper. As for the CDC, take a look at this:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which according to its website is "recognized as the nation's premiere health promotion, prevention and preparedness agency," is playing a leading role in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the fall issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, editor-in-chief Lawrence R. Huntoon, M.D., Ph.D., analyzes the problems of bias and conflicts of interest highlighted by this crisis.
"The CDC openly admits that it is fudging the COVID-19 death figures," he writes. The statistics have been made to look really scary by adding speculative guesses to the official database. "Those false numbers are sanctioned by the CDC."
Dr. Huntoon notes that the CDC became authorized to accept private gifts in 1983, opening wide the door to corruption and conflicts of interest. Ethics and disclosure requirements are ineffective and non-uniform. A report by the Office of the Inspector General, published in 2010, showed a "systematic lack of oversight" of the ethics program."
During the pandemic, the CDC has hardly distinguished itself.
By the way, "right wing people" are people who believe in God, family, and hard work.The left, not so much.
Fr K, The Hill which is hardly a conservative news website (Bill Press being one of its major contributors) published a very unflattering article on the CDC. Educate yourself, instead of reading the morning DNC talking points.
https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/301432-the-cdc-is-being-being-influenced-by-corporate-and-political
Mark, did you ever notice how TJM's reading can be VERY selective?
I mention the CDC, AND the Linacre Quarterly, The Journal of Infection, the American Journal of Infection Control, but he can see only "CDC." One is left wondering about ... well, not really. It is pretty obvious that his claims are unreliable.
Did you notice that TJM professes to be worried about the "corrupting influence" of private gifts, but ignores the fact that his "American Thinker" source HIDES its funding sources, and that it is rated as "hyper-partisan right, unreliable, and misleading?"
Father Kavanaugh:
Quite so! Moreover, TJM is selective even in his coverage of his pre-selected source, which itself may be selective in its coverage. For example, The Hill article he cites is largely about a letter sent by a group called SPIDER (Scientists Preserving Integrity, Diligence, and Ethics in Research), which does indeed seem a laudable group with a most worthy goal. We should all be in favor of these virtues and values in research and want to oppose any corruption of them.
I don’t know whether TJM actually read the SPIDER letter linked in The Hill piece, something that integrity, diligence, and ethics in his own research would seem to require. Anyway, the anonymous scientists explain at the end of their letter that one reason they are so concerned is that “most of the scientists at CDC operate with the utmost integrity and ethics. However, this ‘climate of disregard’ puts many of us in difficult positions. We are often directed to do things we know are not right.” And earlier in their letter they refer to “the good work and science already underway at CDC.”
None of the examples in the letter that exercise these scientists concerns COVID, yet one suspects that TJM’s motivation for wanting us to read The Hill article is to impugn the CDC and Dr. Fauci regarding their actions during the pandemic, though a type of “guilt by association” as it were. Perhaps some of these actions were indeed also corrupt, but we do not discover anything about that from the letter or The Hill article about it. So, the bottom line on this article must be: “Nice try, TJM, but sorry, no cigar.”
What about the Dr. Huntoon article about CDC Covid-19 death numbers that TJM cites? Here is a link to the actual article:
https://jpands.org/vol25no3/huntoon.pdf
Two things. First, Dr. Huntoon is quoting from another article in which the author, Matthew Vadum, writes about CDC statistics from, wait for it, April 2020—one month into the pandemic! Second, that other article is from something called “canadafreepress.com” and the author states in the article that he is a contributor to, you guessed it, The American Thinker. In context, it paints a rather different picture, doesn’t it? Whatever may, or may not, have been the case IN THE FIRST MONTH of the pandemic is surely not very probative regarding later stages in the pandemic. Or is TJM’s position that the close on one million deaths figure now being reported is also false? If so, he should provide the evidence. Here is the link to the Canada Free Press article cited and quoted by Dr. Huntoon:
The CDC Confesses to Lying About COVID-19 Death Numbers | Canada Free Press
So, the bottom line on this one is: “Again, nice try, TJM, but you get only a very small cigarillo—and a used one at that.”
I did notice, too, that, as expected, TJM refuses to engage on the merits of the piece on racism I linked myself, resorting to the characteristic lame excuse about sources. Now, as the piece claimed to explicate the Catholic Church teaching on that subject, surely the “serious” thing to do, if he disagreed with the explanation, is to show how and why it is wrong. But this he will not or, one suspects, cannot do, and instead of engaging with the merits, he therefore engages in his usual evasion and obfuscation.
So far at least, then, the experiment has demonstrated that TJM is not “really interested in serious conversation and someone who is guided by the Ten Commandments and Church Teaching in his voting” or, if he is at all guided by Church teaching, then he is guided only by the Church teaching he agrees with. The burden is on him to show why this provisional conclusion is incorrect.
Update:
I must admit I was surprised and perplexed to find an ostensibly respectable source such as Dr. Huntoon citing and quoting such a questionable source as Matthew Vadum in Canada Free Press. So, I have done a bit of digging. It turns out that Dr. Huntoon is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, which is published by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (TJM quotes from one of their news releases, by the way: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cdc-compromised-by-bias-and-conflicts-of-interest-writes-editor-of-the-journal-of-american-physicians-and-surgeons-301134882.html).
The Association and the Journal sound respectable. However, Wikipedia describes the Association as
“[A] politically conservative non-profit association that promotes medical misinformation, such as HIV/AIDS denialism, the abortion-breast cancer hypothesis, vaccine and autism connections, and homosexuality reducing life expectancy. The association was founded in 1943 to oppose a government attempt to nationalize health care. The group has included notable members, including American Republican politicians Ron Paul, Rand Paul and Tom Price.”
And it has this to say about their Journal:
“It is not listed in academic literature databases such as MEDLINE, PubMed, or the Web of Science. The quality and scientific validity of articles published in the journal have been criticized by medical experts, and some of the viewpoints advocated by AAPS are rejected by other scientists and medical groups. The U.S. National Library of Medicine declined repeated requests from AAPS to index the journal, citing unspecified concerns.
“As of September 2016, JP&S was listed on Beall's List of potential or probable predatory open-access journals. Quackwatch lists JP&S as an untrustworthy, non-recommended periodical. An editorial in Chemical & Engineering News described the journal as a ‘purveyor of utter nonsense.’ Investigative journalist Brian Deer wrote that the journal is the ‘house magazine of a right-wing American fringe group [AAPS]’ and ‘is barely credible as an independent forum.’ Writing in The Guardian, science columnist Ben Goldacre described the journal as the ‘in-house magazine of a rightwing US pressure group well known for polemics on homosexuality, abortion and vaccines.’”
Among other controversial claims, the Association claimed in 2008 that “then-candidate Barack Obama was captivating his audiences through hypnosis” and “[i]n September 2009, St. Petersburg neurosurgeon and future president of the Florida AAPS David McKalip received significant public criticism for emailing a falsified photo showing President Barack Obama as a witch doctor with an exotic headdress, loin cloth, and bones in his nose.”
So, these are the kinds of sources TJM relies upon.
For more on the Association and its Journal see the Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons
Clarification:
It is perhaps unclear whether the Association as such claimed that Obama used hypnosis. They certainly did publish an article on their website making this claim. Also, some of the citations in the Wikipedia article are not completely accurate it seems, including the citations regarding this point. However, here is an accurate reference providing a link to the article on the Association website:
https://aapsonline.org/oratory-or-hypnotic-induction/
One may seriously doubt this claim regarding Obama’s use of hypnosis techniques. Now, their use by Donald Trump, on the other hand, may be a different matter. -:)
Ok, Father K,
Here is another article on the less than stellar ethics of the CDC:
https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/22/cdc-tells-new-york-times-it-hid-covid-data-for-political-reasons/
Mark,
I have no laugh that the Democrats are calling for "civility" at the hearings for Judge Brown.Let's take a brief trip down memory lane to the Kavanaugh hearings: lies, scorched earth, no deceny. If your memory fails you, here is an article to refresh your memory:
https://justthenews.com/government/congress/gop-senators-draw-contrast-between-day-one-jackson-hearings-vs-incidents
I won't even get into the lyching of Justice Thomas by Joe Biden. Does this behavior, bother you, at all?
By the way, Donald Trump was praised by Jessee Jackson and Al Sharpton when he was a registered Democrat for all he did for the Black Community. You can find these statements with a flick of a wrist on the internet. Once he joined the Republican Party, all of that changed. I find it odd that two reverends support for the Party which has embraced Margaret Sanger who viewed Blacks as undesirable additions to the gene pool.
And Mark, lest you think I was leaving Academia out of my criticism, here is a story that should bother you.
The College at Brockport, State University of New York, booked a paid speech by a black supremacist who killed two NYPD officers.
“On May 2, 1971, Muntaqim and a fellow Black Liberation Army member shot NYPD officers Waverly Jones and Joseph A. Piagentini in the back. Piagentini pleaded for his life and told the gunmen that he had a wife and children, at which point Muntaqim and his associate took his service pistol and fired several more shots. Piagentini was shot 22 times and died while being transported to a Harlem hospital,” the report explains. “The Black Liberation Army was a black supremacist organization responsible for the murders at least 10 police officers. Former BLA member Assata Shakur played a role in the murder of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster in 1973. She escaped from prison and received asylum from Cuba.”
Muntaqim has never expressed remorse or apologized to the families.
Diane Piagentini, the widow of officer Joseph Piagentini, wrote to SUNY Brockport to remind the college president of what happened to her husband, according to a report from Fox 59.
“While my husband lay on the ground pleading with them not to kill him, pleading he had a wife and children,” Mrs. Piagentini said in her letter, “Bottom took his service revolver and emptied it into his body. There were 22 bullet holes in his body.”
In response to the public outrage, the college said “…the committee has rescinded the grant and no funding will be used to pay the speaker. We are not, however, canceling the event. Academic freedom allows our faculty to invite guests of their choosing to campus to address our students.”
Now, if the speaker were to discuss there are only two genders, the event would have been canceled, without doubt.
Mark, Have you noticed that TJM regularly attacks the New York Times as "leftist" and unreliable? I have.
He called it the New York "Slimes" on April 30, 2020.
Oddly enough, information from the New York Times is the basis for almost the entire Federalist item.
From the Federalist item: "CDC Tells New York Times..." and "According to a recent headline from The New York Times,..." and “The agency has been reluctant to make those figures public,” according to the Times,..." and "After “several inquiries from The New York Times,”..."
ONe is left wondering... How does one make this kind of switch, from considering the NYTimes a worthless rag to lauding it as almost Sared Writ?
Father Kavanaugh:
We should expect neither consistency nor coherence from TJM.
I assume that his points about Judge Brown, Justice Thomas, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, Margaret Sanger, and Muntaquim are all intended to be in response to my invitation to engage in serious conversation about the Catholic teaching on racism, but I am only guessing.
If, and when, TJM decides to make an actual argument, perhaps a reply will be appropriate. Until then, however, I suggest we decline to play intellectual Whack-A-Mole. It is a futile waste of time, even though it would be quite possible to dismantle each one of his points. To take but one example, in true Orwellian fashion TJM may want to flush the sham supplemental FBI investigation into then-Judge Kavanaugh (during a pause in the confirmation hearing) down the memory hole, but some of us do not forget so easily. Nor, it seems, do some members of Congress:
https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/after-new-details-on-kavanaugh-investigation-surface-senators-call-on-fbi-for-answers-on-handling-of-tip-line
As for the point about Muntaquim, although TJM provides no reference, I suspect he got it from the following source given that he seems to reproduce it verbatim:
https://thekingofstocks.com/2022/03/21/black-supremacist-who-killed-two-nypd-officers-gets-speaking-gig-at-new-york-college/
The same webpage from this impeccable news source also contains a self-justificatory lament from Roger Stone protesting his innocence over the events of January 6. But, of course, the jury is still out on that one. In fact, it hasn’t even been convened but presumably will be when the January 6 committee organizes its public hearings and then releases its interim report.
Mark and Father K are much like Mark Thomas, they avoid facts which should call into question their adherence to the Party of Intrinsic Evil. Just one example should suffice:
Justice Kavanaugh's treatment by Senate Dems versus Judge Brown's treatment by Senate Republicans.
I will wait with interest how they will try to justify the undefensible. A party that behaves in a corrupt fashion like the Dems did in the whole Kavanaugh travesty should never hold power. There should have been a criminal investigation into Diane Feinstein's antics and Blasey, another "sterling" academic's, false testimony.
Father K,
You conventiently left out that the New York Slimes insisted the laptop did not exist right before the election in 2020 and has only reported it now after the New York Post had done considerable reporting on it PRIOR to the election and thereafter. A poor track record for the so-called "newspaper of record."
Here's more for Father K. The New York Slimes (a viewspaper for lefties) who once upon a time praised Herr Hitler and covered up Stalin's crimes is not looking so authoritative nor honest:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/03/the_new_york_times_finds_russia_collusion_in_its_own_back_yard.html
Candace Owens, an African-American, had the temerity to push back on their fake narrative designed to undermine her. Does that make the New York Times racist?
I am questioning once again whether TJM is who he claims to be—an international lawyer with multiple degrees, etc., etc., and not some Russian or other troll intent on sowing as much discord as possible on various social media.
Not only does TJM not converse as one would expect a lawyer to do. It is certainly interesting that, after a long period of silence, for the past few months he has again been so vocal and divisive. It is suspicious that his very loud return to the Blog just happened to coincide with the build up to, and then Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Also he reminds me of another suspicious commenter we used to have who went by the name of Jan.
I am quite serious about raising this as a possibility. Perhaps Father McDonald has a way of verifying TJM’s legitimacy.
Here is some useful information on internet trolls:
https://www.wikihow.com/Identify-a-Troll
https://www.webroot.com/us/en/resources/tips-articles/you-cant-win-an-argument-with-a-troll
These sources certainly seem to describe TJM to a T (or should I say a TJM).
Mark,
You come across as a typical lefty academic: ignoring inconvenient facts which show how corrupt leftists (modern day Dems) are. This corruption was on ample display at the Kavanaugh hearings. Another example of the facts not fitting the narrative that President Trump was a racist and did not care about the working man are Jackson and Sharpton praising Trump for his contributions to the Black community and statistics showing Blacks and Hispanics making significant economic gains via lowest unemployment in their history under Trump. Your inability to connect the dots is evidence of the lack of academic rigor in today’s law schools. Yale Law School has gotten so bad that a federal judge wrote to his brethren stating they should not hire Yale law grads as clerks.
Since you never practiced law at the highest levels as i did for 40 years you would be unaware that law firms do not pay its lawyers for word salads and place greater value on a lawyer cutting to the chase as I do here.
I would like you to redeem yourself by explaining your Party’s shameless conduct during the Kavanaugh hearings and then explain why you would continue to support people with that sort of modus operandi. Of course you can continue in the Mark Thomas mode if you like.
Cheers!
Father Kavanaugh and other fellow Southern Orders bloggers:
The following extract is from https://www.webroot.com/us/en/resources/tips-articles/you-cant-win-an-argument-with-a-troll
“Trolls agitate to start fights between friends or strangers; they torment those struggling with illnesses or with the loss of a loved one, people unsure of their identity or their looks, or any other weakness a troll can find. They disrupt forums with off-topic comments, brag nonstop about themselves, ridicule the thoughts of others or insert controversial comments to disrupt conversations.
"Trolls spread lies, deceive and cause damage, and they enjoy every minute they can make someone else miserable. They may be obnoxious teens, but more often than not they’re seemingly “normal” adults who use internet anonymity to shed their veneer of decency and show their ugly selves. Trolls are basically cyberbullies on steroids – cowards afraid to show their face but nastier and more dedicated than garden-variety bullies. They are often fairly tech savvy, willing to dig up a comment or information from your past to distort, thereby 'justifying' their actions.
"If you’ve spent any time online, you’ve probably run across trolls even if you didn’t know the term. You may have tried to reason with them, be nice to them or virtually shout back at them. Don’t bother. You’re more likely to win an argument with a tree than you are with a troll.”
Does that sound like anyone you know?
P.S. I hope everyone understands that almost everything TJM writes is pure and utter garbage. His last post is another characteristic example—and exactly what one would expect from a troll, ignoring past effective responses to his garbage points, making foundationless ad hominem comments, refusing to acknowledge when his garbage points are demolished, and displaying woeful ignorance about the law school world (Yale is an aberration and has always been regarded as such, even if US News and World Report, itself a suspect source, does rank Yale Law School as number 1 in the country!) If one of my students behaved like TJM, I would throw him out of my classroom and urge that he be dismissed, if the counseling to which I referred him did not help resolve his problems. I would certainly not certify him to the State Bar as fit to practice law.
And whoever reads this Blog, please do not judge Catholicism by TJM. He does not represent who we are. As I said, I now regard him a a disruptive troll and will never reply directly to him, for to do so just feeds the troll.
Mark,
I handed you a simple assignment and you could not do it. You just can't deal with the truth of the Kavanaugh hearings. Like every lefty I know, you refuse to engage when confronted with inconvenient facts, just like Father K.
Your response is hilarious, I have really struck a nerve. All of a sudden your suave, urbane facade is gone, unmasking the intolerant leftist that you are. Law school is not the forum for suppressing viewpoints that do not coincide with your own, so tossing me out of your classroom and sending me to a re-education camp does not wash. Your intellectual dishonesty would have gotten you tossed out of my Firm in 5 minutes.
I think our genial host and most readers here hope YOU do not represent Catholicism because of your adherence to "liberal" orthodoxy, abortion, gay marriage, trangenderism, grooming of minors in sexual matters, etc., all antithetical to Catholicism. When you vote Dem, you can lie to yourself that you aren't voting for these things, but, de facto, you are doing so because Dem politicans and elected officials, beyond peradventure, will pursue these things. As we say in the law, it is "foreseable."
For the record, I have already responded regarding the Kavanaugh hearing. See my post of 1:50 a.m. on March 23, but naturally the troll ignored that response. And, of course, the troll deliberately and willfully misunderstands my point about ejecting him from the classroom, again in true troll like fashion. I do not object to the expression of viewpoints even though I might disagree with them. What I will not abide in my classroom is deliberate disruption, bad faith, disingenuous arguments, ad hominem attacks on others, etc.
Trolls are also hypocritical and engage in projection, often just to “needle” others. Thus, intellectual dishonesty? Readers can read the previous posts in this thread and judge for themselves which of us is at least trying to exhibit the dialogic virtues and which of us, by contrast, is intellectually dishonest and exhibits other dialogic vices.
But always remember: “If you’ve spent any time online, you’ve probably run across trolls even if you didn’t know the term. You may have tried to reason with them, be nice to them or virtually shout back at them. Don’t bother. You’re more likely to win an argument with a tree than you are with a troll.”
And please remember this, too: Whoever TJM is, the ONLY thing he is interested in in the area of politics is to be an apologist for Donald Trump and the Trump Cult. Nothing else. Everything he says and does is calculated to achieve that end.
By contrast, the only thing I am interested in is in improving the quality of our currently corrupt politics. It is all corrupt—Democrats are corrupt in certain ways and Republicans are also corrupt in certain ways. Trump is most definitely corrupt. I have written extensively on these matters—and not just here on the Blog but in various publications, including a recent book. The troll probably knows this, but trolls do not like it when you push back and expose them for what they are. I have exposed TJM for what he is.
Mark,
You are THE troll. The US was in far better shape with Donald Trump as president, unlike the mess we are with a senile, grifter, who was chased out of the 1988 presidential primary for being a liar and plaigarizer. No new wars and working men and women prospering is a record to be proud of. It is obvious you hold working men and women in contempt like must faculty lounge lizards do. Democrats are practicing intrinsic evil, Republicans are not. There is no moral equivalency. It is difficult to have a discussion with people like you who take Orwellian liberties with the language. You pretend to be open to other ideas, but like most academics today, you are not.
The phrase “intrinsic evil” may be rhetorically attractive, but it is misleading and oversimplifies when bandied about for rhetorical effect in political discourse. Can’t both parties be regarded as parties of intrinsic evil? Consider this extract from Pope St. John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical Veritatis Splendor:
80. Reason attests that there are objects of the human act which are by their nature "incapable of being ordered" to God, because they radically contradict the good of the person made in his image. These are the acts which, in the Church's moral tradition, have been termed "intrinsically evil" (intrinsece malum): they are such always and per se, in other words, on account of their very object, and quite apart from the ulterior intentions of the one acting and the circumstances. Consequently, without in the least denying the influence on morality exercised by circumstances and especially by intentions, the Church teaches that "there exist acts which per se and in themselves, independently of circumstances, are always seriously wrong by reason of their object". The Second Vatican Council itself, in discussing the respect due to the human person, gives a number of examples of such acts: "Whatever is hostile to life itself, such as any kind of homicide, genocide, abortion, euthanasia and voluntary suicide; whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, physical and mental torture and attempts to coerce the spirit; whatever is offensive to human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution and trafficking in women and children; degrading conditions of work which treat labourers as mere instruments of profit, and not as free responsible persons: all these and the like are a disgrace, and so long as they infect human civilization they contaminate those who inflict them more than those who suffer injustice, and they are a negation of the honour due to the Creator".
With regard to intrinsically evil acts, and in reference to contraceptive practices whereby the conjugal act is intentionally rendered infertile, Pope Paul VI teaches: "Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to promote a greater good, it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it (cf. Rom 3:8) — in other words, to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general".
81. In teaching the existence of intrinsically evil acts, the Church accepts the teaching of Sacred Scripture. The Apostle Paul emphatically states: "Do not be deceived: neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the Kingdom of God" (1 Cor 6:9-10).
But perhaps TJM will argue that Pope St. John Paul II (not to mention St. Paul) is “tak[ing] Orwellian liberties with the language.”
I am not trying to make a partisan point, as I neither a Democrat nor a Republican (RINO or otherwise), just to demonstrate that matters just are not so simple as TJM and others make out. Sometimes I despair of the potential for intelligent political conversation, but there are some hopeful initiatives underway and indeed, unless we take our country back from the forces that have sought to divide us into warring factions, I suspect the Republic is doomed (which may actually be welcomed by some, who want to believe that as long as they get their way, they don’t care whether it is through Republican democracy or autocracy). Anyway, as food for thought regarding the treatment of workers under Trump, I offer the following:
https://prospect.org/labor/trump-war-on-workers/
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