feminine-genius

Brief comment on Sonia

There's not much to say about Sonia Sotomayor that is in the realm of the "feminine genius" except for her participation in this group, which is sort of an all-girls club created in reaction to the no-girls tree house known as Bohemian Grove.

The group — which on its website describes itself as “a constellation of influential women who are key decision makers in the profit, nonprofit and social sectors; who build long-term, mutually beneficial relationships in order to both take charge of their own destinies and help others to do the same” — hosts periodic meetings around New York, as well as an annual off-the-record three-day retreat in Central or South America at which its members attend cocktail parties with U.S. diplomats and host-country officials and participate in panel discussions on public policy and business affairs.

Fair enough. I'm actually for such endeavors because there are times when each men and women like to be alone. As secretive as each group is, it's hard to draw a bead on what they do -- giggle over their wine while giving each other pedicures?

The only problem would be when those mutually beneficial relationships use as their premise silliness like this:

They wouldn't stoop to that level, would they?

UPDATE: Well, Ms Sotomayor has quit the club, which may be necessary for being considered a Supreme Court Justice.

[S]he said she didn't want questions about it to "distract anyone from my qualifications and record."

Federal judges are bound by a code that says they shouldn't join any organization that discriminates by race, sex, religion or nationality.

The Belizean Grove bills itself as women's answer to the 130-year-old all-male Bohemian Club in California. The club owns a 2,500-acre camping area in northern California called the Grove. Chief Justice Earl Warren belonged to the Bohemian Club beginning in the 1940s, before he joined the court and long before the federal judiciary adopted a code of conduct.

Interesting that she was a member despite the existing ban on such things. Perhaps judges shouldn't belong (their lives do become crimped in some ways) but there's no reason why such associations shouldn't exist. Freedom of association implies freedom from association as well.

Jerusalem's Cross

 

Daughter Zion is fraught with division, even amongst those who are Christian:

At the most, the number of Arab Christians in Israel is 120,000, with a further 36,000 in the West Bank and 4,000 in Gaza. In 1948 they were a vibrant 10 per cent of the population, now they are less than two per cent. Approximately half belong to the six main Catholic denominations: the Latin Catholics, the Melkites, the Maronites, the Syrian Catholics, the Armenian Catholics and the Chaldeans - the last five of which are Eastern Rite. However, the ratio of clergy to laity remains high within the Catholic churches - there are 1,760 priests, nuns and other consecrated Catholics plus hundreds of students and lay workers.

In Jerusalem the Arab Christian population has declined to less than 10,000. Dr Bernard Sabella, a Latin Catholic member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and former professor of sociology at Bethlehem University, estimates that there are around 177 Christians to every church in Jerusalem.

Christians are in the epi-centre of the Middle East conflict. It is a life of divisions and barriers - even between the churches. People refer to the Catholics as if they were a monolithic whole, but in the place of the origin of Christianity, theology, rituals and rivalries separate each denomination from the other.

Some are even grumbling about the Pope's itinerary. This source, the Catholic Herald offers excellent coverage (of this and all Things Catholic). Please pray for the best outcome of this difficult trip.

[Image is AP Photo by Sebastian Scheiner]

UPDATES

My able webmaster has kindly updated my site with most of my recent columns and articles. Please note that I offer a 600 word column every other week, which is available for your Catholic papers and newsletters. (You can even use what's already there with attribution.)

More importantly, though, we've posted an excellent paper by Dale O'Leary which is all you need to know to understand the issue of AIDS and Africa. This would be an excellent tool to discuss the situation coherently with friends and family, and also as a reference for high school and college students who would like to explain and defend the Church's position (which is the only truly loving position!)

When one understands the motivation behind those who are behind the condom campaign, it all, sadly, begins to make more sense.

Shades of rational thought

Folks in Idaho have chosen wisely.

The University of Idaho has scrapped its plans to turn some of its dorm suites into co-ed apartments. Bryan Fischer of Idaho Values Alliance (IVA) says the idea was short-lived because it would have required students of the opposite sex to share the same bathroom (see earlier story). After word surfaced about the school's plan, Fischer sounded the alarm and residents began contacting their state lawmakers.

But to think that colleges are otherwise "socially appropriate environments"  is to be naive. Caveat emptor!

Drudge's angles

I don't know much about Matt Drudge personally, but it is evident that he knows his audience. To his swath of  counter-cultural news junkies (who are suspicious of the main-stream media) he keeps tossing red meat that he knows will draw the proper responses. After headlining Nancy Pelosi's attempt to fund "birth control," he now headlines the bewildering news that $350Million (come again?) is targeted at STD's.

The House Democrats' bill includes $335 million for sexually transmitted disease education and prevention programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

In the past, the CDC has used STD education funding for programs that many Members of Congress find objectionable and arguably unrelated to a mission of economic stimulus [such as funding events called 'Booty Call' and 'Great Sex' put on by an organization that received $698,000 in government funds.]

"Whether this funding has merit is not the question; the point is it has no business in an economic plan supposedly focused on job creation," says a stimulated Hill source.

Consider my string pulled. Wrong answer, wrong place, wrong-headed. Who is this guy? He sure knows how to rally the troops.

Huddle up for the play

As I noted below, this seems to be a good time to stand down and pray. The stategy is given weight when we recognise there are very few venues for real power -- political power that is -- to advance the Christian cause. Thus, we must follow the path of humility. Bishop Hermann has some good words on this topic:

“In order to bring about a transformation from a culture of death to a culture of life,” Bishop Hermann continues, “we have to restore our Catholic identity. This means that all of us, as Catholics, have to undergo a profound transformation. It means that we have to take a good look at every facet of our Catholic life, including the serious study of life issues, the regular and devout use of our Sacramental system, especially the devout and weekly attendance at Mass, the regular reception of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the devout praying of the daily Rosary, and then the faithful, loving and firm witness to lax Catholics about our Catholic beliefs and practices … Until we are willing to be politically incorrect in order to be biblically correct, we will never convince anyone that our religion is worth living.”

It calls to mind G. K. Chesterton's quip when asked, "What's wrong with the world."

"I am," he replied.

Sincere efforts, cheerful demeanor, supernatural hope, and buckets full of trust, ladies. The world has seen worse.

"You're going to see a miracle"

A woman heard these words on the phone, and she was filled with fear and anxiety. Was she speaking to a prophet of God? A saint? A devoted Christian? No, she was hearing about the plans of the fiance of her deceased daughter, Kay. The man had fertilised Kay's eggs through IVF before her untimely death, and was devoted to carrying on with his fatherly plans.

"It had been discussed by the family. He said, 'Don't be sad, a miracle is going to happen and you will be grandmother.' "I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was a complete bombshell.

Well, we could look at the Catholic Encyclopedia's definition of a miracle:

The word terata literally means "wonders", in reference to feelings of amazement excited by their occurrence, hence effects produced in the material creation appealing to, and grasped by, the senses, usually by the sense of sight, at times by hearing ...

The wonder of the miracle is due to the fact that its cause is hidden, and an effect is expected other than what actually takes place. Hence, by comparison with the ordinary course of things, the miracle is called extraordinary.

A miracle is said to be above nature when the effect produced is above the native powers and forces in creatures of which the known laws of nature are the expression... Thus the effect in abundance far exceeds the power of natural forces, or it takes place instantaneously without the means or processes which nature employs.

Well, this birth will be grasped by the senses and is outside the normal processes which nature employs. The difference is that authentic miracles are supposed to draw the soul closer to God, to ultimately reveal his goodness and mercy.

Miracles are signs of God's providence over men, hence they are of high moral character, simple and obvious in the forces at work, in the circumstances of their working, and in their aim and purpose.

This one simple doesn't fit the definition. It displaces God and draws the witness towards the action of scientists, who only mimic Him. It also denies the child of his rightful dignity to be created in a loving union and born to a mother and father committed to a life-long union by matrimony.

The normal joy of being a grandmother is mitigated by the loss of her daughter, the fact that the father of these "snowflakes" (embryos on ice) won't speak to her, and the child will be born of a surrogate as a commodity. A shabby miracle (outside the normal miraculous creation of any child). To be sure, with her daughter's actions to date, she already is a grandmother, but it's brought nothing but sorrow:

She admitted that she did not know where she stood legally in attempting to prevent Mr Vogel from using her daughter’s eggs as she was unsure if she signed a form consenting that her embryos could be used by others in the event of her death or mental incapacity.

She said she is now taking legal advice to find out what rights she has, as Miss Stanley's mother. "I don't know if this bizarre plan for his sister to have my grandchild is still planned and I don't know who owns or controls the frozen embryos," she said. "I don't even know where they are. I have tried to take legal advice but it cost me AUS$3,500 for a couple of meetings and I can't afford to keep doing that."

Brave new world, courtesy of the "white coats." Enlightenment never looked so dim.

Aquinas would disagree

For inventor Le Trung, perfection means doing chores without complaint, having a vast programmable memory, waiting on him selflessly, and sporting a perfect (if plastic) feminine frame. Aiko keeps him company, helps around the house, and is pleasing to the eye. Looking forward, he realises

“I may need to have Aiko look after me one day. “She doesn’t need holidays, food or rest and she will work almost 24-hours a day. She is the perfect woman,” he said.

Well, I'd say she's the perfect robot invention, but woman? I'm not sure if it's his cultural paradigm that caused him to program her to say that he is her "creator and master," but he needs a reboot himself.

For all his genius, let it be noted that Le Trung spent his life's saving on this "companion." In the end , I think he's been had, truckled like many men before him of varying IQ's.

(For all his genius, I much prefer Branford's other hometown hero.)

Oops, rewrite

Having pinned all the darkness leading up to (and thereby justifying) the communist takeover of Russia in 1917, the newest version of history says that Czar Nicholas and his family were actually beacons of faith -- in fact visionaries.

The ruling is the latest step in Russia’s post-Soviet reinterpretation of history, which has seen a new embrace of a monarchy once castigated for brutality and backwardness, accompanied by both nostalgia for and damning reconsiderations of seven decades of Soviet rule.

This is no doubt as political a step as the original verdict, but it allows folks to embrace faith and monarchy, to whatever end. The czar and his family were butchered as part of the establishment of the Soviet state, only one family of millions caught in the ubiquitous violence that was part and parcel of the Marxist rule that swept through much of Europe -- and indeed the world -- in the 20th century.

In July 1918, under Lenin’s orders, the czar, his wife, Aleksandra, and their children, Olga, Tatyana, Maria, Anastasia and the 13-year-old heir to the throne, Aleksei, were shot to death in the basement of a house in Yekaterinburg, a city in the Ural Mountains in central Russia. Several members of the family’s staff were also killed.

The killings by the Bolshevik government were meant to solidify its hold on power in the midst of an intensifying civil war.

The Romanovs’ bodies were likely doused in acid to mask their identities before being buried in secret graves. The remains of Nicholas and Aleksandra and three of the five children were discovered in 1991 in the waning days of the Soviet Union, and interred in 1998 in St. Petersburg, in a special chamber in the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, where many other Russian royals are buried.

The remains of the two other children were missing until August 2007, when an archaeologist in Yekaterinburg unearthed bone fragments not far from where the other Romanovs had been buried. The authorities announced this year that DNA testing had confirmed that the remains belonged to Aleksei and Maria.

The Czarina Aleksandra, interestingly, was a German-born princess, granddaughter to Queen Victoria, whose progeny were scattered about Europe thrones in the early decades of that bloody century. Aleksandra converted to Russian Orthodoxy for her marriage and unfortunately later fell under the demonic spell of Father Rasputin, who understood her tremendous anxiety over the health of the Crown Prince -- suffering from hemophelia. So much tragedy and misfortune, which in turn left Russia prone to the subsequent disasters.

The remainder of the countless victims of the mock trials and gulags are still awaiting their rehabilitation, though most of the names and graves will be known to God alone.

Dark but essential

Twenty-seven million. That's the rough estimate of slaves worldwide in our generation -- higher than at any other time on earth. Information here. The present day situation is unique:

The first, a recent population explosion has tripled the number of people in the world, with most growth taking place in the developing world. The second, rapid social and economic change, have displaced many to urban centers and their outskirts, where people have no ‘safety net’ and no job security. The third, government corruption around the world, allows slavery to go unpunished, even though it is illegal everywhere. In this way millions have become vulnerable to slave holders and human traffickers looking to profit through the theft of people’s lives. This new slavery has two prime characteristics: slaves today are cheap and they are disposable.

The author of this book highlights some dark tales, for example:

BreakPoint: When you pretended to buy a slave in Haiti, you mentioned your fear that your plot might backfire. Did you have a course of action should the worst come true?

Skinner: My greatest fear was retaliation against people who were enslaved. I considered myself the least vulnerable. In so many instances, these traffickers have no regard for the lives of those they enslave. If they feel like there’s a risk that these people could testify against them, they would take it out on them.

I found something I didn’t expect to find. In many cases, it was clear to me that they were coerced and that there was an element of violence in their coercion. In other cases, where I was off on my own—for instance in Dubai, I met a woman in a club. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. We walked in, and there were some 500 women in this club, all organized by race. I didn’t talk to one who had come over knowing full well the terms that they were coming to. For example, they didn’t know their passports would be taken away. I met one of these women in a mall the next day who told me this heartbreaking story of how she had come over from Romania. She came over because she had to feed her child. She’d been beaten and, at times, tortured by the people who were renting her body. When she eventually broke free, you would think that she could rebuild her life, but the options that you’re left with after something like that are so narrow. She felt that the only way she could keep going was to stay in prostitution. I think that any restorative justice on this has to address the psychological aspects.

One glimmer of hope came in relating this success story:

My friend Bill Nathan, who was a child slave in Haiti: There were a couple of things that helped him recover from that. He did have a loving mother, and he holds her up as one bedrock of unconditional love. Also, the faith and the redemptive power of Christ—that has given him a tremendous amount of strength. He would say it was God’s will. I found him to be superhuman. I have no doubt that he kept me alive when I was laid out with malaria. And he prayed for me. You hear stories of child molesters who were molested as children. Well, why didn’t Bill end up that way? I think it has to do with the people who welcomed him right after he got out of slavery. They told him, “You are a child of God, and we will embrace you.” Bill would call them his family. Let’s be frank, he’s lucky.

Another bright light is this woman, Sharla Musabih, who helps battered women, repatriates abused workers, and even finally brought about a ban on camel jockey's -- who were actually enslaved children tied to the beasts in a vile practice that usually ended in their deaths. Much to pray for, and kindly remember that there are gifts you could choose this Christmas that could benefit abolition efforts.