Archbishop Adam Sapieha ordained 26-year-old Karol Wojtyla as a priest.
He would, of course, go on to be Pope.
The first game of the NBA saw the New York Knicks defeat the Toronto Huskies.
Japanese girls in school they helped build.
Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts
Sunday, November 1, 2026
Wednesday, November 1, 1911. First attempt at bombing from the air. Large assemble of ships. Casper's current hospital (long before the Banner days) opens.
The first aerial bombardment in history took place when Second Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti of the Italian Army threw three Cipelli hand grenades on Turkish troops at Tagiura in Libya.
He then flew to Ain and dropped another grenade there.
Nobody was hurt in the effort.
The U.S. Navy assembled 100 ships on the Hudson for review by Secretary of the Navy George von L. Meyer. In the Pacific, 22 ships and 2 submarines sailed past Los Angeles.
It was the largest assembly of U.S. Navy vessels up to that point in time.
Pope Pius X issued the papal bull Divino afflatu requiring that the new Roman Breviary be used in all Latin Rite churches no later than October 23, 1917.
Divini Afflatu
On the Reform of the Roman Breviary
Apostolic Constitution of Pope St. Pius X
November 1, 1911
Pius, Servant of the Servants of God, For Everlasting Memory—
It is beyond question that the Psalms composed under divine inspiration, which are collected in the sacred books, have from the beginning of the Church not only contributed wonderfully to foster the piety of the faithful offering “the sacrifice of praise always to God, that is to say, the fruit of lips confessing to His name” (“hostiam laudis semper Deo, id est, fructum labiorum confitentium nomini ejus”),[1] but have also had a conspicuous part, from custom introduced under the Old Law, in the Sacred Liturgy itself and in the Divine Office.
Hence, as Basil says, that natural “voice of the Church” (“Ecclesiae vox”)[2] and the psalmody called by Our Predecessor Urban VIII, the “daughter of her hymnody” (“ejus hymnodiae, filia”), “which is constantly sung before the throne of God and the Lamb” (“quae canitur assidue ante sedem Dei et Agni”),[3] and which, according to Athanasius, teaches the men whose chief care is the divine worship the manner “in which God is to be praised and the words in which they are fitly to confess Him” (“qua ratione Deum laudare oporteat quibusque verbis decenter”).[4] Augustine beautifully says on the subject:
That God may be praised well by man, God Himself has praised Himself; and since He has been pleased to praise Himself man has found the way to praise Him.
all our Scripture, both the Old and New, is divinely inspired and useful for doctrine, as it is written, the Book of Psalms, like a paradise containing in itself all fruits gives forth songs, and with them also shows its own songs in psalmody.
Such are the words of Athanasius[6], who rightly adds in the same place:
To me it seems that the psalms for him who sings them are as a mirror in which he may contemplate himself and the movements of his soul and, under this influence, recite them.
Hence, Augustine says in his Confessions:
How I wept in hymns and canticles, deeply moved by the voices of Thy sweetly sounding Church! These voices poured into my ears and truth became clear in my heart and then feelings of piety grew warm within me and my tears flowed, and it was well with me for them.
For who can fail to be stirred by the numerous passages of the psalms which proclaim so loudly the immense majesty of God, His omnipotence, His ineffable justice or goodness or clemency, and His other infinite praises? Who can fail to be inspired with similar feelings by those thanksgivings for benefits received from God, or by those trustful prayers for benefits desired, or those cries of the penitent soul for its sins? Who is not stirred to admiration by the Psalmist as he recounts the acts of divine goodness toward the people of Israel and the whole race of man and when he hands down the picture of Christ the Redeemer lovingly foreshadowed:
Whose voice Augustine heard in all the Psalms, praising or mourning, rejoicing in hope or yearning for accomplishment?
With good reason was provision made long ago, by decrees of the Roman Pontiffs, by canons of the Councils, and by monastic laws, that members of both branches of the clergy should chant or recite the entire Psaltery every week. And this same law, handed down from antiquity, Our Predecessors St. Pius V, Clement VIII and Urban VIII religiously observed in revising the Roman Breviary. Even at present the Psaltery should be recited in its entirety within the week were it not that owing to the changed condition of things such recitation is frequently hindered.
For in the course of time there has been a constant increase among the faithful in the number of those whom the Church, after their mortal life, has been accustomed to count among the denizens of Heaven and to set before the Christian people as patrons and models. In their honor the Offices of the Saints began to be gradually extended until it has come about that the Offices of the Sundays and Ferias are hardly ever heard, and thus neglect has fallen on not a few Psalms, albeit these are, no less than the others, as Ambrose says:
the benediction of the people, the praise of God, the praising of the multitude, the rejoicing of all, the speech of all, the voice of the Church, the resounding confession of faith, the full devotion of authority, the joy of liberty, the cry of gladness, the echo of joy.More than once serious complaints have been made by prudent and pious men about this omission, on the ground that owing to it those in Sacred Orders have been deprived of so many admirable aids for praising the Lord and expressing the inmost feelings of the soul, and that it has left them without that desirable variety in praying so highly necessary for our weakness in supplicating worthily, attentively, and devoutly.
For, as Basil has it:
the soul, in some strange way, frequently grows torpid in sameness, and what should be present to it becomes absent; whereas by changing and varying the psalmody and the chant for the different hours, its desire is renewed, and its attention restored.No wonder then, that a great many Bishops in various parts of the world have sent expressions of their opinions on this matter to the Apostolic See, and especially during the Vatican Council when they asked, among other things, that the ancient custom of reciting the whole Psaltery within the week might be restored as far as possible, but in such a way that the burden should not be made any heavier for the clergy, whose labors in the vineyard of the sacred ministry are now increased owing to the diminution in the number of laborers.
These petitions and wishes, which were Our own, too, before We assumed the Pontificate, and also the appeals which have since come from others of our Venerable Brothers and from pious men, We have decided should be granted, but with care, so that from the reciting of the entire Psaltery within the week, no diminution in the cultus of Saints may follow, on the one hand, and on the other, that the burden of the Divine Office may become not more oppressive, but actually lighter.
Wherefore, after having suppliantly implored the Father of Lights (Patre luminum) and asked for the assistance of holy prayers on the matter, following in the footsteps of Our Predecessor, We chose a number of learned and active men with the task of studying and consulting together in order to find some way, which might meet Our wishes, for putting the idea into execution.
In fulfillment of the charge entrusted to them they elaborated a new arrangement of the Psaltery, and this having been approved by the S.R.E. Cardinals belonging to the Congregation of Sacred Rites, We have ratified it as being in entire harmony with Our own mind, in all things, that is, as regards the order and partition of the Psalms, the Antiphons, Versicles, Hymns with their Rubrics and Rules, and We have ordered an authentic edition of it to be set up in Our Vatican Printing Press and then published.
As the arrangement of the Psaltery has a certain intimate connection with all the Divine Office and the Liturgy, it will be clear to everybody that by what We have here decreed we have taken the first step to the emendation of the Roman Breviary and the Missal, but for this We shall appoint shortly a special Council or Commission.
Meanwhile, now that the occasion presents itself, We have decided to make some changes at present, as is prescribed in the accompanying Rubrics; and first among them that in the recitation of the Divine Office due honor, by their more frequent use, be restored to the appointed Lessons of Sacred Scripture with the Responsories of the Season, and, second, that in the Sacred Liturgy those most ancient Masses of the Sundays during the year and of the Ferias, especially those of Lent, recover their rightful place.
Therefore, by the authority of these letters, We first of all abolish the order of the Psaltery as it is at present in the Roman Breviary, and We absolutely forbid the use of it after the 1st day of January of the year 1913. From that day in all the churches of secular and regular clergy, in the monasteries, orders, congregations and institutes of religious, by all and several who by office or custom recite the Canonical Hours according to the Roman Breviary issued by St. Pius V and revised by Clement VIII, Urban VIII and Leo XIII, We order the religious observance of the new arrangement of the Psaltery in the form in which We have approved it and decreed its publication by the Vatican Printing Press. At the same time, We proclaim the penalties prescribed in law against all who fail in their office of reciting the Canonical Hours every day; all such are to know that they will not be satisfying this grave duty unless they use this Our disposition of the Psaltery.
We command, therefore, all the Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots and other Prelates of the Church, not excepting even the Cardinal Archpriests of the Patriarchal Basilicas of the City, to take care to introduce at the appointed time into their respective dioceses, churches or monasteries, the Psaltery with the Rules and Rubrics as arranged by Us; and the Psaltery and these Rules and Rubrics We order to be also inviolately used and observed by all others who are under the obligation of reciting or chanting the Canonical Hours. In the meanwhile, it shall be lawful for everybody and for the chapters themselves, provided the majority of the chapter be in favor, to use duly the new order of the Psaltery immediately after its publication.
This We publish, declare, sanction, decreeing that these Our letters always are and shall be valid and effective, notwithstanding apostolic constitutions and ordinances, general and special, and everything else whatsoever to the contrary. Wherefore, let nobody infringe or temerariously oppose this page of Our abolition, revocation, permission, ordinance, precept, statue, indult, mandate and will. But if anybody shall presume to attempt this, let him know that he will incur the indignation of Almighty God, and of His Apostles, Sts Peter and Paul.
Given at Rome at St. Peter’s in the year of the Incarnation of the Lord 1911, on November 1st, the Feast of All Saints, in the ninth year of Our Pontificate.
Cardinalis Agliardi S.R.E. Cancellarius
Fr. Seb. Cardinalis Martinelli S.R.C. Praefectus
Visa M. Riggi C.A. Not.
Reg. in Canc. Ap. N. 571
Footnotes
[1] Hebr. 13, 15.
[2] Homil. in Ps. 1, n. 2.
[3] Bulla Divinam psalmodiam.
[4] Epist. ad Marcellinum in interpret. Psalmor., n. 10.
[5] In Psalm 144, n. 1.
[6] Epist. ad Marcell. cit., n. 2.
[7] Op. cit., n. 12.
[8] Lib. IX, cap. 6.
[9] In Psalm 42, n. 1.
[10] Enarrat, in Ps. 1, n. 9.
[11] Regulae fusius tractatae, interrog. 37, n. 5.
Olga Bayne, nee Roosevelt.
The history of the hospital has been controversial in recent years as in August 2020 the County, which owned the facility, sold it to Banner Health, who has not been popular with local residents. One of the sitting county commissioners, who is running again this year, promised to get the sale reversed, which of course cannot be done.
Last edition:
Tuesday, October 31, 1911. Road to be built down Casper Mountain. Glanders in Casper, Plague in Liverpool.
Labels: 1910s, 1911, Disease, Equine Transportation, Highways, Mining, Scotland (Liverpool), Transportation, Wyoming (Casper)
Saturday, October 31, 2026
Sunday, October 31, 1926. First Feast of Christ the King, Last Sunday before Election, Death of Harry Houdini, Assassination attempt on Mussolini.
It was the last Sunday before the 1926 election, and local newspaper advertisements showed that.
It was also Halloween.
Harry Houdini (Erich Weiss) died from peritonitis caused by appendicitis and injuries. One of his acts was to encourage people to punch him in the stomach, but when he was ready for it. He'd recently been punched off guard in Montreal by somebody who was engaging uninvited in the challenge.
Houdini had been born in Budapest, where his father was a rabbi, and immigrated to the US as a child.
A fourth attempt to assassinate Benito Mussolini was attempted, and failed. The would be assassin was 15 year old anarchist Anteo Zamboni. Zamboni was lynched on the spot.
All opposition newspapers in Italy were closed as a result and the Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism, the Fascist Italian secret police, was formed.
Whether Zamboni actually tried to kill Mussolini has been debated, and some suspect that it was a staged event.
Mussolini survived six assassination attempts, assuming that this one was a genuine attempt. There were forty-two such attempts on Hitler. There were four on Stalin's life. I note all that as those who assume that Donald Trump must be ordained in his role by God because he's survived two attempts should take these events into consideration.
Last edition:
Thursday, October 28, 1926. Buffalo Bill Museum formed.
Wednesday, October 28, 2026
Saturday, October 28, 1911. The Tsu-Cheng Yuan (资政院), demands democratic reforms.
The Tsu-Cheng Yuan (资政院), China's new National Assembly, demanded a cabinet of ministers without Manchu nobility, an amnesty for persons who committed political offenses, and a permanent constitution.
John Cardinal Murphy Farley (1842-1918), Archbishop of New York, and William Henry Cardinal O'Connell (1859-1944), Archbishop of Boston, were named Cardinals on this day, as was Apostolic Delegate Diomede Falconio.
Buffalo & Erie basin, October 28, 1911.
Last edition:
Friday, October 27, 1911. Yuan Shikai Commander in Chief, Roosevelt angry.
Sunday, October 25, 2026
Sunday, October 25, 1936. Formation of the Axis. Martyrdom of Fr. Recaredo Centelles Abad, Ferragut Roig, María de Jesús, María Verónica, María Felicidad, Josefa de la Purificación.
Ferragut Roig was executed by a firing squad with four of daughters, the latter of whom were nuns, by Spanish Republicans for being Catholic. The daughters were María de Jesús, María Verónica, María Felicidad, Josefa de la Purificación. They were all beatified in 2001.
Fr. Recaredo Centelles Abad, his brother in law, another priest and two laymen were likewise executed.
A person should make no mistake about it. The Spanish Republicans were not democrats. They were communists.
The Rome Berlin Axis was formalized with an alliance between Germany and Italy being signed.
The Rexist March on Brussels failed.
Over 70% of Republican Spain's gold left Spain for the USSR.
Last edition:
Saturday, October 24, 1936. The Estado Novo severs relations with the Republic.
Labels: 1930s, 1936, 1936 Election, Colorado (Denver), Portugal, Railroads, Republican Party, Spain, Spanish Civil War
Sunday, October 11, 2026
The 2026 Election, 24th Edition. Voting for Gray and Hageman is morally unconscionable. So what to do?
The first rule of logic: Chesterton's Fence:
There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."The second rule of logic: Hanlon's Razor
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
It's tempting to say that this will be an election like no other, and indeed, I think it is in many ways. In terms of American elections, it's the most important election, even though it's a midterm election, since the the Election of 1860. It's the election that will determine if Trump continues to rule as an insane dictator, or if the nation can begin to turn the path towards constitutional democracy.1
Things like this make this a critical election:
On the Cornell rapes:
Letitia James is a corrupt person…And I feel badly for whoever she's looking at because they won’t get a fair shake.
He later called James a "dog".
I'm an actual conservative. I am not a populist. Conservatives believe that man if flawed and that we should be careful to conserve things that have worked or are part of culture until we know what the reason for casting it aside would really be.
The sixth rule of logic: Yeoman's Gate:
Before you go through a gate to get to the other side of a fence, completely figure out, to the extent you can, where the path goes.
Conservatives believe that man is fallen and that our natures and the nature of the world, in its pure form, is dictated by an outside existential, that being God to most conservatives, and nature to some. We don't cast away easily, and we believe the Natural Law ultimately controls most things.
Conservatism has been killed by Donald Trump.
The most significant force around Trump is that of populism. Populism believes that the "will of the people" is endowed with some sort of magic virtue. The question is, who are the people? It's never all the people. Populists always regard themselves as "the people" and other people as the enemy of the people. They're easily lead by demagogues At one time they followed Bernie Sanders around like puppies, now they follow Donald Trump. The besotted populists believe that the will of the people is magically transmitted to Trump who is always right.
Trump is a dangerously sick man.
Trump has never been an admirable one. We could go into it, but people who claim he's "Godly" are rank idiots. Indeed, a significant portion of Trump supporters at this point are the absolute bottom of the bell curve. He's deeply immoral and is committing the United States to deeply immoral acts. Fortunately, the bloom is off the rose at this point, and it appears highly likely that the GOP, which has fallen down on its duties in Congress, will be tossed out. Due to weirdness of Trump's cabinet, we'll have to endure Trump for two more years, probably.
The problem for real conservatives, however, and particularly for Catholics, or indeed for Catholics whether they are conservative or not, is how to vote.
In the Catholic Tradition, responsible citizenship is a virtue, and participation in political life is a moral obligation.
Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, No. 13.
In Wyoming, some of the choices will be easy. Eric Barlow, the Republican, is the easy choice over Democrat Ken Casner or Dixiecrat Rebecca Bextel. It's not even close. Effectively, the races for Governor, Secretary of State, and Superintendent of Public Education are over, and will all go to good Republican candidates.
But the candidates for the House and Senate are a nightmare.
Chuck Gray is a co-religious about whom the public knows nothing. A far right right winger born with a silver spoon in his mouth he washed up in Wyoming as his daddy, who doesn't live here, has a radio station here. He barely won the primary for Secretary of State, after having been an abrasive personality in the legislature, by running on lies. Since the moment of his taking office in that position, he's been running for something else, and the House of Representatives fell to him when Harriet Hageman decided to run for retiring Cynthia Lummis' position.
Gray has been a horrible Secretary of State and he'll be a horrible Congressman. His campaign was basically that he loves Trump more than Trump loves Trump. Trump is a horror. This is a good reason not to vote for Gray, as if any additional reasons were needed. If he wins, and he's likely to, he'll be worthless as a junior member a minority party who knows nothing about the state he's supposed to represent.
The Democrat is Lisa Kinney. I just heard her speak, and she speaks very well. She didn't have the chance to get into specifics, but they can be guessed at. I'd be surprised at best if she wasn't "pro Choice", which is pro infanticide.
The Libertarian is Shaun Johnson. I heard him speak too but he also didn't really have the chance to get into specifics. The one interesting thing I heard him say is that he wouldn't caucus with the Republicans or the Democrats.
I don't think that Johnson has any chance. I think Kinney has an off chance.
I suspect that if Kinney wins, Christensen will run against her in 2028 and likely take the seat. I think he's planning on running.
The choice this year, therefore, is between Kinney and Gray. Voting for Kinney is saying no to Trump insanity. Voting for Gray is saying yes to Trump insanity. That's about it.
At the Senate level the Democrats have a really good candidate, James Byrd. The Republicans have a really horrible candidate, Harriet Hageman, who stabbed Liz Cheney, a former friend of hers, in the back so that she could crawl over her dead political body to go to Washington, where reportedly she already owned a house. If she was voted out, she'd never come back. She's shown contempt for her own state on public lands while there, making her potentially an even worse candidate than Gray.
She received a lot of votes in the primary, in spite of being such a horrible candidate. It'll take a lot for Byrd to overcome it.
So here's where we are at. We cannot vote for Gray or Hageman. Voting for them is voting for the insanity of Donald Trump and the ongoing destruction of the American democracy. Can we morally vote for Kinney and Byrd, or do we not vote at all on those races. Not voting on them may very well be like voting for Gray and Hageman. It's an interesting, and paramount, moral question.
Footnotes
1. And save the "we're a republic not a democracy" crap. That's brainless twaddle. Our Constitution creates a democratic republic and people who say that should have their right to vote, drive a car, or speak a sentence revoked.
Last edition:
The 2026 Election, 23rd Edition. Stein's Law meets the GOP. The hints of a mutiny edition.
Sunday Morning Scene. Back to the Coliseum.
I've been expecting it all along. It just came in a surprising fashion.
Deep hatred of Catholics is the last acceptable form of outright bigotry in the United States, although there's been a general rise of bigotry and racism during the illegitimate Trump interregnum. Trump's a populist, and populist tends to boost ignorance, with bigotry feeding on that. Most of the major populist movements a person can recall, the Nazis, the Communists, the Know Nothings, featured a lot of really ignorant people who were willing to be lead around by a others, sometimes a charismatic, to them, other.1 MAGA is a populist movement, masquerading as a conservative one, as Nazism was a populist movement that claimed conservatives within it. It's not too surprising, therefore, that we're seeing more of this sort of thing than we have at any point since the 1960s.
Quite a few of the more ignorant members of MAGA claim they support Trump as he's Godly, which is patently absurd, but there's no denying that far right wing Evangelicalism is a major component of MAGA. The Press, which isn't very well educated on religion anymore, just keeps calling them "Christians", which is really misleading. Some, but not all, far right Evangelicals supporting Trump hold religious beliefs that are very recent and very novel and well outside the mainstream of Apostolic Christianity and also out of the mainstream of most Protestant beliefs. Almost all MAGA Evangelicals fit into the ignorant of theology and Church history camp that's strong in the United States of being "Bible Believing Christians" who are pretty ignorant of a rule on the history of the books of the Bible.
Around the periphery of MAGA, however, there's been some Apostolic Christians, both Catholic and Orthodox, who have been, if not fully in the Trump camp, at least allowed to pitch a tent on its edges. Some of this is just flat out opportunistic on their part, and it looked like it would have a major impact on the Trump administration due to Trump's flat out ignorance and laziness. Inside the administration you have the example of J. D. Vance and Marco Rubio, and outside of it you have people like Kevin Roberts. You even have Peter Thiel, who claims not to be a Catholic but who keeps popping up in certain Catholic circles, as does Jordan Peterson and the Orthodox pundit Rod Dreher.2 National Conservatism has a strong right wing Catholic element to it, which is interesting in that it's sort of the intellectual heir of Fr. Charles Coughlin whose movement was shut down and who remains not widely admired in mainstream Catholic circles.
Most CAtholics that have supported Trump, however, have done so for one of two other reasons. The thinking ones have done so as it seemed like he was probably the only candidate who would address long held Catholic concerns, like abortion. People know that Trump himself was a louse, but they were willing to "hold their nose and vote". Others were Protestantized Catholics, of which there are a lot in the United States in the Boomer and Gen. Jones generations. These people are victims of the bad Catechization of the 1970s and as the US is a Protestant country, they've picked up a lot of Protestant beliefs.
Throughout Trump's second claim to power I've worried that the "Christian", i.e., far right Evangelical support of Trump would result in two things for Catholics. The first, which we will not address here, is that the association of "Christian" with Trump would result in Christianity taking a major hit. Evangelicalism definitely will. The second is that getting on the bus with Evangelicals would result in them beating us up as soon as we weren't of use to them.
And that's starting to happen.
The reason it started is because Pete Hegseth, who is festooned with Crusader themed tattoos announced that the U.S. Army is going to livestream the execution of former US Army Major Nidal Hasan who killed thirteen unarmed U.S. soldiers in 2009. 3 4
The Catholic Church is opposed to killing people. It's opposed to killing people in pretty absolutist terms and always has been, claims of Catholic haters aside. It's always been opposed to infanticide, including abortion. Early on in Church history there were serious debates if Christians, which were all Catholic, were required to be pacifists, and there are some saints who were. St. Martin of Tours, who had been a Roman soldier, famously told his commander "I am a soldier of Christ; it is not lawful for me to fight." Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian farmer, went to his death in Nazi Germany rather than fight for the Nazi state. Ben Salmon, an American Catholic layman who has not been beatified went to prison as a conscientious objector during World War One as he held the view that all war was immoral. 5 And starting with Pope John Paul II, the Church has opposed the death penalty.
Catholic Bishops immediately responded to Hegseth's live stream the killing announcement by condemning it. Quiet a few individual priests with a net presence did as well. And then almost immediately after that Pope Leo XIV did, stating:
This caused an immediate reaction by some Evangelical Christians on the far right, and it did from a few very far right Catholics who are probably in the Rad Trad camp. Predictably, a notable number of the Evangelicals threw of pretending they approved of Catholics in any fashion. Laughable comments that the Pope doesn't know theology were out there, but more radical ones by the Invincibly Ignorant immediately arose as well.
Los of hte comments immediately cited the Old Testament, which is a bit ironic as frankly the CAtholic Church uses the Old Testament much more than any Protestant group does. There's a number of quotes from the Old Testament that address the death penalty, for example:
Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind.
Genesis 9:6
Anyone who strikes a person with a fatal blow is to be put to death.
Exodus 21:12
So there you go. . .but wait:
Anyone who attacks their father or mother is to be put to death.
Exodus 21:15 & 21:17
Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.
Exodus 21:15 & 21:17
Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or is still in the kidnapper’s possession.
Exodus 21:16
If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death."
Leviticus 20:10 (Adultery)
If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
Leviticus 20:13
Anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone them."
Leviticus 24:16
Okay then, if we apply to the Old Testament, we need to be killing anyone cursing their parents, kidnappers, adulterers and adulteresses, homosexuals and blasphemeres.
Indeed, if this was fully applied, Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, Paula White, and Scott Bessant wouldn't be in Washington D.C. as they're either adulturers or, in Bessant's case, a homosexual. Shoot, probably about 1/3d of the congregation of Protestant congregation would have to be offed, based on my observation that they don't take divorce or pre marital sex as a sin.
Well, what the heck? Why aren't we imposing the death penalty with sweeping abandon?
Well, that's because the Apostolic Churches and the Mainline Protestant Churches hold the view that Christ fulfilled the law and the Mosaic law does not apply to Christians. There are a pile of laws in the Mosaic Law that nobody seeks to apply to Christians due to the Catholic Church having alway taken this view. That's why Christians can eat shellfish and pork. Protestants who are running around declaring that the death penalty is Biblically mandated are apparently ignorant of the Bible and is laws, or they'd be killing adulterers, blasphemers, parent disrespecters, homosexuals and not eating shrimp.
Indeed, this was the case from day one. One of the very first debates in the Church was whether converts had to be circumcised. Nope, no longer applied. The dietary laws no longer did either.
It's also odd to see how all of these people aren't citing the New Testament. While the law was fulfilled by Christ, Christ did set down some pretty strict behavioral requirements. We are, for example supposed to love our enemies. That's a tough one.
Some have tried to drag out Church history, of which they're largely ignorant. "Well, the Church has always killed people. . ."
Nope. Indeed, from antiquity it's tried to stop it.
As Christ led you from death to life, so you should try to save not only the innocent, but also the guilty from death.
Pope St Nicholas the Great.
Now, I suppose you could argue that Pope St. Nicholas was talking about eternal life, but you sure are't going to save a guy by killing him.
And of course, there's the customary ignorant citation to the Black Legends were demonstrably untrue, but which lots of people still believe.
The Church as been against killing of all types right from the onset. But people, deep in their hearts, like killing. Lots of people make compromises with their Faith to justify their own acts and desires. Today, for example, is the anniversary of the murder of Hymie Weiss, the gangster who sanctioned hits, but who also carried a rosary in his pocket. As noted, plenty of very conservative Catholics have tried to say "well, I know that the Popes have said no death penalty, but it's still okay . . "6
It isn't.
And the real surprise to those not paying attention will be how prolife Catholics really are. Indeed, I've seen surprising statements in support of the Pope from completely secular sources.
And there's utterly no support for making this execution a public spectacle. We really are in the last days of the Roman Empire if we've reached that state. "War, inflation, . . . don't worry, look at my shiny baubles, come watch somebody die." Panem et circenses.
A danger of politics is that, for people who have a religion, even slightly, that it becomes easy to confuse your politics or your personal beliefs with your religion. The various flavors of the American Civil Religion are packed with that. Divorce is okay, and even extramarital sex, unless it's homosexual. . . Trump must be a Godly man as he's doing what I want him to, even if he's a liar and a serial polygamist.
There was always going to be a day when the Evangelical far right discovered that the Catholic Church is the Universal Church, it's everywhere, and that local politics are secondary to it. We're not right, not left, we're Catholic, the original Christians.
Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’
But he will answer, "I don’t know you or where you come from."
Luke 13:22-30.
This warning applies to us as well. "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required; and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more." Luke 12:48. We really can't ignore the barbarism of the Trump administration any more. We've invaded a foreign nation without cause, we're killing Iranians in an undeclared war, and we're murdering people on the high seas. The Nuremberg Defense or just ignoring it all doesn't work.
Well, we were always going to be hated. Frankly, as Catholics, when everything is going well for us, it's not going well.
Footnotes:
1. Hitler was reportedly very charismatic, although watching him from the outside, it's hard to see why. To his followers, Trump is charismatic, while to most other people he certainly is not.
2. I'm not claiming that Peterson is influential in the administration, but rather he's in the Catholic end of the National Conservatives even though he is not Catholic. His wife is. Dreher was Catholic at one time and converted to Orthodoxy, where he remains with one foot in the Catholic door and nearly, for that matter, in the back pews. Dreher is partially responsible for the intellectual atmosphere that made Trump possible even though he now outright holds Trump in contempt.
3. Hegseth is some sort of Evangelical on the far right. Actual Crusaders would have regarded him as a weird heretic.
4. The fact that the killings occurred in 2009 is a really good argument against the death penalty in and of itself as it takes so long and is so expensive that the punishment aspect of it is nearly lost by the time the sentence is carried out.
5. St. Augustine famously developed the Just War Theory, which people sort of naively regard as a Catholic free pass to war. It isn't. The theory has always been fairly restrictive and even though Catholics have waged and been in a lot of wars, a lot of wars don't fit the category of being "just".
Even when they are, finding a war that's justly waged is difficult. World War Two probably stands out as a war which, for the Allies, was just, but the Allies clearly took deeply immoral actions in it, the nighttime bombing raids of the RAF, and the USAF nuclear bombings, being the two primary examples for the Western Allies.
Recently Pope Leo has further clarified the doctrine and while I do not think that his statements actually develop it in any fashion, they caused shock waves and they probably should as Catholics really need to consider if they can morally serve in the U.S. military at this point.
6. No Pope has declared the death penalty invalid ex cathedra, so a slim ability to argue it's still okay exists. But it's very slim.
Wednesday, October 7, 2026
Suit Weights (and modesty), a history.
Really interesting thread on men's suit weights, sans photographs, from "Derek Guy", who frequently comments under that pseudonym on fashion.
Let's move on with the rest of the passage.
Anyway, I will probably reference CS Lewis's book in the future. Thanks to M for the reference.
I should note that I don't walk around in t-shirts. I did when I was young but haven't for a long time.
I should also note that I failed to wear a tie for the first time in a long time at a deposition. I just forgot the tie. I almost felt naked really.
I'm curious on what others think of Guy's thesis here.
Thursday, October 7, 1926. Choral Evensong.
The fusionist religion Caodaism was established in Saigon by Ngo Van Chieu with the signing of the "Declaration of the Founding of the Cao Đài Religion".
The still running Choral Evensong was broadcast for the first time, on the BBC, featuring a 15-minute airing of the Evensong, the Anglican church afternoon prayer, at 3:00 pm.
The Yankees beat the Cardinals 3 to 2 in Game 5 of the World Series, giving them a three to two edge.
Last edition:
Wednesday, October 6, 1926. World Series Record.
Labels: 1790s, 1794, 1920s, 1926, 1926 World Series, 1970s, 1977, 2010s, 2011, American Puritanism, baseball, Blue Laws, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania (Pittsburg), Protestant, Puritans, religion, Sports
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