Pope phones woman planning abortion and convinces her to choose life

Before going through with it, though, she decided to write a letter to a special person. She wrote her story down and slipped it in an envelope; the address was simple: “Holy Father Pope Francis, Vatican City, Rome.” She sent the letter without thinking too much about it. Then, a few days later, the phone began to ring.

“I read your letter.”

The number on the screen was unfamiliar, with the prefix of Rome. She answered, and was struck dumb: “Hello Anna, this is Pope Francis. I read your letter. We Christians must never lose our hope. A child is a gift of God, a sign of Providence.”

Read the whole story.

You know, I get frustrated by the news I see surrounding the Pope sometimes. This is the sort of pastoral action that helps me keep proper perspective.

Also this. It helps me to remember that news stories often don't give the whole picture and actions speak louder than words.

Well Said: The Intimacy of Books

Books give delight to the very marrow of one's bones. They speak to us, consult with us and join with us in a living and intense intimacy.

Petrarch

Worth a Thousand Words: Thrush Nightingale

Thrush Nightingale, Remo Savisaar

Well Said: Why are the wicked joyous?

Perhaps you say, Why are the wicked joyous? Why do they live in luxury? Why do they not toil with me? It is because they who have not put down their names to strive for the crown are not bound to undergo the labors of the contest. They who have not gone down into the race-course do not anoint themselves with oil nor get covered with dust. For those whom glory awaits trouble is at hand. The perfumed spectators are wont to look on, not to join in the struggle, nor to endure the heat, the dust, and the showers ...

St. Ambrose of Milan

Worth a Thousand Words: Alamo Lit Up

Alamo Lit Up, via Traces of Texas
Photo source: UT digitized photos, San Antonio's Special Collections

Worth a Thousand Words: Le Loup d'Aggubio

Luc-Olivier Merson - Le Loup d'Aggubio

I just love the level of detail in this painting and the foreign feel, both of faraway lands and of faraway times. Also, the wolf (le loup) has a halo over his head ... which is a nice touch since Gubbio (Aggubio) is the town in Italy where Francis "converted" the wolf. So we are seeing the wolf's and villagers' "happy ever after" ending.

Worth a Thousand Words: Morning Bathing

Morning Bathing, Remo Savisaar

The Journey Home — My Interview

I had the rare privilege and pleasure of speaking with Marcus Grodi about my conversion story. It airs on The Journey Home show today.

• Mon. May. 21 at 7:00 PM
• Tue. May. 22 at 12:00 AM
• Thu. May. 24 at 1:00 PM

You can also catch it here on YouTube and as a podcast.

After recording, everyone in the office gets together for lunch ... with lots of great stories, of course!

Scott produces and directs the show. He also makes sure you get picked up at the airport and have a delicious meal when you arrive. His hospitality and conversation were really wonderful and meeting him (and his wife!) was one of the great pleasures of the trip.

Ryan Dellacrosse (Fuzati, in Houston) was the other guest being taped that day. I loved hearing his story and getting to meet this energetic guy who has devoted his considerable business knowledge to helping Catholic companies market themselves better.

First thing Monday morning, before recording, you get it started right. With Mass, of course, just as you'd expect!

On the way into the church. 

Surprises abound on the way to Zanesville! Guess what this company did?

Filmspotting - Lord of the Rings 15th Anniversary episode

Filmspotting's latest episode is devoted to the Lord of the Rings film trilogy to mark the 15 year anniversary of the last film coming out.

It is fascinating because one host has watched the films before and loves the book, while the other watched only the first film when they came out and never read the book. Their conversation is really interesting.

Well Said: The accursed inventions that are ruining everything

Meanwhile, the sworn bookseller of the university, Master Andry Musnier, was inclining his ear to the furrier of the king's robes, Master Gilles Lecornu.

"I tell you, sir, that the end of the world has come. No one has ever beheld such outbreaks among the students! It is the accursed inventions of this century that are ruining everything,—artilleries, bombards, and, above all, printing, that other German pest. No more manuscripts, no more books! printing will kill bookselling. It is the end of the world that is drawing nigh."

"I see that plainly, from the progress of velvet stuffs," said the fur–merchant.

Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame

I always love seeing the "current" complaints of our time show up in times long past.

Worth a Thousand Words: Flames

Flames, Uemura Shoen

Lagniappe: Lazarus and David Copperfield

One Sunday night my mother reads to Peggotty and me in there, that Lazarus was raised up from the dead. And I am so frightened that they are obliged to take me out of bed, and show me the quiet churchyard out of the bedroom window, with the dead alllying in their graves at rest, below the solemn moon.

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

It never would have occurred to me to think about the story of Lazarus as terrifying children. I can see it though. The walking dead ... not a comforting idea without deeper context.

Well Said: I loved the Church for Christ made visible.

I loved the Church for Christ made visible. Not for itself, because it was so often a scandal to me. Romano Guardini said the Church is the Cross on which Christ was crucified; one could not separate Christ from His Cross, and one must live in a state of permanent dissatisfaction with the Church.

Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness

That is what we really must remember. We will often be dissatisfied with the Church or the people associated with her. But with proper perspective we can love her at the same time as we are scandalized.

Oops! We join the Novena to the Holy Spirit in progress.

I completely forgot that I should have begun the Novena to the Holy Spirit the day after the Ascension. Nine days between Ascension Thursday and Pentecost is perfect for a novena, which is where the word comes from - nine. The apostles obediently prayed with Mary in the Upper Room during that time, not knowing what they were praying for ... but receiving the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

It is these gifts for which we pray during this novena. My apologies as we join the novena halfway through. I've posted all the prayers on the proper days so you can catch up (as I am doing). This link has them all in order (backwards!).

These gifts are worth praying for and this novena is still the only one officially  prescribed by the Church. So it is worth catching up on!

Well Said: Does Prayer Work?

The very question ‘Does prayer work?’ puts us in the wrong frame of mind from the outset. ‘Work’: as if it were magic, or a machine—something that functions automatically. ...

Petitionary prayer is, nonetheless, both allowed and commanded to us: “Give us our daily bread.” And no doubt it raises a theoretical problem. Can we believe that God ever really modifies His action in response to the suggestions of men?

It is not really stranger, nor less strange, that my prayers should affect the course of events than that my other actions should do so. They have not advised or changed God’s mind—that is, His over-all purpose. But that purpose will be realized in different ways according to the actions, including the prayers, of His creatures.

For He seems to do nothing of Himself which He can possibly delegate to His creatures. He commands us to do slowly and blunderingly what He could do perfectly and in the twinkling of an eye. He allows us to neglect what He would have us do, or to fail. Perhaps we do not fully realize the problem, so to call it, of enabling finite free wills to coexist with Omnipotence ...

C.S. Lewis, The World’s Last Night and Other Essays

Somehow reflecting on that passage changed the way I feel about petitionary prayer. It is an action like other actions I might take. It is supernatural action, but it is putting ourselves to some trouble nonetheless. I have prayed my petitions like anyone else, but I haven't (I think) taken my own part in them seriously enough.

It goes hand-in-hand with something that Matt Fradd said on the Pints with Aquinas podcast. Answering a similar question, St. Thomas said that perhaps God has so ordered some events that the only action it takes is our prayer to make things tip one way or the other. Happen or not happen.

Both those thoughts taken together have, as I said, changed how I think about prayer. My prayers matter. It is not all just in God's hands. He invites us to participate also in the creation of miracles.

Weekend Joke: The Farmhand and the Mentally Challenged Worker

The North Dakota Department of Governmental Oversight heard that a small Bismarck farmer was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an agent out to investigate him.

ND Gov employee: “I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them.”

Farmer: “Well, there's my farmhand who's been with me for about a year. I pay him $200 a week plus free room and board.

Then there's the mentally challenged worker. He works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about $10 per week, pays his own room and board, and I buy him a bottle of bourbon every Saturday night so he can cope with life. He also sleeps with my wife occasionally.”

ND Gov employee: “That's the guy I want to talk to...the mentally challenged one.”

Farmer: “That would be me.”

Change North Dakota to Texas and farmer to small business owner, and you've got our lives, right here. As a good friend and fellow small business owner told us when we began our company. "It's great working for yourself. You only have to work half a day. And you can pick which twelve hours!"

Met Gala: Outrage or Opportunity?

Rihanna attends opening of the Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination exhibition gala.
STEPHEN LOVEKIN/VARIETY/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

For anyone like me who wasn't paying attention until I got an email asking for my reaction, New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has put together a collection of pieces showing the way the Catholic Church served as an inspiration to designers throughout history. Working with the Vatican, they were able to include a number of pieces usually kept only in Vatican City.

None of this is worth raising an eyebrow over until you get to the fashion gala that accompanied it where celebrities and designers used "inspired by the Catholic Church" as a launching point for heights of imagination. It got a whole lotta crazy. As did the discussion that followed.

Most people have landed on either being outraged or looking at this as an opportunity to reach out about the faith.

I was on the fence.

On the outrage side, I felt none of these "tolerant" people would express themselves in this way if the topic were a different religion, say Islam or Judaism. However, I imagine they were going for edgy, as is the case with fashion and celebrity, rather than outright mockery. And if we do feel they were mocking Catholicism, what do we expect? Jesus said that the world would treat us no better than it treated him, so this was predicted. And do they know how this would make Catholic feel? Probably most of them haven't been around a devout Catholic in years, if ever.

On the opportunity side, I have enjoyed the stories about people using it as a way to inject more knowledge about Catholicism into public conversation. It can be hard to remember, but shedding light instead of heat is usually the better way. I suddenly remembered the time when some podcast hosts were laughing mockingly about saints and saying that they didn't even know what a saint was. I wrote a brief email ("long time fan, first time emailer here") explaining. And got a nice response. So maybe this gala is a launching point for conversation.

Do I love a lot of the outfits? No. But to be fair, I don't love a lot of outrageous fashion. It really is a reflection of the lack of knowledge about Catholicism in America. So what else is new?

Here are some other responses. Needless to say, be sure to click through and read them all:

Elizabeth Scalia at Word on Fire wrote about how kitschy Catholic art fired her imagination as a child and also about using this as an opportunity to inform.

Parked in the #MetGala Twitter feed, I saw a man describe Zendaya’s stunning take on Joan of Arc as “some sort of Catholic soldier” and shot him a note identifying the saint and urging him to look her up. When another praised a nunnish look, I replied, “Then you’ll love the real thing!” and sent a link to an article on millennial contemplative nuns. One brilliant fellow used the hashtag to showcase beautiful church interiors, inviting people to visit and explore them.

Cardinal Dolan used his attendance and opening speech as a chance to remind people about what the Church really stands for.  He took it all in good fun. Clearly on the "opportunity" side, he told Crux (whose piece is very interesting, especially for Dolan's conversation with George Clooney):

“I did not find the spirit of the evening to be offensive or blasphemous at all,” he said.

“Was some of it edgy? Yes, but I never met any person that seemed to be snippy or snotty about the Church, or who intended anything to be offensive,” said Dolan.

Catholic News Agency has a nice roundup of different responses, incuding a lot of them from non-Catholic publications which I found interesting.

National Catholic Register explains the Vatican's involvement and that they were focused on the exhibit (which would be fascinating to see) while knowing nothing of the gala.

Ross Douthat at the N.Y. Times uses the gala as an opportunity to muse about modernizing the Church and Pope Francis.

Well Said: Marital problems and comfort zones

The biggest contributor to marital problems and, eventually, marital breakdown is that husbands and wives tend to love their own comfort zones more than they love each other.

Greg and Lisa Popcek, Just Married

Ain't that the truth! It is my continual battle with myself, which tells you where I live ... struggling with my comfort zones!

So let me give you part two to that idea, from the same source.

Learning to love your spouse more than you love your comfort zone means being willing to be loving to your spouse in ways that make absolutely no sense to you but mean everything to your mate.

Which is the biggest form of respect in a lot of ways. And also, of course, of love.

Incredible Flying Stingrays

It begins with pelicans but quickly transitions to the flying stingrays. No one knows why they fly but there are lots of theories. I just love watching them!

Worth a Thousand Words: The Family of Cain Wandering

The family of Cain wandering. Paolo Veronese

This is the beauty of artistic imagination. It never occurred to me to think of Cain with his family.

Well Said: Life's meaning

Don't invent a meaning for your life. It is there. Find it.

Dr. Viktor Frankl

Weekend Joke: In Heaven and Hell

In Heaven the cooks are French, the lovers are Italian, the engineers are German, the cops are English.

In Hell the cooks are English, the lovers are German, the engineers are French and the cops are Italian.

That checks out.

Well Said: Roman Polanski

I've never yet seen one of Roman Polanski's movies that justified his lack of jail time.

Rose Davis

This is especially timely, though Rose said it a year or two ago, since the movie academy just expelled both Bill Cosby and Roman Polanski. That is what it took to make them stop fawning over Polanski and take what he did seriously. Bill Cosby's guilty verdict and the #MeToo movement. About time.

Recipe Revisited: Green Beans with Spicy Beef Sauce

Rose recently made Green Beans with Spicy Beef Sauce from Jim Fobel's Big Flavors cookbook, which rarely disappoints. I always mark up my cookbooks with comments for the next time I'm flipping through for a good meal option. However, I never did that and hadn't made the recipe in 10 years!

Which I discovered only when looking to see if someone had posted the recipe already so I didn't have to retype it for myself. And then I found it on my own food blog!

Well, that's way too long a lapse between us eating this delicious dish. So I'm reminding you of it too. Give it a try!

Lagniappe: Fate

Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like.

Lemony Snicket

Worth a Thousand Words: Stage Door

Stage Door, Edward B. Gordon

Well Said: Patience

Patience is not passive; on the contrary it is active, it is concentrated strength.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Much more profound than I expected from the fellow who is most famous for "it was a dark and stormy night." To be fair, he was great friends with Charles Dickens so there was probably more there than meets the modern, cursory eye.

What I've Been Reading — Mary Stewart

I have been a fan of Mary Stewart's romantic thrillers since I was in high school, nabbing my mother's copies off the shelves. I haven't picked them up for years but seeing that they are on Kindle for a low price made me go looking for my own paperbacks. Immediately I sank into the pleasure of revisiting much loved characters and settings along with noticing new details. I especially appreciate her combination of beautiful prose, engaging characters, and ability to ratchet up tension until you are reading as fast as possible. This excerpt can't convey all those qualities but it gives an idea of her style.

Further out in the bay, the green and red and golden riding-lights of the bigger ships drowned themselves in long liquid shadows. The ropes looked as fragile and as magical as gossamer.

We stood looking over the sea-wall. A group of sailors, noisily talking and laughing, went past, then a man and a girl, absorbed. Nobody seemed to pay any attention to us, and once again I felt the beginnings of that strangely dreamlike feeling I had experienced before, only this time it was not brought about by weariness, but by something else I could not quite understand. It was as if Richard Byron and I were alone in a bubble of glass, enclosed in its silence, into which nothing could break and out of which we might not go. People, like the dim denizens of some undersea-world in which our bubble was suspended, came and went, floating, soundlessly, amorphous, outside the glass, peering in perhaps, but having no power to intrude upon the silence that enmeshed us. To this day I still remember Marseilles, the noisiest city in the world, as a noiseless background to that meeting with Richard Byron, a silent film flickering on a screen in front of which we two moved and stood and talked, the only living people there.

Madam, Will You Talk?

I hadn't realized until recently that Steward developed the romantic mystery genre for modern times (relatively speaking) with smart heroines who adapt well when they are unexpectedly thrust into dangerous situations. Yet, she is not very well known these days.

She also wrote a celebrated series about Merlin and Arthur which combined historical fiction and fantasy. Those were also good but I always liked her mysteries best.

I'd forgotten how many different settings she used - reportedly always visiting in person to be sure she got the atmosphere and details right. What I did remember is that she writes for the intelligent reader, making it a pleasure to revisit these books recently.

Madam, Will You Talk?

When Charity Selborne  arrived on holiday at Avignon, she had no way of knowing that she was to become the principal player in the last act of a strange and brutal tragedy. Befriending a terrified boy and catching the attention of his enigmatic, possibly murderous father, has inadvertently placed her center stage. And now the killer, with blood enough on his hands, is waiting in the wings.

Danger, intrigue, and romance in a breakneck pursuit through Provence as our heroine protects a child from a murderer's pursuit. As always Mary Stewart's powers of description raise this above the usual romance/thriller story. This was the first of her books that I ever read and I found out that it is her first book. Really top-notch for right out of the gate. It was a lot of fun to reread after all these years although it is not my favorite as it used to be.

Touch Not the Cat

After the tragic death of her father, Bryony returns from abroad to find that his estate is to become the responsibility of her cousin Emory. Her family's estate with its load of debt is no longer her worry. Still, her father's final, dire warning about a terrible family curse haunts her days and her dreams. And there is something odd about her father's sudden death...

This one has an increased sense of terror by the end which is enhanced by the fact that she is in love, but isn't sure of her lover's identity. Yep, it sounds ridiculous but Stewart makes the twist seem totally natural. It's my favorite of her books. For the present anyway.

Nine Coaches Waiting

When lovely Linda Martin first arrives at Chateau Valmy as an English governess to the nine-year-old Count Philippe de Valmy, the opulence and history surrounding her seems like a wondrous, ecstatic dream. But when an accident deep in the woods nearly kills Linda's innocent charge, she begins to wonder if someone has deadly plans for the young count.

 In this tale, Stewart takes us through a modern gothic romance, a la Jane Eyre, but with a twist and in France instead of England.  Although the governess is inexperienced in the ways of the privileged and of love, she holds her own. A very enjoyable take on Cinderella, which is pointed out a few times in the novel, but one without a fairy godmother.  Cinderella solves this mystery on her own.


Wildfire at Midnight

A young crofter's daughter is cruelly and ritually murdered on the the Scottish Isle of Skye.. In the idyllic Camasunary Hotel nearby, beautiful Gianetta Brooke cannot seem to escape her pain or her past. Very soon Gianetta finds herself tangled in a web of rising fear and suspicion. One of her fellow guests, however, is also hiding secrets... and a skill and penchant for murder. 

This echoes the feel of mysteries set in isolated mansions, as tourists in an isolated hotel have a string of sacrificial murders happen in the nearby mountains. I had read this book fewer times than the others so the plot was slightly less familiar, adding a nice bit of tension to my rereading. I especially enjoyed the tidbits of Scottish living that found their way even into a hotel setting.

Worth a Thousand Words: A Blockade Runner

Briton Riviere, A Blockade Runner, 1888

Worth a Thousand Words: Chiffchaff

Chiffchaff, Remo Savisaar

Well Said: Bearing the Face of Christ

Every child who, rather than being born, is condemned unjustly to being aborted, bears the face of Jesus Christ, bears the face of the Lord, who even before he was born, and then just after birth, experienced the world's rejection. And every elderly person even if he is ill or at the end of his days, bears the face of Christ. They cannot be discarded, as the "culture of waste" suggests!

Pope Francis

Weekend Joke

A German tourist walks into a McDonald's in New York City and orders a beer. (In Germany and many parts of Europe, McDonald's actually does serve beer.)

The local guy in the line behind him immediately gives him the jab: "They don't serve BEER here, you MORON!"

The German fellow felt pretty stupid, but suddenly turns to the New Yorker with a surprised look, and begins to chuckle.

"And what's so funny?" the New Yorker demands.

"Oh, nothing really, I just realized that you came here for the food."

We're not really into summer vacation time yet, but I have been thinking about where to plan a road trip. So this fit my mood perfectly!

Well Said: Depictions of Christ in Art, Specifically Movies

Roger Ebert's widow, Chaz, has a blog at the Roger Ebert website. One of the features is other people's discussion of their "My Favorite Roger" columns. I could have sworn I found my way to Ebert's shortened essay about The Last Temptation of Christ via one of those columns but I can't find it any longer.

At any rate, Ebert's comment sent me on another search.

The film is indeed technically blasphemous. I have been persuaded of this by a thoughtful essay by Steven D. Greydanus of the National Catholic Register, a mainstream writer who simply and concisely explains why. I mention this only to argue that a film can be blasphemous, or anything else that the director desires, and we should only hope that it be as good as the filmmaker can make it, and convincing in its interior purpose.

I immediately sought out Greydanus' essay The Last Temptation of Christ: An Essay in Film Criticism and Faith.

I am often caught defending what others may think of as blasphemous or  decrying what others think is inconsequential when seeing faith depicted on the screen. Not in any professional capacity, of course, just as a general film watcher amongst pals.

This is very long but I intend to keep it on hand as a wonderful summary, a litmus test if you will, of how one may consider whether Christ is being portrayed in a blasphemous manner or not.

Now, Christian theology teaches that Jesus Christ was fully human as well as fully divine; and certainly there is nothing objectionable about trying to evoke or express in art the humanity of Christ. A work of art, a film or novel or painting, that evokes the truth of Christ’s humanity is a good and noble thing, even if it doesn’t directly address the subject of his divinity. A recognizably human portrait of Jesus — for example, one that envisions him being capable of suffering weakness, loneliness, fear, exhaustion; of becoming exasperated with his disciples, or of having a good time at a wedding party — all of this can be quite valid and worthwhile.

Moreover, the mystery of Jesus’ dual nature is one that no Christian can claim to fully understand or imagine. In particular the experience of being a mortal man who was also God in the flesh is one we cannot begin to grasp. Unanswered questions exist that leave room for a range of different ways of envisioning the person of Christ in drama and art.

For all these reasons, we must not be too quick to judge any particular portrait of Christ merely because it challenges our expectations or makes us uncomfortable, or because it doesn’t immediately evoke his divinity. After all, Jesus himself often confounded the expectations of his contemporaries, and didn’t necessarily impress most of them as being divine. Indeed, if any believer today were somehow able to see and hear him as his contemporaries did, the experience might not immediately confirm his faith — indeed, it might even give him a moment’s pause.

On the other hand, while Christian belief doesn’t tell us everything about what Jesus was like, much less what it was like to be him, it does give us certain insights into what he wasn’t. We may be unable to fully apprehend human nature united to divinity, but we can easily understand that certain things would be incompatible with this union. Christian belief teaches that Jesus shared our humanity, but not our fallenness and fallibility. Not only did he not sin, he didn’t suffer from our concupiscent appetites, our disordered and inflamed desires. He was tempted as we are — he could feel hunger during a fast, or dread on the eve of his passion — but his will was not pulled to and fro by wayward passions. He may, in his humanity, have had limited knowledge or insights, but he could not be deceived or confused into believing or teaching anything contrary to divine truth. At no time did he suffer doubts about his divine nature or messianic identity.

Imperfect art and the perfection of God
Does a dramatic portrayal of Christ’s humanity have to be perfectly compatible with every article of faith about him in order to have any value? No, not necessarily. Even an imperfect vision of Christ — one that doesn’t entirely correspond to known truths of faith, that contains elements that are clearly erroneous — could still be worthwhile and valuable, if it remains, on the whole, generally evocative of important truths about Christ.

That doesn’t seem like too much to ask or expect: That a work of art be, on the whole, generally evocative of the truth about its subject; that it be reasonably true to that subject, that it not turn the subject into something antithetical to itself. A movie about the man Jesus may have value if is shows Jesus to be recognizably and authentically human, while at least minimally leaving room for his divine nature, remaining at least compatible with Christian belief in his deity — in a word, while not turning him into an fallible, fallen man, one who could not be God.

A Jesus who commits sins — who even thinks he commits sins, who talks a great deal about needing "forgiveness" and paying with his life for his own sins; a Jesus who himself speaks blasphemy and idolatry, calling fear his "god" and talking about being motivated more by fear than by love; who has an ambivalent at best relationship with the Father, even trying to merit divine hatred so that God will leave him alone — all of this is utterly antithetical to Christian belief and sentiment. This is not merely focusing on Jesus’ humanity, this is effectively contradicting his divinity.

Yes. This is why people object to the portrayal of Christ in Jesus Christ, Superstar. Even if the live version was artistically acclaimed.

Do go read the entire thing.

Alfie Evans and Legitimate Parental Authority

I’ve held back from commenting on the Alfie Evans case so far because everybody else and his brother seem to be weighing in, and to be truthful, these cases are extraordinarily complex and I’m not a medical professional.

Father Dwight Longenecker

Me too. Of course, the complex issues involved go beyond medical care to parental versus governmental rights, money, and how we treat the most vulnerable human life.

I already knew about little Alfie Evans and his parents' legal battle with the British hospital which will not release him into his parents' care. I'm not ok with how the authorities have been handling this, both as a Catholic and as a parent. Ok, also as an American.

So many people have articulated my feelings and thoughts on this case much better than I could. Also many of them have additional insights which deepened my understanding. So, here you go!

• Jennifer Fitz has a good, short summary of the issues surrounding Alfie Evans from a Catholic point of view. She brilliantly connects it to subsidiarity, the idea that things should be handled by the lowest level of authority competent to do so. I love her examples. As she points out: Where the UK has gone terribly wrong is in usurping legitimate parental authority.
  
  
• The Curt Jester mentions how much this reminds him of the Terri Schiavo case. Up to and including a Catholic archbishop approval of the hospital's methods. Yep, I haven't been able to shake that comparison either.
  
  
• Father Dwight Longenecker has more to say about the archbishop.

  The fact that the Archbishop of Liverpool has taken the side of the hospital in this case is shocking. Does he not know the Catholic principles for end of life matters? Does he not stand up for them? Why on earth hasn’t Archbishop McMahon spoken clearly about the Catholic principles on end of life issues? This is not only for the sake of Alfie and his family, but it is a powerful teaching opportunity while the world’s media is watching.

• GetReligion points out that there has been very little press coverage here of Alfie's story while the press has fixated on the newest royal baby. As one of the pieces they quote says:

  What if Prince George or Princess Charlotte find themselves in the hospital with their own mysterious brain condition? It would be a very sad thing, indeed. No sadder than it would be for any other child, but still sad.
  
  Do we have any doubts about how the situation would unfold with a royal baby in Alfie's shoes? Need we even debate the subject?

• National Catholic Register launches a new series, Difficult Moral Questions, with a look at Alfie Evans' case. It digs deeper into Catholic teachings under such circumstances. If you have further questions after reading Jennifer Fitz's piece, then this is a good follow-up.

NOTE
In thinking about subsidiarity, I'd also like to point you to this National Catholic Register piece about Paul Ryan's plan to alleviate poverty by following the model used by Catholic Charities of Fort Worth. It makes so much sense.

Lagniappe: "I do not know of a happier way to spend an afternoon..."

When we were not doing up jams and jellies, we were down in the brook, which is deep enough to swim in, and shallow enough, with a good sand bank, for the children to play on, so it was a vacation indeed. I do not know of a happier way to spend an afternoon than sitting in a shallow brook with babies paddling happily around. There were little crawfish on the bottom, little minnows darting between your fingers as you try to catch them, boat flies on the surface, and beautiful blue dragonflies flying just above the water. There were neither mosquitoes nor flies nor gnats. The sun-warmed waters of the brook made up for all the "pail baths" we had been taking through the heat. We washed the children's clothes before we went back to the house, and we picked Indian pipes and pennyroyal as we went back through the field.

Dorothy Day, On Pilgrimage

The lovely thing about this journal is that she writes down life as it happens so between thoughts about faith and deep subjects, worries about retreats and how to feed the poor, comes some beautiful writing about episodes like this "vacation." I feel as if I had gone along.

Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett

Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett


When a disgruntled secret society wants to bring back the monarchy naturally they begin by summoning a dragon. Because, of course, everyone knows that a long lost heir to the throne will emerge to fight it. That should be enough to tell you that you are in Terry Pratchett's Discworld. We also meet the Watch members, charged with maintaining law and order, or at least a fiction of it. Quite enjoyable although indeniably an early Pratchett where he's not at the height of his story telling powers. His humor, though is, as always, right on target.

I just reread this because I wanted something easy for nighttime reading. It was more fun than I expected because after having read the entire City Watch subseries it reminded me of just how far Vimes and all the Watch had come since their humble beginnings in this book.

This is a good place to begin if you want to try Terry Pratchett and jump into Discworld.

Well Said: I believe in Purgatory.

I believe in Purgatory.

[...]

I assume that the process of purification will normally involve suffering. Partly from tradition; partly because most real good that has been done me in this life has involved it. But I don't think the suffering is the purpose of the purgation. I can well believe that people neither much worse nor much better than I will suffer less than I or more. . . . The treatment given will be the one required, whether it hurts little or much.

C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer

Nothing gets the day off to a good start, I find, better than a little C.S. Lewis. He's so intensely practical and yet helps you keep your eyes on the path to Heaven.

Well Said: Realistic Literature Versus Fantasy Literature

Oftentimes fantasy literature is criticized exactly for being escapist; that it tries to create in people a feeling of another world they can go to and that distracts them from the important things they are supposed to be doing in this present world. I think there is a distinct and unpleasant whiff of the most repellent elements of Marxism and Leninism in that criticism of escape. ... It subordinates literature and it makes it a kind of propaganda, rather than a kind of art.

Michael C. Drout; Rings, Swords, and Monsters course

We don't need explanation about why I shared this do we? Preaching to the Choir, yep that's what we do here.

Lagniappe: The Mind's Construction in the Face

Duncan:

There's no art
To find the mind's construction in the face:
He was a gentleman on whom I built an absolute trust.

Enter Macbeth ...

William Shakespeare, Macbeth

I love this because King Duncan is actually talking about someone else, a traitor who he trusted. But to have Macbeth enter right after those words, especially when we know Macbeth will become another such traitor ... well, timing is everything. Shakespeare, you genius you!

What happened when a gay man found Courage

Via the Deacon's Bench comes this "refreshing and even inspiring reflection in America magazine by Karl Miller, who describes his journey to the apostolate Courage, and what it has given him."

But sobriety added a new twist to my struggles. The numbness brought on by drink or drug was replaced with the reality of the loneliness I was experiencing. It was the loneliness that I imagine St. Augustine felt when he said to the Lord, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you”—the loneliness that led me to strangers’ arms and beds in my 20s and 30s. I was now enlightened or maybe just sensible enough to know that my heart and head longed for something vastly more authentic than a one-night stand.

I visited a local chapter of Dignity, a support group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons who are Catholic. ... For me, it seemed there was a wink-and-nod bonhomie that celebrated the gay Catholic’s outsider status. ...

I tried a Unitarian Universalist congregation and found that I desired a faith-directed home with more clearly defined principles and direction. ...

And then, about a decade ago, I was introduced to Courage.

Read the whole article here. I have long heard Courage praised by members. For more about Courage, go here.

Lagniappe: Only Child

I was an only child. You see, they achieved perfection first time round.

Roger Moore, My Word is My Bond

In which we meet Nan, the Policeman, the Masker ...

... and the family in the little brown house. And we hear about the Wind Boy.

Forgotten Classics returns from hiatus with Episode 357, The Wind Boy, chapters 1-2.

Weekend Joke: Art and the Thief

A thief in Paris planned to steal some paintings from the Louvre.

After careful planning, he got past security, stole the paintings, and made it safely to his van.

However, he was captured only two blocks away when his van ran out of gas.

When asked how he could mastermind such a crime and then make such an obvious error, he replied: "Monsieur, that is the reason I stole the paintings. I had no Monet ... to buy Degas ... to make the Van Gogh."

Worth a Thousand Words: The Snake Charmer

Jean-Léon Gérôme, The Snake Charmer

Well Said: Tolkien's Concern

It may be true that the story of the Ring is less morally ambiguous than the average realistic novel, but that’s primarily because Tolkien wasn’t especially interested in the problem of knowing right from wrong. His concern was to explore the psychology of the moment when you know right from wrong but aren’t sure whether you have the courage and fortitude to do the right thing.

Alan Jacobs
via C.K. Kubasik, via Joseph Susanka

From about 5 years ago, but I love it so much that we will enjoy it together again now.

Lagniappe: The courageous heat of the stars

The waxing moon tossed a dull glow on the surface of the clouds, but it was the scattered layers of stars that held my attention. I looked at them and tried to feel the courageous heat of their battle as they fought against the natural state of all things in the universe: dead cold.

Craig Johnson, Hell is Empty

I just loved how this is put. It makes me think of Hell in Dante's Divine Comedy ... where it is very cold.

What We've Been Watching: Jumanji, Coco

Both of these movies were tons of  fun. They have solid moral themes, as we would expect considering their intended family/youngster audience, and make nice light viewing.

Despite his family's generations-old ban on music, Miguel dreams of becoming an accomplished musician like his idol, Ernesto de la Cruz. Desperate to prove his talent, Miguel finds himself in the stunning and colorful Land of the Dead trying to get back to his family while not relinquishing his dreams.

Coco is very enjoyable, albeit with somewhat simpler theme development than could be hoped for (a la Cars). Satisfying messages of love, family, memory, and loss are anchored in a love letter to Mexican culture, especially the Day of the Dead (Ray Bradbury would approve). It is a feast for the eyes as well as the heart. Don't miss it.

Four high school kids discover an old video game console and are sucked into the game, literally becoming the adult avatars they chose. To beat the game and return to the real world, they'll have to go on the most dangerous adventure of their lives and change the way they think about themselves - or be stuck in the game forever.

Welcome to the best possible version of The Breakfast Club. The performances from Dwayne Johnson (a.k.a. The Rock) and Jack Black elevate this beyond story gimmick to a level of real entertainment. Neither ever lets you forget the inner nerd or beauty queen who inhabit their unlikely avatars. If you've ever played a video game then you're going to enjoy this one.

Worth a Thousand Words: Youngster

Remo Savisaar, Youngster

Well Said: The great democracy of the Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church was then, as it is now, a great democracy. There was no peasant so humble that he might not become a priest, and no priest so obscure that he might not become Pope of Christendom....What kept government alive in the Middle Ages was this constant rise of the sap from the bottom, from the rank and file of the great body of the people through the open channels of the priesthood.

President Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom, 1913

Worth a Thousand Words: Spring in Worpswede

Hans am Ende, Spring in Worpswede

Well Said: Private confession and the dignity of the individual

The practice of private confession also burned onto the Western soul a principle that is not native to the other influential civilizations of humanity: that the individual man, woman, or child is above the tribe, nation, state, and collectivity. Because men were willing to spend hours on end, in huge city cathedrals or tiny rural chapels, amid the coldness of winter and the heat of summer, attentive to the woes of both king and beggar, listening compassionately in order "to make known to his people their salvation through forgiveness of their sins, the loving kindness of the heart of our God who visits us like the dawn from on high...to give light to those in darkness, those who dwell in the shadow of death and guide...into the way of peace" (Lk 1:68-79), the concept of the dignity of the individual hit home. It because clear through this one-on-one dialogue that God, through his representative, loved each man as an individual—regardless of race or rank. ... all were equal as they waited for the sacrament, and if someone tried to alter this egalitarian state of affairs, priests were quite capable of calling the violator to order. One such incident from the seventeenth century occurred when a wealthy white lady in Cartagena, Colombia, jumped the queue, going ahead of a black slave, but found that it was all to no avail since the confessor, Father Peter Claver (1580-1654), insisted on hearing the slave's confession first.

William J. Slattery, Heroism and Genius

I really love this book although it is taking me a while to work my way through it.

Weekend Humor: Affirmation

From Despair.com

I was pleased to see that Despair.com is still in there coming up with posters to define our lives. This one, from their 2018 collection, is practically perfect in every way.

More is More: Hannah and Rose discuss robot genomes ...

Hannah & Rose discuss fathers and daughters, robot genomes, and the warning signs that your boyfriend may be too into your age difference as they watch Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

Another episode in the Transformers series from my favorite funny podcast. The movie is bad but Hannah and Rose are so good!

Lagniappe: The way bananas divide us

No fruit's ripeness seems to divide people the way that of the banana does. And it is not simply a question of soft or firm. Oh deary me, no, nothing so straightforward. Within the boundaries of soft and firm are further categories, mostly easier to feel than to describe, where the exact level of ripeness becomes almost an art form. Even before we get inside, there are pointers, mostly to do with the level of mottling and about which some aficionados could probably write an essay, if not a short story. The feel of the banana (go carefully here) is crucial. It must yield like fudge, butter, or, for some, be only just short of a smoothie. Some take it even further: their fruit must be the right shape. For heaven's sake. It's a banana.

Nigel Slater, The Kitchen Diaries II

Of course, then Slater goes on to say he likes his bananas almost crisp. So he would get along just fine with Rose and Hannah. Me, I go for some mottling so as to bring out the sugar. But we won't go on and on.

BeGolden - The Creepy Feel-Good Campaign

What's this make you think of?

Maybe a Star Trek visualization of a disease that spreads by touch and turns people into something weird and leaves their world in a state of grim post-apocalypse?

A perfume ad? A fashion ad?

This is part of the same campaign. Maybe a new version of Goldfinger?

I'm leaning even more into the Star Trek disease that morphs you into another creature.

Wrong!

It's a new Dallas campaign to be nice to immigrants! Didn't you get that from the pictures?

I feel as if it might be a Catholic initiative (Pope Francis is mentioned), but to be fair, no one's claiming that.

They don't tell us what to do, though there is a hat we can buy (not yet, coming soon).

But we should definitely be nice. Probably a hug for our immigrants, right? Or maybe a handshake? Definitely some sort of touching based on those pictures, so I'm going with a hug.

That way we can all feel good about ourselves.

Though this strange Star Trek disease makes me really want to lean away instead of lean into the hugging.

Really super creepy. A weird campaign.

Worth a Thousand Words: Gold Mining

Gold Mining, Belinda DelPesco

Well Said: Maps to Mythic Places and the Transcendent

My mind wanders. Maps to mythic places are a metaphor for mankind’s brushes with the transcendent. They are mystical directions that point characters to things that are amazing yet true. They are communication from somewhere else to here, and the conduit is the mapmaker.

What does a person bring to one of these maps? Like the inspired writer of scripture, a person brings himself to the map, and with him comes the transcendent.

I'd never have made the connection between those maps (and who does make them? how are they inspired?), scripture and the transcendent. Worth musing about, especially for those of us who love stories that need maps to Skull Island or Barsoom.

From a piece by Scott Danielson musing on a story about maps, a magic shoppe, and bean counters who want to make myths efficient. Go read it.

Well Said: Dare to speak of man as a living spirit

Our contemporaries need, whether they believe or do not believe, to hear from another perspective on man than the material perspective. They need to quench another thirst, which is a thirst for absolute. It is not a question here of conversion, but of a voice which, with others, still dares to speak of man as a living spirit.

This is from a really unusual speech given by the President of France, who's putting it out there in a way we don't see from politicians much these days. And he's calling on Catholics to do the same: speak up from the heart.

It resonated with me, of course, because that's what happens here and, to a more deliberate extent, what Scott and I do at A Good Story is Hard to Find.

Lagniappe: Non-fiction

Non-fiction? Non-fiction? Listen, reality is what got me into this mess in the first place.

Justin Alcola

Saw this on Goodreads and I have absolutely no idea what the writer's context was. But it makes me laugh. And love my fantasy and science fiction even more.

Where's Julie? Somewhere Zaney ... UPDATED again

 Zanesville, Ohio, that is.

I've got the high privilege of being asked to tell my conversion story on Marcus Grodi's show, The Journey Home.

They asked if I could talk for an hour. Ha! Just goes to show they've never been by here when I've been really impassioned.

I'm going to try to remember to take lots of pics and share them once I get back!

UPDATED
I'm back and it was a great experience. The episode will air on May 14, though I will remind everyone (of course) when it happens.

I will try to post some behind-the-scene photos soon!

UPDATED again
Turns out the episode will actually air on May 21.

Weekend Joke

Something for fellow language lovers.

A linguistics professor was lecturing to his English class one day. "In English," he said, "a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."

A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."

Worth a Thousand Words: In a Red Dufflecoat

In a Red Dufflecoat, Edward B. Gordon

Lagniappe: The Baby or the Books?

Though I wouldn't go so far as to say that my library — a mere agglomeration of pulp, glue and ink — means more to me than living, breathing human beings, it's a near thing. I'd certainly rescue the baby, not the Mona Lisa, from a burning house. But that baby had better grow up to find the cure for cancer ...

Michael Dirda, Browsings

Almost the perfect quote. Though when it went from books to the Mona Lisa it lost the logic string. But the sentiment works ... and I've got to admit that my "you've got 15 minutes to abandon your house forever" has me, Tom, the dogs ... and then the contents of my "favorites" bookshelf.

Some people have a "go bag."

I've got a "go bookshelf."

And I've had it for a while.

I mean. You've lost your house. Wouldn't you need to read something like The Lord of the Rings or Uncle Tom's Cabin or Jane Eyre? I'm just sayin' ...

Easter Dinner and Green Beans with Ginger

I meant to mention this earlier but we had a lovely Easter dinner with family and friends. One of the best parts for me was pausing from afar a few times to see how everyone was so engaged in conversation, in groups that kept shifting. That's not always the case in big groups where people don't know each other so it made me especially happy to see how much fun everyone was having.

We always have the same basic meal framework of Grilled Lamb, Deviled Eggs (because Easter, of course!), and Potato Rolls. Side dishes vary but this year Tortellini Salad and Hill Country Broccoli Salad won the day. I tried to change it up this year and met with stern opposition. "Lamb is symbolic," said Rose. "And it's the only time we have it all year!" added Tom.

Hey, no problem here.

Dessert is always a changing item, based on my whims of the moment. This year that meant Toasted Coconut Pie and Chocolate Pie. With whipped cream, because what are we - barbarians?

This year, the dish that got the questions and comments was Green Beans with Ginger. It is a favorite of mine and definitely worth the trouble of cutting the beans up in the unorthodox style called for by the recipe. Go take a look and give it a try.

(You can find a lot of these dishes in my recipe archives.)

Worth a Thousand Words: Cherry Blossom Day

Cherry Blossom Day, taken by Calligraphy in Japan

Click through to see this in full size. The beauty fully reflects my joy in this Easter season!

What We've Been Watching: Wilder Fest, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

BILLY WILDER

As I've mentioned before, once we finished watching James Bond films in consecutive order (sigh - I still miss our weekly Bond), we turned to the idea of consecutive Billy Wilder films. The ones he directed, not the ones he wrote before that. We'd like to finish before we die.

We've watched the first four of Wilder's directorial filmography so here's the report on our mini-Wilder-Fest.

The Major and the Minor — A frustrated city girl decides to disguise herself as a youngster in order to get a cheaper train ticket home. But little "Sue Sue" finds herself in a whole heap of grown-up trouble when she hides out in a compartment with handsome Major Kirby and he insists on taking her to his military academy after the train is stalled. Memorable not only as Wilder's debut, but also for the fact that Billy Wilder managed to make the ridiculous plot into a watchable movie. The studio was so surprised it made money that they gave him another movie to direct.

Five Graves to Cairo — The sole survivor of a WWI British tank crew in Africa makes his way to a desolate desert town where he is given refuge by a hotel owner who is preparing to receive General Erwin Rommel and his German staff. Posing as the hotel's waiter, the soldier attempts to report the general's plans to the Allies. A very watchable espionage movie which also has a young Anne Baxter as a French chambermaid and Erich Von Stroheim as Rommel. Wilder and Von Stroheim will work together more memorably in Sunset Boulevard later on.

Double Indemnity — It didn't take long for Wilder to fire on all cylinders. You can't beat this story about an unfaithful wife and an insurance salesman who cook up the perfect murder plot to collect on her husband's insurance. A famous film that I, nevertheless, have to beat people over the head to watch. The screenplay is by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler and the dialogue crackles with iconic film noir style. (#10 in Movies You Might Have Missed series. Scott and I also discussed it at A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast.)

The Lost Weekend — The desperate life of a chronic alcoholic is followed through a four-day drinking bout. I'd always managed to avoid watching this Wilder classic which was the first movie to honestly portray alcoholism. Then our Wilder series forced me into it.

It was really great. I have been recommending it to people, not least of all because Ray Milland (who played the clueless Major from The Major and the Minor) showed his acting chops by being absolutely convincing as a full-blown alcoholic who you were somehow still pulling for.

Also, just a month ago I'd actually had an alcoholic give me an identical line to one the popped up early in the movie. Identical. It shouldn't have floored me the way it did. I know from personal experience that alcoholics are not as good at fooling other people as they think they are. The movie's riveting story has more to recommend it than just authentic behavior patterns and I highly recommend it.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri — Mildred is angry. Her daughter was brutally murdered months ago, but the police have got nothing. She rents three unused billboards just outside town to publicly ask the police chief why more isn’t being done. This film asks us to consider how do we channel anger at an unjust world? Hate, rage, and grief are mixed with hope and chances for redemption.

This movie is violent, funny, and profane ... as well as being perfect Lenten viewing.

Perhaps the best hint of how we should view this film is that near the beginning one character is reading A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor. O'Connor famously said of her title story, "I have found that violence is strangely capable of returning my characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace." I'm not saying writer/director Martin McDonagh is Flannery O'Connor but he's definitely channeling her. Three Billboards can be tough to watch but is ultimately rewarding in the end.

Weekend Joke: I'm an Artist

Well Said: Remember You Have Only One Soul

Remember you have only one soul; that you have only one life, which is short and has to be lived by you alone; and there is only one Glory, which is eternal. If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing.

St. Teresa of Avila, Maxims for Her Nuns

Worth a Thousand Words: A Breath of Fresh Air

A Breath of Fresh Air, Karin Jurick

Well Said: The cardinal sin

Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of impatience we cannot return.

W. H. Auden

I tend to think of impatience as being a specifically American flaw. However, this makes me reflect that impatience is perhaps simply a human flaw. Certainly it is food for reflection.