Gratuitous Zardoz Photo of the Day.

If you are at all curious, kiddies, just type it in the FreeFind search box way down yonder at the bottom of the blog. You might be disappointed, but what do you want for free?

From The How The Mighty Have Fallen Department:

Bono The Clown. I was the first kid in my town to buy Boy. (I had to special order it.) That seems like a million years ago. (It is still their best album.) Anyway, I solved that IMF/World Bank/Third World kerfuffle months ago. As of yet, Mr. Vox has not commented on my brainy scheme. That makes me think either he's a dope or his handlers are keeping reality from intruding into his rock 'n' roll fantasy. (If the latter is true, there is little hope for him. If the former is true, Bono, call my people. We'll do lunch.)

Animal Flesh Recipe of the Day. (PEONWAP*)

*Piss 'Em Off Now With American Pork (On the other hand, I think most Jews'll get it.)

My tiny idiot program to inflame radical moslems into doing something stupid and self-destructive (like they need a push!) continues apace.

From Emeril Lagasse and the Food Network comes


Chicken-Fried Pork Chops with Andouille-Milk Gravy over Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes


Difficulty: Medium
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Yield: 4 servings


22 saltine crackers, finely crushed
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon salt, divided, plus more for seasoning
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided, plus more for seasoning
3/4 teaspoon Emeril's Original Essence, recipe follows
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 large eggs
3 cups plus 1/3 cup whole milk
8 boneless breakfast pork chops (small, thin cuts, about 1/4-inch thick each)
2 to 2 1/2 cups vegetable oil
8 ounces cooked and crumbled andouille sausage
Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes, recipe follows


In a shallow bowl combine the crushed crackers, 3/4 cup of flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, Essence, and baking powder.

In a separate small bowl, whisk together the eggs and 1/3 cup of milk.
Season pork chops lightly with salt and freshly ground pepper on both sides. Dust pork chops, one at a time, with the cracker-flour mixture and then dip in the egg mixture. Dredge pork chops with the cracker-flour mixture a second time, pressing to coat, and shaking off any excess flour.

Heat the oil to 375 degrees F in a large skillet with 2-inch deep sides. (The oil should be about 1/4-inch deep.) Add the pork chops to the preheated oil, being careful not to over-crowd the pan. Pan-fry the chops for 2 minutes, or until golden brown. Turn the pork chops and cook an additional 2 to 3 minutes, or until golden brown and cooked through. Place the pork chops on a paper towel-lined plate and keep warm while you make the gravy.

Carefully discard most of the oil from the pork chops, reserving 2 tablespoons plus any browned bits in the bottom of the skillet. Heat the oil over medium-low and add the andouille sausage, stirring until warmed through and fragrant. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of the flour to the oil-sausage mixture, stirring constantly to keep from burning, about 2 minutes. In a slow, steady stream, add the remaining 3 cups of milk, 1/2 cup at a time, whisking continuously. Bring the gravy mixture to a simmer, and cook 8 to 10 minutes, or until slightly thickened. Season the gravy with the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of salt and remaining 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper. Serve immediately over chicken fried pork chops and buttermilk mashed potatoes.


Emeril's ESSENCE
Creole Seasoning (also referred to as Bayou Blast):

2 1/2 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried thyme
Combine all ingredients thoroughly.
Yield: 2/3 cup
(Recipe from "New New Orleans Cooking", by Emeril Lagasse and Jessie Tirsch, published by William and Morrow, 1993.)


Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes:
2 pounds Idaho potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Place the potatoes in a medium pot and cover with cold water by 1-inch. Bring to a boil, and reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer, uncovered, until the potatoes are fork tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Drain potatoes in a colander.

Return the potatoes to the cooking pot and add the buttermilk, butter, salt, and black pepper. Mash with a potato masher or heavy fork until fluffy, about 4 minutes. Adjust seasonings with salt and pepper, to taste. Place potatoes in an ovenproof dish and cover with aluminum foil. Place mashed potatoes in a low (275 degree F) oven to keep warm until ready to serve with the pork chops.

Sobran: Lofty liberal principles meet reality.

(Note: The link above will take you to Joe's current on-line column. The archive is here. Not all of his past columns are available in the archive.)

My crystal ball told me the Global War on Terror (GWOT) would bring us a lot of trouble, but it failed to foresee that one of the flashpoints would be cartoons in Denmark. Muslims are currently upset about a particular cartoon, published last September, ridiculing the prophet Mohammed. Scandinavian humor can be unexpectedly volatile, when it exists at all.

See Jesper Parnevik's dad. (Filmography is here.)

I could have told the publishers that the Muslims might not chuckle good-naturedly about this, had anyone asked me, which they didn’t. By comparison, Abe Foxman was a pretty good sport about Mel Gibson’s last movie.

Joe, don't lets get started on that comparison.

Religion has been a factor in turmoil for most of human history, and though liberals have hoped tolerance would solve the problem for good, it has merely taken a new form as two great liberal principles have collided: freedom of expression (represented by the cartoonists) and organized touchiness (represented by world Islam, now moving into Europe).

Oopsie! Who in the world saw that one coming?

Liberals always expect their principles to harmonize with each other, and then are surprised when it doesn’t work out that way. In their zeal for sexual equality, they oppose sex discrimination and favor abortion on demand, only to find that some people abort babies upon discovering that they are female. Since this happens most often in cultures where being female is regarded as a sort of birth defect and the decision to abort is made by the father, yet another sacred liberal principle takes it on the chin: multiculturalism.

Yep.

Not all cultures are ready for multiculturalism, at least not this year. And some of those cultures, in what liberals reverently dubbed the Third World (back when the phrase seemed to make sense), are pretty old. They may take a while catching up with the progressive West — or, as liberals say, “evolving.” Evolution is another sacred liberal principle, but it doesn’t always follow the progressive script.

Yep to that too.

In some of those cultures, where sex-selection infanticide has long been a father’s prerogative (as it was back in pagan Greece and Rome), sex-selection abortion, now that it’s feasible, just seems the natural way to go (or evolve). I guess it falls under the heading of traditional family values. Dad still decides. That’s “choice,” you know — one more lofty liberal principle, as refracted through multiculturalism.

And you wonder why your friendless neighborhood leftist tries so hard to drown out the sounds his conscience makes.

Many cultures are all for choice — as long as it isn’t exercised by women, of course. This is the proviso that tends to take liberals by surprise. We won’t make any headway toward world peace until we recognize that liberalism, despite its universalist rhetoric, is just a local, recent, delicate, and perishable Western subculture. It probably has no hope of radically transforming other cultures, especially those that acknowledge the existence of two sexes.

Among other things.

Many primitive peoples believe not only that two sexes exist, but that they are somewhat different from one another. Such beliefs, seemingly simple and arbitrary, can make it difficult for liberalism to take root. The barbarians who hold them may be willing to try certain liberal enthusiasms on for size — elections or freedom of the press, maybe — as long as basic cultural preconditions are respected: two sexes, no cartoons of the Prophet, things like that.

Left-fascists look at others through the lenses of National Geographic. ("Look at the colorful two-dimensional people, honey.")

And The Nation, of course.

At risk of provoking liberals to riot by insulting their most cherished beliefs, I should point out that in many respects President Bush himself is a liberal. He assumes that if he offers the world’s Muslims democracy — an offer they can’t refuse, as it were — they will eagerly grab it, women’s rights and all. This is another case where I might have counseled otherwise, but again, I wasn’t asked.

Joe has a rather large and important and inconvenient point there.

Like most of his breed, our liberal in chief seems to regard religion as a mere opinion, an edifying individual option rather than a necessary social cohesive. (Ha! Protestantism! - F.G.) This is why he seems ill prepared to deal with the Muslim world, where they take a different view of it. Unlike the liberal Washington Post, for example, the Muslim press doesn’t bury religious news in the back sections of the weekend editions. It takes the view, so baffling to enlightened Westerners, that if the Almighty exists, he is probably pretty important.

Exactly.

Only modern Western culture — liberalism — could have conceived so incoherent a concept as multiculturalism. This strange idea hasn’t caught on in the Islamic world. You might as well expect to find a nudist colony in Mecca. (Just a joke, Mr. President.)

Hmmmm...

...so the Democrass is supposed to be a fool because he thought it was a serious show on a serious topic.

And the Repansycan legislator (a Catholic, if I'm not mistaken) who agrees to do a comedy show on violating The Natural Law, is considered the smart one...

Illinois Governor Confused by 'Daily Show' Bit

Gov. Rod Blagojevich wasn't in on the joke. Blagojevich says he didn't realize "The Daily Show" was a comedy spoof of the news when he sat down for an interview that ended up poking fun at the sometimes- puzzled Democratic governor.

"It was going to be an interview on contraceptives ... that's all I knew about it," Blagojevich laughingly told the St. Louis Post- Dispatch in a story for Thursday's editions. "I had no idea I was going to be asked if I was 'the gay governor.'"

The interview focused on his executive order requiring pharmacies to fill prescriptions for emergency birth control.

Interviewer Jason Jones pretended to stumble over Blagojevich's name before calling him "Governor Smith." He urged Blagojevich to explain the contraception issue by playing the role of "a hot 17-year-old" and later asked if he was "the gay governor."

At one point in the interview, a startled Blagojevich looked to someone off camera and said, "Is he teasing me, or is that legit?"

The segment, which aired two weeks ago, also featured Illinois Republican Rep. Ron Stephens, a pharmacist who opposes the governor's rule. Stephens has said he knew the show was a comedy.

"I thought the governor was hip enough that he would have known that, too," Stephens said.

The Theology of the Body: 42. Establishing the Ethical Sense

In his General Audience of 1 October 1980, the Holy Father continued his analysis of the words of Our Lord, in His Sermon on the Mount, concerning adultery in the heart. It is not merely a matter of lusting after a woman who is not one's wife, but of looking at her in a way dismissive of her dignity as well as of one's own.



Establishing the Ethical Sense

In his weekly Audience on Wednesday, 1 October, the Holy Father continued his analysis of Christ's statement in the Sermon on the Mount concerning "adultery in the heart" (Mt 5 27-28).


1. We arrive in our analysis at the third part of Christ's enunciation in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:27-28). The first part was: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.'" The second: "But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully....", is grammatically connected with the third part: "...has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

The method applied here, which is that of dividing or splitting Christ's enunciation into three parts which follow one another may seem artificial. However, when we seek the ethical meaning of the enunciation in its totality, the division of the text used by us may be useful. This is provided that it is applied not only in a disjunctive, but in a conjunctive way. This is what we intend to do. Each of the distinct parts has its own specific content and connotations, and we wish to stress this by dividing the text. But it must be pointed out at the same time that each of the parts is explained in direct relationship with the others. That referred in the first place to the principal semantic elements by which the enunciation constitutes a whole. These elements are: to commit adultery, to desire to commit adultery in the body, to commit adultery in the heart. It would be especially difficult to establish the ethical sense of desiring without the element indicated here last, that is adultery in the heart. The preceding analysis has already considered this element to a certain extent. However, a fuller understanding of "to commit adultery in the heart" is possible only after a special analysis.

Rediscovering values

2. As we have already mentioned, it is a question here of establishing the ethical sense. Christ's enunciation in Matthew 5:27-28 starts from the commandment: "Do not commit adultery", in order to show how it must be understood and put into practice, so that the justice that God-Yahweh wished as legislator may abound in it. It is in order that it may abound to a greater extent than appeared from the interpretation and casuistry of the Old Testament doctors. If Christ's words in this sense aim at constructing the new ethos (and on the basis of the same commandment), the way to that passes through the rediscovery of the values which—in the general Old Testament understanding and in the application of this commandment—have been lost.

That justice may abound

3. From this point of view also the formulation of the text of Matthew 5:27-28 is significant. The commandment "Do not commit adultery" is formulated as a prohibition which categorically excludes a given moral evil. It is well known that the same law (the Ten Commandments), as well as the prohibition "do not commit adultery," also include the prohibition, "Do not covet your neighbor's wife" (Ex 20:14, 17; Dt 5:18, 21). Christ did not nullify one prohibition with regard to the other. Although he spoke of desire, he aimed at a deeper clarification of adultery. It is significant that after mentioning the prohibition, "Do not commit adultery," as well known to his listeners, in the course of his enunciation he changed his style and the logical structure from the normative to the narrative-affirmative. When he said: "'Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart," he described an interior fact, whose reality can easily be understood by his listeners. At the same time, through the fact thus described and qualified, he indicated how the commandment, "Do not commit adultery" must be understood and put into practice, so that it will lead to the justice willed by the legislator.

Establishing the sense

4. In this way we have reached the expression "has committed adultery in his heart." This is the key-expression, as it seems, for understanding its correct ethical meaning. This expression is at the same time the principal source for revealing the essential values of the new ethos, the ethos of the Sermon on the Mount. As often happens in the Gospel, here, too, we come up against a certain paradox. How can adultery take place without committing adultery, that is, without the exterior act which makes it possible to identify the act forbidden by the law? We have seen how much the casuistry of the doctors of the law devoted itself to defining this problem. But even apart from casuistry, it seems clear that adultery can be identified only in the flesh, that is, when the two, the man and the woman who unite with each other in such a way as to become one flesh (cf. Gn 2:24), are not legal spouses, husband and wife. What meaning, then, can adultery committed in the heart have? Is it not perhaps just a metaphorical expression the Master used to highlight the sinfulness of lust?

Ethical consequences

5. If we admitted this semantic reading of Christ's enunciation (Mt 5:27-28), it would be necessary to reflect deeply on the ethical consequences that would be derived from it, that is, on the conclusions about the ethical regularity of the behavior. Adultery takes place when the man and the woman who unite with each other so as to become one flesh (cf. Gn 2:24), that is, in the way characteristic of spouses, are not legal spouses. The detecting of adultery as a sin committed in the body is closely and exclusively united with the exterior act, with living together in a conjugal way. This referred also to the status of the acting persons, recognized by society. In the case in question, this status is improper and does not authorize such an act (hence the term "adultery").

The affirmative answer

6. Going on to the second part of Christ's enunciation (that is, the one in which the new ethos begins to take shape), it would be necessary to understand the expression, "Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully," in exclusive reference to persons according to their civil status. This is their status recognized by society, whether or not they are husband and wife. Here the questions begin to multiply. There can be no doubt about the fact that Christ indicated the sinfulness of the interior act of lust expressed through a way of looking at every woman who is not the wife of the one who so looks at her. Therefore we can and even must ask ourselves if, with the same expression, Christ admitted and approved such a look, such an interior act of lust, directed toward the woman who is the wife of the man who so looks at her.

The following logical premise seems to favor the affirmative answer to such a question. In the case in question, only the man who is the potential subject of adultery in the flesh can commit adultery in the heart. Since this subject cannot be the husband with regard to his own legitimate wife, therefore adultery in the heart cannot refer to him, but any other man can be considered guilty of it. If he is the husband, he cannot commit it with regard to his own wife. He alone has the exclusive right to desire, to look lustfully at the woman who is his wife. It can never be said that due to such an interior act he deserves to be accused of adultery committed in the heart. If by virtue of marriage he has the right to unite with his wife, so that the two become one flesh, this act can never be called adultery. Similarly the interior act of desire, dealt with in the Sermon on the Mount, cannot be defined as adultery committed in the heart.

Considering the results

7. This interpretation of Christ's words in Mt 5:27-28 seems to correspond to the logic of the Ten Commandments. In addition to the commandment, "Do not commit adultery" they also contain the commandment, "Do not covet your neighbor's wife." Furthermore, the reasoning in support of this interpretation has all the characteristics of objective correctness and accuracy. Nevertheless, good grounds for doubt remain as to whether this reasoning takes into account all the aspects of revelation, as well as of the theology of the body. This must be considered, especially when we wish to understand Christ's words. We have already seen what the "specific weight" of this expression is, how rich the anthropological and theological implications are of the one sentence in which Christ referred "to the beginning" (cf. Mt 19:8). These implications of the enunciation in the Sermon on the Mount in which Christ referred to the human heart confer on the enunciation itself also a "specific weight" of its own. At the same time they determine its consistency with evangelical teaching as a whole. Therefore we must admit that the interpretation presented above, with all its objective correctness and logical precision, requires a certain amplification and, above all, a deepening. We must remember that the reference to the human heart, expressed perhaps in a paradoxical way (cf. Mt 5:27-28), comes from him who "knew what was in man" (Jn 2:25). If his words confirm the Decalogue (not only the sixth, but also the ninth commandment), at the same time they express that knowledge of man, which—as we have pointed out elsewhere—enables us to unite awareness of human sinfulness with the perspective of the redemption of the body (cf. Rom 8:23). This knowledge lies at the basis of the new ethos which emerges from the words of the Sermon on the Mount.

Taking all that into consideration, we conclude that, as in understanding adultery in the flesh, Christ criticized the erroneous and one-sided interpretation of adultery that is derived from the failure to observe monogamy (that is, marriage understood as the indefectible covenant of persons), so also in understanding adultery in the heart, Christ takes into consideration not only the real juridical status of the man and woman in question. Christ also makes the moral evaluation of the desire depend above all on the personal dignity itself of the man and the woman; and this has its importance both when it is a question of persons who are not married, and—perhaps even more—when they are spouses, wife and husband. From this point of view it will be useful for us to complete the analysis of the words of the Sermon on the Mount, and we will do so the next time.

The Theology of the Body: 41. Depersonalizing Effect of Concupiscence

In his General Audience of 24 September 1980, the Holy Father further examined "adultery in the heart," spoken of by Our Lord in His Sermon on the Mount. When a woman is looked at lustfully by a man, she ceases to be regarded as a subject of personal attraction or communion, but only as an object of sexual satisfaction. And when this "intention" reaches the will, the man himself becomes enslaved.


Depersonalizing Effect of Concupiscence

On Wednesday, 24 September, tens of thousands gathered in St. Peter's Square to hear the Pope continue his catechetical development of the theme of adultery.


1. In the Sermon on the Mount Christ said: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Mt 5:27-28). We have been trying for some time to penetrate the meaning of this statement, analyzing the single elements in order to understand better the text as a whole.

When Christ spoke of a man who looks lustfully, he indicated not only the dimension of intentionality in looking, thus indicating lustful knowledge, the psychological dimension, but also the dimension of the intentionality of man's very existence. In the situation Christ described, that dimension passes unilaterally from the man, who is the subject, to the woman, who has become the object (this does not mean, however, that such a dimension is only unilateral). For the present we will not reverse the situation analyzed, or extend it to both parties, to both subjects. Let us dwell on the situation outlined by Christ, stressing that it is a question of a purely interior act, hidden in the heart and stopping on the threshold of the look.

It is enough to note that in this case the woman—who owing to her personal subjectivity exists perennially "for man," waiting for him, too, for the same reason, to exist "for her"—is deprived of the meaning of her attraction as a person. Though being characteristic of the "eternal feminine," she becomes at the same time only an object for the man. That is, she begins to exist intentionally as an object for the potential satisfaction of the sexual need inherent in his masculinity. Although the act is completely interior, hidden in the heart and expressed only by the look, there already occurs in him a change (subjectively unilateral) of the very intentionality of existence. If it were not so, if it were not a question of such a deep change, the following words of the same sentence: "...has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Mt 5:28) would have no meaning.

2. That change of the intentionality of existence, by means of which a certain woman begins to exist for a certain man not as a subject of call and personal attraction or as a subject of communion, but exclusively as an object for the potential satisfaction of the sexual need, is carried out in the heart, since it is carried out in the will. Cognitive intentionality itself does not yet mean enslavement of the heart. Only when the intentional reduction, illustrated previously, sweeps the will along into its narrow horizon, when it brings forth the decision of a relationship with another human being (in our case: with the woman) according to the specific scale of values of lust, only then can it be said that desire has also gained possession of the heart. Only when lust has gained possession of the will is it possible to say that it is dominant over the subjectivity of the person and that it is at the basis of the will, and of the possibility of choosing and deciding, through which—by virtue of self-decision or self-determination—the very way of existing with regard to another person is established. The intentionality of this existence then acquires a full subjective dimension.

3. Only then—that is from that subjective moment and on its subjective prolongation—is it possible to confirm what we read, for example, in Sirach (23:17-22), about the man dominated by lust, and what we read in even more eloquent descriptions in world literature. Then we can also speak of that more or less complete compulsion, which is called elsewhere compulsion of the body. This brings with it loss of the freedom of the gift, congenital in deep awareness of the matrimonial meaning of the body, of which we have also spoken in preceding analyses.

4. When we speak of desire as the transformation of the intentionality of a concrete existence, of the man, for example, for whom (according to Mt 5:27-28), a certain woman becomes merely the object of the potential satisfaction of the sexual need inherent in his masculinity, it is not at all a matter of questioning that need, as an objective dimension of human nature with the procreative finality that is characteristic of it. Christ's words in the Sermon on the Mount (in its whole context) are far from Manichaeism, as the true Christian tradition also is. In this case, there cannot arise, therefore, objections of the kind. It is a question, on the contrary, of the man's and the woman's way of existing as persons, that is, of that existing in a mutual "for," which—also on the basis of what, according to the objective dimension of human nature, can be defined as the sexual need—can and must serve the building up of the unity of communion in their mutual relations. Such is the fundamental meaning characteristic of the perennial and reciprocal attraction of masculinity and femininity, contained in the very reality of the constitution of man as a person, body and sex together.

5. The possible circumstance that one of the two persons exists only as the subject of the satisfaction of the sexual need, and the other becomes exclusively the object of this satisfaction, does not correspond to the union or personal communion to which man and woman were mutually called from the beginning—on the contrary, it is in conflict with it. Moreover, the case in which both the man and the woman exist reciprocally as the object of satisfaction of the sexual need, and each on his or her part is only the subject of that satisfaction, does not correspond to this unity of communion—but on the contrary it clashes with it. This reduction of such a rich content of the reciprocal and perennial attraction of human persons in their masculinity or femininity does not at all correspond to the "nature" of the attraction in question. This reduction extinguishes the personal meaning of communion, characteristic of man and woman, through which, according to Genesis 2:24, "a man...cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." Lust turns away the intentional dimension of the man's and woman's mutual existence from the personal perspectives, "of communion," characteristic of their perennial and mutual attraction, reducing it, and, so to speak, pushing it toward utilitarian dimensions, within which the human being uses the other human being, for the sake merely of satisfying his own needs.

6. It seems possible to find this content again, charged with the human interior experience characteristic of different ages and environments, in Christ's concise affirmation in the Sermon on the Mount. At the same time, we cannot in any case lose sight of the meaning that this affirmation attributes to man's interiority, to the integral dimension of the heart as the dimension of the inner man. Here lies the core of the transformation of ethos aimed at by Christ's words according to Matthew 5:27-28, expressed with powerful forcefulness and at the same time with admirable simplicity.

The Theology of the Body: 40. Mutual Attraction Differs from Lust

In his General Audience of 17 September 1980, the Holy Father continued his analysis of adultery in his series on Theology of the Body. The mutual attraction between a man and a woman, encompassing a "gamut of spiritual-corporal desires," to which a "proportionate pyramid of values" corresponds, differs from lust, in that the latter reduces the pyramid to one level, sex, as an object of gratification.



Mutual Attraction Differs from Lust

More than fifty thousand faithful took part in Wednesday's Audience in St. Peter's Square. The Holy Father continued his theme of adultery which he had been developing for several weeks.


1. During our last reflection, we asked ourselves what the lust was which Christ spoke of in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:27-28). Let us recall that he spoke of it in relation to the commandment: "Do not commit adultery." Lust itself (more exactly: looking at lustfully), is defined as "adultery committed in the heart." That gives much food for thought. In the preceding reflections we said that by expressing himself in that way, Christ wanted to indicate to his listeners the separation from the matrimonial significance of the body felt by a human being (in this case the man) when concupiscence of the flesh is coupled with the inner act of lust. The separation of the matrimonial significance of the body causes at the same time a conflict with his personal dignity, a veritable conflict of conscience.

At this point it appears that the biblical (hence also theological) meaning of lust is different from the purely psychological. The latter describes lust as an intense inclination toward the object because of its particular value, and in the case considered here, its sexual value. As it seems, we will find such a definition in most of the works dealing with similar themes. Yet the biblical interpretation, while not underestimating the psychological aspect, places that ethic in relief above all, since a value is being impaired. I would say that lust is a deception of the human heart in the perennial call of man and woman—a call revealed in the mystery of creation—to communion by means of mutual giving. In the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:27-28) Christ referred to the heart or the internal man. His words do not cease being charged with that truth concerning the principle to which, in replying to the Pharisees (cf. Mt 19:8), he had reverted to the whole problem of man, woman and marriage.

2. The perennial call, which we have tried to analyze following Genesis (especially Gn 2:23-25) and, in a certain sense, the perennial mutual attraction on man's part to femininity and on woman's part to masculinity, is an indirect invitation of the body. But it is not lust in the sense of the word in Matthew 5:27-28. That lust carries into effect the concupiscence of the flesh (also and especially in the purely internal act). It diminishes the significance of what were—and that in reality do not cease being—that invitation and that reciprocal attraction. The "eternal feminine" (das ewig weibliche), just like the "eternal masculine" for that matter, on the level of historicity, too, tends to free itself from pure concupiscence and seeks a position of achievement in the world of people. It testifies to that original sense of shame of which Genesis 3 speaks. The dimension of intentionality of thought and heart constitutes one of the main streams of universal human culture. Christ's words in the Sermon on the Mount exactly confirm this dimension.

3. Nonetheless, these words clearly assert that lust is a real part of the human heart. When compared with the original mutual attraction of masculinity and femininity, lust represents a reduction. In stating this, we have in mind an intentional reduction, almost a restriction or closing down of the horizon of mind and heart. It is one thing to be conscious that the value of sex is a part of all the rich storehouse of values with which the female appears to the man. It is another to "reduce" all the personal riches of femininity to that single value, that is, of sex, as a suitable object for the gratification of sexuality itself. The same reasoning can be valid concerning what masculinity is for the woman, even though Matthew's words in 5:27-28 refer directly to the other relationship only. As can be seen, the intentional reduction is primarily of an axiological nature. On one hand the eternal attraction of man toward femininity (cf. Gn 2:23) frees in him—or perhaps it should free—a gamut of spiritual-corporal desires of an especially personal and "sharing" nature (cf. the analysis of the "beginning"), to which a proportionate pyramid of values corresponds. On the other hand, lust limits this gamut, obscuring the pyramid of values that marks the perennial attraction of male and female.

4. Lust has the internal effect, that is, in the heart, on the interior horizon of man and woman, of obscuring the significance of the body, of the person itself. Femininity thus ceases being above all else an object for the man. It ceases being a specific language of the spirit. It loses its character of being a sign. I would say that it ceases bearing in itself the wonderful matrimonial significance of the body. It ceases its correlation to this significance in the context of conscience and experience. Lust arising from concupiscence of the flesh itself, from the first moment of its existence within the man—its existence in his heart—passes in a certain sense close to such a context. (Using an image, one could say that it passes on the ruins of the matrimonial significance of the body and all its subjective parts.) By virtue of axiological intentionality itself, it aims directly at an exclusive end: to satisfy only the sexual need of the body, as its precise object.

5. According to the words of Christ (Mt 5:27-28), such an intentional and axiological reduction can take place in the sphere of the look (of looking). Rather, it takes place in the sphere of a purely interior act expressed by the look. A look (or rather looking) is in itself a cognitive act. When concupiscence enters its inner structure, the look takes on the character of lustful knowledge. The biblical expression "to look at lustfully" can indicate both a cognitive act, which the lusting man "makes use of," (that is, giving him the character of lust aiming at an object), and a cognitive act that arouses lust in the other object and above all in its will and in its heart. As is seen, it is possible to place an intentional interpretation on an interior act, being aware of one and the other pole of man's psychology: knowledge or lust understood as appetitus (which is something broader than lust, since it indicates everything manifested in the object as aspiration, and as such always tends to aim at something, that is, toward an object known under the aspect of value.) Yet, an adequate interpretation of Matthew 5:27-28 requires us—by means of the intentionality itself of knowledge or of the appetitus to discern something more, that is, the intentionality of the very existence of man in relation to the other man. In our case, it is the man in relation to the woman and the woman in relation to the man.

It will be well for us to return to this subject. Concluding today's reflection, we add again that in that lust, in looking at lustfully, which the Sermon on the Mount deals with, for the man who looks in that way, the woman ceases to exist as an object of eternal attraction. She begins to be only an object of carnal concupiscence. To that is connected the profound inner separation of the matrimonial significance of the body, about which we spoke in the preceding reflection.

Italian-American Smile of the Day.

You wouldn't understand. It's a goomba thing.

New Hampshire Union Leader: Retailer apologizes for 'wife beater' shirt ad

Discount retailer Building 19 has apologized for an advertisement in a recent flier that offered three “wife beater” undershirts for $5.98.
The tank-style T-shirts are called “wife beaters” because of a stereotype that physically abusive men wear them.

The ad, which appeared in a Feb. 19 flier, outraged women’s groups and led to a quick apology from Building 19 co-founder, Jerry Ellis, who took responsibility for the ad, the MetroWest Daily News of Framingham reported.

“The mistake was mine,” Ellis told the paper. “I was either too dumb or too lazy or too distracted, and I let it go by. It certainly was insensitive . . . and I’m sorry it happened.”

Ellis said the initial ad copy described the shirts as “A-shirts,” but a man in advertising said, “Oh, no, you mean a wife beater shirt.”

“I saw it and . . . I questioned it, and (the male employee) said that’s what everybody calls it,” Ellis said.

Interestingly, She Who Must Be Obeyed has a slight thingee for these things. Naturally, being a modern fella who is sensitive to the needs and desires (no matter how silly) of his gal, I bought some. She calls them "wife beaters" too.

Not to worry, ladies. My lady owns a couple of guns and knows how to use them. (She was the best shot on her high school rifle team.) Equality courtesy of Smith and Wesson.

Building 19 officials said the company’s Hingham headquarters was deluged with critical calls and e-mails. Ellis said he hopes the apology will reduce some of the damage.

Toni K. Troop, spokesman for Jane Doe Inc., a Boston-based coalition against sexual assault and domestic violence, said the group’s initial response to the ad was “shock and disbelief.”

My goodness! She's got herself a case of the vapors! Give her room!

Troop said the chain’s quick response has helped.

“Taking responsibility is the best thing that they can do,” she said.

Rob Reiner Denies Impropriety in Preschool

That headline is from the Las Vegas Sun, kiddies.

Hollyweird wants to eat your children! Weirdness über alles!

I guess ol' Meathead thinks the sooner they get kids away from the people who love them, the easier it'll be to indoctrinate 'em.

Hollywood director Rob Reiner denied any wrongdoing Thursday in response to recent scrutiny about the potential misuse of taxpayer funds for a June ballot initiative he is spearheading.

Reiner heads - and helped create - the state's First 5 California Children and Families Commission, an advocacy group.

He also is leading a campaign for a ballot initiative that would establish a state constitutional right to preschool for all 4-year-olds and raise income taxes for wealthier households to fund preschool programs.

A Los Angeles Times story earlier this week detailed how the Children and Families commission spent $23 million in state funds on ads that promoted the benefits of preschool. The television ads aired this winter, coinciding with the campaign for Reiner's "Preschool for All" initiative, Proposition 82.

The commission also earlier paid for a political consultant who now is the campaign manager of Proposition 82, the story noted.

Reiner's commission is funded from tobacco tax proceeds. State law prohibits the use of public funds for campaign activities.

Reiner's attorneys have asserted that the commission ads were legal and proper, and the entertainer-turned-activist on Thursday dismissed the Times story as "the price of being a public figure."

When asked to comment about the money spent on the commission's ads following a speech he gave in San Jose on Proposition 82, Reiner said: "There is absolutely no conflict of interest."

What?

Boston Globe: Christian Mobs Seek Revenge on Muslims in Nigeria


Washington Post: Nigerian Christians Burn Corpses
Remorse Scant for Attacks on Muslims; Death Toll at Least 42


Remorse? Has anyone seen the word remorse ever used in a story about moslem sin and crime?

And they wonder why they are called the antique media...

Straight talk to moslem countries from Vatican officials.

He who persecutes Christians should not be whining about "respect".

From The Washington Times:

After backing calls by Muslims for respect during the furor over cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, the Vatican is urging Muslim countries to reciprocate by showing tolerance toward their Christian minorities.

"Enough now with this turning the other cheek. It's our duty to protect ourselves," Monsignor Velasio De Paolis, secretary of the Vatican's supreme court, thundered in the daily La Stampa.

"The West has had relations with the Arab countries for half a century, mostly for oil, and has not been able to get the slightest concession on human rights," he said.

Did it ever occur to you moslems may not believe in human rights for non-moslems? There is a lot of evidence pointing in that direction.

Bishop Rino Fisichella, head of one of the Roman universities that train young priests from around the world, told the daily Corriere della Sera that the Vatican should "drop this diplomatic silence."

"We should put pressure on international organizations to make the societies and states in majority Muslim countries face up to their responsibilities," said Bishop Fisichella, rector of the Pontifical Lateran University.

I hope His Excellency is not counting on the UN to be of any help. On a good day, they refrain from raping any children.

Roman Catholic leaders at first said Muslims were right to be outraged when Western newspapers reprinted Danish caricatures of Muhammad, including one with a bomb in his turban.

After criticizing both the cartoons and the violent protests in Muslim countries that followed, the Vatican this week linked the issue to its long-standing concern that the rights of other faiths are limited, sometimes severely, in Muslim countries.

Vatican prelates have been concerned by recent killings of two Catholic priests in Turkey and Nigeria. Turkish press linked the death there to the cartoons furor. At least 146 Christians and Muslims have died in religious riots in Nigeria.

Have mercy on the souls of your servants, Lord.

"If we tell our people they have no right to offend, we have to tell the others they have no right to destroy us," Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's secretary of state, told reporters in Rome.

"We must always stress our demand for reciprocity in political contacts with authorities in Islamic countries and, even more, in cultural contacts," Foreign Minister Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo told Corriere della Sera.

Reciprocity -- allowing Christian minorities the same rights as Muslims generally have in Western countries, such as building houses of worship or practicing religion freely -- is at the heart of Vatican diplomacy toward Muslim states.

Vatican diplomats argue that limits on Christians in some Islamic countries are far harsher than restrictions in the West that Muslims decry, such as France's ban on head scarves in state schools.

Doy! (Double doy, even.) Even the FlyingBushMonkey regime knows sodomites and other perverts are simply human, and nothing more or less.

Silly violators of The Natural Law, it's time to grow up and stop rebelling.

Homosexual Advocacy Group Gripes about Missing Info on HHS Website
(CNSNews.com) - A homosexual advocacy group is praising Wisconsin Rep. Tammy Baldwin for demanding corrective action and an explanation as to why the Department of Health and Human Services removed from its website "basic health information for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans." Full Story

From the Australian Front:

E Pluribus Unum, kiddies. (Or its non-union Australian equivalent.)

Learn it, live it, love it.

If you want the benefits of a free, democratic, capitalistic country, you MUST behave in certain ways and you must NOT behave in other certain ways. It really is that simple.

If you think you can continue to agitate and even wage war from within the democracies, your time is running out. The reaction against you by fat and lazy Westerners will be swift and bloody. It may take several more outrages on our soil to provoke us, but I assure you it will happen.

Then when you call upon the charity of Christians to save you from annihilation, you will discover we are not powerful enough to help. You see, kiddies, there is a common Enemy out there - the Enemy of all who believe in something greater than man or earth.


Adopt Our Values or Go Home, Foreign-Born Muslims Told(CNSNews.com) - Australian Muslims already unhappy with Prime Minister John Howard's criticism about Islamic radicalism are bristling at even tougher comments from the man tipped to succeed him, who says any Muslim immigrant who can't accept Australian values should leave. Full Story

'Shari'a Law Has No Place Here'
(CNSNews.com) - An Australian politician's comments about Muslims wanting to live under Islamic law (shari'a) has focused attention on the push by Muslim minorities in some Western countries to establish enclaves where Islamic norms and laws hold sway. Full Story

Saint of the Day and daily Mass readings.

Today is the Feast of St. John Theristus, Benedictine monk. Pray for us, all you angels and saints.

Today's reading is James 5: 9-12.
Today's Responsorial Psalm is Psalms 103:1-2, 3-4, 8-9, 11-12.
Today's Gospel reading is Mark 10:1-12.


[Links to the readings will be from the NAB until I can find another chapter and verse searchable Douay-Rheims Bible on-line.]


Everyday links:

The Blessed Virgin Mary
The Rosary
Our Mother of Perpetual Help
Prayers from EWTNNational Coalition of Clergy and Laity (dedicated to action for a genuine Catholic Restoration)
The Catholic Calendar Page for Today


Just in case you are wondering what exactly Catholics believe, here is

The Apostles Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.


Memorare

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thy intercession,was left unaided.Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins my Mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful; O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy clemency hear and answer me. Amen.


St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse, pray for us.


Prayer to St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire

Dear St. Anthony, you became a Franciscan with the hope of shedding your blood for Christ. In God's plan for you, your thirst for martyrdom was never to be satisfied. St. Anthony, Martyr of Desire, pray that I may become less afraid to stand up and be counted as a follower of the Lord Jesus. Intercede also for my other intentions. (Name them.)


PRAYER TO SAINT MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the divine power, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

Nazi babysavers in South Dakota barge into the wombs of Distaff-Americans in order to take away their Gaia-given right to slaughter their kids.

USA Today: South Dakota passes bill to ban nearly all abortions

South Dakota moved closer to imposing some of the strictest limits on abortion in the nation, as the state Senate approved legislation that would ban it except when a woman's life is in danger.

Totalitarian Pennsylvania Update. (Part 4)

Fyodor's tax dollars are hard at work turning students into bleating sheep-like followers of the political class' line. (Yes, Temple is a private school. But it does receive plenty of public money.)

Centre Daily Times: Free-speech suit targets PSU, Temple

Temple and Penn State universities are suppressing students' free speech rights through vaguely worded behavioral policies that should be abolished, according to a pair of lawsuits filed Wednesday in federal court.

Penn State has "an Orwellian speech code" that stifles discussion of controversial views and encourages students to report acts of "intolerance" to the university, sophomore Alfred Fluehr contends in his suit.

Temple subjected graduate student Christian DeJohn to "a campaign of retribution and retaliation" because his views on the Iraq war clashed with those of his professors, DeJohn's lawsuit says.

The complaints, which also seek unspecified monetary damages, were filed by attorneys for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group based in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Temple does not comment on pending litigation, said spokesman Ray Betzner.

A Penn State spokesman denied any violation of the Constitution.

"Penn State doesn't have a speech code, and we don't know why someone would claim that we do," said university spokesman Tysen Kendig. "Speech is clearly protected by the First Amendment."

Alliance Defense Fund lawyer David French said Penn State might not call its regulations a "speech code," but the practical effect is to limit expression.

Penn State's student guide forbids any act of "intolerance," which includes "an attitude, feeling, or belief wherein an individual behaves with contempt for other individuals or groups," according to the lawsuit.

Regulating attitudes, feelings, and beliefs? That's Orwellian all right.

From The Rice And Circuses Department:

The hardest working man in Slave China helps the proles forget their chains, if only for an hour or two.

Fox News: James Brown Gets Funky in Shanghai


The city: Shanghai.
The venue: a drafty People's Liberation Army acrobatics theater.
The event: James Brown.

The 72-year-old Godfather of Soul made his mainland China debut Wednesday, belting out classics such as "Get up Offa That Thing" before a capacity crowd.

"We are going to funk you up before we finish," Brown said three songs into his set, which he kicked off with "Make it Funky."

Dressed in a cherry red satin suit, he shimmied, shook and leapt — although not quite as high as he once did.

Behind him, the nine-piece Soul General, complete with gold epaulets on their suits, put on a virtuoso display of rhythm and horns. His quartet of backup singers, the General Sweet, egged on the cheering, clapping crowd that filled the Yunfeng Theater in the heart of Shanghai's once-thriving nightclub district.

Medal of Honor Citations for University of Washington graduates.

*N.B. An asterisk in the citation indicates that the award was given posthumously.


BOYINGTON, GREGORY

Rank and organization: Major, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Marine Squadron 214. Place and date: Central Solomons area, from 12 September 1943 to 3 January 1944. Entered service at: Washington. Born: 4 December 1912, Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. Other Navy award: Navy Cross. Citation: For extraordinary heroism and valiant devotion to duty as commanding officer of Marine Fighting Squadron 214 in action against enemy Japanese forces in the Central Solomons area from 12 September 1943 to 3 January 1944. Consistently outnumbered throughout successive hazardous flights over heavily defended hostile territory, Maj. Boyington struck at the enemy with daring and courageous persistence, leading his squadron into combat with devastating results to Japanese shipping, shore installations, and aerial forces. Resolute in his efforts to inflict crippling damage on the enemy, Maj. Boyington led a formation of 24 fighters over Kahili on 17 October and, persistently circling the airdrome where 60 hostile aircraft were grounded, boldly challenged the Japanese to send up planes. Under his brilliant command, our fighters shot down 20 enemy craft in the ensuing action without the loss of a single ship. A superb airman and determined fighter against overwhelming odds, Maj. Boyington personally destroyed 26 of the many Japanese planes shot down by his squadron and, by his forceful leadership, developed the combat readiness in his command which was a distinctive factor in the Allied aerial achievements in this vitally strategic area.


Deming Bronson

Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, U.S. Army, Company H, 364th Infantry, 91st Division. Place and date: Near Eclisfontaine, France, 26-27 September 1918. Entered service at: Seattle, Wash. Born: 8 July 1894, Rhinelander, Wis. G.O. No.: 12 W.D., 1929. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy. On the morning of 26 September, during the advance of the 364th Infantry, 1st Lt. Bronson was struck by an exploding enemy handgrenade, receiving deep cuts on his face and the back of his head. He nevertheless participated in the action which resulted in the capture of an enemy dugout from which a great number of prisoners were taken. This was effected with difficulty and under extremely hazardous conditions because it was necessary to advance without the advantage of cover and, from an exposed position, throw handgrenades and phosphorous bombs to compel the enemy to surrender. On the afternoon of the same day he was painfully wounded in the left arm by an enemy rifle bullet, and after receiving first aid treatment he was directed to the rear. Disregarding these instructions, 1st Lt. Bronson remained on duty with his company through the night although suffering from severe pain and shock. On the morning of 27 September, his regiment resumed its attack, the object being the village of Eclisfontaine. Company H, to which 1st Lt. Bronson was assigned, was left in support of the attacking line, Company E being in the line. He gallantly joined that company in spite of his wounds and engaged with it in the capture of the village. After the capture he remained with Company E and participated with it in the capture of an enemy machinegun, he himself killing the enemy gunner. Shortly after this encounter the company was compelled to retire due to the heavy enemy artillery barrage. During this retirement 1st Lt. Bronson, who was the last man to leave the advanced position, was again wounded in both arms by an enemy high-explosive shell. He was then assisted to cover by another officer who applied first aid. Although bleeding profusely and faint from the loss of blood, 1st Lt. Bronson remained with the survivors of the company throughout the night of the second day, refusing to go to the rear for treatment. His conspicuous gallantry and spirit of self-sacrifice were a source of great inspiration to the members of the entire command.


Robert Edward Galer

Rank and organization: Major, U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Fighter Sqdn. 244. Place: Solomon Islands Area. Entered service at: Washington. Born: 23 October 1913, Seattle, Wash. Other Navy awards: Navy Cross, Distinguished Flying Cross. Citation: For conspicuous heroism and courage above and beyond the call of duty as leader of a marine fighter squadron in aerial combat with enemy Japanese forces in the Solomon Islands area. Leading his squadron repeatedly in daring and aggressive raids against Japanese aerial forces, vastly superior in numbers, Maj. Galer availed himself of every favorable attack opportunity, individually shooting down 11 enemy bomber and fighter aircraft over a period of 29 days. Though suffering the extreme physical strain attendant upon protracted fighter operations at an altitude above 25,000 feet, the squadron under his zealous and inspiring leadership shot down a total of 27 Japanese planes. His superb airmanship, his outstanding skill and personal valor reflect great credit upon Maj. Galer's gallant fighting spirit and upon the U.S. Naval Service.


*Robert Ronald Leisy

Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army, Infantry, Company B, 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division. place and date: Phuoc Long province, Republic of Vietnam, 2 December 1969. Entered service at: Seattle, Wash. Born: 1 March 1945, Stockton, Calif. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. 2d Lt. Leisy, Infantry, Company B, distinguished himself while serving as platoon leader during a reconnaissance mission. One of his patrols became heavily engaged by fire from a numerically superior enemy force located in a well-entrenched bunker complex. As 2d Lt. Leisy deployed the remainder of his platoon to rescue the beleaguered patrol, the platoon also came under intense enemy fire from the front and both flanks. In complete disregard for his safety, 2d Lt. Leisy moved from position to position deploying his men to effectively engage the enemy. Accompanied by his radio operator he moved to the front and spotted an enemy sniper in a tree in the act of firing a rocket-propelled grenade at them. Realizing there was neither time to escape the grenade nor shout a warning, 2d Lt. Leisy unhesitatingly, and with full knowledge of the consequences, shielded the radio operator with his body and absorbed the full impact of the explosion. This valorous act saved the life of the radio operator and protected other men of his platoon who were nearby from serious injury. Despite his mortal wounds, 2d Lt. Leisy calmly and confidently continued to direct the platoon's fire. When medical aid arrived, 2d Lt. Leisy valiantly refused attention until the other seriously wounded were treated. His display of extraordinary courage and exemplary devotion to duty provided the inspiration and leadership that enabled his platoon to successfully withdraw without further casualties. 2d Lt. Leisy's gallantry at the cost of his life are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit on him, his unit, and the U.S. Army.


*William K. Nakamura

Private First Class William K. Nakamura distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism in action on 4 July 1944, near Castellina, Italy. During a fierce firefight, Private First Class Nakamura’s platoon became pinned down by enemy machine gun fire from a concealed position. On his own initiative, Private First Class Nakamura crawled 20 yards toward the hostile nest with fire from the enemy machine gun barely missing him. Reaching a point 15 yards from the position, he quickly raised himself to a kneeling position and threw four hand grenades, killing or wounding at least three of the enemy soldiers. The enemy weapon silenced, Private First Class Nakamura crawled back to his platoon, which was able to continue its advance as a result of his courageous action. Later, his company was ordered to withdraw from the crest of a hill so that a mortar barrage could be placed on the ridge. On his own initiative, Private First Class Nakamura remained in position to cover his comrades’ withdrawal. While moving toward the safety of a wooded draw, his platoon became pinned down by deadly machine gun fire. Crawling to a point from which he could fire on the enemy position, Private First Class Nakamura quickly and accurately fired his weapon to pin down the enemy machine gunners. His platoon was then able to withdraw to safety without further casualties. Private First Class Nakamura was killed during this heroic stand. Private First Class Nakamura’s extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit on him, his unit, and the United States Army.

The Theology of the Body: 39. Concupiscence as a Separation From Matrimonial Significance of the Body

In his General Audience of 10 September 1980, the Holy Father continued his series on Theology of the Body. He gave a description of the inner effects of lust from the Wisdom tradition and then compared it with the teaching of Christ on "adultery in the heart."


Concupiscence as a Separation From Matrimonial Significance of the Body

The following is the Holy Father's address to about thirty thousand faithful assembled for the weekly audience in St. Peter's Square.


1. Let us reflect on the following words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount: "Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" ("has already made her an adulteress in his heart") (Mt 5:28). Christ said this before listeners who, on the basis of the books of the Old Testament, were in a certain sense prepared to understand the significance of the look that comes from concupiscence. Last Wednesday we referred to the texts taken from the so-called Wisdom Books.

Here is, for example, another passage in which the biblical author analyzes the state of the soul of the man dominated by concupiscence of the flesh: "The soul heated like a burning fire / will not be quenched until it is consumed; / a man who commits fornication / will never cease until the fire burns him up; / to a fornicator all bread tastes sweet; / he will never cease until he dies. / A man who breaks his marriage vows / says to himself: 'Who sees me? / Darkness surrounds me, and the walls hide me; / no one sees me. Why should I fear? / The Most High will not take notice of my sins.' / His fear is confined to the eyes of men; / he does not realize that the eyes of the Lord / are ten thousand times brighter than the sun; / they look upon all the ways of men, / and perceive even the hidden places. / So it is with a woman who leaves her husband, / and provides an heir by a stranger (Sir 23:17-22).

2. Analogous descriptions are not lacking in world literature.(1) Certainly, many of them are distinguished by a more penetrating discernment of psychological analysis and a more intense significance and expressive force. Yet, the biblical description from Sirach (23:17-22) includes some elements maintained to be "classic" in the analysis of carnal concupiscence. One element of this kind, for example, is a comparison between concupiscence of the flesh and fire. Flaring up in man, this invades his senses, excites his body, involves his feelings and in a certain sense takes possession of his heart. Such passion, originating in carnal concupiscence, suffocates in his heart the most profound voice of conscience, the sense of responsibility before God; and in fact that is particularly placed in evidence in the biblical text just now quoted. On the other hand, external modesty with respect to men does persist... or rather an appearance of decency. It shows itself as fear of the consequences rather than of the evil in itself. In suffocating the voice of conscience, passion carries with itself a restlessness of the body and the senses. It is the restlessness of the external man. When the internal man has been reduced to silence, then passion, once it has been given freedom of action, exhibits itself as an insistent tendency to satisfy the senses and the body.

This gratification, according to the criterion of the man dominated by passion, should put out the fire; but on the contrary, it does not reach the source of internal peace and it only touches the outermost level of the human individual. And here the biblical author rightly observes that man, whose will is committed to satisfying the senses, finds neither peace nor himself, but, on the contrary, "is consumed." Passion aims at satisfaction; therefore it blunts reflective activity and pays no attention to the voice of conscience. Thus, without itself having any principle of indestructibility, it "wears out." The dynamism of usage is natural for its continuity, but it tends to exhaust itself. Where passion enters into the whole of the most profound energies of the spirit, it can also become a creative force. In this case, however, it must undergo a radical transformation. If instead it suppresses the deepest forces of the heart and conscience (as occurs in the text of Sirach 23:17-22), it "wears out" and indirectly, man, who is its prey, is consumed.

3. When Christ in the Sermon on the Mount spoke of the man who lusts, who looks lustfully, it can be presumed that he had before his eyes also the images known to his listeners from the Wisdom tradition. Yet, at the same time he referred to every man who on the basis of his own internal experience knows the meaning of lust, looking at lustfully. The Master did not analyze this experience nor did he describe it, as Sirach had, for example (cf. 23:17-22). He seemed to presuppose, I would say, an adequate knowledge of that interior fact, to which he called the attention of his listeners, present and potential. Is it possible that some of them do not know what it is all about? If they really know nothing about it, the content of Christ's words would not apply to him, nor would any analysis or description be capable of explaining it to him. If instead he knows—this in fact in such case deals with a knowledge completely internal, intrinsic to the heart and the conscience—he will immediately understand when the quoted words refer to him.

4. Christ, therefore, does not describe or analyze what constitutes the experience of lust, the experience of concupiscence of the flesh. One even has the impression that he did not penetrate this experience in all the breadth of its interior dynamism, as occurs, for example, in the text quoted from Sirach, but rather he paused on its threshold. Lust has not yet been changed into an exterior action. It has still not become the act of the body, but is until now the interior act of the heart. It expresses itself in a look, in the way of looking at the woman. Nevertheless, it already lets itself be understood and reveals its content and its essential quality. It is now necessary for us to make this analysis. A look expresses what is in the heart. A look expresses, I would say, the man within. If in general it is maintained that man "acts according to his lights," (operari sequitur esse), Christ in this case wanted to bring out that the man looks in conformity with what he is: intueri sequitur esse. In a certain sense, man by his look reveals himself to the outside and to others. Above all he reveals what he perceives on the "inside."(2)

5. Christ, then, teaches us to consider a look almost like the threshold of inner truth. In a look, "in the way in which one looks," it is already possible to single out completely what concupiscence is. Let us try to explain it. Lust, looking at lustfully, indicates an experience of value to the body, in which its nuptial significance ceases to be that, just because of concupiscence. Its procreative meaning likewise ceases (we spoke about this in our previous considerations). When it concerns the conjugal union of man and woman, it is rooted in the nuptial meaning of the body and almost organically emerges from it. Now then, man, lusting, looking at lustfully (as we read in Mt 5:27-28), attempts in a more or less explicit way the separation of that meaning of the body. As we have already observed in our reflections, this is at the basis of the communion of persons, whether outside of marriage, or—in a special way—when man and woman are called to build their union "in the body" (as the "gospel of the beginning" proclaims in the classic text of Gn 2:24). The experience of the nuptial meaning of the body is subordinate in a special way to the sacramental call, but is not limited to this. This meaning qualifies the liberty of the gift that—as we shall see more precisely in further analyses—can be fulfilled not only in marriage but also in a different way.

Christ says: "Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Mt 5:28). Did he not perhaps mean by this that concupiscence itself—like adultery—is an interior separation from the nuptial meaning of the body? Did he not want to refer his listeners to their internal experiences of such detachment? Is it not perhaps for this reason that he defines it as "adultery committed in the heart"?

NOTES

1) Cf. Confessions of St. Augustine, VI, 12, 21, 22; VII, 17; VIII, 11; Dante, The Divine Comedy, "Inferno" V. 37-43; C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1960), p. 28.

2) A philological analysis confirms the significance of the expression ho blépon ("one who looks"; Mt 5:28).

"If blépo of Mt 5:28 has the value of internal perception, equivalent to 'I think, I pay attention to, I look'—a more precise and more sublime evangelical teaching may result regarding the interpersonal relationship among the disciples of Christ.

"According to Jesus not just a lustful glance makes a person adulterous, but a thought in the heart suffices" (M. Adinolfi, "The Desire of a Woman in Matthew 5:28," Fondamenti biblici della teologia morale. Proceedings of 22nd Italian Biblical Week, Brescia 1973, Paideia, p. 279).

After discovering most people think they are ignorant spoiled brats, the UW Student Senate may reconsider.

From seattlepi.com:

After rejecting a memorial to Marine Corps fighter ace Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, a University of Washington alumnus -- and feeling the sting of talk radio, television commentators and the e-mail-sending public -- UW students may now back a tribute to all former students who have received the Medal of Honor.

A resolution calling for students to recognize five Medal of Honor recipients has been submitted to the student government, and it will probably be considered next week. Student government leaders briefly discussed the issue at a meeting Tuesday night.

The university itself, which received hundreds of e-mails about the rejection of a memorial to Boyington, is also trying to cool public tempers that student leaders raised when, among other things, some questioned whether the university should honor a Marine who had killed people or another rich white man.

What, no quotation marks around "rich white man", seattlepi.com? Your fascism is showing.

The UW created a scholarship last week named for Boyington that will go to undergrads who are a Marine Corps veteran or the child of one.

That's a good start.

The controversy also has spurred some UW students to propose that their peers show their support for the military by honoring those who have died in the Iraq war and back military recruiters on campus.

Excellent!

Earlier this month, the UW student government failed by one vote to pass a resolution that would have supported the creation of a memorial to Boyington, a pilot with the Flying Tigers and later the Marines in World War II.

Their decision became public when a member of the UW College Republicans e-mailed the news to a Seattle talk radio host.

As reports of the decision spread through Internet blogs and other media, students received scores of e-mails from people who disagreed with their decision and some of their comments, which were posted in online meeting minutes. Students have said their comments were taken out of context.

Do these kids think they're represented by Drew Rosenhaus?

The latest resolution -- brought forward by the same UW senior who proposed recognizing Boyington -- would honor five former UW students who received the Medal of Honor: Boyington, Deming Bronson, Robert Galer, Robert Leisy and William Nakamura.

I'll bet you $20 William Nakamura wasn't a rich white guy.

Read all five Medal of Honor Citations here.

"I certainly hope it passes," said Andrew Everett, who sponsored the resolution. "I was disappointed that the last one failed, but at the same time I would not be surprised by any decision that the senate reaches."
Any campus memorial would have to be approved by university officials, including the president. The UW has memorials to World Wars I and II and the Spanish Civil War.

And I'll bet you another $20 that Spanish Civil War memorial only honors the commies who died in an attempt to enslave the Spanish people!

The UW fund-raising department received about 25 phone calls on Friday from people who wanted to honor Boyington; later that day, the university set up a scholarship fund in his name, said Renee Fricke, director of the UW's annual giving programs.

More than 100 people had donated more than $8,000 to the fund as of Tuesday, she said.

"We had a few alums who were upset, but especially our donors, they know working through us ... they can turn negative things into something positive," Fricke said.

Ha! Sounds like damage control to me.

But a good cause is a good cause:

Donations can be made at http://www.uwfoundation.org/

The university received around 300 e-mails about the issue, spokesman Norm Arkans said last week.

In the wake of the controversy, several other students have proposed resolutions related to Boyington or the military.

One calls for a UW student to publicly apologize for comments she made about the military and read a book about Boyington -- or lose her senate seat.

Amen to that! I only hope the little ignorant girl can read.

Another asks the senate to support military recruiters' right to be on campus.

Yep.

A third calls for UW students to recognize members of the military who have died in Iraq with a campus monument.

That last one has no chance.

From the cesspool that is higher education in America:

LEFT: Lt. Col. Gregory "Pappy" Boyington during World War II (Photo: National Archives)



Students reject honor to 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' hero
Member of Marines not 'sort of person UW wanted to produce'


The University of Washington's student senate rejected a memorial for alumnus Gregory "Pappy" Boyington of "Black Sheep Squadron" fame amid concerns a military hero who shot down enemy planes was not the right kind of person to represent the school.

Student senator Jill Edwards, according to minutes of the student government's meeting last week, said she "didn't believe a member of the Marine Corps was an example of the sort of person UW wanted to produce."

May God have mercy on your soul, you ignorant little cow.

Ashley Miller, another senator, argued "many monuments at UW already commemorate rich white men."

WTF??? Are all the females on the Washington campus brain damaged?

Senate member Karl Smith amended the resolution to eliminate a clause that said Boyington "was credited with destroying 26 enemy aircraft, tying the record for most aircraft destroyed by a pilot in American Uniform," for which he was awarded the Navy Cross.

Smith, according to the minutes, said "the resolution should commend Colonel Boyington's service, not his killing of others."

As a matter of fact, Karl, in the 1930s and 1940s killing the warriors of the Japanese Empire was a very good thing indeed. You might have learned this if you didn't spend all your time surfing the 'net with one hand on your mouse and the other on your joyless stick, you moron.

The senate's decision was reported first by Seattle radio talk-host Kirby Wilbur of KVI, whose listeners were "absolutely incensed," according to producer Matt Haver.

Brent Ludeman, president of the university's College Republicans, told WND in an e-mail the decision "reflects poorly on the university."

"Pappy Boyington went beyond the call of duty to serve and protect this country – he simply deserves better," Ludeman said. "Just last year, the university erected a memorial to diversity. Why can't we do the same for Pappy Boyington and others who have defended our country?"

The resolution points out Boyington, a student at the UW from 1930-34, served as a combat pilot in the 1st Squadron, American Volunteer Group – the "Flying Tigers of China" – and later as a Marine Corps combat pilot in charge of Marine Fighting Squadron 214, "The Black Sheep Squadron."

Along with the Navy Cross, Boyington was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Franklin D. Roosevelt for his heroism. He was shot down and spent 20 months in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp.

The resolution says, "Be it resolved … [t]hat we consider Col. Gregory Boyington, United States Marine Corps, to be a prime example of the excellence that this university represents and strives to impart upon its students, and, That we desire for a memorial for Col. Boyington be commenced by the University of Washington by 11 January 2008, the twentieth anniversary of his death, which will be publicly displayed, so that all who come here in future years will know that the University of Washington produced one of this country's bravest men, and that we as a community hold this fact in the highest esteem."

Commenting on the decision, a blogger who says he met Boyington on numerous occasions at a museum and air show over the years noted the famous flyer "was no rich boy," having grown up in a struggling family in which he was forced to work hard to make it through school. The blogger, who hosts the website Paradosis, also pointed out Boyington was part Sioux.

Speaking of denizens of the educational cesspool,

"Hey Ward Churchill! See what it means to be a real man, a real American, and a real Indian?"

Boyington was open about his marital problems and alcohol abuse, saying notably, "Just name a hero and I'll prove he's a bum."

With all due respect to the memory of Colonel Boyington:

No sir. That just means he's a man.

The blogger wondered, "have our Washington youth revised history so much as this? To compare Boyington – or for that matter any of our WW2 vets – to murderers? What are these kids being taught today? They don't deserve those 20 months Pappy spent being tortured and beaten in a Japanese prison camp ... they don't deserve any of what our grandfathers and grandmothers sacrificed to free Europe and the Pacific."

Boyington wrote a book in 1958 that reached the best-seller list, "Baa Baa, Black Sheep." In 1976, he sold rights to Universal, which aired a TV series for two seasons of the same name.

Boyington, who died Jan. 11, 1988, is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

May God have mercy on his brave soul.


Can your stomach handle more?

Senator Murder's hired (at taxpayer expense) goons and fellow travelers send a chill through First Amendment Land.

I guess the fat homicidal manic from the Bay State was hoping to get hit in the sucker with a pie so he could eat and lie at the same time.

Student detained for yelling: 'Remember Chappaquiddick!'
Self-described liberal hollers phrase as Kennedy begins on-campus speech --WND

WARNING: The link above contains a photo of a topless Senator Murder doing his Jabba the Hutt impersonation!

A community college student in Massachusetts faces possible disciplinary action for shouting "Remember Chappaquiddick!" during an on-campus speech by Democrat Sen. Edward Kennedy.

Paul Trost, 20, a student at Massasoit Community College in Brockton, Mass., says he was upset by an introduction of Kennedy given by Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., in which the congressman noted how the long-time senator overcame hardship in life on his way to success.

"Lynch said Kennedy had overcome such adversity to get to the place he was, and that's a bunch of bull," Trost said of the introduction, which occurred in the school's student center Tuesday morning.

Just as Kennedy began speaking, Trost was walking out of the room when he shouted, "Remember Chappaquiddick!"

"Most of the crowd gasped," Trost said. "Then I walked out of the student center."

The student says a campus police officer went outside and stopped him. He also saw some state troopers go outside, the type who accompany Kennedy around the state to provide security.

Trost says the cop took down his information and told him he would be hearing from school officials about disciplinary action. A spokesman with the campus police verified the incident but stressed that Trost was not arrested.

I said detained, not arrested.

The student said one of his teachers confronted him after a class about the Chappaquiddick issue.

"One of my teachers called me ignorant and told me this was an embarrassment to the school," Trost told WND. "She said to me, 'Can't you forgive him after all these years?' And I said, 'No, he killed somebody.'

"If it had been me or any other person, we'd be in jail," Trost says he told his instructor.

Referring to his two-word shout, Trost said, "I did it because I know about Kennedy's past. I know what happened at Chappaquiddick.

"I wanted to send a message to him that my generation still knows about it. We haven't forgotten about it."

Trost said he was satisfied to know that students on campus were talking about the Chappaquiddick incident later in the day – some of whom, in fact, were not familiar with it.

I believe the world would be a much better place if Senator Murder was met at every public appearance with photos of Mary Jo and shouts of "Remember Chappaquiddick!"

Does anybody know if there is an arabic word for caritas?

US Offers to Help Rebuild Iraqi Shrine's Golden Dome
(CNSNews.com) - "The people of the United States strongly condemn the bombing of the golden mosque," President Bush said Thursday morning at the White House. Full Story


American Heroes: Soldiers Build Wheelchairs for Iraqis
(CNSNews.com) - U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq have distributed more than 1,000 free wheelchairs to disabled Iraqis since July 2005, according to a non-profit group that donates the chairs. Full Story

Religion of Peace and Love Update.

Female Arab Journalist Killed in Iraqi Violence
(CNSNews.com) - A prominent reporter for the Dubai-based al-Arabiya TV and her crew were killed in Samarra, where they had gone to cover the attack on the Shi'ite shrine.


Shrine Bombing Rocks Iraq
(CNSNews.com) - On this Thursday morning, Iraq is closer to civil war than it has been at any time since the U.S. went there three years ago to topple Saddam Hussein, the Washington Times reported.


Iranian President says US, Israel attacked Iraqi Shrine
(CNSNews.com) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the United States and Israel blew up the golden dome of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra.


British Muslims Feel 'Alienated'
(CNSNews.com) - As the British government continues to tighten security laws in the aftermath of last July's terrorist bombings in London, two new polls suggest that many Muslims here are feeling more alienated from non-Muslim society. Full Story


Hamas Introducing Shari'a Law, Report Says
(CNSNews.com) - Hamas plans to introduce Islamic shari'a law in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Jerusalem Post reported on Thursday.


Saudis, Egypt Will Keep Aid Flowing to Palestinian government
(CNSNews.com) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice isn't having much luck in convincing other countries to financially isolate Hamas.


Gaza's Tiny Christian Community Threatened With Violence
(CNSNews.com) - Extremists are threatening to blow up the Palestinian Bible Society in the Gaza Strip if the people who work there do not close up shop and abandon their ministry by the end of February, a Christian source told Cybercast News Service. Full Story


Kosovo Bishop Warns Not to Hand Jihadists a Victory
(CNSNews.com) - A leading Serbian Orthodox bishop, visiting the U.S. on a mission of "peace and understanding," has warned the international community against granting independence to Kosovo, saying such a move would hand a victory to radical Muslims and their jihadist supporters. Full Story and See Video


Las Vegas Sun/AP: Man Says Email Blocked Because Name 'Callahan' Includes A-L-L-A-H