Waiting for Godot to Leave

A reader of Mark Shea's blog tells of a priest who was tortured to death via "the water cure". He links to an article in the New York Times from 1903, in which some great things stand out in a quote attributed to Judge Advocate General George B. Davis, who said, (107 years ago) ... " No modern State , which is a party to international law, can sanction either expressly or by a silence, which imports consent, a resort to torture with a view of obtaining confessions as an incident to its military operations. If it does, where is the line to be drawn? If the 'water cure' is ineffective, what shall be the next step? Shall the victim be suspended, head down, over the smoke of a smoldering fire; shall he be tightly bound and dropped from a distance of several feet? Shall he be beaten with rods? Shall his shins be rubbed with a broomstick until they bleed? For all these, and more, have been done during the Spanish domination in the Philippine Islands, a...

This morning I noticed three unauthorized charges had gone through our home banking account within the last twenty-four hours via our debit card, totaling just under $50. The payments were made to Skype, the internet telephone service. Now I knew I had signed up for Skype, but I signed up for the free service, not the paid service, and I never would have given them our debit card number even if I had agreed to pay them anything. In addition, we’ve never even used Skype. The program languishes on our upstairs computer. But when you visit Skype’s website, they make it impossible for you to cancel your account (especially when you haven’t paid), and they give you no opportunity to contact them directly. The company seems to be based out of Luxembourg, and they provide no phone number for customer service or for billing errors. A quick Google of “Skype billing fraud” turns up over 70,000 sites, and the top of the list is Skype’s own forum, where users have been complaining about what I...

“I have found, in short, from reading my own writing, that my subject in fiction is the action of grace in territory held largely by the devil,” wrote Flannery O’Connor. This is hard for readers to grasp, for O’Connor’s stories are so shocking, violent, and disturbing that we wonder how they can be about grace. This is because we see grace as being a “nice thing”, like quietly saying grace before meals, like the “graceful” moves of a figure skater, like the “social graces”, which are about soothing and calming people and situations. We really believe the message of all the Scriptures is “Jesus was nice; you be nice, too.” But the Grace of God is a man clothed in rags with a wild gleam in his eye eating locusts in the desert and warning his people to flee from the wrath to come. The Grace of God is the zeal of Phineas, who slew the Israelite and his wife who were flaunting God’s commands. The Grace of God is St. Paul, blinded, knocked down, humiliated. When the hand of God reaches o...

This is part one of what will be posted in two parts on The St. Austin Review Ink Desk . The Beast Advances or The Attack on Reason by Kevin O'Brien Hilaire Belloc, in “The Great Heresies”, pointed to a disturbing feature of the Modern Attack on the Catholic Church: the attack upon Reason. Nowhere is this more clearly displayed than on the internet - yes, on Facebook in particular, but also everywhere on the internet. And though I have written about Facebook before and my on-again off-again love-hate relationship with her, I’m beginning to see that the enemy is not Facebook. The enemy is us! Let me try to categorize the problems I’ve noticed: 1. BEING FORCED TO EXPLAIN THE PUNCHLINE A friend of mine on Facebook can not post even innocuous quotations such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s, “The Saints are the Sinners who keep on trying,” without a barrage of comment box (combox) attacks nitpicking at all sorts of things the quote never intended to convey. In this case, comment...

On the St. Austin Review Ink Desk, Sophia Mason has written an post in which she both pans and praises Facebook. How I empathize with Sophia! As regular readers know, Facebook and I have had a tumultuous relationship. She and I have split a few times after ugly public shouting matches, she pushed me down the stairs once, I have accused her of infidelity, her algorithm had originally sized me up as a loser and drug abuser simply because I was an actor, and so forth. But we’ve settled into something rather permanent of late. Facebook and I are not exactly “married”, nor “single”, we are “in a relationship” and “it’s complicated”. So I do indeed empathize with Ms. Mason over her tendency to love / hate this thing called Facebook. But how much is Facebook as a mode of communication to blame for Facebook’s shortcomings? As the internet blogger Dr. Thursday pointed out to me once, “Objecting to the internet is like objecting to a road or a highway. The internet is simply a pathway to a ...

There is awash in the world today a kind of idealism that’s loosed from its moorings. I suspect this is because the cynicism against which the idealism reacts is so strong and entrenched that it’s provoking reactions that are unrealistic. A case in point is James O’Keefe, a young man who spoke at this year’s American Chesterton Society Conference. O’Keefe is best known as the video journalist who brought down ACORN and who exposed the racism inherent in Planned Parenthood’s abortion agenda by means of undercover videos in which he posed as a pimp or a racist, and elicited responses that were shocking enough to cause a few tremors. He struck us at the Conference as a quixotic idealist carrying on against the windmills of corruption while under assault from the mainstream media, lawyers and other nasty bugbears. However, it was a bit disturbing when, in the Q & A session following his speech, O’Keefe was asked, “How do you justify your technique? You lie to people in your undercover ...

First, I was given the great privilege of recording the official audio version of the Holy Father's new book, Light of the World as published by Ignatius Press, which can be ordered on audio CD or downloaded here . And I said two weeks ago to Jim Morlino , my co-reader for the audio book, "The Pope's comments about condoms will be the comments the press will run with." It did not take much prophetic insight to predict that. The situation is simple: All the Holy Father is saying is that if a man who is steeped in sin to begin with and is having sex for reasons contrary to God's will and the Natural Law, then if this particular man begins to have a pang of conscience that says, "Perhaps getting physical pleasure is not what this is all about. Perhaps I should be concerned about my partner here. Maybe I should use a condom so as to protect my partner from the ravages of disease," this is clearly (as charity and common sense will tell you) a movement in...

The word is “unreal”. I had been looking for this word for a long time. You see, we have a few odd linguistic quirks here in St. Louis, where I live. For one thing, we use the word “hoosier” to mean “urban white trash” – the only place on earth where you’ll find this word used in this way. And when I was growing up we used to use the word “fruit” to mean not what “gay” means now, but to mean “contrived, artificial, self-indulgent in a stupid way”. For instance, the music of Marty Haugen is “fruit”. Catholic Schools Week is “fruit”. Movies on the Hallmark Channel are “fruit”. And for a long time this was the only word I could use to describe what was wrong in the Catholic Church. I had come into the Church having been inspired by the writings of G K Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, and so by the time I was Catholic and regularly attending Mass and sending my kids to the parish school and especially after experiencing nine months of purgatory with our RCIA non-faith non-formation no...

We've been talking much lately about "intentional disciples" and of the need for parishes to foster "true discipleship", to encourage the formation of capital D Disciples and not just neo-pagan lukewarm modernists disguised as Christians. The problem is Wormwood pulls up a pew and says to us, in his cloying and flattering tone, "According to most pastors, only five percent of all their parishioners are serious about following Christ. You're one of those. You're a capital-D Disciple. You're an intentional Disciple. You're a true Disciple. These fat church ladies with their pot luck dinners and their parish picnics, they're not even Christians in any meaningful sense of the word. Look at that chubby grocer in the pew beside you. He nods off during the homilies. He's not a True Disciple. Look at that pierced kid at the Teen Mass, with glowing hair and a condom in his pocket. He's not a True Disciple. But you are! You ma...

Yesterday I posted what ended up being my most controversial post in two years on Facebook. It was simply a quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “A good intention (for example, that of helping one’s neighbor) does not make behavior that is intrinsically disordered, such as lying and calumny [slander], good or just. The end does not justify the means” (CCC 1753). In less than 24 hours, this post has generated 138 comments. Some of them from conservative Catholics who are angry at what the Church teaches. Now, seeing that, and knowing what a firestorm we're in on the internet over this issue, I would like to summarize a few things and then make a new point. The issue has arisen over the undercover video sting techniques of James O'Keefe and Lila Rose, aimed at exposing Planned Parenthood. This is a highly charged issue, as it appears to many people that Lila and James are being attacked or judged; it appears as if the voices of caution are standing in the way of ...

MRS. WASHINGTON: George, did you chop down that cherry tree? GEORGE: I can not tell a lie. Then again, maybe I can. How authoritative are the teachings in the Catechism? Aren't there conflicting traditions on this? Doesn't Scriptue itself encourage lying? Isn't the whole issue just too much for a common man to grasp? Let me get back to you on that, Mom.

OK, here we go. Sean Dailey has made this case in the Gilbert Editorial despite my telling him he was going to far, but he was right and I was wrong. Here's Sean's latest comment at the ACS website: *** Finally, the worst part of Live Action’s lies is that those lies had the effect of leading the Planned Parenthood workers deeper into sin, of undermining their-God given free will to choose good, if given the opportunity. CCC 2489 speaks of “charity and respect for the truth.” Yes, now we know that Planned Parenthood aids and abets teen prostitution and teen abortion and contraception. Is it really any surprise? In other news, water found to be wet. But if the Live Action actors had entered the PP facilities with “charity and respect for the truth” in their hearts, rather than intending to commit evil so good may come from it, how much more might they have accomplished? Could they maybe have converted a soul or two? As I wrote in my editorial, we are called to be salt and light...

This is from the website of the Society of Our Lady of the Trinity . Official SOLT Statement Regarding Fr John Corapi As the Regional Priest Servant of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (SOLT), I issue the following statement on behalf of the Society. On 16 March 2011, the Bishop of Corpus Christi, Texas, and the SOLT received a complaint against Fr. John Corapi, SOLT. As is normal procedure and due to the gravity of the accusation alleging conduct not in concert with the priestly state or his promises as a member of a society of apostolic life of diocesan right, Fr. Corapi was suspended from active ministry (put on administrative leave) until such a time that the complaint could be fully investigated and due process given to Fr. Corapi. In the midst of the investigation, the SOLT received a letter from Fr. Corapi, dated June 3, 2011, indicating that, because of the physical, emotional and spiritual distress he has endured over the past few years, he could no longer cont...

His latest video slamming bloggers who are critical of Fr. Corapi is slanderous and insipid. In the past I've only made fun of his hair. To imply that he is above the fray because he's not a "professional Catholic on the internet" (which is exactly what he is, as he claims we are) is absurd. He has slammed me and all of you who love Christ and His Church and who are upset about the hypocrisy of Fr. Corapi and Father's abandonment of his priesthood, Father's frustrating the investigation against him, and Father's slander of his bishop. Let's just say this: if we are partisan enough to support this Voris and his "Real Catholic TV" (and his hair), if we are partisan enough blindly to defend Fr. Corapi after he has shown that he's a disturbed personality at least and an outright fraud at best, if we are partisan enough that we consider ourselves Vorisians or Corapians rather than Christians, than all this is mere politics and to hell with ...

A friend of mine was living in Chicago and he was miserable. Not because of the Cubs. And not because of toll booths. And not because of the winters! He was miserable because he wasn't famous. He was slaving away auditioning everywhere and doing some sort of comedy improv thing on local access cable TV and he was angry and sore that nobody noticed him. His whole life was focused on getting noticed! getting seen! getting famous! And this is what happens to actors when they forget that it's not all about them. It's about the work. But before I say that again, let's examine the question of The Meaning of Life Earlier this week we had a backyard meeting of the ChesterBelloc Drinking and Debating Club, my men's only group that sits around discussing philosophy, life, religion, while arguing and drinking. Two of our members have tremendous faith - not faith in God, but faith in Evolution as the Answer to all Questions. I finally got one of them (my favorite atheist, Stev...

(Takes deep breath) On Friday, July 22, my actress Maria Romine and I drove the 9 1/2 hours from St. Louis to Athens, Georgia, where on Saturday I gave a presentation on the show business of writing, and where I walked in a nearby cemetery in 110 degree heat index learning my lines for some of the ten different scripts we're producing in the next month and where a security guard stopped and drove me to campus when the cemetery closed, the old guy pointing out where all his family was buried in a Southern accent so thick I could hardly understand what he was saying, and where in the evening Maria and I performed Murder on the Disoriented Express , a show we hadn't done in two years, and then we got up early for Mass on Sunday and went to a nearby church where the Mass was all about some blonde, who stood at the lectern and told us what the homily was going to be about, and then after communion told us what the homily had been about except she dumbed it down to a point where I fe...

If you want to return to the Garden of Eden , head to Kansas. It's right there in the town of Lucas on the High Plains. It's a quirky place, built by S. P. Dinsmoor, a Civil War veteran, who can only be described as a crank. The yard of his hand-built house, front and back, is filled with his own bizarre sculpture, expressing his own peculiar philosophy. The climax of the tour is viewing the Body of the Artist as a Dead Man. You may peer into his crypt, in which S. P. Dinsmoor is laid out exposed to gawkers. For this privilege you must pay one U.S. dollar, per the terms of Dinsmoor's will. The fun part about seeing the Garden of Eden in Lucas, Kansas is that it's such an off-the-beaten path adventure. The sad part is the locals pretend this kind of thing is "folk art". Well, it may be "folk", but it ain't art. Chesterton's famous quip, "if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly" only applies to amateurs - and you might say,...

This is part three to this and this . And I swear I am not making this up ... Here's part of what I deal with in my business. I placed an ad last week for an actor to play a part in an upcoming television series. I got an email from one guy and offered him a slot last Friday, audition by appointment, any time during the day or evening he could make it. " I've got to work ," he tersely replied, and suggested no alternate dates. Then I placed another ad this week. He applied again. I offered him 9:30 am this Friday (Sept. 23). He made the appointment, then emailed me late tonight (Thursday, Sept. 22) saying, " I've got to cancel. I've got to work." When I told him I would not reschedule him, that two attempts were all I was going to make to audition him, he wrote back (and I swear I am not making this up, it's a copy and paste, punctuation and all) ... "you should respect the artists personal life before your own selfish need. Dont...

" Don't take this so personally ," my wife Karen always tells me. And of course she's right. In the past, when employees would become Vampires or Aliens it used to really bug me. How could they do this to me when I trusted them and gave them opportunities to help us and do good work? I would say to myself. Then I realized it had absolutely nothing to do with me. But when clients do me wrong, it's a bit harder to shake off. Especially when said clients are supposed to be cooperating with the mission of Theater of the Word, working in some way to spread God's message. But we get shafted by our Church-affiliated clients even more frequently than we get shafted by secular clients. And I've noticed a pattern. I think it applies to all of the business world, secular or Christian. 1. CAN'T CARE First, there are the clients who are simply incompetent . They drop the ball on projects because they simply can't run their businesses in any systematic or effe...

From Rod Dreher's report on the indictment of Bishop Finn in Kansas City ... *** When news broke, local Catholics were outraged. The diocese organized “listening sessions” to manage the public reaction, and had participants engage in an asinine Stuart Smalley-ish exercise in which they were instructed to write down a “hurt” and then write down a “hope.” Among the “hurts” written down by angry parents: “The images of my daughter’s private areas that the FBI showed me, they are forever burned into my brain. … Shawn Ratigan was in my house, around my children in February, and I thought my children were completely SAFE!!” *** One of the earliest and most difficult lessons I learned in covering the abuse scandal is that you can never, ever tell the bad guys from the good guys based on whether or not they are faithful to the Magisterium — that is, whether or not they are orthodox Catholics. Would that you could! A very conservative priest told me early on not ...

" Let's step outside and settle this thing like men ," she said, and she was a lady. " You're spewing anti-Catholic rhetoric !" he insisted. "How can you criticize a bishop when you're an actor and everyone knows actors are perverts and nitwits ," she screamed. (That last gal had a point). These are all reactions to my post last week about Rod Dreher's article on Bishop Finn's Indictment. And above all, people are charging me with believing the biased media coverage of the scandal. This, at least, is not true. In fact, everything I say in this post will be taken not from a media account of the scandal , but from the independent report on it as commissioned by the diocese , the Graves Report, which you can read on your own here . So let's shove the media aside and see for ourselves what's contained in this internal diocesan report conducted by an independent firm. *** Fr. Shawn Ratigan was a priest of the diocese of Kansas Cit...

How did the question move from "Why are we going to war?" to "Who is that man's wife". I asked the first question. Someone else asked the second. It worked. It's still working . - Sean Penn as Joe Wilson in Fair Game . *** I am not so much bothered by Catholic readers vowing to assault me physically. I am not so much bothered by Catholic readers saying that I'm a pervert. I am not so much bothered by Catholic readers (clergy even) telling me that my writing amounts to "bullying" and "uniformed public rants" (see my post on Bishop Finn and some of the more recent of the 100 comments ). But I am bothered by the Lie. I am bothered by the Spin. And I am bothered by innocent people being blamed and not protected. I wrote last week's piece because Bishop Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, in his defence of Bishop Finn , played right into the hands of the Tribalism that is fast seeking to become the sixth wound in the Body of Christ. The m...