To some who remembered that part of St. Louis as home, it seemed like the desecration of something sacred.”

— Mary Joan Boyer, The Old Gravois Coal Diggings

ALAN writes:

The “Tales of Chester” are exactly the kind of stories of particular places and memories connected to those places that readers of The Thinking Housewife should consider writing about their own lives.  If they don’t, do they imagine anyone else will?  Those tales would not exist if one man had not held on to vivid memories from living there as a boy.

No one would ever have seen the motion picture “Meet Me in St. Louis” if a woman named Sally Benson had not written her memories of life in a certain neighborhood of St. Louis during her childhood in 1903.

Late in his life, I tried to persuade my father to write about the place where he had lived as a boy.  He liked the idea and had many fine memories.  But it was too late.  He could not summon the will to do that because too many of his friends and family were gone.  He filled an envelope with their newspaper death notices.  They were the people for whom he might have written those memories and to whom they would have meant the most, but all those connections had been dissolved by the passage of time. (more…)

THE Vatican II Church, which has been hemorrhaging members ever since it revolutionized Catholic worship and theology, harms Mexican churches by supporting illegal immigration to this country. Jonathan David Carson at The American Thinker explains how. He writes:

Someone more intelligent and better-educated than I could perhaps explain the madness of church leaders who think they can somehow increase their herds by going left.  It never works, but they cannot learn from their own experience, or from the universal experience of others.  They fixate on “inclusion” and include and include and include until there is almost no one left.

Carson errs in presuming that the American bishops support illegal immigrants purely because these immigrants might fill the pews. Global universalism flows from Vatican II theology, and the bishops genuinely believe in it. (more…)

ONE hundred and nineteen blacks have been murdered in Baltimore in the past three months. This summer's murder rate is the highest in 43 years.

IN the fifth undercover video from the Center for Medical Progress, a Planned Parenthood director of research discusses the sale of intact aborted fetuses. "We just need to figure out how we can do this under, you know, our project needs," she says.

A WOMAN who has made a mockery of all things sacred, the Italian "nun" and pop singer, Suor Cristina, is shown in these photos at Tradition in Action (here and here) making what appears to be a Masonic handshake and flashing the devil's horns.

FROM The Washington Examiner: Senate Republicans fell seven votes short Monday of passing legislation to strip Planned Parenthood of federal funding, in the wake of undercover videos highlighting the group's participation in providing aborted fetal organs to human tissue companies. Just one Republican, Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois, joined Democrats to defeat the legislation down a mostly party-line vote, which needed 60 votes to pass but garnered only 53. Republicans managed to gain the votes of Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, two Republican women who support abortion rights, with two Democrats: Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Joe Donnelly of Indiana. The legislation would have blocked about 700 Planned Parenthood clinics around the country from receiving Title 10 family planning funds or Medicaid dollars, even though those dollars can't be used for abortions. Instead, the funds would have been made available to federal community health centers, which are banned from offering abortions at all.

WHEN testing the truth of two mutually exclusive propositions, it's important to be guided by one cardinal rule. If one of two propositions is an inconvenient truth, eliminate personal prejudices as much as possible first. I know this seems elementary but it is very difficult to apply. Very smart people all the time decide that something false is true because it is easier to believe it. Let's say you are deciding between Proposition A and Proposition B. Both can't possibly be true because they contradict each other. Let's say Proposition A, if it is true, involves not just personal inconvenience but hardship. If Proposition A is true, you will, with apologies to Dale Carnegie, lose friends and not influence people. A is an unpleasant truth. Proposition B, on the other hand, allows you to live just as you are living now. B is convenient. B is easy. In these cases, don't gaze into the future. Focus on the philosophical conflict itself. Understand that even if truth is unpleasant, it is still truth. And truth will follow you wherever you go. In the end, truth is the most convenient thing of all.

OAKES SPALDING writes at Mahound's Paradise: The Vatican just released its design for a postage stamp to commemorate the upcoming Eighth World Meeting on Families. Of course, the usual suspects (like me) are already snarking about it. Three racially diverse sets of parents are standing on a globe in front of the Philadelphia skyline (predictably, there have been complaints that the white people are in the foreground). Note that the average number of children is 1.33, with the white parents being the only ones to have more than 1. One could argue that from an artistic perspective, more kids would probably make everyone fall off. Maybe that's the point. There is debate as to who the blond fellow is on the left. He doesn't seem to belong to the darker skinned couple. Is he lost? To me he looks like a mischievous urchin who is picking the pocket of the colorful coiffed mom in the red dress. What is that in his hand? A stylized crucifix? A book? A jar holding "the good wine"? Perhaps he represents orphans. Except for the very subtle allusion to the Holy Family and the presence of the Vatican coat of arms, the design is completely secular. Of course, it has that Happy People in the Barrio Mural look that became popular in the 1970's and unfortunately has never left us. There's one like it on the wall of my local McDonald's.

THOMAS F. BERTONNEAU writes:

With apologies to my Protestant friends, here is my response — slightly different from yours — to your Protestant reader’s remarks concerning Catholicism.

The Eastern Orthodox and Catholic versions of Christianity were formed in the cradle of Greco-Roman, Classical civilization, in parallel with Pagan forms of ethical Monotheism related to a longstanding philosophical tradition.  In absorbing elements of Paganism, Greco-Roman Christianity was simply absorbing civilization, at the same time that, through its doctrines, it was raising the moral level of that civilization.  To someone with little understanding of history and tradition – and Protestantism is and always has been hostile to history and tradition – Catholicism might appear “pagan,” but this is an error originating with the point of view. (more…)

PAINTINGS of people by the ocean are featured at this blog by Barbara Wells Sarudy.

A BAPTIST reader says Catholics are pagans and idolaters, and I respond. An excerpt: Protestant rationalists dislike things such as beads and lit candles and the crucifix's image of Our Savior suffering on the Cross, which -- because human beings inhabit the physical realm and not just the sterile world of the mind -- is a constant reminder of the meaning of his suffering (and our suffering) and serves as a vital outward profession of faith. At the same time, they show no hesitation when it comes to waving an American flag or aiding their patriotism with various physical objects such as little replicas of the Liberty Bell or pictures of the Founders! I won't accuse them of idolatry because I believe these things are reasonable aids to love of country but they can be used in an idolatrous way and they certainly point to Protestant hypocrisy on the issue of sacramentals and devotionals. Catholics have always believed in these outward professions of faith and reminders of the supernatural world, which many Protestants scorn hypocritically. In the end, the belief that these things are evil and idolatrous smacks of another inherited gimmick and marketing ploy, tricks of the trade to distinguish Protestant sects from the holy tree from which they came, a way to demonize their Catholic ancestors whose beliefs and devotions they now selectively reject. And you criticize Catholics for the sale of indulgences!

IF marriage is primarily for emotional fulfillment, then why not marry a pet? Dominique Lesbirel “married” her cat and then her dog. She is the operator of Marryyourpet.com. According to The Mirror:

Dominique was inspired to set up the site after her cat Zeus was tragically run over and killed.

“I felt really depressed and nobody seemed to get it,” she said. “People just kept saying, ‘Come on, it’s just a cat,’ but it wasn’t to me. (more…)

THE BLOGGER  “Tantumblogo” writes here:

In a new video entitled Human Capital – Episode 1: Planned Parenthood’s Black Market in Baby Parts, the Center for Medical Progress provides even more damning evidence that Planned Barrenhood routinely sells aborted baby parts for profit, something that certainly seems to be illegal under current federal law. (more…)

PLINIO Corrêa de Oliveira's interesting reflections on the "mythical atmosphere" at Neuschwanstein Castle, which is situated above the village of Hohenschwangau near Füssen in southwest Bavaria, Germany, are posted at Tradition in Action.

CYRUS N. writes: