CHRISTI RODGERS, a 26-year-old volunteer firefighter, delivered her first child one month ago. This morning, she was awoken suddenly at 5 a.m by an emergency alarm for a house fire. She never arrived at the scene of the blaze. The Pennsylvania woman went into cardiac arrest after the call and now her child and husband are without a mother and wife. Perhaps she would have died young anyway. But one cannot help but wonder if the sudden call in her fragile condition caused her death. [See reader comment below. She had the baby by Caesarean. She was not just caring for a newborn but recovering from major surgery.]

This is very sad, and so is the idea of a new mother fighting fires. In fact, the idea of women fighting fires at all is sad and outrageous. Feminism has so eroded the natural aversion toward placing women in danger that many don’t even question the increasing prevalence of women firefighters and soldiers and police officers — or consider the ramifications. Women who are pregnant or recovering from childbirth are now routinely expected to exert themselves. And they call this liberation?

Perhaps Rodgers loved being a firefighter. Perhaps she was good at it. But she shouldn’t have been permitted to be a firefighter unless she lived in a town with a severe shortage of men.

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HENRY McCULLOCH writes:

Writing for Crisis Magazine, Mark Gallagher reveals in The Bishops’ Fateful Decision Respecting the Unborn just how soon Catholic bishops in the United States, represented by their Washington lobby, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, abandoned their duty to oppose abortion as an intrinsic evil that must never be supported in resistance to the unrestricted abortion “right” the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions of January 22, 1973 — taken together — invented for women in America.

Mr. Gallagher also recounts the unsavory whys behind that fateful decision, and tells us that nothing has changed in the intervening 40-odd years.  According to Crisis, “Mark Gallagher worked with the Government Liaison Office of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference in Washington from 1974 to 2007. He was mainly responsible for lobbying Congress on abortion and programs for the poor.”  Gallagher is an eyewitness to the crime. Read More »

IN light of the two separate murders this week of Canadian soldiers by Muslim converts, it is worth reading this speech by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in February welcoming His Highness the Aga Kahn, who is honored by Ismaili Muslims as a direct descendant of Muhammad. (As usual the prime minister must ridiculously speak in both French and English.)

As we all know, Canada is home to a well-established and fast-growing Ismaili community. His Highness has therefore become an increasingly frequent visitor, and always a welcome one.

En fait, votre Altesse, vous n’êtes plus simplement un visiteur. Vous êtes maintenant citoyen canadien à titre honorifique.

I remember well, Your Highness, the day you accepted honorary Canadian citizenship – something agreed to by all parties of this House. Read More »

Virgin and Child, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio; 1490s

“Just in proportion as maternity is honored is womanhood honored, and just in proportion as womanhood is honored are manners and morals elevated. Licentiousness cannot obtain a foothold where the real dignity and sphere of woman is understood and respected. It can prevail only where a low estimate of woman obtains in society, and indeed only where woman entertains a low estimate of herself in relation to the designs or plans of divine Providence. Men, in general, estimate women very much as they estimate themselves, or rather, estimate womanhood as women estimate it, and if women regard womanhood as invested with sacred and awful functions, they will be as averse to wronging her as to the commission of the crime of sacrilege. The maternity of Mary has given sublime moral and spiritual significance to womanhood, as the assumption of human nature by the Word has to manhood itself.”

—- The Moral and Social Influence of Devotion to Mary, Dr. Orestes A. Brownson

THIS is National Pizza Month, so please pause for a few moments to look around you and take in the physical devastation caused by mass consumption of one of the most disgusting foodstuffs ever invented by man. I am talking, of course, about commercial-grade pizza, not various forms of the authentic Italian food, which sometimes approaches the sublime. I saw a man the other day who looked about 15 months pregnant and instantly I had a vision of greasy boxes and rubber cheese. This poor man will probably lose 10 years or so of his life because of Papa Johns or Domino’s or some frozen pizza-esque roof tiles he routinely pulls out of his freezer. I found myself pondering his wife. How could she allow such a thing? Well, who knows. She is possibly suffering from pizza-induced Alzheimer’s herself and has stopped cooking altogether.

Do you know even hotels are in on it now? The Holiday Inn in Fargo, North Dakota offers a special pizza package that includes one large Domino’s pizza with two toppings. It is painful for me to remember all the slings and arrows I have sustained over the years in talking about such a controversial subject. I have often been accused of alarmism and absolutism. But when I look at such a glaring and obvious victim of pizza consumption as the man I mention above, when I think of him possibly checking into a hotel room in Fargo, I know that I will never be silenced.

The Pizza Industrial Complex is so vast and, well, complex, it sometimes seems impenetrable. The truth is I have been often operating on hunches and educated intuitions, not real investigation. However, an enterprising and hard-working blogger (Warning: an immodest photo here of her eating pizza) has done some serious research into the ingredients of this manufactured foodstuff. Read More »

If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.

—  St. Augustine

JEANETTE V. writes:

We live in evil times populated by fools who declare themselves wise:

Transgender military personnel from 18 countries gather for meeting

The conference attendees, who are all from militaries that allow transgender service, gathered in Washington, D.C. on Monday.

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THE masculinization of students at Wellesley College, the famous women’s institution in Massachussetts, began long before women started openly identifying themselves as men and having surgery to slice off their breasts. Femininity was marginalized in the feminist era in favor of male standards of achievement. Now there are enough “trans men” among students and alumni to create a club and to foster worries that these “men” may represent a threatening patriarchal influence at the tony school, which has an endowment of almost $1.7 billion.

For a glimpse of how mental illness and sexual perversion have gripped an entire institution, read The New York Times recent piece on the school.

Shouldn’t the school be concerned that women students becoming “men” are insulting women? After all, what’s wrong with being a woman? You would think a women’s college would be the first place where women could be talked out of wanting to be men. The spiritual mutilation of women has led logically to their physical mutilation with hormone therapy and surgery.

This whole thing exposes a deep lie behind feminist ideology at Wellesley and elsewhere — it’s based on envy of men.

Pauline and Henry Fowle Durant founded the college in 1870 in order to prepare women for “…great conflicts, for vast reforms in social life.” Their goal has been reached.

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ANN H. writes:

Tucson is full of “art” such as the McCarthy sculpture in Paris. Tucson is a sanctuary city, full of illegal and legal immigrants from many different countries. The schools are the epitome of leftist ideology and the City Council is composed of Pelosi-type Democrats always in the majority. It is near the bottom of cities its size in income and jobs, near the top on crime. For those of us native to the city, it is a cultural, moral disaster.

A few years ago, across from a Catholic high school, the City put a piece of public art. People were outraged. It was pure ugliness and called “Splash.”  It was left brown to imitate the water that runs in the arroyos after rains.  I warned the artist that such a piece next to a Catholic school was a big mistake and suggested that he at least make the “water” blue.  He did not listen and within two days, the piece you see pictured below was “improved,” by the students no doubt. Each of the appendages had a black line painted a few inches from the end and on the very end was a black mark which took no imagination to know was meant to be a male’s urethra.

The piece was removed and put in a poor, primarily Mexican neighborhood, where I hate to think of the fate it met.

But we have gotten better in Tucson.  We do not have such ugly “art” anymore.  The picture below is circa 2010.

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KARL D. writes:

Yesterday morning, I decided to go out to a local cafe for a late breakfast. My intention was to have a peaceful bite while reading a guidebook for a vacation I am taking shortly. Big mistake. I forgot it was Sunday which means that the place would be packed with families with young children, which is understandable. What eventually made me flee, however, was the way these parents simply let their children run wild and would themselves do things that my parents would never have dreamed of allowing.

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SGT. DALE TERRY (above), of the Chesterfield, Virginia sheriff’s department, discovered on Saturday the skeletal remains of what is unofficially believed to be the body of missing University of Virginia student Hannah Graham in Albermarle County. It was an uncanny discovery, according to interviews with Terry, because he was just about to suspend search of the abandoned property when he saw bones and a skull in a creek bed and the black pants Graham was wearing that night.

Graham’s pretty face has been flashed around the world since she disappeared while walking home drunk in tight blank pants and a sequined midriff on the night of Sept. 13 and encountered Jesse Matthew, the black “gentle giant” (he has actually been described as such) who is now believed to be a serial killer. Read More »

THE required two-thirds majority of bishops at the “Extraordinary Synod on the Family” has rejected three of the most controversial paragraphs in a draft midterm report, including one paragraph that spoke of the special “gifts” of homosexuals. However, the original wording will still be published and disseminated to dioceses around the world for discussion. And the parts of the report which offered nuanced, touchy-feely support for cohabitation, civil unions and contraception reportedly remain. (So far the final report is only available in Italian.) Francis in his final address spoke glowingly of the “animated discussions” that characterized the meetings, all of it so much pseudo-Catholic theater staged to achieve his revolutionary goals.

So what is the ultimate effect? To sow confusion. To desensitize. To make it seem as if the moral law is up for debate, a matter of personal opinion. In his final speech, Francis criticized “traditionalists” and “intellectuals” who do not allow themselves to be “surprised by God.”

Here is the humble “pontiff” on live screens before the gathering.

GORDON writes:

Have you posted an entry on contemporary trends in breastfeeding yet?

Today, on an overseas flight, I was seated in proximity to two new mothers who seemed to have no qualms about blatantly exposing their nude breasts for all passengers to see.

This seems to be a rather curious and shameless phenomenon of recent years.

Thoughts?

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Paul McCarthy’s sculpture “Tree” (it’s supposed to be a Christmas tree) in the Place Vendôme in Paris was inspired by a sex toy, according to the “artist,” who is famous for acts of Marxist pornographic obscenity and who isn’t an artist at all but a well-funded public vandal. Many hate the sculpture and someone cut the cables yesterday. It’s hard to believe that the controversy wasn’t expected by those who commissioned the work and that they don’t even welcome the controversy. One doesn’t commission, or give a permit for, a Paul McCarthy sculpture unless one wants to be provocative and express chic nihilism. Supposedly, the “sculpture” will be re-inflated.

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JON D. writes:

As a Portland, Oregon resident, I think you and your readers should know some interesting facts about the liberal dystopia here:

1) Portland, Oregon has (or had) the most sex shops and strip clubs of any U.S. city. The concept of marriage being a sacrament is completely disregarded by Oregonians. They live promiscuously, like barnyard animals.

2) Portland is extolled as wonderful place for lesbians to live. Your readers can Google that. Of course little is told about lesbian couples penchant for domestic violence.

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BUCK writes:

Charlie Rose, Norah O’Donnell, and Jane Pauley interviewed Cardinal Dolan whose responses reminded me of Baghdad Bob’s unshakeable, counterfactual art of the spin: “On this occasion, I am not going to mention the number of the infidels who were killed and the number of destroyed vehicles. The operation continues.”

My transcription:

Charlie Rose:  Is this an example of Pope Francis trying to take the church in new directions, open it up without changing or assaulting doctrine?

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IF Oregon’s First “Lady” Cylvia Hayes had been discovered to have formerly been in a sham marriage with another woman, instead of with an Ethiopian man who wanted U.S. citizenship, she’d probably be enough of a star to the Portland elite to survive politically. As it is, she has had to appear before cameras in very moving tears, apologizing for her fraudulent marriage for cash, explaining her purchase of a parcel of land to grow pot and answering charges of ethics violations with regard to consulting contracts with the government. She just can’t get a break, which is shocking given her strong environmental convictions.

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HEATHER MAC DONALD writes at The Weekly Standard about the campus rape controversy and the spate of new regulations:

If campus rape were the epidemic that the activists allege, there would have been a stampede to create alternative schools for girls. Instead, every year the competition among girls (and boys) to get into selective colleges grows fiercer. Sophisticated baby boomer mothers start their daughters’ preparation for college earlier and earlier. The Obama White House asserts that campus rape “survivors” suffer a lifetime of psychological and physical trauma, yet females are graduating from college in ever more disproportionate numbers, after which they go on to have lucrative careers, with no evidence of crippling mental injury. Read More »