LAWRENCE AUSTER, the formidable journalist and thinker who died last year, was a prolific letter writer. For him, the letter was a necessary medium of cultural combat. Aside from the many letters he wrote to family and friends, which were of a different nature, he frequently wrote to magazines, newspapers and radio stations. He wrote letters to the New York transit authority about loud music and the poor design of subway cars. He wrote letters to his landlord about the tiles in the entranceway and to neighbors who let their charcoal smoke drift into his apartment.

Though these letters often involved complaints — he tended to complain about very important things or what most people would consider very minor things, rather than anything in between these two extremes — he never seemed deterred by the possibility that his letters might be unread even when they were lengthy. Who knows how many people were bewildered to find that someone had applied such deep and eloquent analysis to what they had said or done. Who knows how many people did that most difficult of all things and found themselves unexpectedly engaging in the act of thinking after reading an Auster letter.

Below is an example of one of his letters. It is dated Oct., 28, 1997 and is addressed to the commentator and film critic Michael Medved concerning a review he wrote for The New York Post.

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Pope St. Pius X

THE discussion of separation of Church and State continues in this entry.

By the way, today is the 60th anniversary of the canonization of Pope Pius X and a good occasion to read some of his thoughts on the subject. In his 1906 encyclical Vehementer Nos, on the French law of separation, he wrote:

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. Read More »

LIFENEWS reports on the services offered by Eastside Gynecology, a Manhattan luxury clinic which offers VIP abortions with “the utmost in service, comfort, and confidentiality.” First and second trimester abortions are available. “Simple, gentle, non-invasive options” make ending a life hassle-free. This is the kind of facility Ivy League colleges and top-notch corporate campuses should have. It also offers “permanent birth control,” what was once crudely called “sterilization.”

The clinic’s ”Private Abortion Boutique Services,” are advertised as follows:

“Accelerate your appointment and procedure wait time at our private abortion clinic for the best VIP service offered in NYC. You and your significant other or escort will be ushered to a well-appointed private room complete with a mahogany sleigh bed, luxurious bedding and a flat screen television and free Wi-Fi. After your procedure you are get access to a private area within the recovery room and as soon as you are medically stable you are brought back to your private room where your significant other is waiting.”

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A professional psychologist answers in the affirmative at Tradition in Action, writing:

Again, if this is true, and all the evidence seems to be increasingly pointing to it being so, it seems to give credence to St. Malachi’s Prophecy of the Popes. What better precursor to the Antichrist could there be than a man who energetically and seemingly gleefully tears down the last remnants of a once great and beautiful edifice as if it were a cockroach on the bottom of his shoe? And, at the same time, he is able to convince the many that he loves the cockroach with all his heart…

PHILOSCRIBE writes:

I don’t know if the divorce of Elliot Rodger’s parents played a role in his deranged mental state. But you don’t have to be a psychologist to think it surely didn’t help prevent the abyss into which their son was sinking.

Incredibly, this is the second time that a son of a Hollywood director committed a rampage murder in Santa Barbara near the University of California campus. The second time! The first occurred in 2001 when David Attias plowed his Saab into a crowd, killing four students on the spot and severly injuring a fifth victim. Attias was found guilty on four counts of manslaughter and sentenced to 60 years in the state mental assylum. A judge recently granted his request to be transfered to a less restrictive facility. Here is a link.

One might ask what is driving the sons of Hollywood’s elite to go on killing sprees. I mean, what are the chances?

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GIOTTO di Bondone
Baroncelli Polyptych: Coronation of the Virgin
c. 1334

“Dwelling in the loftiest citadel of virtue, like a sea of divine grace or an unfathomable source of love that has everywhere overflowed its banks, she poured forth her bountiful waters on trusting and thirsting souls. Able to preserve both flesh and spirit from death she bestowed health-giving salve on bodies and souls. Has anyone ever come away from her troubled or saddened or ignorant of the heavenly mysteries? Who has not returned to everyday life gladdened and joyful because his request had been granted by the Mother of God?

“She is a bride, so gentle and affectionate, and the mother of the only true bridegroom. In her abundant goodness she has channelled the spring of reason’s garden, the well of living and life-giving waters that pour forth in a rushing stream from divine Lebanon and flow down from Mount Zion until they surround the shores of every far-flung nation. With divine assistance she has redirected these waters and made them into streams of peace and pools of grace. Therefore, when the Virgin of virgins was led forth by God and her Son, the King of kings. amid the company of exulting angels and rejoicing archangels, with the heavens ringing with praise, the prophecy of the psalmist was fulfilled, in which he said to the Lord: At your right hand stands the queen, clothed in gold of Ophir (Psalm 45).”

From The Queenship of Mary by Saint Amadeus of Lausanne

Antipope Francis laying a wreath at grave of Zionist Theodor Herzl

IF Jorge Bergoglio were a true pope and not a scandalous heretic, what would be the purpose of a visit to Jordan and Israel, such as the one he concluded yesterday? There would be only one purpose: To seek the conversion of both Muslims and Jews so that this blood-drenched region has some hope of peace.

But if the Argentinian Bomber sought to convert, he had a strange way of going about it. For he seemed only to affirm Muslims and Jews in their disastrously erroneous beliefs. He spoke admiringly of “three great monotheistic religions,” as if it were possible for contradictory religions to be true and as if the outrageous denial of Christ and his Sacred Humanity by Jews and Muslims (yes, Muslims do deny Christ) amounted to nothing. He praised the Jews as God’s “people,” as if the Incarnation had never happened and the Covenant with the Hebrews were still alive. And he invited Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Shimon Peres both to join him in prayer at the Vatican as if they were all worshipping the same God. How much further can the world sink than this indifferentism, which is so conducive to worldwide atheism and international strife?

Francis blathered on, of course, about religious freedom:

Religious freedom is in fact a fundamental human right and I cannot fail to express my hope that it will be upheld throughout the Middle East and the entire world. The right to religious freedom “includes on the individual and collective levels the freedom to follow one’s conscience in religious matters and, at the same time, freedom of worship… [it also includes] the freedom to choose the religion which one judges to be true and to manifest one’s beliefs in public” (Ecclesia in Medio Oriente, 26). Read More »

KARL D. writes:

While this Elliot Rodgers character who went on a shooting spree in L.A. had numerous psychological issues, his parents’ divorce and then the coming and going of nannies affected him greatly if you read his manifesto.

As a child of divorce myself (an ugly one at that), I found myself nodding in agreement with what he had written about his experience, and how his life was radically changed. My father left when I was ten and I forever looked at my life since then as two different lives and myself having two different personalities: pre- divorce and post-divorce. The divorce was horribly traumatic for me.

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CAROLYN G. writes:

For years, I have ached as I see a trend in fathers neglecting to be fathers and parents giving up on a marriage on a whim, thinking only of themselves.  I see children floundering.  Our family unit is falling apart because adults refuse to grow up.  Then previously joyful holidays and special events become uncomfortable events and “blended” families have trouble blending.  The following story illustrates the latest one in our family:

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FOR years we have been hearing that women are just like men except for a few minor anatomical differences and therefore all (lucrative) occupations that were once male should be opened to women. No sooner is this transformation enacted by government or corporations in some specific arena than it is openly admitted that women are very different from men and the workplace must be transformed to accommodate these differences.

An announcement by a Naval commander typifies this phenomenon. The Navy once decided it must have women sailors because women are just like men. Now the Navy says it can’t retain women sailors because women are not just like men. From the AP:

The Navy retains female sailors at half the rate it holds on to men. One result is that it doesn’t have enough senior enlisted women on some ships stationed overseas, leaders of the Navy say. 
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KIDIST PAULOS ASRAT explores the busy highways of Ontario.

A BRITISH woman describes her alarm over her 16-year-old daughter’s decision to go through “sex change” treatment. National Health Service clinicians have offered to treat the girl without her parents’ consent.

She has been told to dress and live as a boy for two years — called RLE, or Real-Life Experience — after which she will be given the male hormone testosterone, which will mean she will grow a beard, her incipient curves will be eradicated and she will acquire the body and voice of a man.

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PENNSYLVANIA Gov. Tom Corbett today said he would decline to appeal a U.S. District Court judge’s ruling striking down a state marriage law. With this decision, and a similar ruling last week by a judge in Oregon, an estimated 44 percent of Americans live in states where the absurdity known as “same-sex marriage,” which has no parallels in the history of human civilization prior to a couple of decades ago, is now legal, or soon-to-be legal. An innovation that was unimaginable 50 years ago now encompasses almost half the population.

No amount of legal maneuvering or appeals to the Constitution could have prevented this.

America was founded on principles of individual liberty that assume man is a creature entirely of this world. The U.S. Constitution left this nation incapable of protecting over the long term the values most Americans once held, and even those most Americans still hold. A  social order founded on liberty as the highest good cannot help but devour and destroy the rights of God and lead to social chaos. These judicial decisions will bring enormous and almost unimaginable conflict in their wake. No legal strategy or “conservative” politician will be able to mend those tears in the social fabric.

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KARL D. writes:

 A female senior at the University of Michigan started a taxi service which picks up her fellow college girls the morning after their drunken one night stands or as she calls it, “Post hookup.” She calls her service “The walk of shame” with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Besides driving her clients home she also provides water and the morning-after abortion pill. Lovely isn’t it? These girls’ parents must be so proud and feel that the thousands of dollars spent on tuition is well spent. To add insult to injury, she has been awarded for her endeavors a reality show on VH1, a channel that is very popular with the college age demographic. I have said it before and will say it again. End of times.

GRATEFUL READER writes:

Jennifer Lahl, who created the documentaries Breeders, Eggsploitation, and Anonymous Father’s Day, makes many good points in an interview. She discusses the physical and psychological harm done to the children arising from inhuman interactions (monetary transactions and clinical procedures) and to the women who sell their eggs and rent their wombs. Read More »