NADIA BOLZ-WEBER, the author of a bestseller and the “pastrix” of a Lutheran church in Denver, is the subject of a profile in The Washington Post. Here’s a condensed version. After trying to make it as a stand-up comedienne, Bolz-Weber redirected her ambition (times are tough in the stand-up business) and got a theology degree of some kind in a seminary. She became a Lutheran minister, which fortunately involves being on stage and talking a lot about oneself too. Her “passion” and “life-changing fervor” are inspiring even white suburbanites, whom she reluctantly forgives for permitting her little opportunity to demonstrate her inclusiveness and for having committed the mortal sin of being not so cool. Her book is modestly titled: Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and Saint.

She’s on a plane nearly every week to headline church leadership gatherings because of the way she articulates the place of the religious liberal in America. Next up is Calvary Baptist Church in Washington’s Chinatown, where she will speak to an overflow crowd of more than 600 people Tuesday evening.

Her message: Forget what you’ve been told about the golden rule — God doesn’t love you more if you do good things, or if you believe certain things. God, she argues, offers you grace regardless of who you are or what you do.

Christianity, Bolz-Weber preaches, has nothing to do with rules; it is the process of things constantly dying and then being made new. Those things, she says, might be the alcoholic who emerges into sobriety, some false narrative we have about ourselves, religious institutions that no longer inspire.

This woman must be reading Pope Francis. Not surprisingly, Bolz-Weber does not think fondly of her “fundamentalist” Protestant upbringing and she calls most liberal churches “the Elks Club with the Eucharist.” On that point, she is clever and correct. The Elks Club with the Eucharist leads here to Saturday Night Live with the Eucharist. It’s all part of the pseudo-religious, pseudo-moral atmosphere of modern Protestantism. (more…)

  DANIEL S. writes: Three people in Norway are dead after being stabbed to death by a Sudanese man who hijacked a bus after being ordered deported. The man was later arrested. As far as the murder suspect is concerned, his identity and religious affiliation have not been released. He is reportedly from South Sudan, thus making it possible that he was from either a Christian or animist background, though it is all very possible he was Muslim. Either way, such a man should have never been in Norway. It is furthermore curious as to why this man was allowed to walk around freely after having been ordered deported. Once again a Western nation's policy of multiculturalism and mass Third World immigration results in deadly consequences. (And, once again, such a story will quickly be buried and forgotten.)

THANK GOODNESS, the overblown, increasingly pagan and macabre celebration of Halloween is over for another year. Here is a recent post from the blog Eponymous Flower about an Italian bishop who condemned Halloween. It would be nice if there were more voices against it. Bishop Massimo Camisasca issued a statement that said:

“Halloween is a mixture of heathenism and commercialism that is rejected in both components equally.”

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VOTERS in Colorado are being asked this week to approve a measure that would raise an additional $1 billion for schools, fund all-day kindergarten throughout the state and provide more programs for immigrants who can’t speak English. Given that the voters who stand to pay the most are in the minority, the measure is unlikely to fail. Residents with incomes above $75,000 will pay 5.9 percent in state income taxes, up from 4.6 percent.

As Aristotle said, democracy is a form of organized theft. And to Americans, any amount of thievery is justified to support schools, which are considered magical equalizers. Strangely enough, the inequalities do not disappear, but that does not reduce the widespread faith.

In many parts of the country, it is extremely difficult for a family to survive on one income. Taxes are a big reason why this is so. The state funds all-day kindergarten by defunding homes.

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NEXT YEAR, the order of religious sisters known as the Daughters of Charity will permanently sever their ties with St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville, an institution which they opened more than 100 years ago. At Tradition in Action, Marian T. Horvat describes how the liberalism of Vatican II effaced the religious order and gradually transformed the Catholic hospital, once under the capable management of women who took vows of lifelong poverty and charity, into a modern secular institution run by bureaucrats. Dr. Horvat writes:

The competence, energy and expertise of the nursing Daughters of Charity made them much in demand. But it was something more that won them the love and devotion of the people they served. In their distinctive grey habit with the white cornette, these sisters embodied lives of sacrifice. They received no personal salaries, they renounced the social amenities and feminine vanities of the world – all with the aim of serving Christ and seeing Him in the suffering sick of humanity. Such a noble mission reflected in the demeanor and person of each sister, who became a symbol of the model selfless nurse.

After Vatican II, however, things started to change. No more triangular white cornettes were seen in the hospital halls. The Sisters now were in modified habits or secular dress. Soon, the vocations started to diminish and the School of Nursing closed. (more…)

IN THE recent entry on one couple’s home birthing photos, a nurse says she was appalled by the degree to which the health of the baby was endangered to take pretty pictures of the half-naked mother in a kiddie pool. By the way, this is somewhat impolite to ask, but how does one empty a swimming pool filled with water, blood, and other bodily substances in one’s living room? There were no photos to explain.

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BUSINESS INSIDER has an excerpt from a how-to book on divorce by Laura Wasser. In the book, Wasser describes a “divorce” by a lesbian couple who had conceived children with a sperm donor, one woman contributing the egg in each case and the other the womb. Interestingly, the judge in the divorce case (homosexual couples break up at a much higher rate than heterosexual ones so divorce courts should be busier than ever) could not conceal his utter amazement. He was apparently new to the decadent world of lesbian reproduction. (more…)

KARL D. writes:

A man who was lost in the Canadian wilderness for three months had to kill and consume his dog to stay alive. He was finally found barely alive and is now in critical condition. I came across this article about him in the The Daily Mail and have been disgusted by what I read in the comments section. The anti-human sentiment and lack of critical reasoning is breathtaking. Comment after comment is filled with “I would rather starve to death than kill my dog,” “What a horrible selfish man,” “He should have just let himself die,” and one even said, “If I found out my father killed one of my dogs to stay alive I would never speak to him again.” I can’t even begin to wrap my head around this. (more…)

JANE S. writes:

Tanishq, a leading jewelry brand in India, has produced a TV commercial that is stirring up controversy.

It shows a beautiful bride preparing for her marriage ceremony. In Hindu society, jewelry plays a massively important role in weddings, engagements, and every other celebratory event in a woman’s life.

Then an adorable little girl appears on the scene and it becomes apparent that she is the daughter of the bride. This is a second marriage for the woman. (more…)

. TODAY, on All Saints Day, the Church commemorates the saints in heaven, all of them, those who are known to us and those who lived in obscurity. As we rejoice in them, the saints bow down from eternity and say, "Come, join us." In The Holy Souls: Vive Padre Pio, Fr. Alessio Parente, O.F.M. Cap. writes of a humorous comment Padre Pio, the venerated Italian priest, made about his own reputed saintliness: Padre Pio certainly did maintain a childlike simplicity and did not try to conform with the world's idea of what a saint should be. On one occasion some sugar-coated almonds (confetti) were being passed around the refectory. A little while later, Padre Pio, still with one in his mouth, was on his way to hear Confessions of the men in the old sacristy. When he reached the door, he prevented his confrérès from opening it, saying, "Wait! Let me finish this candy. Otherwise people will say: 'What kind of saint is this? He even eats sweets!' "  

ALAN writes:

The recent incident involving “youths” who beat a man for honking at them may be added to the long list of savage crimes by blacks that Lawrence Auster chronicled in many posts at View From the Right.

Here is yet another example that may have escaped your attention, and it involves precisely the kind of savagery that Mr. Auster discussed at VFR: (more…)

NO DISCUSSION of ugly architecture, however brief, is complete without a mention of “Catholic” buildings since Vatican II. Here is an example sent by a reader. The Spanish-Moorish style building below is the old St. Rita’s Church in Sierra Madre, California, which was torn down in 1968. The church was deemed unsafe in an earthquake zone and thus a much-loved Catholic building bit the dust. A simple stone chapel would have been better than what followed. It was replaced by the cold, in-your-face modernism of a new building (below) in 1970. All I can say on seeing a photo of the newer church is: Blindness has its advantages. This is just the kind of building one would expect to see when a false church takes over the divine institution established by Christ more than 2,000 years ago.

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SAGE McLAUGHLIN writes in response to the predictable news that a lesbian couple in France “married” purely for financial gain:

It is entirely reasonable to expect that same-sex “marriages” will be used by everybody from college roommates to business partners, in order to extract financial benefits or as simply a catch-all arrangement to make the division of “shared” property more orderly. This has always been one of my main practical objections to it.  Rather than encouraging a view of marriages as “a loving commitment of two people,” it encourages the use of civil marriages in order to prevent a subpoena to testify against a person, to share insurance benefits of various kinds, and so on and so on. It is very easy to see young college-aged people who are temporarily sharing a space doing exactly this (young women more so than young men, naturally), or unscrupulous professionals seeking to evade regulations of all kinds. (more…)

IN THE entry about the couple who posed for vanity photos of their home birthing experience, I write:

Women have been midwives for most of history, and obviously many have done their work with remarkable skill, energy and care. But the feminist halo that surrounds the midwife, who is often depicted as the victim of a male takeover of the business, is an interesting subject. The story is more complicated than it appears. Many midwives did a small number of deliveries per year and thus were unable to attain technical competence. Catharina Schrader was a Dutch midwife who delivered between 3,000 and 4,000 babies, with very low infant and maternal mortality for the time, between the years of 1693 and 1740. She was more of a professional than the typical midwife of the time, having been the wife of a surgeon, whom she helped in his practice. Upon her husband’s death, she took up midwifery to support her six children. Her diaries, published as The Mother and Child Were Saved (Rodopi, 1984), make up one of the most detailed accounts by a European midwife of that era. In her journals, she rails against some of the other midwives, referring to “dreadful know-nothings,” a “messy bungler” and midwives who “tortured” their patients. It is considered unseemly today to reproach anyone who is involved in home birthing, but she was free with her criticisms at that time. Schrader, a devout Calvinist who prayed to God for the “wretched that I have to see” and those who are “in misery and need,” also referred to some of the unmarried women whom she delivered as “whores.” I can only imagine what she would make of the vanity and eroticism of these birthing photos.

Here is the account of one of her cases, in which another midwife had failed to realize that a mother was pregnant with twins. It is a sad and moving story and helps explain why Schrader constantly prayed for assistance with her work:

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  SIX months after same-sex "marriage" was legalized in France against enormous public opposition, two lesbians have filed for divorce, according to The Local, a website that offers English translations of French news. Thus we have the first same-sex divorce in France. How come so soon? The women, first "married" in this country in 2011, got "married" in France after already planning to split up. Got it?  They got "married" after they had agreed to part ways. They "married" in France in order to make the division of their financial debt less onerous. In other words, both the "marriage" and the "divorce" were all about money. This is no surprise at all. There will be thousands of "marriages" of convenience. Think of the many phony marriages that will be made to acquire immigration rights or to inherit wealth. Many of the tears of joy one sees in the news when same-sex unions are legalized are tears of relief that financial benefits will at last be attained. But then misty-eyed egalitarians are too blind and stupid to see the obvious or to care.

  The Monk by the Sea*  by Mark Anthony Signorelli There lived a monk by the sea – He walked along the sand, He wandered silently Without a friend at hand, And when the last gray swatch Of day hung in the sky, He’d wander there and watch The ships go sailing by; And sometimes it would happen When winter storms would blow, Some rash and foolish captain Would bring his ship to woe; And the monk would see the boat That floundered in the tide, And he would hear the shout The desperate sailors cried, And helpless to give aid In the black and icy shoals, To the Lord God he prayed For mercy on their souls. I too have walked alone Along that very strand, And heard the ocean groan When winter was at hand, And seen the gray sky lit With the sun’s last waning rays, And thought a little bit On the ever-darkening days- On the vileness and the hate, The chaos and the rage, And all the sins that weight The sinking of the age; And finding myself frail To rescue humankind, To Him behind the veil I’ve raised my faltering mind, And sadly lingering there Where the dying current curled, I have prayed a little prayer For the shipwreck of the world. * From Distant Lands Near and Far; with permission by the author.

INSPIRED by the hideousness of the design for the new Atlanta Falcons billion-dollar football stadium, Sage McLaughlin at What’s Wrong with the World reflects on the ugliness of public rituals. He writes:

Though long an enthusiast of organized sports, I just cannot imagine what would attract a person whose only knowledge of the subject was this artist’s rendering to take part in anything that happened in that building.

The incessant braying of our loud, vain, ugly public rituals signifies terminal decay. Now having been inured to it, there is next to no offense against beauty and dignified public order that will not find its defenders, all the more if it is packaged as entertainment. Spectacles of apocalyptic violence and destruction are more popular than ever.

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ON December 11, 1925, amidst the rise of statist and totalitarian regimes in Europe, Pope Pius XI issued his encyclical Quas Primas, establishing the annual Feast of Christ the King, now celebrated on the last Sunday of October in the Extraordinary Form. The encyclical described the proper relationship between Church and State and argued that the foundations of man’s social existence had been undermined by the banishment of the Church from civil affairs:

When we pay honor to the princely dignity of Christ, men will doubtless be reminded that the Church, founded by Christ as a perfect society, has a natural and inalienable right to perfect freedom and immunity from the power of the state; and that in fulfilling the task committed to her by God of teaching, ruling, and guiding to eternal bliss those who belong to the kingdom of Christ, she cannot be subject to any external power. (more…)