Update: Facebook continues to block me for opposing hatred and incivility...

This is Paul Melanson speaking...

I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth; banks are going bust; shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter; punks are running wild in the street, dissent and homosexuality have infected certain segments of the Church, the leader of North Korea cannot find a decent barber,

and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it.


We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, that our local church is infected with modernism. And we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be!

We all know things are bad -- worse than bad -- they're crazy.  When an Archdiocese honors a pro-abortion, pro-homosexual mayor, things are crazy! When Facebook allows hateful rhetoric and pages advocating the assasination of a political candidate but bans a member for objecting to this incivility, things are spinning out of control!

It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out any more. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we're living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, "Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials, and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.  Just let us pray quietly in church and leave us alone."

Well, I'm not going to leave you alone.

I want you to get mad!

I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot. I don't want you to write to your Congressman, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Koreans, the Lavender Mafia, liturgical terrorists, wiccan nuns, Call to Action and the crime in the street.

All I know is that first, you've got to get mad.

You've gotta say, "I'm a human being, goshdarnit! My life has value!  And the teaching of the Magisterium must be adhered to, we must listen to the Lord Jesus!

So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell,

"I'm as mad as hell,


and I'm not going to take this anymore!!"

Liberal hypocrisy and the incivility of the left...

We've all witnessed the liberal establishment pouncing on Rush Limbaugh this past week because of comments which he directed at Sandra Fluke, a long time liberal activist.

Brian Maloney, writing at his Blog Radio Equalizer, notes how, "When looking for fresh examples of 'progressive' hate talk, it really doesn't take much digging. From any day's libtalk lineup, pick an hour at random and one or more will usually slither its way to the surface quickly enough. But why go to the trouble? We've already done the work for you, tracking lefty smears by the hundreds (thousands?) here at this site for years. It's all right here.

Despite their horrible nature, it's quite rare to see these instances picked up by the establishment media. Conservatives apparently deserve to be slandered. That's why the latest manufactured OUTRAGE (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) from our 'progressive' friends rings hollow. If subjected to the same standard applied to Rush Limbaugh this week, not one libtalker would still be on their air. Instead, two of the most hateful spent today celebrating a new cable talk deal." (See his full post here).

Remember when Alec Baldwin made an appearance on Late Night with Conan O’Brien on December 12, 1998, eight days before President Bill Clinton was to be impeached, and said, "..if we were in another country...we would stone Henry Hyde to death and we would go to their homes and kill their wives and their children. We would kill their families, for what they’re doing to this country."

Where was the liberal outrage?  If Rush Limbaugh crossed a line, isn't it fair to say that Alec Baldwin not only crossed the line but obliterated it?  How about the thousands of other examples of liberal hate speech provided at Brian Maloney's Blog? 

Hypocrisy is the pretension to qualities which one does not possess. Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, in a sermon delivered in the presence of Pope Benedict XVI on March 11, 2007, explained the gravity of hypocrisy: "Hypocrisy is the sin that is most powerfully denounced by God in the Bible and the reason for this is clear. With his hypocrisy, man demotes God, he puts him in second place, putting the creature, the public, in first place. "Man sees the appearance, the Lord sees the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7): Cultivating our appearance more than our heart means giving greater importance to man than to God.


Hypocrisy is thus essentially a lack of faith; but it is also a lack of charity for our neighbor in the sense that it tends to reduce persons to admirers. It does not recognize their proper dignity, but sees them only in function of one's own image.

Christ's judgment on hypocrisy is without appeal: "Receperunt mercedem suam" (They have already received their reward)! A reward that is, above all, illusory, even on a human level because we know that glory flees from those that seek it, and seeks those who flee from it.

Jesus' invectives against the scribes and the Pharisees also help us understand the meaning of purity of heart. Jesus' criticisms focus on the opposition between the "inside" and the "outside," the interior and the exterior of man. 'Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead men's bones and filth. So you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity' (Matthew 23:27-28).

The revolution which Jesus brings about here is of incalculable significance. Before him, except for some rare hint in the prophets and the Psalms — 'Who will ascend the mountain of the Lord? Those whose hands are innocent and whose hearts are pure' (Psalm 24:3) — purity was understood in a ritual and cultural way; it consisted in keeping one's distance from things, animals, persons or places that were understood to contaminate one and separate one from God's holiness. Above all, these were things associated with birth, death, food and sexuality. In different forms and with different presuppositions, other religions outside the Bible shared these ideas.

Jesus makes a clean sweep of all these taboos and does so first of all by certain gestures: He eats with sinners, touches lepers, mixes with pagans. All of these were taken to be highly unsanitary things. He also sweeps away these taboos with his teachings. The solemnity with which he introduces his discourse on the pure and the impure makes apparent how conscious he was of the novelty of his doctrine. "And he called the people to him again and said to them: 'Hear me all of you and understand; there is nothing outside a man that by going into him can defile him. It is the things that come out of a man that can defile him.... For from within, out of the heart of a man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man'" (Mark 7:14-17,21-23)."

Jesus knew that the pharisees often preached a good game but that they failed to live up to what they preached. Which is why He told His listeners, "Do as they say, not as they do." Might not the same be said of the liberal mainstream media with its selective outrage?

Where was the concern over incivility when a Boston Catholic priest ridiculed Cardinal Bertone in a Blog post?

frank  (frngk)

adj. frank·er, frank·est
1. Open and sincere in expression; straightforward: made several frank remarks about the quality of their work.
2. Clearly manifest; evident: frank enjoyment.


Rachel Zoll, a religion writer for the Associated Press, in an article entitled "Catholic bloggers aim to purge dissenters," examines how Catholic bloggers have been taking on the culture of dissent within the Catholic Church in the United States.  Ms. Zoll's article quotes Terrence Donilion, spokesman for the Boston Archdiocese, as responding to such bloggers thusly: "The lack of civility is very disturbing."  But there is a vast difference between being frank and being rude.  Sometimes the truth is unsettling.  But it is still the truth.

Interestingly, back in August I exposed a Blog authored by Father Emile "Mike" Boutin.  In one post I noted how Father Boutin argued at his Blog that priests should not be celibate and ridiculed Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, a Prince of the Church, for his views on homosexuality.  I don't remember Terence Donilon - or anyone else for that matter - castigating Father Boutin or accusing him of incivility.

What would that suggest to you dear reader?

Related reading: Confusing criticism with condemnation

Paul Harvey, dirt roads and Heaven's peace plan

I grew up listening to Paul Harvey on the radio. I always appreciated his genteel style and his dignified approach to the news and talk radio in general. I was really saddened when he died recently. His death represents more of a loss than I think most people realize. For Paul Harvey was the very epitome of civility. And our age is lacking in civility. This is why we have become so alienated from one another. So angry. So lacking in peace. We have exchanged a relationship with Christ Jesus and our neighbor for technological progress and material things.

Some years ago, Paul Harvey addressed this in a most beautiful way with a broadcast entitled "Dirt Roads":


"What’s mainly wrong with society today is that too many Dirt Roads have been paved.
There’s not a problem in America today, crime, drugs, education, divorce, delinquency that wouldn’t be remedied, if we just had more Dirt Roads, because Dirt Roads give character.

People that live at the end of Dirt Roads learn early on that life is a bumpy ride. That it can jar you right down to your teeth sometimes, but it’s worth it, if at the end is home…a loving spouse, happy kids and a dog.

We wouldn’t have near the trouble with our educational system if our kids got their exercise walking a Dirt Road with other kids, from whom they learn how to get along. There was less crime in our streets before they were paved. Criminals didn’t walk two dusty miles to rob or rape, if they knew they’d be welcomed by five barking dogs and a double barrel shotgun. And there were no drive by shootings.

Our values were better when our roads were worse! People did not worship their cars more than their kids, and motorists were more courteous, they didn’t tailgate by riding the bumper or the guy in front would choke you with dust & bust your windshield with rocks. Dirt Roads taught patience.

Dirt Roads were environmentally friendly, you didn’t hop in your car for a quart of milk you walked to the barn for your milk. For your mail, you walked to the mail box. What if it rained and the Dirt Road got washed out? That was the best part, then you stayed home and had some family time, roasted marshmallows and popped popcorn and pony rode on Daddy’s shoulders and learned how to make prettier quilts than anybody.

At the end of Dirt Roads, you soon learned that bad words tasted like soap. Most paved roads lead to trouble, Dirt Roads more likely lead to a fishing creek or a swimming hole. At the end of a Dirt Road, the only time we even locked our car was in August, because if we didn’t some neighbor would fill it with too much zucchini.

At the end of a Dirt Road, there was always extra springtime income, from when city dudes would get stuck, you’d have to hitch up a team and pull them out. Usually you got a dollar…always you got a new friend…at the end of a Dirt Road!"

We have indeed created such a mess haven't we? Everything across our society is crumbling: The economy, government, our educational system, churches, families. But there is a way out from underneath our problems, a solution which has gone untried for so long:

“Pray the Rosary every day in honor of Our Lady of the Rosary to obtain peace in the world . . . for she alone can save it.” (Our Lady—July 13, 1917)

“God has placed peace in her hands, and it is from the Immaculate Heart that men must ask it." (Jacinta—shortly before her death)

There you have it. Heaven's stimulus package for peace! Most, unfortunately, will scoff at such an idea. "Absurd" some will say. "Simplistic" still others will say. But I have seen up close the transforming power of the Holy Rosary and watched with amazement as those who prayed it with sincerity experienced changed lives. I have seen the Holy Rosary alter events with a supernatural power which must be experienced to be believed and appreciated.

We can return to simplicity of life and holiness. We don't have to be alienated from Christ Jesus and our neighbor. We can change the human heart through prayerful recitation of the Rosary. Why do we find this so difficult to accept? Mostly because we are too proud and believe too much in our own abilities.

The Rosary has the power not only to restore relationships and heal a broken world where neighbor is alienated from neighbor. It has the power to shape our will so that we may all the more easily abandon it to the Divine Will. I prayed so many Rosaries as my father was dying at St. Vincent's Hospital in Worcester. I prayed day and night. Yes, my father still died. Yes, his passing filled me with sadness. But when Our Lady entered my father's hospital room to bring him back home, the peace I experienced was something words will never be able to convey.

Our roads may be paved now. But there is a way back to simplicity of life and holiness. It will only be by holding our Heavenly Mother's hand and walking with her that we will recover what we have lost: "for never was it known that anyone who fled to her protection, implored her help or sought her intercession was left unaided." And that, as Paul Harvey would have said is "the rest of the story."

Amen and Good Day!