Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

Back in 2004, Arizona had a delegate to the national convention named Father Bill Fitzgerald, better known to the parishioners at Our Lady of Professional Help as “Father Fitz.” Yep, he was a for-real Catholic priest, and one that supported his fellow RC Wesley Clark even.
This was around the time that a couple of conservative bishops proclaimed that they […]

For those of you that are curious, today is the feast day of St. Stephen, as in “Good King Wenceslaus looked out on the Feast of Stephen…”
So, you are free to sing that song today if you wish.
By the way, Wenceslaus wasn’t a king but a duke. Don’t say that one too loud, however. Apparently, […]

From the R-Cubed family to yours, Merry Christmas. To Rudy Giuliani, a belated happy Eid al-Ahda.
For me, tonight will include sharing the oplatek at St. Cyril’s, and eating tamales with the Villa clan. Being multi-ethnic is fun.

I am torn about this…Tony Blair has converted to Catholicism. As a Catholic, I am supposed to feel the spirit and welcome this new brother into the fold…but…give me time.

Today is the feast of St. Cajetan. Although born wealthy, Cajetan was a fierce advocate for the poor, going after his age’s equivalent of payday lenders. He was a popular saint among the early Jesuit  missionaries in our region, and his name is on both a mission (San Cayetano de Calabazas) and the San Cayetano mountains that […]

Eastern European Catholics celebrate today as the Feast of St. Stanislaus. Stanislaus was martyred for pointing out the faults of the then Prince of Poland, Bolesław II. Hard as it would be to believe, Bolesław got his country into a destructive and ill-concieved war, and people were disgusted by the treatment of soldier’s widows and […]

From Pope Benedict XVI’s Easter Message:
Elsewhere too, peace is sorely needed…Afghanistan is marked by growing unrest and instability; In the Middle East, besides some signs of hope in the dialogue between Israel and the Palestinian authority, nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civil population flees.
And, of course, our communistic […]

I’ve been meaning to make mention of Chuck Blanchard’s new blog ever since Espresso Pundit plugged it a few days back.
Blanchard was a State Senator back in the early 1990’s after a law career that started with clerking for Sandra Day O’Connor. He made what can charitably called a kamikaze run at a central Phoenix […]

Today is the Feast of St. Casimir, patron saint of Poland and Lithuania. Casimir was a pacifist who put serving God above the acquisition of political power. I wrote about him last year on the occasion of his feast day. The only detail worth adding is that Pope Benedict XVI used the eve of Casimir’s […]

Today is the day that Catholics begin the lenten season of pennance.  The lenten mass includes a reading from Matthew Chapter 6:
Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father.
A healthy way to carry yourself, no doubt. We can all […]

News is out this morning that the Amanda Marcote, the second of the two controversial bloggers who were hired on by John Edwards, submitted her resignation this morning. I’ve wanted to write about this issue, but wasn’t quite sure how to tackle it.
When the story first broke, I was a bit reluctant to even take it […]

Former Massachusetts Rep. Robert Drinan, the only Jeebie to serve in the United States Congress, has died.
Drinan initially ran as an anti-war candidate, defeating a pro-war Democrat in the primary.  He quickly became an articulate spokesman for what we now term the progressive wing of the party. He served on the House Judiciary Committee that […]

And, in the spirit of eccumenism, a belated Salaam Aleekum to Virgil Goode and Dennis Prager for the Eid holiday, Happy Hanukkah to Judith Reagan and Mel Gibson and Happy Kwanzaa to George Allen.
Oh, and Season’s Greetings to Bill O’Reilly.

Today is the day we celebrate the appearance of the Blessed Virgin to a poor young native named Juan Diego at a place called Tepeyac. Many of us see comfort in the story, since She appeared not to the rich or the powerful or the oppressor, but rather the most humble.

Cardinal Józef Glemp, Primate of Poland, submitted his resignation to Pope Benedict XVI, who accepted it.
Glemp spent his youth in a Nazi slave labor camp and later went on to be the spiritual leader of the Solidarność movement, using the pulpit to call for civil disobedience during Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski’s imposition of marshall law. Actions […]

Well, I’ll be in the great Northwest for a few days of over-strong coffee and endless rain. I hear it’s hipper up there though.
I’ll be flying on US Airways. I usually bring my copy of the Benedictine Handbook with me, it’s got a psalter and prayers in it. I’d better be careful though. Apparently, prayer […]

A chant from some of the Drake supporters last night:
Vote for the American name
So, what exactly are y’all saying there?
Funny thing, an early appearance of the name “Grijalva” in our little part of the Americas was way back in 1775, when a guy named Juan Pablo de Grijalva was part of the Juan Bautista de […]

I’m sure that all of you in my adoring public are waiting for my comments on the President’s speech tonight. Well, I’d be happy to comment, if he had anything new to say. Given this, I found something far more interesting and important to talk about.
I read in the American Prospect this morning about a […]

Cardinal Jaime Sin of Manilla died monday. Sin led the overthrow of not one, but two corrupt and oppressive governments. Sin was one of the leaders of the church in the 1980s, along with Cardinal Józef Glemp and Archbishop Oscar Romero, who defied orders to stay out of politics and use the weight of his […]