New recommendation - Alliance for the Separation of School & State

I have been a member of this organization for years and I believe them to be very important. Public schools are a place where the state teaches our children to worship the state. Those of us who hold to traditional values (particularly Christians) are frustrated to have much of what we teach our children undermined and sometimes contradicted by leftist public school teachers.





Alliance for the Separation of School & State



Those of us who can should make an effort to educate our children our own way. Those of us cannot - should support the Alliance for The Separation of School and State.

The Real Schismatics and Bigots - Patrick Buchanan

"Meyerson’s [ref. Washington Post columnist Howard Meyerson] is the authentic voice of an anti-Catholicism that is out of the closet and on the op-ed pages of the national press."

from "The Real Schismatics and Bigots"
by Patrick Buchanan
from Chronicles

Real Americans - Chesterton

There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong -- G.K. Chesterton

Driving to work - head in the clouds

Here's a picture I took through my front windshield last week of a pretty cloud formation. I was driving to work on the 422 - about 7:00 AM.

The Greatest Gift For All - Paul Craig Roberts

Quotes by Paul Craig Roberts

VDare

Christmas is a time of traditions. If you have found time in the rush before Christmas to decorate a tree, you are sharing in a relatively new tradition. Although the Christmas tree has ancient roots, at the beginning of the 20th century only one in five American families put up a tree. It was 1920 before the Christmas tree became the hallmark of the season. Calvin Coolidge was the first president to light a national Christmas tree on the White House lawn.

Gifts are another shared custom. This tradition comes from the wise men, or three kings, who brought gifts to baby Jesus. When I was a kid, gifts were more modest than they are now, but even then people were complaining about the commercialization of Christmas. We have grown accustomed to the commercialization. Christmas sales are the backbone of many businesses. Gift-giving causes us to remember others and to take time from our harried lives to give them thought.

The decorations and gifts of Christmas are one of our connections to a Christian culture that has held Western civilization together for 2,000 years.

...

All Americans have a huge stake in Christianity. Whether or not we are individually believers in Christ, we are beneficiaries of the moral doctrine that has curbed power and protected the weak. Power is the horse ridden by evil.

...

Christianity's emphasis on the worth of the individual makes such power as Lenin claimed unthinkable. Be we religious or be we not, our celebration of Christ's birthday honors a religion that made us masters of our souls and of our political life on Earth. Such a religion as this is worth holding on to even by atheists.

The Gospel According to Incorruptible

I’ve had a wonderful time playing Jack the one-eyed minstrel in King Of Prussia Players production of Michael Hollinger’s Incorruptible. As the show progressed all of us found new and wonderful elements in it.

I love the conflict between the sacred and the profane in Father Charles’ tormented soul symbolized by Brother Martin (Profane) and Brother Felix (sacred). Each tugging at him from different sides. He - wanted to be a baker once.

I love the way Brother Olf, always seeing through the eyes of a child, whose only wish was to see a miracle - was the first to see the miracle at the end of the play. Michael Hollinger himself pointed this out at a talkback session.

I love the way God used the pagan-with-an-attitude, Jack as His vehicle to change the monastery. Jack, when he came brought sin, materialism, lust, and godlessness. But God used him as His vehicle to overcome these things.

I love the imagery at the end when Felix runs off with Marie - she is pregant and riding on a donkey. The father of the child - unknown but probably Jack.

This dark comedy - presented itself first to me as a slapsticky, Monte Pythonesque farce. But there’s a lot more to it. Thank you Michael Hollinger for a terrific theatrical and intellectual experience.

Episcopal Bishop Marc Handley Andrus arrested at peace demonstration

Bishop Marc Handley Andrus of the Episcopal Diocese of California was arrested December 7 for blocking the front door of the San Francisco federal building to protest the deaths caused by the Iraq war.

Andrus, carrying his crozier and singing "Down by the Riverside,'' was among 250 protesters, including members of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship and people of other faiths, who had marched from Grace Cathedral, on Nob Hill, to join the weekly "die-in" at on Golden Gate Avenue near City Hall.

Mary Francis Schjonberg

Episcopal News Service

I share the anti-war position. It is nice to see prominent Episcopalians will to stand against the war as well.

I don't care for the church involving itself in political and social causes. The church ought not speak on issues of the day as though it speaks for all Episcopalians. Episcopalians are intelligent and open-minded. We can think for ourselves.

Best wishes to Bishop Andrus. I wish we had heard more from him when we were bombing Serbia under Bill Clinton. But that would have been hard. This was easy - all too easy.

The Feast Of St. Nicolas

The Feast Of St. Nicolas by Jan Steen. c. 1660-65. Oil on canvas, 82 x 70.5 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Incorruptible by Michael Hollinger

Friday night I'm opening in Michael Hollinger's Incorruptible. I'm playing Jack The One-Eyed Minstrel.

This is a funny, dark comedy. Think Monte Python in 13th century France. It's a lot of fun to play.

Performances are :

December 1st & 2nd at 8pm
December 8th & 9th at 8pm
December 10th at 2pm
December 15th at 8pm
December 16th at 2pm

More info is here:

http://www.kofpplayers.org/KingOfPrussiaPlayers/Shows/Incorruptable_2006/IncorruptiblePage_2006.shtml

Not Much Thanksgiving for Episcopalians

Here is a brilliant article that summarizes my thinking recently about the Episcopal church. We are committing suicide. We have adopted an anti-life agenda pushed by "progressives". This agenda includes all the usual positions for abortion, homosexual normalization, childlessness.

Our new Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori makes clear that she advocates demographic suicide through barrenness.

"The Presiding Bishop was asked how many Episcopalians there are in the U.S. "About 2.2 million," Schiori responded. "It used to be larger percentagewise, but Episcopalians tend to be better-educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than some other denominations. Roman Catholics and Mormons both have theological reasons for producing lots of children."

"Aren't Episcopalians interested in replenishing their ranks by having children," the New York Times asked.

"No," Schori replied. "It's probably the opposite. We encourage people to pay attention to the stewardship of the earth and not use more than their portion."

True to Schori's boast, the Episcopalians have done magnificently in reducing their numbers and, purportedly, sparing the earth the ravages of an enlarged Episcopalian presence. Forty years ago, the Episcopal Church was over 50 percent larger than today, even while the U.S. population was 40 percent smaller. "

Mark Tooley, The American Spectator, 11/22/2006


We no longer worship a God who said, "Go forth and multiply." Instead we worship barrenness - as if it were a new virtue.

Bennison - cut down to size

Bishop Charles Bennison of the Pennsylvania Diocese is now in a compromised position. Any parish or council intent on doing anything that might heretofore have been opposed by the imperial Bishop is now in a good position.

Our minister on Sunday criticised Bennison for the right reason (not the media-driven sex scandal that the Inquirer would love to see) - his financial mismanagement of the diocese and his coldhearted re-direction of millions of dollars towards the Wapiti Center, destined to be an Episcopalian retreat for the rich and famous.

In addition Bennison paid a visitation to Church of the Good Samaritan in Paoli - an active, dynamic Orthodox parish which he has mistreated over the years. It is painful to read the description of what took place there Sunday. Only 120 of the usual 750 people attended. Also, "At communion only 25 parishioners came forward to take communion from Bennison, 75 moved across in front of the altar and took it from Brewer. Brewer did not receive communion from the bishop. None of the other three parish priests or two deacons were present at the altar."

You can read the full description at Virtue On-Line: PENNSYLVANIA: Bennison Fails at Orthodox Parish, November 19, 2006.

To me the solidarity of the parishoners at Church of the Good Samaritan is exciting. To be sure the minister of our church is hostile to the orthodox position of Good Samaritan as well - and it is likely that any Bishop Katherine Schori appoints to head the Diocese of Pennsylvania will also be hostile to tradition, orthodoxy, and Episcopal Church history. The church is the people - not the principalities of power in the Episcopate. The people are speaking.

Picture I took Saturday in Upper Merion on Montgomery Dr.

Silver linings for conservatives.

I voted Tuesday with the same absence of enthusiasm I have for the past 20 years. Although most of my choices lost there are some really nice silver linings. Here they are:

This new Congress will be be mired in gridlock and as a conservative who believes government should not do much to interfere (particularly when it's agenda is to remake man in the image of social planners) with nature, I'm happy.

AIPAC's war in Iraq will have to end. Democrats are as wrong on this war as Republicans. They support it - and never should have. Both parties are beholden to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. It is a very wealthy political/religious organization and dangerous to oppose. But neither side can deny that unhappiness with the war - not the "way it is being fought" but the war itself - is behind much of the outcome from Nov 7.

This will be the most conservative set of Democrats in my lifetime. I like the thought of conservative Democrats. The radicals in that party - racists, ideologues, homosexual crusaders, anti-Christian censors, war-mongers will be checked - not only by a Republican president but by conservatives within their own party.

Prop 103 won in Arizona - making English the official language - by 74% to 26% - yeahhh!

Critics Say Bishop Hid Brother's Sexual Abuse

"Critics Say Bishop Hid Brother's Sexual Abuse," The Philadelphia Inquirer, October 29, 2006.

This was a very prominent article about Philadelphia Episcopal bishop Charles Bennison. Most articles about Christians involved in any form of sexual abuse are given more prominence than they deserve; still you cannot get much more prominant than front page of the Sunday edition.

Sadly, the Philadelphia Inquirer allowed itself to be used in a cynical political struggle among competing groups of liberals within the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania.

The purpose of this article was political. Even the Inquirer acknowledges this with this sentence "Saying they are frustrated with his financial practices and imperious management style, some clergy and lay leaders are seeking to oust the 62-year-old bishop with evidence that he concealed his brother's sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl more than 30 years ago." Translation - Bishop Bennison is accused of not reporting a sexual relationship with a minor that happened 30 years ago in which he was not involved. His accusers are people who have known this - but didn't report it for 30 years - until now - because now it is politically expedient to do so.

Someone explain to me why I should take sides in this.

Those who supported Bennison when he was defrocking traditionalist priests (Fr. David Moyer of Church of The Good Shepard in Rosemont for example) and closing traditionalist parishes are seeking traditionalist allies to save the large financial endowments an Episcopate without a flock needs to continue its liberal social agenda.

Bishop Bennison has been in power for over ten years. The abuse occurred over 30 years ago. To those who now who now accuse him; where have you been? Is this really about children - or your own political desires?

There are still a few of us traditionalists left. We don't have a dog in this show, and I see no reason to be bamboozled into picking up a torch and pitchfork in a battle between parties who have nothing but contempt for us.

Maybe it's time liberals did show some concern for children and families like they once did. Maybe then we'll grow. But this isn't the time - and these aren't the people. Inquirer - please let us know when you find someone in this argument who really cares for the children.

Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori Interviewed on NBC's Today Show

Jefferts Schori Interviewed on NBC's Today Showhttp://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=41AE4F85-49B9-49E3-8ADE-373899D9CCF9&f=00&fg=copy

Does anyone really believe that if the new Episcopal Bishop were a heterosexual man intent on preserving the traditions of our faith that MSNBC would have the least interest in interviewing him?

This MCNBC interview was a love fest between host Meredith Vieira and Katherine Jefferts Schori. Schori was also named Glamour Magazine's "Woman of the Year." It's easy to see why the bright lights of media stardom are seductive. But when has the gospel of Christ ever been popular among the powerful?

So a dying church busy kicking out traditionalists in the name of tolerance seeks salvation in the love of the media - hasn't it always been thus?

Why is a woman as smart as she not able to see that when a media that is racist, profane, pornographic, pro-war, and militantly secular loves her - something is wrong ?

I'm reminded of the last line of the wonderful movie "Devil's Advocate" in which Al Pacino plays the Devil.

"Vanity. Definitely my favorite sin."

Victoria Blair stars in Our Miss Brooks

Victoria Blair in Our Miss Brooks
Congratulations Victoria for a successful opening with the Spring-Ford Community Theater in their production of Our Miss Brooks.

Victoria plays a leading role as Sylvia. The show runs 3 performances November 2, 3, and 4.

Performances are at 7:30 PM at the 8th Grade Center, 700 Washington St., Royersford, PA.
Break a leg Vic!

October is my favorite month

Except for leaf raking :-)

Here, Jenny & Victoria help me out.

Thanks kids.