Every Reich Has its Heidegger. Planned Parenthood's personal nazi is named Ignacio Castuera, a Methodist minister.

I understand his favorite holiday is the Feast of the Holy Innocents and he prays three times a day to Herod.

Jack Chick, up close and personal.

What's going to happen when he gets to heaven and discovers all the Catholics there?

Merrow Commission. -- According to the WaTi, Peter Lee named the members of the Virginia Reconciliation Commission. Heading it will be Rev. Andrew Merrow, rector of St. Mary?s Episcopal Church in Arlington. So is he a flaming revisionist, a faithful follower, or a fatuous moderate?

Funny you should use that last adjective... It seems that Rev. Merrow believes that obese people, those who are biologically predisposed to being overweight, are prima facie sinners. That's right, if you have the "fat gene" you are automatically a sinner and should be cast out.

Well, I don't know for sure that he said that, I can only glean that using all the tools of modern biblical criticism and applying them to this article in Episcopal Life. You see, his article is not available on-line at EpiLife [too embarassing?]

I guess that means if there is a "gay gene" and you have it, biology is no excuse in Rev. Merrow's eyes?

All kidding aside, I don't know anything about Rev. Merrow -- he's probably a fine man. I'd probably agree with his article, if I could read it. I'm sure it's hedged with all kinds of qualifying language and isn't just some black and white piece. Nuanced and thoughtful, like the so-called "fundies" are when it comes to sexuality issues in the Church.

The good news regarding Merrow is that he has done missionary work in Sudan. That's a huge plus in my book. I haven't found many revisionists interested in missons work, period.

In short, pray for the commission and it's members:
Rev. Charles Alley [AAC] of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Richmond; Jo Belser [Integrity], a member of Grace Episcopal Church in Alexandria; Stephen Bevis, who works in public relations in the District, also of St. Mary?s Arlington; Hugo Blankingship [Apostles, AAC], a Fairfax lawyer; Don Boileau, a professor at George Mason University who is a member of Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Burke; the Rev. Margaret Faeth of Immanuel-on-the-Hill Episcopal Church in Alexandria; the Rev. Jeffrey Fishwick [AAC] of Christ Episcopal Church in Charlottesville; Donita Greene, a public school teacher who attends Meade Memorial Episcopal Church in Alexandria; Rev. David Harper of Church of the Apostles [AAC]; James Hartz, a former NBC-TV anchor who attends Christ Church in Alexandria; Paul Julienne, the senior warden of Truro Episcopal Church [AAC] in Fairfax and a research physicist for the U.S. government; the Rev. Paul Miller, rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Goochland; and Trevor Potter ["Republican attorney and gay Episcopalian"], a member of Grace Episcopal Church in The Plains and a lawyer working in the District.

[Hmmm, why no one from the Q-Z end of the alphabet?]

95-87. After my lamentation last week that they don't make 'em like they used to, Maryland proves me wrong with a 15-3 run beginning at the 3:14 point, when Nik Caner-Medley made a 2 pointer. Prior to that, Duke was up by 12, 74-62, and Maryland had no timeouts left.

The worst part, in my opinion, was in the midst of this comeback, at about the 45 sec point, when Jamar Smith missed an uncontested layup. He got his own rebound, but was fouled, sending him to the line, where he missed his first foul shot and they showed his average from the charity stripe was 42.9%. Thankfully, he sank the next one to make it 71-74. Mike Jones hit a 3 pointer with 34 seconds left and pulled down the final rebound and the game went into overtime.

In OT, Smith missed his first three free-throws, which led to Duke's main strategy: foul Jamar. However, he made up for his previous performance sinking the next four in a row.

Without a doubt, however, the star of the game was John Gilchrist.

What a great come-back.

Almost as good as another 12 point comeback (over Bill Walton's UCLA squad, with an 88 game win streak on the line).

The Pope was right. Over the past decade, as I've discussed issues with "conservative" Protestants of all denominations, one somewhat surprising theme I've noted is an expression that maybe, just maybe, the Catholic Church has been correct all along on the issue of birth control.

Today, in the Wall Street Journal, another, more public condemnation of birth control, from Donald Sensing, Methodist minister.

Here, if you haven't read it, was the original papal encylical, "Humanae Vitae." Here is an essay by Cardinal Karol Wojtyla on Humanae Vitae.

See also, this symposium published by First Things magazine.

Holy Obedience, Holy Defiance. God Bless you, Saints of Ohio, from these congregations: Church of the Holy Spirit, Akron; St. Anne’s in the Field, Madison; St. Stephen’s, East Liverpool; St. Barnabas, Bay Village; St. Luke’s, Akron; and Hudson Anglican Fellowship, Hudson.

On Sunday, members of these congregations assembled together at Presentation of Our Lord Orthodox Church to celebrate confirmation. They did this without the consent or approval of the local apostate bishop, yet did so under the authority of six bishops from other jurisdictions. Six faithful bishops.

E-mail from Spain. This was forwarded to me from my Dad. The author was one of my father's closest friends in high school (Dad was Charlie's best man):

Dear Friends,

We are all fine, but the horror is there and the anger. We live about four blocks from the Atocha train station. It is an important Victorian landmark and it seems the terrorists wanted the bombs to explode inside the station to destroy it and kill more people. The terriorists want to destroy democracy, and no it won't happen. We were on Long Island on 9/11 and the feeling here is similar. The 1,500 wounded and 200+ dead in such a small country is like our New York tragedy in terms of its impact.

Last night we were among the two million people who met on the Castellana, our main avenue There were about 14million in the other cities all together. It meant a number of things. First, It was an expression of unity with the families of the dead and wounded; it exhibited overwhelming support for democracy and the government's fight against terrorism. There is a profound sense of anger that one can feel and a determination to be done with these evil people who take innocent lives. Europe is awakening to the fact that the cold war is being followed by the terrorist war, which makes us all vulnerable.
The speed with which the government responded is incredible. People living nearby ran toward the trains with blankets and bottles of water and frankly anything else they could think of to be helpful. They consoled the wounded lying along the tracks and aided the police and firemen in pulling people out of the cars. A near by building became a medical station until the ambulances could transfer people to the hospitals which soon were filled with the injured and shortly after by the families who were searching their for loved ones. A morgue was set up at a convention center and by last night most of the dead had been identified and there had been a religious service for all of them together.

The killers had attacked a train filled with blue coller workers, some of them immigrants without papers, and students. The government announced all the immediate members of the illegal families who were living in this country would be given citizenship and the benefits that the government would give to all the families. The Spanish airline, Iberia, offered free tickets to bring the families from other countries.There were 24 foreigners from twelve other nations were among the the dead and injured. Hotels offered free rooms to the families from out of town who needed to be in Madrid. All the dead and wounded on these four commuter train,naturaly lived outside the city.

Only two days have passed and we just wanted to give you a feel for what was happening.

love, Carla and Charlie

More See also, these comments from Jesus Gil in Spain.