I found this quote from the Pontificator hilarious because it's so true:

But it’s so much easier just to buy new books rather than to read the ones one has already bought.

My bookshelf agrees, since half the books on it have never been cracked. In fact, two hardcovers have gotten their first duty serving as a prop for my desk chair until spare parts arrive.

Taken to its logical conclusion, the above principle means that I would buy new books and never read them since they're already bought, amassing a vast collection of unused books that would one day be donated to a library where they would collect dust and also likely never be read. Conclusion - buying books is a futile effort. =)

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Of term papers, that is. I only just finished the 10 page exegesis report on time, finishing my first draft around 5pm yesterday, leaving me just enough time to do an edit and turn in the final copy at 6pm, hot off the presses, as it were. The first draft wasn't really the "first" first draft, since my ordinary paper writing method is to start writing, consider the current work a piece of junk, and start over again. In this way, there are at least 2 or 3 aborted drafts that never got beyond 2 pages, with only one draft ever reaching the full length, although occasionally I return to the rump drafts to incorporate the better parts of them.

Today, I am in the unenviable position of having to write 15 pages in a book review, due tomorrow just after 2:00. Naturally, not a word was written until 2 hours ago. As of now, I have just over 4 pages written, good progress for only 2 hours time, and probably only an hour of really "working." Unlike the research and position papers, this one is easier, since I only have to summarize the author's work, and then do a little evaluation and criticism of it. A 200-page book is surprisingly easy to re-read once you've been through it once.

I might post more later if I finish this at a reasonable hour.

UPDATE (3:30 AM Thursday): Well, that was leisurely enough. Despite the fact that I took a roughly 6 hour hiatus from the paper for dinner, Mass - it figures that of all days, I would find myself on the server schedule the day before a big assignment - and a bit of just plain goofing off and kicking back, I'm going to bed having just gotten to page 13. Tomorrow morning, I'll be up early to run off a draft copy, edit it, write up my reaction to the book to fill in the last 2 to 4 pages (depending on edits), and turn it in. Regardless of whether the professor likes the form or not, I think I cited the book well enough to demonstrate I have, indeed, read it. This was a good speed, I wrote roughly 2 pages per hour.

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It's the first week of Advent, and I got an early Christmas gift from one of the carnival entrants who said I sounded like a superhero. Although I'm hardly that, it made me blush a very Christmasy red.

The Bearing Blog leads off with a well-timed reflection for the reason, Helping the Stranger, recounting the story of how a woman approached her for help and she turned her down. It asks the reader: "Should I have helped her?"

La Nouvelle Theologie has a great interview of two leading Catholic literary figures, Greg and Suzanne Wolfe, the editors of Image, in Image Magazine. If you are not familiar with Image or the various books and articles of both Greg and Suzanne, refer to this post and the links provided there.

The Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit had three options...in Third Option, Second Person, from CowPi Journal.

Cradle or Convert? Emergentpdx asks questions about this distinction I see people making in the Catholic Church between those born into the church and those adopted later in life.

North Western Winds looks at how how the Narnia movie promotions might prompt Evangelicals to read the apologetics of a high Anglican who was both clear and easy to read and quite close to Rome on a number of matters in Thin Places. This represents an opportunity to speak to them about the historical, sacramental faith. Lewis also represents a few challenges for Catholics.

HMS Blog is Watching With Christ, a reflection on the readings for the first Sunday of Advent, focusing on how preparing for Christmas also prepares us for Christ’s second coming.

Advent is a time to unclutter - clean up and make room for Jesus! No better time than The First Sunday of Advent, says Fructus Ventris.

The Troglodyte brings us Confirmation in the Cross. Taking a page from JPG's life, recently expelled high school sophomore Katelyn Sills knows she's on the right path.

With the beginning of Advent comes a time to reflect on the meaning of Advent, and how we approach this season. In this time of joyful anticipation, is it necessary for our preparatory attitude also to be somber and sorrowful? Or is it possible to stay grounded in a penitential liturgical season of preparation while parties and music surround us? Confessions of a Hot Carmel Sundae explains in Tupperware and Tinsel.

Listen up soldier! A Penitent Blogger gives us a reflection on the preparations of Advent as a soldier of Christ.

In Repost: Discovering a Season, Ales Rarus tells how he discovered the true meaning of Advent.

Thomist or Augustinian? Kicking Over My Traces on how a recent book explores how an ancient Greek philosopher's challenge to the Catholic Church resulted in the growth of science & technology.

Living Catholicism points out why we wear patron saint medals in Why Do We Wear Patron Saint Medals?

Is the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe a Christian Movie? Deo Omnis Gloria points out the obvious Christian sensibility of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Our Word and Welcome to It says we're all role models whether we like it or not, and sometimes our impact goes beyond our message: it's the way we say it, as often as what it is we say, that tells everyone who we really are, in Marketed Heroes.

Lastly, I offer up my own reflection on the past year, in New Year Begins. It's a tad cryptic, but hopefully enjoyable read. For those who want something more geeky, I invite you to peruse the recent posts on my Sirach exegesis, particularly Chiasms, Cool! which looks at the poetry of Sirach 2:1-6.

And in a last little bit of shameless self-promotion, I'm quite behind, having just hopped on this little Frappr map thing...feel free to put a pin in the map.

NOTE - If you have not been trackbacked, please send me the link so I can get it up.

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After switching between lots of options, I've settled on my Advent style for this year. There will be a small wreath in the link bar, along with the purple themed backgrounds. Enjoy!

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So begins a new Liturgical Year (B-2 for those who keep track of such things), and it began with the odd situation, at the vigil Mass for the first Sunday of Advent, of me sitting in front of a marble column the entire Mass. You might wonder why the people who renovated the church put seating in places where it would be impossible to see anything, but perhaps these were mercy seats for those who couldn't bear to watch. However, other than the always annoying "sisters and brothers" (as grating to the ear as when one hears "gentlemen and ladies"), and a pair of hymns not in keeping with the Advent season (note to the music guys - it's a penitential season), this wasn't one of those times.

Readers with a long memory might recall that in last year's post on the new liturgical year, I made the following remark:

The previous four liturgical years have all had their own themes to them, roughly breaking down like this:

Hopefully the upswing begun in 2003 will continue. The road is never easy, but looks much better than it did at times in 2001 and 2002.

I now get to name 2005's theme. If I were to base it purely on what dominated in terms of the number of days, this would have been the Year of drift, possibly the Year of waste...not exactly an upswing, and in many respects, it was another downturn in the making. It suffices to say that I came to experience Psalm 32's idea of wasting away quite literally at times. To an extent, the above table is something of a misnomer, as it refers only to my perception of the time; in reality, all of those years are pretty dark nights of the soul, as indeed had been the case extending back at least to late 1998, more probably to late 1995 (self-reflection of late has been returning things long-forgotten to memory).

However, a year is based on what sticks out. October 29, 2005, is the date that defines the year. I could say that 2005 is the Year of freedom, since that is what strikes me in the month that has passed since then. But, it's premature to go that far, as declaration of premature victory has been my downfall before.

So, I will call it the Year of resurrection, as a sort of Lazarus effect hit with the heart...and as I've since found out, corpses of that sort stink to high heaven (you may call it irony that this epiphany hit while showering). Conscience has shared in this, and is enjoying the revival of its power by poking and prodding in the right direction, helped by a secret pact it seems to have made with the heart to gang up on me. Never cross those two, they are unrelenting ever after if you give them half a chance to get back in the fight. (P.S. - thanks guys, I really do appreciate and deserve it!)

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Somewhere, there is a stated rule that a student will never get as much work done over break as they plan on getting done. This year turns out to be no different:

The Plan:

- Finish 4 short essays on Veritatis Splendor
- Read 230 pages of Sources of Revelation
- Finish 10 page Exegesis Research Paper
- Type 15 page book review

The Results:

- Finished the 4 short essays on Veritatis Splendor
- Read 159 pages of Sources of Revelation (good Lord, de Lubac, why must the text have a thousand footnotes?!)
- Wrote 4 pages of Exegesis Paper (as of now)
- Nada on the book review

It's particularly depressing the exegesis didn't get finished, although that in part stems from poorer research skills on my part than anticipated. I still have tonight, and my goal will is to be finished by tomorrow evening, which will leave enough time for the 15 page review.

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I was out earlier this afternoon for the first round of Christmas shopping. This was more about searching for possible items to put on my list, since I went in having only three specific things on the list, two of which were practical items that need to be replaced, a winter jacket and sneakers. I'm hoping Wal-mart's going to have something similar to my current coat, as close to the $20 it cost last time. I ended up finding a small collection of items, including Anne Rice's new book, Christ the Lord, a 13th century musical work that seemed intriguing, and a couple older movies to put on the list.

Meanwhile, a definite plug has to go out to Finish Line, about the only major retailer that was running an ad campaign using Christmas (you can see it on their web site as well). "All I want for Christmas..." is the header, and on other posters in the store and on the bag, they finish with "Peace, Joy, Happiness, Hope, and Love." I hadn't planned to shop there, but those ads drew me in and Finish Line got a modest sale out of it. It doesn't hurt for retailers to acknowledge Christmas in their ads - after all, that's what generates their big sales, and it usually doesn't pay to bite the hand that feeds.

Littman Jewelers earns the Scrooge award of the day for not only saying they wouldn't do repairs on my rosary, they also couldn't refer me to anyone else in the mall who could. The local jeweler repaired it later today in exchange for some prayers, an arrangement I find works out quite well for both of us. Suggestion to the big chain jewelers - do you honestly think I'm going to shop in your stores for something expensive if you keep turning me away when I show up with a simple 1-minute or less repair while the little guys cheerily do the job at no cost?

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Returning to Sirach, my favorite text of the moment, I noticed tonight a chiasm within a chiasm that I'd missed previously. The Anchor Bible's English preserves the effect; the larger chiasm is also intact in the RSV, though it mars the effect by inverting the word order of the smaller one in verse 5.

2:1a My son, if you come forward to serve the Lord,
b prepare yourself for temptation.
2a Set your heart right and be steadfast,
b and do not be hasty in time of calamity.
3a Cleave to him and do not depart,
b that you may be honored at the end of your life.
4a Accept whatever is brought upon you,
b and in changes that humble you be patient.
5a For in the fire gold is tested,*
b and acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation.
6a Trust in him, and he will help you;
b make your ways straight, and hope in him.

This is the RSV text, and I've taken the liberty of switching the words in verse 5a to make this work (N.B. the Greek text has fire before gold, so I think this is an acceptable move). Chiasms are comparisons that take the form a:b::b':a'. So, the smaller comparison being made is Fire:Gold::Acceptable Men:Furnace of Humiliation. The larger one is Temptation:Calamity::Changes that Humble You:Furnace of Humiliation.

In the context, the fire here is a fire that tests, and a fitting comparison to a furnace of humiliation. (Isaiah 31:9 interestingly notes that the Lord has a furnace in Jerusalem...) The comparison of gold to acceptable men is likewise appropriate, given the high value placed on the former by men, and on the latter by God.

Temptation, according to the notes, means testing in the Greek, so the bigger chiasm is really just emphasizing the comparison of the smaller one again, between temptation and the furnace. Calamity, again working from the notes, literally means "that which is brought upon" man by God. So here, a comparison is made between that which God brings upon man and changes that humble. There's an understatement if ever.

Good poetry even in translation twice removed from the original. Hopefully one of these days, they'll discover the original Hebrew.

*Original text is "for gold is tested in the fire"

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I'm back home, having beat the snowstorm that's supposed to clobber my neck of the woods for the next few days. This little homecoming lasts until Sunday, when it's back off to the university to face the two weeks that determine how the whole semester turns out.

May it be a blessed Thanksgiving for all. I sure have a lot to be thankful for this time around.

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Heading into the Thanksgiving week break, the following to-do list remains:

- 3 Essays on Veritatis Splendor (~5 pages) DUE 11/28
- Exegesis Paper (6 more pages) DUE 11/29
- Sources of Revelation book review (15 pages) DUE 12/1
- Position Paper (7 pages) DUE 12/8
- The Church and the World book review (10 pages) DUE 12/8
- Approximately 500 pages of reading for the book reviews and the position paper

I'm hopelessly off the plan I wrote up to avoid disaster 2 weeks ago, but I think I left considerable leeway in it. The mere fact that I plan on having the exegesis done before I leave is great, considering the time it's taken. The current plan is to finish the exegesis by tomorrow night, knock off the longer book review by the end of the Thanksgiving break, find some way to sneak in those short essays at a convenient time, and then try heading off the other book review next weekend, with the position paper last.

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At this point, I have been up nearly 24 hours. A late night group conversation just ended lasted 9 hours. Although the topics aren't necessarily important, I saw a mirror image of myself in the not too distant past in terms of thoughts and ideas of faith in someone else, ideas which God has more or less been suggesting are off the mark as they are quite critical and dismissive of so much of the Church's recent history that is actually quite orthodox.

Having seen the reflection, I dislike the image. Time to go pray for discernment and dive into the riches of the Church's patrimony...after my papers are done!

UPDATE (11/20): This is why prayer is a good thing. The person aforementioned was just by late tonight to say that they believed there was a point to what we were saying, that there is value in reading modern theological works. That was a very quick response to my intentions offered up today that God might help them see that. I didn't need 9 hours of argument, I only needed a few minutes of prayer.

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Though not really related to my text, I was thumbing through Sirach's commentary on the history of the Jewish people (44:1-50:24), and some really interesting things are said in chapter 49. I'll use the Anchor Bible's rendering, since I like its style somewhat better than the RSV's translation:

Except David, Hezekiah, and Josiah, they were all wicked; they abandoned the Law of the Most High, these kings of Judah, right to the very end. (49:4)

Few on earth have been such as Enoch; he too was taken up within. Was another like Joseph ever born? Even his dead body was provided for. Glorious, too, were Shem and Seth and Enosh; but beyond that of any living being was the splendor of Adam. (49:14-16)

A somewhat harsher view of the kings of Judah than the earlier historical books, while an interesting comment on Adam that otherwise isn't found except in the New Testament.

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From the "I'm Glad I Didn't Put This Off Until the Night Before" files comes today's roughly 5 hour research on my exegesis paper. Last night's research had gone relatively smoothly, since I was using a concordance restritcted to the RSV's apocrypha, which is much smaller than one for the entire Bible. The compilers did an excellent job on that concordance, folding all tenses of a verb into one entry and, most importantly, making separate entries where a different sense of a word was used (hence words that could be both nouns and verbs had separate entries for the noun and verb sense, and where a verb could have many senses, such as "come", each sense had its own entry).

The experience with the RSV concordance for the Biblical text was anything but pleasant. For one, these compilers made the decision to simply group all occurrences of the same arrangement of letters. Hence, when I needed to look up "brought," I had to check the entries for both "bring" and "brought" to find all such occurrences. Looking up "changes," a noun in the passage, required sorting through all instances where the word was used as a verb.

What really irked, however, was the fact that the compilers chose to abbreviate the word that I was searching for in an entry by just using its first letter with a period. So instead of seeing "set your heart right," I saw "set your h. right" and so forth. My mind just isn't capable of making that automatic substitution while scanning the page, so I spent on the order of 4 to 5 hours searching for only about 3 dozen words in the concordance, several of which had very sparse entries.

On the bright side, depending on how alert my reading was, I was able to blow through a few thousand entries and finished the concordance phase. The next phase is simply to copy/paste in the couple hundred verses I culled off the research and see what fits (there are a smaller number of verses starred for being terribly important). After that, I just need to read about 4 articles and books, and it will be off to the races. I feel the prospects of my getting this paper done by Sunday (the date on my schedule) are very good.

N.B. - Oddly enough, "trust" is very little used in the Bible, as is "humiliation." "Heart" and "gold" on the other hand, are there in abundance.

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Blogging for roughly the next month is going to depend on how well I stick to my plan to deal with the massive onslaught of work that is positioned at the end of the semester, which is something I didn't plan for in advance well enough, but which I believe is still manageable at this point.

As of my original inventory last week, I had 872 pages to read from the various readings, 42 pages of papers to write, and a series of 4 short essays to write on Veritatis Splendor.

As of today, roughly 575 pages of that reading remains, 42 pages worth of paper writing, and 3 of those essays have yet to be written, though 1 is in a rough draft.

This week's primary goal is to knock off the 10 page exegesis research paper, which is being done on Sirach 2:1-6. As the instructor commented several months ago, my choice of passage permits me the chance of breaking new ground, since the book itself has had comparatively little research done on it. A Biblical database turned up only 9 entries in resources going back decades on the chapter, and the library has precious few books dealing with Sirach explicitly. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, highly recommended by the professor, treats the entire 51-chapter book in a scant 20 pages.

Part of the problem appears to be the book's form (poetry in the style of Proverbs) and the lack of a complete Hebrew copy of the book (just over 2/3 has been recovered, according to most commentaries of 20+ years ago). My passage is in the third that has not been recovered, though curiously, the Anchor Bible's authors are pretty certain they know the first Hebrew word in 2:1. Compounding the problem, the Greek manuscripts have a transposition of verse order (Old Latin does not) and verse numberings are crazy. Chapter 1 of the current Latin Vulgate has 40 verses - RSV has 29, and only gets there by leaving verse gaps (there is no 1:21, though they supply it in a footnote), for example.

To a certain extent, this lack of research material is helpful, since there's not as many opinions out there to cause confusion. It also means I can't rely on them to provide me with a vast array of ideas, forcing a look at the text itself. The text is rich in material, since virtually every theme evoked in Sirach 2:1-6 is repeated elsewhere in the book - the words "son" and "heart" occur repeatedly. Oddly enough, "humiliation" is the only word in the passage I checked on that is not repeated, according to the RSV concordance. That shouldn't be a problem though, Sirach itself has at least 15 passages which shed light on 2:1-6, besides dozens more that might be usable.

Tomorrow is going to involve the heavy work - searching for parallels in the balance of the Biblical text. The most important text aside from Sirach is Proverbs (on which Sirach relies heavily, and also the source of verse 5, key to the passage), followed by the rest of the Wisdom literature, the Psalter, the rest of the Old Testament, the letter of James (which draws considerably from Sirach), and then the rest of the New Testament (Revelation, Romans, and 1 Peter may have connections). There's a huge potential, because the author had pretty much the whole OT to work with in final form (the Septuagint was in circulation by then), and quoted from the vast majority of its books.

The Anchor Bible is probably going to prove to be the decisive resource on this topic. It was written by Alexander Di Lella, who incidentally seems to have the only article ever written specifically on Sirach chapter 2, and Patrick Skehan, both of CUA, in the 1980s. It seems pretty solid, all things considered.

Incidentally, this book shed some light on the issue of the OT canon. It draws on scholarship that shows that there was no such thing as an Alexandrian or a Palestinian canon at the time of Christ, there was simply a collection of sacred writings. The Septuagint had the advantage in the early Church of being an organized collection written in Greek, to which there really wasn't any counterpart. The first official canon of any sort was drawn up around 90 AD by Jewish scholars, followed by the Christians circa 4th century AD. The author notes that Sirach is rather unique among the deuterocanon in that it was held in high regard by Jewish scholars despite being excluded from the canon - over 80 times the text is cited favorably by the Talmud, occasionally with the phrase "it is written," something normally reserved solely for canonical books. Recovered Hebrew manuscripts have been found that write the text in a way also normally reserved only for canonical books.

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Somehow, it was fitting that yesterday was also the feast day of St. Martin of Tours, a Bishop and monk who had a prior career as a soldier in the Roman army.

The entire week, the campus's main sidewalks have been lined with hundreds, if not thousands, of little American flags, as part of the College Republicans' Support the Troops Week. They withstood the vicious winds of the week pretty well (tornado watches were issued not far to our east), but fortunately had no vicious twits to deal with, as the display was left in peace all week.

I'll post some images tomorrow.

P.S. - The reason for the lack of the College Democrats is simply that we don't have them here, nor would they find much welcome given the prevailing atmosphere of the university, as John Kerry found out last year.

EDIT (11/14) - I forgot to mention we also had an Adopt a Soldier drive ongoing, in which students were asked to adopt a fallen soldier to pray for, as this is traditionally the month in which the departed are remembered. The number of fallen soldiers has also been posted in the main hall, which I imagine will be staying for the forseeable future.

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Reading the elections returns from the Ohio Secretary of State, it appears George Soros has mercifully gone 0 for 4 in trying to rig Ohio elections. At the moment, none of Propositions 2 through 5 is polling even 40% support, making it unlikely that any of them will pass.

Current Results:

Prop 2 - 35.7% Yes, 64.3% No
Prop 3 - 32.0% Yes, 68.0% No
Prop 4 - 29.0% Yes, 71.0% No
Prop 5 - 28.9% Yes, 71.1% No

As of 11:00 PM, EST

It's worth pointing out that, for all of Soros' money, the only commercials I have seen on television here in Jefferson County have been from the NO campaign.

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I'm not typically prone to illness, so maybe today's just a bad day, but I've had the weirdest sort of symptoms that don't seem to match up with any sort of cold or flu. If they persist beyond today, I'm going to get them checked out, since I was definitely freaked at one point. Hopefully it's just a case of yesterday's food not agreeing too well with me or something.

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Two anecdotes from Ecclesiology, including one about Pope Benedict XVI, from the lecture tape:

When Cardinal Ratzinger was Cardinal Ratzinger, he visited the seminary, the von Balthasar house, Casa Balthasar, in Rome. An English seminarian was taking a class in the Greg, run by the Jesuits. In that class the seminarian was talking about some sort of new theories of the Eucharist; this professor was proposing "trans-socialization." He said everyone was really enjoying this class and they were so taken by it, they couldn't wait to get to the class.

Anyway, a group of us have been going around saying to one another, "And vhat is his name?"

(Father has a very good Ratzinger impression.)

Regarding a visit to the Dominican House of Studies some years ago:

I was in Washington visiting the Dominican House of Studies, and there was a big funeral that took place in our chapel, which is rare because we're not a public church, we're a private chapel. But there was a young man who had been very deeply involved in PACs, in various Republican ones which were anti-abortion and pro-life and this that and the other. But evidently, he also delved into the gay lifestyle. He had AIDS. He went to Medjugorje, had a rather dramatic conversion, the family prayed around his bedside, the Dominican priests came to say Mass at his bedside, and when he died, his funeral was filled with all sorts of people from the Reagan government. But his brother stood up after the communion and gave a witness about how grateful they were for this man's conversion. He turned his back on what he had done, he was sorry, he died in the good graces of the Church, and died a very edifying death.

Two funerals, on either side of the street, and one which was very much under the influence, if you will, of the truth, and the other that was built on lies. Had the moral professor steered this young professor in the right direction, he possibly might never have died.

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Tomorrow marks a week since I was struck by this experience. During the week, the feast of All Souls occurred, which took on special meaning as a result, even more so since it occurred on the third day following the subsequent revelation on Monday, and that was also the day I made the needed confession. The readings for the week have consistently brought up personally relevant readings - Psalm 51 in particular has shown up twice. This has also been the first week all term where I have not had any difficulty staying fully alert in class...despite not really having a much different sleeping pattern.

Today, I'll be starting a Marian devotion given as penance, as it's a recommended day to begin...oddly enough, it will begin on a First Saturday and conclude on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, both Marian celebrations in themselves.

After the sort of week it's been, it's almost too absurd to think that the way these days have arranged themselves is coincidental.

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Pre-emptive congratulations to Br. Seraphim Beshoner, TOR, of Friary Notes, who will be ordained a priest tomorrow.

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The weekly Catholic Carnival is up. My contribution to it is this little post on what happened at a retreat.

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It figures that of the local area congressmen, the Democratic house members (Higgins and Slaughter) would vote against the Online Freedom of Speech Act while the Republican (Reynolds) would vote for it, fitting the larger pattern of Republican support and Democratic opposition. Do I sense a bit of sour grapes from the left side of the aisle over the blogosphere's influence on last year's election and subsequent activity against their obfuscation?

Anyway, props to the Republicans for standing up for free speech. Democrats, thanks for showing that your commitment to free speech does not extend beyond your own interests.

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Bishop Kmiec turned up on Catholic World News's news briefs today. In the linked article by WGRZ, he stumbles a bit with the denial of communion to politicians supporting abortion. The relevant citation:

Bishop Kmiec openly expressed his disappointment last January when Canisius College invited pro-choice politician Sen. Hillary Clinton to speak on campus. Catholic Charities eventually withdrew sponsorship of the event.

He has also been asked about whether he believes pro-choice politicians should receive communion. he said the feeling among the Church is that it's going to be left to the judgement of the local Bishop. But he did say he doesn't care to make the communion station a place "where we try to read people's consciences." He said he'd rather talk about conversion and persuasion of those politicians and others who share those views.

Disappointment is a useful first step, and so is talking about conversion and persuasion of the wayward politicians, but that whole conscience bit is really off. The Bishop doesn't need to read their conscience in order to deny them - if these people were supporting policies that permitted the killing of Muslims, instead of the unborn, they'd be denied faster than it took many nuns to throw off their habits, regardless of what the state of their conscience happened to be. Also of note is the fact that, only 40 years ago, these politicians couldn't be absolved, let alone admit them to communion.

At this point, one imagines we'd get further on the whole abortion issue if the Muslims suddenly decided to declare that every unborn was a Muslim and that killing them was an insult to their religion. Weak-kneed liberals throughout the West might actually give in to this, as sensitive as they've been to Muslims the last 4 years.

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