#Elizabeth Scalia

[apesoformythoughts]

Then Zechariah said to the angel, / “How shall I know this? / For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” / And the angel said to him in reply, / “I am Gabriel, who stand before God. / I was sent to speak to you and to announce to you this good news. / But now you will be speechless and unable to talk / until the day these things take place, / because you did not believe my words, / which will be fulfilled at their proper time.” (Luke 1:18-20)

A week ago we read a very similar story about the same angel, Gabriel, coming to Mary with very similar news of a pregnancy that was inexplicable by human reason. In response, Mary asked a similar question to Zechariah’s, “How can this be?” And Gabriel explained accordingly.

One lesson to take from that dialogue was that faith builds on reason, so it’s okay to ask questions of God.

And yet, here is Zechariah, asking what is essentially the same question Mary asked, and Gabriel does not explain. Rather, he tells Zechariah, “Listen up, I’m an Angel sent to you directly from the Throne of God” — one imagines his ethereal presence drawn up in angelic umbrage — “and now you’re going to be quiet for nine months.”

Two similar questions, two different answers. On a very primary level this is a fascinating lesson for all of us -- to not form expectations of God by comparing his action in our lives to his action in the lives of others. Rather, we should consider that in all cases, we are given the thing we most need, in light of our circumstances.

Mary was faithful, but also young, and the news Gabriel was bringing her was life-altering in a very dramatic and potentially threatening way. An unmarried women suddenly found to be with child? Her question deserved an answer that both explained and reassured, and Gabriel honored that.

Zechariah, on the other hand, was faithful but also older and more experienced; as a priest offering incense in the temple, he was presumably possessed of enough wisdom to accept that God can do all things, without bringing an earthly, human question into a heavenly visitation. And too, the news Gabriel brought him would not materially change, or threaten Zechariah’s life. His question, then, perhaps needed an answer that humbled him, and reminded him who it was he served. And Gabriel delivered it.

Who knows, perhaps Gabriel foresaw that Zechariah and Elizabeth’s pregnancy would invite all sorts of conversation amid the society of priests with whom they kept company, and these scholars would — as religious scholars are wont to do — engage in argument, supposition and speculation that would be wasteful, besides the point, and ultimately distracting to Zechariah, who needed (like Mary) to ponder all of these things.

Either way, Zechariah, again like Mary, got the answer he needed. When the child was born, Zechariah obediently confirmed to the world that he would be named JOHN, with no ifs or ands or buts about it, and then his power to speak was returned to him.

And that’s the last we hear of Zechariah, who perhaps had discovered that silence is the great conduit of God’s Word.

Lesson learned. We are free to ask what instinctive human reason asks. We just need to be ready to accept the answer we need — the answer will always, ultimately, be to our good — and to proceed from there, in faith.

Come, Lord Jesus! In this last week of Advent, help me to be less forward with the world, to withdraw and quiet down, that I might better hear what you are saying to me, and to the world, by your great coming. Make me open, that might be attentive, and attentive, that I might be further opened, and — like Zechariah — more easily be conformed to your ever-good Will. Amen.

— Elizabeth Scalia

[mariacallous]

On a Supreme Court where the conservative supermajority increasingly leans on history as a guide, a dispute may be simmering over how many modern cases can be resolved by looking to the nation’s past.

Though Justice Clarence Thomas’ decision in a major trademark case last week was unanimous, it prompted a sharp debate led by Justice Amy Coney Barrett over the use of history to decide the case.

Barrett, the newest conservative on the court, accused Thomas, the most senior associate justice, of a “laser-like focus on the history” that “misses the forest for the trees.”

The back-and-forth could signal a recalibration by some members of the court of how and when to apply originalism, the dominant legal doctrine among the court’s conservatives that demands the Constitution be interpreted based on its original meaning.

Even a slight change could have enormous consequences for the court’s blockbuster cases, including a pending case that is likely to focus heavily on history to decide whether Americans who are the subject of domestic violence restraining orders can be barred from owning guns.

“Barrett’s critique of originalism definitely signals what seems to be a growing rift among the originalists on the court about the proper way to use history,” said Tom Wolf, a constitutional law expert with the liberal-leaning Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s law school.

“There definitely is the potential formation here of an alternative or several alternative approaches to history that ultimately draw a majority,” Wolf said.

A lewd trademark gets historic treatment

When the Supreme Court last week rejected a lawyer’s bid to trademark the phrase “Trump Too Small,” all nine justices agreed on the outcome, but strong disagreements arose over the majority’s decision to invoke the nation’s “history and tradition” to rebuff the trademark.

Barrett, who endorsed the court’s conclusion that a provision of federal trademark law barring the registration of an individual’s name without that person’s consent is constitutional, wrote separately to express her displeasure with the reasoning of Thomas’ decision to rely on “history and tradition.”

That route, Barrett argued in a 15-page concurrence, “is wrong twice over.” The court’s three liberals signed on to parts of Barrett’s opinion.

Though Barrett acknowledged in her opinion that “tradition has a legitimate role to play in constitutional adjudication,” the Trump nominee said that “the court’s laser-like focus on the history of this single restriction misses the forest for the trees” and sought to poke holes in the history and tradition-first route taken by Thomas and the other conservative justices who agreed with his legal rationale.

The late Justice Antonin Scalia, a leading proponent of originalism on the Supreme Court, once described his approach to interpreting the Constitution as a “piece of cake.” But the debate playing out this term may be a recognition from some on the court that history is often messy and nuanced in a way that doesn’t always yield easy answers.

“What we could be seeing is a more nuanced approach to using that history,” said Elizabeth Wydra, president of the progressive Constitutional Accountability Center.

“It’s much more complicated than that – history is much more contested than that,” Wydra said. “And so to have this debate between two conservative justices, I think, brings a lot of light to the discussion.”

Several court watchers said it is far too early to read too much into the debate between Thomas and Barrett.

“It’s clear that Barrett thinks tradition is sometimes relevant – and that she may have some difference with Thomas about when and exactly how much,” said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University. “But there’s not really a clear theory here.”

The ‘limits’ of history

The court’s approach to history will be closely scrutinized in its blockbuster Second Amendment decision expected in the coming days. In US v. Rahimi, the justices must decide the fate of a federal law that bars people who are the subject of domestic violence retraining orders from owning guns.

While a majority of the justices indicated during arguments in November that they will uphold the law, the real challenge for the conservatives will be how to square that decision with a two-year-old precedent that held gun prohibitions must have historical ties to survive under the Second Amendment. In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, Thomas wrote that modern gun laws must be “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition.”

But there were no gun laws on the books at the nation’s founding that dealt explicitly with domestic violence. And so to uphold the federal law, the court will have to likely have to at least explain how that standard applies to modern laws.

When Thomas issued his majority decision in Bruen two years ago, Barrett joined Thomas’ opinion in full. But she also penned a brief concurrence to highlight the “limits on the permissible use of history” in deciding cases. Among them, she said, was identifying the historical date needed to assess whether a restriction was constitutional.

In the months and years following the court’s decision in Bruen, the “history and tradition” framework has led judges across the US to strike down various gun restrictions while also perplexing some jurists who have noted the obstacles that accompany the new rule.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, too, noted those issues in a concurrence she issued last week in the trademark case.

“The majority attempts to reassure litigants and the lower courts that a ‘history-focused approac[h]’ here is sensible and workable, by citing … Bruen,” she wrote. “To say that such reassurance is not comforting would be an understatement. One need only read a handful of lower court decisions applying Bruen to appreciate the confusion this Court has caused.”

The court’s other two liberals signed on to Sotomayor’s concurrence. Barrett did not.

History saves banking watchdog

Last month, another split emerged in a case involving the funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal banking watchdog created in response to the 2008 financial meltdown. The payday lending industry sued the agency, claiming that the way Congress set up its funding violated the Constitution’s appropriation clause.

Writing for a 7-2 majority, Thomas dived deeply into pre-colonial English history and found that parliament – even as it tightened its grip on the government’s purse – did not “micromanage every aspect of the king’s finances.”

The legislature, in other words, gave the king some latitude and that discretion for the executive continued in the early days of the United States. Based on that history, the court upheld the modern agency’s funding.

But in a striking concurrence that captured support from both liberal and conservative justices, Justice Elena Kagan asserted that the court’s historic analysis need not end with the late-18th century. Instead, Kagan wrote, the court could look at more modern times – a “continuing tradition” to decide the constitutionality of a government policy.

Barrett and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, both members of the court’s conservative wing, joined that analysis, along with Sotomayor – suggesting that there may be different ways of thinking about history and tradition even among the conservatives who have ushered in that approach to deciding cases.

“I see this basically as an evolving dialogue amongst all the justices on the court and some of it is certainly being informed by the aftermath of some really ill-informed and deeply damaging opinions from earlier terms,” said Wolf, pointing to Bruen and the court’s decision two years ago overturning Roe v. Wade.

“Certain justices clearly understood the substantive problems with those rulings and also the methods problems with relying on history as dispositive in those cases at the time the court was doing it,” he added.

Thomas looks to English courts in trademark fight

In the trademark dispute, Vidal v. Elster, Thomas’ legal reasoning for upholding the section of the Lanham Act at issue broke new ground: It was, Sotomayor wrote, the first time the court had taken the history and tradition approach to decide a free speech controversy.

Training his sights on the nation’s “long history” of maintaining restrictions on trademarking names, Thomas invoked a series of cases dating as far back as the 19th Century and from courts outside the US.

“We see no evidence that the common law afforded protection to a person seeking a trademark of another living person’s name. To the contrary, English courts recognized that selling a product under another person’s name could be actionable fraud,” he wrote. “This recognition carried over to our country.”

Thomas’ rationale was joined by Kavanaugh, Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch.

But Barrett, Kagan, Sotomayor and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson parted ways with those five justices.

Barrett’s concurrence said the dispute could have been dealt with based on the court’s past precedent with trademark law and stressed that just leaning on the nation’s trademark history wasn’t good enough.

“In my view, the historical record does not alone suffice to demonstrate the clause’s constitutionality,” she wrote.

She went on to argue that even though the five-justice majority said it wasn’t creating a new test in its opinion, “a rule rendering tradition dispositive is itself a judge-made test.”

[anamericangirl]

You are right.

Even the greatest monsters of history were innocent children full of potential once. Sometimes, when a person dies, you mourn who they were. Other times, you mourn who they should have been if they hadn't chosen to become someone we're all better off without. Just because someone has to go doesn't mean it doesn't diminish us all for them to die. The lesser of two evils is still evil.

And anyway, let's not kid ourselves: in most cases, we're not talking about cheering when a Hitler or a Bin Laden dies. Rejoicing because a politician or a talking head who said some things you didn't like is dead is just ghoulish, full stop.

Exactly. I don't rejoice in the death of anyone but some people can't seem to differentiate being glad a person has died and feeling relief that the evil is over.

They all want to pretend we're talking about Hitler, Bin Laden or Stalin and not the actual present people. Like the actual people who recently died and people are celebrating.

It's a problem on the left and the right. When Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Dianne Feinstein, even Queen Elizabeth, died the right was awful about it and the left was repugnant when Antonin Scalia died and I'm always seeing people talk about how much they want Kissinger to die so those are the people they're dancing on the graves on when they pretend they're morally superior and only celebrating the deaths of Hitler and Bin Laden.

It's perfectly possible to dislike a person and acknowledge the things they do are bad without wanting them dead and frankly you're no better than the person you hate when you celebrate death.

When you allow yourself to engage in the behavior of celebrating death with the justification of "well, they were bad" it's going to pervert your brain and you will let yourself celebrate the death of anyone you want for any bad thing you can find, which is what happened in the case of someone rejoicing in the death of Matthew Perry because he didn't like a joke he made.

[themovieblogonline]

“His Mother,” a 13 minute and 39 second short film that is Oscar eligible, stars Jennifer Lawrence look-alike Bethany Anne Lind as the mother of a young man who is threatening violence at his college, Southern Tech. Young Harrison Miller, age 19, 5’ 10”, has left a variety of clues that he is about to explode, saying things like “The end has come” and “None of you ever gave me a chance.” Maia Scalia wrote and directed this high tension race to save lives, She is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of Art and has worked on 2022’s “Call Jane” with Director Phyllis Nagy and star Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver in 2022, a film about the fight for abortion rights in pre-Roe days, which would be just as timely right about now.  Ms. Scalia’s choice of Bethany Anne Lind to play “His Mother” is fortunate, because she does a believable job as a half-hysterical mother on her way to try to save her son from committing murder Bethany Anne Lind played Grace Young in “Ozark” and Sandra in “Stranger Things.” It is a tribute to Bethany Anne’s emoting while behind the wheel of her car and racing to the scene of the potential crime that this short works at all.  It was the third (of five) that had significant—or all, as in this case—portions shot inside a vehicle. Having written a few screenplays, I understand how tempting it is to use a car or a truck for the setting, as it certainly helps keep expenses down and frees up the set decorator and art decorator and lots of other sorts (not much need for unique costumes, either) and, consequently, helps keep the cost(s) of a production down. We never actually see her son, Harrison, or his preoccupied father, Jason Miller, whom Bethany Anne talks to on the phone. The voice of father Jason is D.W. Moffett, a Chicago native who has played roles in “Traffic,” “Falling Down,” and “Friday Night  Lights.” The voice of Harrison, her son, is Ben Irving, who played Bobby Freeze in Ben Affleck’s 2020 film “The Way Back.” Officer Davis (Evan Hall of “Orange is the New Black”) and the emergency dispatcher (Aleah Guinones; Keisha in 2023’s “Shrinking”) are the only other voices in the piece, and we never see them. Sound effects (bullets and sirens, for example) become important in this short piece. The music by Eli Keszler is crucial and the cinematography by Matt Clegg is mostly close-ups of Bethany Anne Lind’s face.  I found myself wondering how his mother telling the authorities to look for her son in a blue Accura was viewed by Ms. Miller when the authorities caught up to her son, who had posted videos that led to him being sought as an “active shooter at large.” Phrases like “This is his only choice” are countered by his frazzled mother’s plea “Please help me understand.” This one was tense and dramatic and takes place completely inside a car. I saw five in one sitting; this was my favorite. Read the full article

[catholiccom-blog]

They’re leaving home…will they leave the faith? Every  year, thousands of young Catholics leave their homes for higher   education at our nation’s colleges and universities. Very few realize,   however, that from orientation day onward, they will be indoctrinated   with a vision of reality that is very different from the values their   families hold dear.

Sadly, many of our young people will fall prey to  one or more of the dominant ideologies engrained in their college  education, ideologies that can lead them away from the Church and,  ultimately, their faith in God.

Students who are not taught how to think  critically or who lack the tools needed to sift through the logic of  these positions are easily swayed by the smooth sophistry of the  intellectual elite. For this reason, twelve of the top Catholic  writers in America—professors, priests, journalists, philosophers, and  theologians—have come together in the book  Disorientation: How to Go to College Without Losing Your Mind, to dissect the trendy ideas that can lead young Catholics away from the Church. Disorientation is intellectual ammunition for every college student and parent, as it breaks down the history, analyzes the appeal, and debunks the empty   promises of such wildly popular errors as:

Hedonism

Relativism

Progressivism

Modernism

Scientism

Fundamentalism

Radical Feminism

Multiculturalism

...and more.

With contributions from Jimmy Akin, Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, Peter Kreeft,  Elizabeth Scalia, Mark Shea and many more, this book is guaranteed to get college students thinking hard about what their professors are   telling them—and what they should really believe.

[eggnogablog]

The response to Scalia’s opinion was swift and overwhelmingly negative—so much so that it led a bipartisan Congress to enshrine the old strict scrutiny standard in federal law just three years later. At the signing ceremony, President Bill Clinton announced that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, known as RFRA, would “reestablish[ ] a standard that better protects all Americans of faith in the exercise of their religion.” . . .

Judges are more inclined to hold the government to RFRA’s demanding standard. For example, in Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled for a religious group that argued its members had the right to use hoasca, a Schedule I hallucinogenic drug—exactly the opposite of the outcome in Smith.

But RFRA isn’t perfect. It only applies to the federal government, and while 21 states have adopted their own versions, not all are as robust as the federal standard, either as written or as interpreted by courts. It’s also a statute rather than a constitutional provision, meaning it could be revised or repealed if the political winds change (and they certainly have changed since 1993). . . .

The City of Philadelphia canceled Catholic Social Services’ contract to place kids in foster homes after learning the agency operates in accordance with the Catholic Church’s teachings and would not place kids with same-sex couples. (A same-sex couple had never approached Catholic Social Services, so the dispute is actually entirely hypothetical.)

The Catholic agency sued, arguing this violated its free exercise of religion under the Constitution as well as Pennsylvania’s RFRA. The lower court held that the Catholic agency was not entitled to an exemption from the city’s neutral, generally applicable non-discrimination policy and that it had failed to show the city singled it out for disfavored treatment based on religion.

At the Supreme Court, Catholic Social Services and a few foster parents implored the justices to throw out Smith and replace it with a strict scrutiny standard that a growing consensus maintains is more consistent with the original meaning of the Constitution. Several justices have expressed concerns about Smith. Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, said Smith “drastically cut back on the protection provided by the Free Exercise Clause” in a statement when the court declined to take up a case brought by a football coach who was fired for praying at the 50-yard line after games.

Last month, Thomas cited Smith when he issued a statement respecting the court’s denial of an appeal from a county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in the wake of Obergefell v. Hodges. In 1997, Justice Stephen Breyer dissented from City of Boerne v. Flores, which held that Congress exceeded its authority by extending RFRA to state and local governments.

Breyer said the Supreme Court should have considered whether Smith was correctly decided. That’s not typically the sort of thing you’d say about a ruling you agree with, right?

Naturally, all eyes will be on the newest justice, Amy Coney Barrett, to see if she’s persuaded by the view of her former boss, Justice Scalia, or the argument that Smith cannot be justified under an originalist view of the Constitution. Time will tell whether the Supreme Court will put in place a more demanding, constitutional standard when the government restricts our freedom.

[transgenderer]

Celebrating the death of the queen is like...okay so obviously celebrating death in general is a little tasteless but also i feel like it's mostly just kinda dumb? Like, celebrating the death of scalia was one thing, cuz it took away his ability to do more harm and raised the possibility that someone who would do less harm would replace him. But it's not like Charles is gonna be better than Elizabeth so like. Lateral move. The only angle for celebration is because he's less beloved it might help end the monarchy but who knows

[stilesandmalialove]

[apesoformythoughts]

«If there is a particular Christian message that sometimes skews our understanding, or dashes our hope for salvation, it is the notion that faith is an instant event and an all-in proposition—one is either converted immediately and accepts every doctrine instantly and without question, or one is “doing it wrong.” But as we see with Zechariah and Mary, it is human to wonder, and not everyone is at all times emotionally, intellectually, or spiritually in the perfect place for insta-conversion. Nevertheless, God is eagerly looking for us—so eagerly that he will, like the father of the prodigal, run toward us with open arms, even when we are “still far off.”»

— Elizabeth Scalia

[leviathan-supersystem]

What is the political significance that both justices Antonin Scalia and John Paul Stevens believed Shakespeare was not the real author of his plays?

well there's definitely a connection between "anti-statfordians" as the people who don't believe shakespear wrote his plays call themselves, and right-wing ideology, since one of the major arguments they have is "shakespeare wasn't from a rich and aristocratic background, and therefore could never have written Good Plays, because only rich aristocrats can write good" which is obviously an extremely classist assumption to make.

in particular they were both adherents of the oxfordian school of anti-stratfordianism, which holds that edward de vere, the earl of oxford, was the true author. and here's where things start to get really dumb because this is where it overlaps with the "prince tudor theory."

so, in real life, elizabeth the first was childless, and thus was the end of the tudor line. people who are really hype about the monarchy, and the idea of the importance of a royal bloodline, are mad about this, and theorize that she had a Secret Child with edward de vere who could have continued the tudor line. this in addition to edward being the secret true author of shakespeare- while not everyone who believes the oxfordian interpretation of anti-stratfordianism holds to the prince tudor theory (and in fact some of them argue that the prince tudor theorists make other oxfordians look bad) basically everyone who subscribes to the prince tudor theory is an oxfordian anti-stratfordian.

and then it gets etven more bonkers because in addition to all this nonsense, some of the prince tudor theorists hold that edward de vere was secretly the child of elizabeth the first, in addition to being the father of her child, and that their secret baby was super inbred. i have honestly no idea why they believe this, especially since these same people want this super inbred secret incest baby to have carried on the royal bloodline.

now i don't know if antonin scalia or john stevens are into that part of the theory, but it gives you a sense of how all this fits into a larger context of right-wing ideology that they find appealing.

[biguns60plus]

This is the list I have accumulated from Pastor Bob Joyce as Elvis. He has told us quite a few who are alive. There are supposed to be over 900 so this list is still short.

Alive & faked death

Elvis

Bruce & Brandon Lee

MichaelJackson

Princess Diana

JFKennedy Jr

his wife Caroline

her sister Lauren

Nicole Brown Simpson is Megan Kelly

Tupac

Prince

Glen Campbell

John Denver

Carpenters

Bee Gees

Selena

Freddie Mercury

Marilyn Monroe

Isaac Kappy

Patrick Kennedy

Arabella Kennedy

Robin Williams

John Lennon

Yoko Ono

Joan Rivers

Kurt Cobain

Pres. J.F.Kennedy Sr

Kobe Bryant & daughter

Corey Haim

Jimmy Hendrix

Paul Walker

Bob Marley

Biggey

Chris Farley

Whitney Houston & daughter

Roddy Pipers

Dick Clark

Peter Jennings

Rush Limbaugh -Jim Morrison

Richard Beland

Luther Vandross

Dale Earnhardt

Johnny Cash

Shirley Temple

Janis Joplin

Big Bopper

Buddy Holly

Hank Williams

James Dean

Dennis Wilson

Natalie Wood

Ron McKerman

John Bonham

Heath Ledger

Brittany Murphy

Patrick Swayze

Debbie Reynolds

Annette Funicello

Joe Cocker

Lynn Anderson

Dudley Moore

Ashley Babbitt

Anna Nicole Smith

Elvis brother Jesse

Amy Weinhouse

Jon Benet Ramsey

Heather Rourke

George Michael

Elizabeth Montgomery

7 NASA astronauts

Seth Rich

Marty Fieldman

John Ritter

Sonny Bono

Jeffery Epstein

Mindy McCready

Erin Moran

River Phoenix

Penny Marshall

Donna Summers

Dana Pluto

Andre the Giant

Kenny Rogers

Michael Landon

Theresa Saldana

Bill Paxton

David Canary

Mary Tyler Moore,

Dudley Moore,

Princess Grace Kelly,

Steve McQueen,

John Candy,

Kate Spade,

Mama Cass Elliot,

Michael hutchence,

paula Yates,

Jackie O

George Carlin

Anthony Bourdain

Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Andrew Breitbart

Chris Liddell

Stevie Ray Vaughn

Tom Petty

Lucille Ball

Martin Luther King Jr

Brian Wilson

Chef Anthony B

Davey Jones

Chester Bennington

Chris Cornell

Erin Moran

Florence Henderson

Layne Stanley

Ricky Hendrix

Robert Trump (DJT) brother Patty Duke

Judge Scalia

Paul Newman

Donna Summer

Keith Moon

Mac Miller

Edyie Gorme

Tony Snow-GWBush press sec Brad Nowell

Caleb Logan

Conway Twitty

Keith Wheatley

Teena Marie

Rick James

Frank Zappa

Mickey Mantle

June Cash

Seal Team 6

Peter ? Tv commentator

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[church-history]

“Praying the rosary is NOT in the Bible!!!!! If Jesus wouldn’t do it, neither should his followers. Jesus said that we should pray only to God the Father. If Catholics are praying a rosary, then they are praying to Mary. Jesus and the apostles never told us to pray to Mary. Scripture says that she was a sinner and didn’t die a virgin. Scripture never called her holy or the queen of Heaven. That title is in the Bible and it refers to a demon that some gentiles worshipped.”

@tony4jc​ since you copy and pasted this onto two of my posts, I feel that in the spirit of charity and loving instruction, I must correct you before you slander the Word of God or insult His mother again, putting your eternal soul in risk of damnation.

Here is an article about how the rosary is biblical, and why it’s erroneous to call it “idolatry”

https://aleteia.org/2016/10/20/yes-the-rosary-is-a-completely-biblical-prayer/#

Katrina,

I just happened to come acrossone of your articles in which you conveyed that praying the rosary is important… Praying the rosary is not biblical and is one of your church’s man-made traditions which the Bible speaks against in Jeremiah 17:5 as well as Mark 7:13.

1 Timothy 2, verse 5 says the following:  There is ONE MEDIATOR between God and man, JESUS… That verse says nothing about praying to Mary…

Also, Matthew 6:7 says the following:

And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.

Please explain to me why you are encouraging folks to engage in idolatry by praying to Mary.

Mike F.

————————-

Dear Mike,

I appreciate you reaching out to me and offering the opportunity to clarify a common misconception many hold about the Rosary and Catholics’ devotion to Mary.

First, the Rosary is not a prayer to Mary. It is a meditation on the life of Christ. Each mystery of the rosary is focused on the very Biblical events of the Gospels. To say that the Rosary is not biblical is not accurate at all.

When you look at the components of the Rosary individually you’ll see 1) that every part of the Rosary is biblical in nature and 2) each part has deep meaning contrary to the claim of “mindless pagan babbling” or “vain repetition” that it’s often described as.  I invite you to readFr. Longenecker’s comments on vain repetition for a deeper understanding of Matthew 6:7, and also read Elizabeth Scalia’s thoughts on the question, here.

The Rosary is composed of the following prayers – Ave Maria (Hail Mary), Pater Noster (the Lord’s Prayer, given to us by Christ Himself), Gloria Patri (Glory Be), Apostles Creed, the various mysteries of faith, and a concluding Salve Regina.  

When Catholics pray the “Hail, Mary” prayer they are not praying to Marybut are asking for her prayers of intercession for us, in the same manner that you may ask friends, family, or your clergy to pray for you. Only her intercessory prayers are more powerful because she is the Mother of our Lord and sits at His side in Heaven.  The Hail Mary prayer is taken straight out of the Bible, off the lips of the Archangel Gabriel, the messenger of the Lord (Luke 1:28 NAB), and from Elizabeth’s words of praise when the child in her womb recognized Jesus as the Messiah (Luke 1:42 NAB) .  

The doxology Gloria Patri, or Glory Be, is nothing more than a hymn of praise to the Holy Trinity.

“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen”

The Mysteries of the Rosary are meditated on while praying each decade (ten Hail Mary beads), with the purposes of drawing the person praying deeper into reflecting on Christ’s’ joys, sacrifices, sufferings, and the glorious miracles of His life.  

I can’t think of any other prayer in the world richer in biblical and theological meaning, more profound and spiritually beautiful than the Rosary. It’s a chain of prayer that binds us to God. That is why I encourage folks to the pray the Rosary and invite and encourage you to pray it as well.

I also think you would enjoy the writings of Scott Hahn. Before he was a well-known Catholic writer and apologist he was staunchly anti-Catholic Presbyterian minister. If you are earnestly seeking knowledge the best place to start is with his books,Rome Sweet Home andHail Holy Queen.  

I truly wish you the best.

“Scripture says that she was a sinner and didn’t die a virgin.”

No it doesn’t, if you believe this you have not actually read the bible, or have done so with no contextual, linguistic, or cultural understanding of it.

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/was-mary-a-perpetual-virgin

OBJECTOR: I went to Mass with one of my friends, and I noticed that during the Penitential Rite, Catholics ask for prayers from “the Blessed Mary, ever Virgin.” This is an obvious example of Catholics adding teachings that contradict the clear witness of Scripture.

CATHOLIC: On the contrary, the belief that Mary was always a virgin has been held since the earliest days of Christianity. Many of the early Church Fathers, including Athanasius, Jerome, and Augustine, expressed this belief. To give just one example, Augustine said in A.D. 411 that Mary was “a Virgin conceiving, a Virgin bearing, a Virgin pregnant, a Virgin bringing forth, a Virgin perpetual.”

OBJECTOR: Well, I definitely respect Augustine, but just because he said something doesn’t mean that it’s true. He was a great theologian, but he wasn’t infallible. This is one case where I’ll have to disagree with him. By the time Augustine said this, over three hundred years had gone by since Mary had lived.

CATHOLIC: I understand that Augustine was fallible, but I don’t think you should dismiss his testimony so easily, especially because what he says is supported by many other early Fathers. Another source that supports belief in Mary’s perpetual virginity is the Protoevangelium of James. It was written around A.D. 120, when some of those who had known the apostles were still alive. It records that Mary was dedicated before her birth to serve the Lord in the temple, as Samuel had been dedicated by his mother (1 Sam. 1:11). This required perpetual virginity of Mary so that she could completely devote herself to the service of the Lord.

OBJECTOR: But if Mary wasn’t supposed to get married, why do we read that that Mary was engaged to Joseph (Luke 1:27)?

CATHOLIC: Again according to the Protoevangelium of James, concerns about ceremonial cleanliness required that Mary have a male protector who would respect her vow of virginity. Joseph was “chosen by lot to take into [his] keeping the Virgin of the Lord.” His duty to guard Mary was taken so seriously that when Mary conceived, Joseph had to answer to the temple authorities. So Mary’s betrothal to Joseph was not in conflict with her vow of virginity.

OBJECTOR: This is very interesting, but there were many things written early in the history of Christianity that did not express what Christians actually believed, such as the Gnostic gospels. Like these, the Protoevangelium of James expresses a belief that is contrary to what has been revealed in Scripture.

CATHOLIC: I agree that we should use caution when relying on extra biblical accounts, but we can also see evidence in the biblical texts that Mary had chosen to be a virgin. When the angel Gabriel tells Mary that she will bear a son, Mary asks, “How shall this be, since I have no husband?” (Luke 1:34). At this point, Mary was engaged to Joseph. Why would she then be so surprised at being told she would conceive? If she were planning on having children with Joseph in the usual way, it wouldn’t make sense for her to ask how she would be able to have a child. This question makes sense only if Mary was already planning to remain a virgin.

OBJECTOR: Maybe if you read this in light of the Protoevangelium of James, this passage could be read as an indication that Mary was planning on remaining a virgin. But why should we rely on ambiguous biblical passages and extra biblical evidence when the Bible itself clearly states that Jesus had siblings? For example, Matthew records that “while [Jesus] was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him” (Matt. 12:46). His listeners ask, “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?” (Matt. 13:55). Jesus is even advised by his siblings: “So his brothers said to him, ‘Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples may see the works you are doing. For no man works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world’” (John 7:3–4).

CATHOLIC: Although the Bible says that Jesus had brothers, this doesn’t mean that they were necessarily sons of Mary. If we accept the theory put forth in the Protoevangelium of James and accepted by many in the early Church, Jesus’ brothers would be stepbrothers, sons of Joseph but not of Mary. This would explain why Jesus’ “brothers” felt that they could admonish him, as they do in John 7:3–4. In Near Eastern society of that time, it was normally unacceptable for younger siblings to give advice to older ones.

OBJECTOR: But not all of the early Church Fathers believed that Joseph had children. St. Jerome said, “I claim that Joseph himself was a virgin.”

CATHOLIC: It is interesting that you quote St. Jerome, who adamantly defended the doctrine of Mary’s perpetual virginity. It is certainly possible for Catholics to believe that Joseph did not have children of his own. In this case, the brothers of Jesus could be other relatives, such as cousins. Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus and his apostles, had no word for “cousin,” so cousins and other close relatives were often referred to as brothers. For example, Abraham’s nephew Lot was called his brother (Gen. 14:14).

OBJECTOR: There’s a problem with your reasoning here. Although cousins may have been referred to as brothers, it’s clear that in this case, the word brothers means blood brothers of Jesus—sons of Mary. We read in Matthew’s Gospel that Joseph “had no marital relations with her until she had borne her firstborn son” (Matt. 1:25). This implies that Joseph did have relations with her after she had given birth.

CATHOLIC: The word until here just says what happened up to the time of Christ’s birth. It doesn’t imply anything about what happened after that, although our modern use of the word until seems to imply that. For an example of this, look at 2 Samuel 6:23, which says, “Michal the daughter of Saul had no children till the day of her death.” We’re obviously not supposed to assume that she had children after she died.

OBJECTOR: In this case, it’s obvious that Michal could not have had children after her death. The situation of Mary and Joseph is quite different. We see that in the same verse, Jesus is called Mary’s firstborn son. If Jesus is designated as Mary’s firstborn son, that shows that she had other children. My mother wouldn’t call me her oldest child if I were her only child.

CATHOLIC: This is another case where our modern understanding of terms interferes with understanding what the Bible meant at the time it was written. In biblical times, the term firstborn had great importance. The firstborn was to be consecrated to the Lord (Ex. 13:2); the parents were to redeem every firstborn son (Ex. 34:20). They weren’t supposed to wait until they had a second child to redeem the firstborn, and so the first son born to a woman was called the firstborn regardless of whether or not she had other children later on.

OBJECTOR: It seems to me like you’re using a lot of complicated reasoning to ignore the obvious statements in Scripture that show that Jesus had brothers and that Mary therefore could not have remained a virgin. You’re going to the passages with the idea that Mary was a virgin, and you’re reading that idea into the passages instead of drawing it from them. Even if the passages in question could be interpreted the way you see them, I don’t see any evidence in Scripture that they should be interpreted that way.

CATHOLIC: On the contrary, I think there is evidence (even beyond what I’ve shown you already) that it is very reasonable to interpret the texts as showing that Jesus did not have brothers. If Jesus did have brothers, why would he have entrusted Mary to the beloved disciple, John, at the foot of the cross (John 19:26–27)? He would have had surviving siblings who would have taken care of her. It would be surprising for Jesus to release his brothers from their obligation to their mother, especially because he criticized the Pharisees for neglecting the support of their own parents in Matthew 15:3–6.

OBJECTOR: But how could Mary and Joseph have had a loving marriage if she always remained a virgin?

CATHOLIC: Granted, a life of complete abstinence is not the recommended way for ordinary married couples to interact. But Mary and Joseph were not an ordinary married couple. They were entrusted with raising the Son of God. This circumstance was so unusual that their marriage could not have been an ordinary one, because the child they nurtured was no ordinary child.

OBJECTOR: I still don’t see why the Church requires Catholics to believe that Mary remained a virgin instead of allowing them to have their own opinions. Does it really matter if Mary had other children?

CATHOLIC: Actually, it does matter. Every doctrine about Mary tells us something about Christ or something about ourselves or the Church. Mary’s perpetual virginity demonstrates her purity of heart and total love for God. In 388, St. Ambrose of Milan wrote that Mary’s virginity was “so great an example of material virtue” because it demonstrated her total devotion to Jesus. In Mary, we see an example of the purity our own hearts must have in total dedication to God. Her virginity also tells us something about the Church, which, like Mary, is both mother to the faithful and “pure bride to her one husband” (2 Cor. 11:2).

“Scripture never called her holy or the queen of Heaven.”

Once again, your understanding of Scripture is extremely lacking and comes from a place of ignorance to its origins, content, and context, in Luke 1:28 the angel Gabriel greets Mary with “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.” in this passage of scripture Gabriel the messenger sent from God is clearly stating that Mary is “full of grace” and that she is “blessed among women”, where else in all of scripture is a mortal greeted so graciously and with such honor? Clearly the angel of God is addressing her as a holy person, to deny this is to deny scripture.

If you acknowledge Christ as king, then you must by ancient tradition, accept His mother Mary as queen: 

According to Dr. Hahn, “The structure of David’s monarchy was neither incidental or accidental; in God’s providential plan, it foreshadowed the Kingdom of God” (Hail, Holy Queen, p.76). “The Davidic monarchy finds its perfect fulfillment in the reign of Jesus Christ – and there was never a Davidic King without a Davidic Queen: the King’s own mother, the queen mother” (Id at 83, emphasis added). The queen mother was known as the gebirah or “great lady” (Id at 79). The “Gebirah was more than a title; it was an office with real authority” (id at 80). Thus, at 1 Kings 2:20 we read the reigning King say, “Make your request, my mother, for I will not refuse you.” Neither could Jesus refuse his mother’s request at Cana, even though the Lord’s time had not yet come to perform his first miracle (John 2:5). Mary, although ever-Virgin, is the mother of Jesus and the mother of the church. “Hear then, O house of David!…The Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Is 7:13-14).

Rightly so, Mary is the Queen and mother of all Christians. From the cross, Jesus told John to “behold his mother” (John 19:27), and in his vision of Heaven described in the Book of Revelation John sees the Blessed Virgin “clothed with the sun…and on her head a [queenly] crown of twelve stars….” *(Rev. 12: 1). The Queenship of Mary, Mother of God, is no mere sentiment of overly maternalistic Catholics: it was foreshadowed by the Davidic  monarchy in the Old Testament and brought to fruition by the best of all Kings, Jesus Christ. Mary now reigns forever as Queen and Mother in the Kingdom of Heaven.

*[Apocalypse (Revelations) chapter 12 is actually one of my favorite biblical passages because of the multi layered meaning and symbolism. The woman of Rev 12 is actually four-fold symbolic of Israel, Eve, Mary, and The Church, this excellent article actually explains it quite well  https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-woman-of-revelation-12 ]

 I really hope you took the time to read all of this, and if so well done - these kinds of severe misunderstandings of biblical content/meaning and actual Church teaching is very sad and comes from centuries of anti-catholic stereotypes and people arrogantly ripping out pieces of scripture and using them to their own selfish ends. Naturally I don’t blame you for this as it is likely a result of some person/persons misguiding you, but if you are serious about following Christ and preserving your soul from endless fire, then please, I implore you to look beyond your previous misguidance and pray that God leads you to true faith and holiness. If you ever have questions about Catholicism or simply want to discuss theology, please do not hesitate to reach out to me through the ask box or dm. 

I sincerely hope you will understand that none of what I have said is a personal judgment against you, but rather loving instruction. We all stumble and make mistakes but God wants to forgive us and wants us to have a deep and loving relationship with Him. Even if you choose to disregard all of the facts above, I at least hope it will stir you to reexamine your faith and beliefs. Remember that all things happen by the Will of God, there is providence in your finding my posts, and it may well be to the benefit of us both if we follow God’s will and allow His grace to work within us.

Thank you for reading! Many blessings on you and your family in this holy season of advent!

[themovieblogonline]

“His Mother,” a 13 minute and 39 second short film that is Oscar eligible, stars Jennifer Lawrence look-alike Bethany Anne Lind as the mother of a young man who is threatening violence at his college, Southern Tech. Young Harrison Miller, age 19, 5’ 10”, has left a variety of clues that he is about to explode, saying things like “The end has come” and “None of you ever gave me a chance.” Maia Scalia wrote and directed this high tension race to save lives, She is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of Art and has worked on 2022’s “Call Jane” with Director Phyllis Nagy and star Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver in 2022, a film about the fight for abortion rights in pre-Roe days, which would be just as timely right about now.  Ms. Scalia’s choice of Bethany Anne Lind to play “His Mother” is fortunate, because she does a believable job as a half-hysterical mother on her way to try to save her son from committing murder Bethany Anne Lind played Grace Young in “Ozark” and Sandra in “Stranger Things.” It is a tribute to Bethany Anne’s emoting while behind the wheel of her car and racing to the scene of the potential crime that this short works at all.  It was the third (of five) that had significant—or all, as in this case—portions shot inside a vehicle. Having written a few screenplays, I understand how tempting it is to use a car or a truck for the setting, as it certainly helps keep expenses down and frees up the set decorator and art decorator and lots of other sorts (not much need for unique costumes, either) and, consequently, helps keep the cost(s) of a production down. We never actually see her son, Harrison, or his preoccupied father, Jason Miller, whom Bethany Anne talks to on the phone. The voice of father Jason is D.W. Moffett, a Chicago native who has played roles in “Traffic,” “Falling Down,” and “Friday Night  Lights.” The voice of Harrison, her son, is Ben Irving, who played Bobby Freeze in Ben Affleck’s 2020 film “The Way Back.” Officer Davis (Evan Hall of “Orange is the New Black”) and the emergency dispatcher (Aleah Guinones; Keisha in 2023’s “Shrinking”) are the only other voices in the piece, and we never see them. Sound effects (bullets and sirens, for example) become important in this short piece. The music by Eli Keszler is crucial and the cinematography by Matt Clegg is mostly close-ups of Bethany Anne Lind’s face.  I found myself wondering how his mother telling the authorities to look for her son in a blue Accura was viewed by Ms. Miller when the authorities caught up to her son, who had posted videos that led to him being sought as an “active shooter at large.” Phrases like “This is his only choice” are countered by his frazzled mother’s plea “Please help me understand.” This one was tense and dramatic and takes place completely inside a car. I saw five in one sitting; this was my favorite. Read the full article

[algebraicvarietyshow]

The National Garden should be composed of statues, including statues of Ansel Adams, John Adams, Samuel Adams, Muhammad Ali, Luis Walter Alvarez, Susan B. Anthony, Hannah Arendt, Louis Armstrong, Neil Armstrong, Crispus Attucks, John James Audubon, Lauren Bacall, Clara Barton, Todd Beamer, Alexander Graham Bell, Roy Benavidez, Ingrid Bergman, Irving Berlin, Humphrey Bogart, Daniel Boone, Norman Borlaug, William Bradford, Herb Brooks, Kobe Bryant, William F. Buckley, Jr., Sitting Bull, Frank Capra, Andrew Carnegie, Charles Carroll, John Carroll, George Washington Carver, Johnny Cash, Joshua Chamberlain, Whittaker Chambers, Johnny “Appleseed” Chapman, Ray Charles, Julia Child, Gordon Chung-Hoon, William Clark, Henry Clay, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Roberto Clemente, Grover Cleveland, Red Cloud, William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, Nat King Cole, Samuel Colt, Christopher Columbus, Calvin Coolidge, James Fenimore Cooper, Davy Crockett, Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., Miles Davis, Dorothy Day, Joseph H. De Castro, Emily Dickinson, Walt Disney, William “Wild Bill” Donovan, Jimmy Doolittle, Desmond Doss, Frederick Douglass, Herbert Henry Dow, Katharine Drexel, Peter Drucker, Amelia Earhart, Thomas Edison, Jonathan Edwards, Albert Einstein, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Duke Ellington, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Medgar Evers, David Farragut, the Marquis de La Fayette, Mary Fields, Henry Ford, George Fox, Aretha Franklin, Benjamin Franklin, Milton Friedman, Robert Frost, Gabby Gabreski, Bernardo de Gálvez, Lou Gehrig, Theodor Seuss Geisel, Cass Gilbert, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Glenn, Barry Goldwater, Samuel Gompers, Alexander Goode, Carl Gorman, Billy Graham, Ulysses S. Grant, Nellie Gray, Nathanael Greene, Woody Guthrie, Nathan Hale, William Frederick “Bull” Halsey, Jr., Alexander Hamilton, Ira Hayes, Hans Christian Heg, Ernest Hemingway, Patrick Henry, Charlton Heston, Alfred Hitchcock, Billie Holiday, Bob Hope, Johns Hopkins, Grace Hopper, Sam Houston, Whitney Houston, Julia Ward Howe, Edwin Hubble, Daniel Inouye, Andrew Jackson, Robert H. Jackson, Mary Jackson, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, Steve Jobs, Katherine Johnson, Barbara Jordan, Chief Joseph, Elia Kazan, Helen Keller, John F. Kennedy, Francis Scott Key, Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King, Jr., Russell Kirk, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Henry Knox, Tadeusz Kościuszko, Harper Lee, Pierre Charles L’Enfant, Meriwether Lewis, Abraham Lincoln, Vince Lombardi, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Clare Boothe Luce, Douglas MacArthur, Dolley Madison, James Madison, George Marshall, Thurgood Marshall, William Mayo, Christa McAuliffe, William McKinley, Louise McManus, Herman Melville, Thomas Merton, George P. Mitchell, Maria Mitchell, William “Billy” Mitchell, Samuel Morse, Lucretia Mott, John Muir, Audie Murphy, Edward Murrow, John Neumann, Annie Oakley, Jesse Owens, Rosa Parks, George S. Patton, Jr., Charles Willson Peale, William Penn, Oliver Hazard Perry, John J. Pershing, Edgar Allan Poe, Clark Poling, John Russell Pope, Elvis Presley, Jeannette Rankin, Ronald Reagan, Walter Reed, William Rehnquist, Paul Revere, Henry Hobson Richardson, Hyman Rickover, Sally Ride, Matthew Ridgway, Jackie Robinson, Norman Rockwell, Caesar Rodney, Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Betsy Ross, Babe Ruth, Sacagawea, Jonas Salk, John Singer Sargent, Antonin Scalia, Norman Schwarzkopf, Junípero Serra, Elizabeth Ann Seton, Robert Gould Shaw, Fulton Sheen, Alan Shepard, Frank Sinatra, Margaret Chase Smith, Bessie Smith, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Jimmy Stewart, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Gilbert Stuart, Anne Sullivan, William Howard Taft, Maria Tallchief, Maxwell Taylor, Tecumseh, Kateri Tekakwitha, Shirley Temple, Nikola Tesla, Jefferson Thomas, Henry David Thoreau, Jim Thorpe, Augustus Tolton, Alex Trebek, Harry S. Truman, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Dorothy Vaughan, C. T. Vivian, John von Neumann, Thomas Ustick Walter, Sam Walton, Booker T. Washington, George Washington, John Washington, John Wayne, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Phillis Wheatley, Walt Whitman, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Roger Williams, John Winthrop, Frank Lloyd Wright, Orville Wright, Wilbur Wright, Alvin C. York, Cy Young, and Lorenzo de Zavala.”

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