3 Ways Out of Coronavirus
https://youtu.be/Lze-rMYLf2E In this 15-minute video (24 Apr 2020) Bill Maher interviews Dr. David Katz, a physician helping in an Emergency Department in the Bronx that is treating COVID-19 patients. Dr. Katz went to the Einstein college of medicine and got his degree from the Yale school of Public Health. He is also the founding director of Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center and recently wrote in the New York Times about COVID-19. In the above video, both of these men mock Trump and Fox News, and yet they propose a moderate solution for our country to come out of lockdown now. I quote two liberals proposing an end to the lockdown not because I trust liberals, but so as to give you an argument a forteriori (so much the more) that we should trust anyone with science—conservative or liberal—instead of falling on a [...]
Catholics Facing a Police-State
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJgRk1p8ktY In the above 10 minute Fox News segment from this week (April 2020) Tucker Carlson says: "People in power abuse their power. That may be the lesson here. The arrival of a terrifying new virus from China gave our leaders more power than anyone has had in the history of this country. Six weeks ago, America was something resembling an imperfect democracy...But suddenly everything has changed. Now, this is an oligarchy managed by bureaucrats and tech-moguls, none of whom are accountable to voters. Our leaders are making decisions that will affect your family forever with no oversight or accountability. And of course they love it. We shouldn't be surprised they don't want it to end." The brilliant Jewish writer, Mr. Dennis Prager, recently wrote: "All my life, I have dismissed paranoids on the right ('America is headed to communism') [...]
DNR Orders and Your Medical Power of Attorney
This is a solo podcast I did on Do Not Resuscitate orders, Living Wills and the importance of a well-educated Medical Power of Attorney.
Christ Has Conquered Your Fear of Death
VOA news recently reported on the coronavirus: "The most contentious debate over Orthodox Easter occurred in Georgia [former USSR] where church leaders and the government agreed to allow parishioners to attend dusk-to-dawn Easter vigil services. The agreement meant worshippers were allowed to attend overnight services in large cathedrals despite a curfew, but they were required to maintain a distance of 2 meters. Those who attend small churches had to remain outside. Dozens went to the main cathedral in Tbilisi, where Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II said that the virus had caused fear among many people.” Despite a global fear of death over a virus, these Georgian worshippers stayed up all night worshipping the Holy and Life-Giving Resurrection of Our Lord. Perhaps part of their insistence was due to Church leaders remembering their former communist country and that if clerics kowtow to the state [...]
A Catholic’s Rights Before a Totalitarian State
A cop (Ruben Nava) and a priest (Fr. David Nix) discuss an individual Catholic's rights of self-preservation before a hypothetical liberal totalitarian government. Has the World Health Organization implied that a police-state is needed to end COVID-19? There's some compelling evidence from the WHO, Gates and even the Vatican that such is the case. I'm sorry about the bad sound quality on my end for some of the podcast.
Resurrection and the Problem of Pain
I have thought a lot about "The Problem of Pain" this Lent. The Problem of Pain is the modern atheist's main objection to believing in God: How could an infinitely good God who is infinitely powerful allow so much evil on earth? Indeed, there have been many books written to defend the existence of God and the goodness of God. But the one line that kept returning to me this Lent was: "Why must we suffer? Because here below, pure love cannot exist without suffering."—St. Bernadette. This sounds like an oversimplification of an answer to the Problem of Pain, but it is the most perfect explanation I have ever read of the collision of Heaven and Earth. This saint's line implies that the Trinity in heaven contemplates the Trinity without any violence or suffering before the beginning of time, before [...]
When Does the Church Have to Obey the State?
On today’s podcast, civil attorney Marc Zarlengo and I discuss the separation of Church and State from constitutional law, the Magisterium and Church history. We will look much farther back in history than simply our current debate as to what is considered essential and non-essential commerce as we continue to hunker down for C19.
Predictions for 2020 Based on the Old Testament
On today's podcast, my lawyer friend Marc Zarlengo and I discuss the causes and effects of a country and a Church effectively shut down. We discuss everything from the prophet Jeremiah to Bill Gates' proposal for digital medical certifications for Americans.
In Mary is the Way and the Truth and the Life?
Many good Catholics are often hesitant to share with Protestants the Marian writings of heavily-Marian saints like St. Louis De Montfort and St. Maximilian Kolbe. I would number myself among such Catholics, at least at initial conversations with Baptists, Pentecostals and "non-dommers." Our Catholic giants of Marian theology write so much of "surrendering our life to Our Lady" that such vocabulary could be confusing to someone who has already surrendered his or her life to Jesus Christ (as well as Protestants and Catholics alike both should have.) Even the old Divine Office seems to ascribe too much to Mary, the Mother of God. In the set of Psalms called None (9th hour) on 11 Feb, the feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes (the Apparition of the Blessed Immaculate Virgin Mary) the reading after the Psalms from Ecclesiasticus implicitly ascribes the [...]
Shipwreck of this World
Lauds in the old Divine Office of today, the first Sunday in Passiontide, says we life in a "shipwreck of a world" (mundo náufrago) here on earth. This seems like a very negative world view to the modern Christian who is repeatedly taught that God wants him happy on earth. There is some truth to that (that God wants us happy on earth) but the old Irish-Catholic worldview was that our pilgrimage on earth was actually escape from a wretched "shipwreck" to just get to heaven. People nowadays liken this worldview to Jansenism. But I'm going to propose in this blog post that putting the emphasis on original sin in children's catechesis actually produced more joyful kids not only in heaven, but even here on earth. When modern Catholic parents tell kids "I'm okay and you're okay" and that they [...]