Pedaling Forward

I'm back from another week at the beach. Constant sand in my shoes, (and diaper bag) are some of the perks of living in South Jersey. I've never gone through so much sunscreen as I have this month.
Bike travel is popular in Ocean City, although renting a bike for a morning jaunt on the boards is as overpriced as anything else in town. I often think how nice it would be to have the option to bike everywhere. Stores, family visits, church; only a pedal away. In our town they have bike paths on the sides of some roads and through out the state I see signs to "Share the Road."
Ideally, bikes would be a viable option for the average Joe. We cut down on emissions and gas consumption, get exercise and avoid the hassles of car ownership. However, realistically, today's world is very bike unfriendly. Suburbia was not designed with the two wheeling commuter in mind. On our way to church, our van approached a family on bike. They filled the lane, disobeyed traffic signals and otherwise annoyed motorists who tried to squeeze around them without hitting oncoming traffic in the small town we were passing through (already congested with construction cones.) Our roads are designed for cars and although I try to be charitable, these streets are not made for sharing. Which is a shame for all the above mentioned benefits. Those few who do try to take advantage of pedal power are at great risk for injury (or death.) Nothing will change because more of us can't switch to using bikes as our primary form of transportation because our lifestyle won't allow it. How many live within biking distance to our jobs? How many of us want to bike in the rain to an appointment in our designer clothes with a helmet smashed on our coif? Where will our $300 in weekly groceries fit? That tiny basket in front? And most of us just couldn't stand the blow to our egos if we had to part with our luxury vehicles for a Huffy. So, we'll pump money into the roadways via taxes, which fuels the construction that clogs the commuter arteries, which feeds the anger and frustration of road rage which leads to accidents and violence...and so on. Who is willing to go simpler and smaller and live closer?
If you visit an old small town, everything is in walking or biking distance and most properties (save for a few downtown locals) have enough of a yard for a garden or a game of catch. People didn't need cars to go to the store or visit with friends so roadways were less jammed and safer for kids on their bikes heading to the park. Maybe you even had the neighborhood trolley or bus. The communities I'm talking about are too small for subways or major public transportation. Now these communities are surrounded by sprawl and their roadways are packed to capacity during normal daylight hours. Most stores have moved out to strip malls and have been replaced with specialty boutiques, pizza shops, bars, etc. if the town is lucky. How many small towns so you know are struggling to "revitalize?"
So it's a kind of a catch-22; cars and an expansive road system allow us to spread out and see the world, however, cars and an expansive road system spread out the *community* to encompass a larger area and so many aspects of the community and the principles of subsidiarity are lost...plus pollution, gas prices, yada, yada.
How we can move from a sprawled, cookie cutter development, copycat strip mall society to smaller, localized neighborhoods I don't know. But secretly, I hope rising gas prices will force us to stay closer to home. What will we decide; work from home, bike down the street or work two jobs to pay for gas for our daily commute? Only time will tell.

The New Distributist League

Well, I guess if you blog long enough and don't totally suck, someone will eventually ask you to write for their blog. I'm just lucky that I was asked by none other than Athanasius to contribute to The New Distributist League. As I do here, I will be passing along the teachings of Dorothy Day and hopefully clearing up some misunderstandings about her message along the way. Her writings on Distributism and the Church's ethic of work provide a breath of fresh air amongst our suffocating capitalist culture. You will recognize other contributors Roy F. Moore from The Distributist Review, Gen Ferrer from The ChesterBelloc Mandate and Leo from A Voice Crying in the Wilderness. Hope I can keep up with these guys. No promises on when the first post will be but hopefully within 48 hours. Be sure to swing by before then to check out the great stuff already up.

"No one should bear the burden of their behavior"

Charlotte over at IWF has a great article. Check it out.

In the face of a scorning world

"In our eulogies of poverty which we have printed again and again in The Catholic Worker, one of which is running in this issue of the paper, we write with the recognition that we stand as Americans, representing in the eyes of the world the richest nation on earth. What does it matter that we live with the poor, with those of the skid rows, and that those in our other houses throughout the country are living with poverty which is so great a scandal in a land of plenty. We know that we can never attain to the poverty of the destitute around us. We awake with it in our ears in the morning, listening to the bread line forming under our window, and we see it lined up even on such a day as the gale of last Saturday when glass and tin and bricks were flying down the street.

The only way we can make up for it is by giving of our time, our strength, our cheerfulness, our loving kindness, our gentleness to all. We have to overcome our Leon Bloy tendencies to bitterness and recrimination.

Let us pray that we do not hear our Lord call out to us, "Woe unto you rich!" "Woe unto you who judge!"

What are we to do? Young men in the draft age feel caught and torn in their humility and in their desire to share the sufferings of others, and in their very real desire to fight the gigantic evils of this world under what ever name they are called. Some of them are having the grace to resist, to oppose the draft, to oppose participation in fruitless slaughter. But if they do it with pride, with condemnation of others, with bitterness, then their stand is questionable also. It is true they will suffer with bitterness, and even the little Flower herself said that bitterness was a part of suffering that made it harder. If they are jailed there are plenty of opportunities for the works of mercy in jail among the poor there. They will be even more on the side of the poor.

If they obey the call as we have seen quite a number go, against their convictions, let us pray that they have opportunity to minister to the suffering. There is no due deliberation and full consent of the will in wartime, but a blind instinct for self preservation. We can make no judgements on the armies involved, but on war itself, the means used of atomic warfare, obliteration bombing, the ever increasing use of destruction to wipe out ideas, philosophies. We can quote Ezekiel who wrote "Woe to the Shepherds who do not feed their sheep the gospel of peace."

It grows ever harder to talk of love in the face of a scorning world. We have not begun to learn the meaning of love, the strength of it, the joy of it. And I am afraid we are not going to learn it from reading the daily papers or considering the struggles that are taking place on the other side of the world and in the United Nations halls here at home."

"The Message of Love"
By Dorothy Day
The Catholic Worker, December 1950, 1, 2.

Cleaning up the house

I hope in my brief absence you've all had the chance to read Summorum Pontificum and the CDF's recent release. I sipped champagne and Chartreuse in celebration on the 7th and then retreated to the shore, ignoring all ignorant media coverage for a whole week. Why ruin a good thing? A 40 year detour into the desert is coming to an end and I can only hope the radical changes so quickly accepted through the last 40 years will be as easily forgotten.
The notion of rebellion seems to figure into much of popular culture. Children outsmart their clueless and uptight parents in sitcoms, women wear revealing clothes to (somehow) liberate themselves from our male dominated culture and gay couples press for equal marriage acceptance against all known cultural and societal norms.
Many in the Church seemed to take the Second Vatican counsel as an opportunity to act out and push the limits; like a teenager whose parents went away for the weekend. Who wouldn't hold a party? Now it's up to the JPII generation and B16 to clean up the mess and straighten up the house. If you want to rebel, and do something different, join in the effort. Children, respect your parents and parents, don't get walked on by your children. And for heavens sake, get them to an extraordinary mass. Ladies, cover yourselves, dress modestly. Who's really shocked by anything that comes off the runways nowadays? Wear a long skirt everyday this week and you'll turn more heads than with any mini. If you experience same sex attraction, live a chaste life. That is rebellion. Don't indulge in every desire and perversion because our society is so morally depraved they say it's okay. It's not. Self control, deprivation and chastity will raise more eyebrows than another gay pride rally. To fit into current society you *must* rebel against all that is good and true. Today, piercing your lip and dying your hair is not as shocking as living an authentic Catholic life. I, for one, am ready to rebel against the culture and against the relativism that has invaded the Church. Turn off the TV, break out the ankle length skirts and mantillas and let the good times roll.

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." -George Orwell

To be a Worker like Day, tradition is the only way

This blog fills a small niche in that not only am I writing about the Catholic Worker Movement, it's issues and it's founder Dorothy Day, I am also of the "traditional" persuasion. Usually, the the two are viewed as mutually exclusive. I hate that I have to identify myself as 'trad' or even 'practicing' because to me, it should be enough to say Catholic. Would it be too much to have universal beliefs held by all? But, alas, current divisions in the Church require me to identify my allegiances, confusing as they might be to some. Thankfully, I'm not alone with my split personality. Perhaps the best mix of 'trad' and rad is found in Day herself. Her love for the poor was driven by her love of Jesus, and His Church on Earth. Her daily routine included helping the poor, yet she made time to read the bible, attend Mass, attend retreats, study the saints and meditate over her missal. Can you still find her faith today amongst most Catholic Workers? Can you still find such faith amongst most Catholics? Where has all the love, devotion and reverence gone? Why do so many from the inside try to change the Church and the message Jesus sent rather than obediently serve Him? The key to the renewal is the Mass. The Mass that nurtured Day was the Tridentine Latin Mass. She wasn't holding hands, clapping, singing pop tunes and chatting it up with the Jones before and after Mass while our Lord sat ignored in a tabernacle off to the side in some dim chapel. The Mass is the summit of our faith. When we treat It like a social gathering and consider our Lord to be some hippie who loves everyone no matter what, we make a mockery of almost two thousand years of tradition. And for what? Why bother? What's the point? With the misinterpretations and abuses that came out of the Second Vatican Council we've distorted everything that nurtured people like Day and centuries of saints before her. When you put God in His proper place, as in the Tridentine Mass, your life finds immediate direction. The Mass represents the ultimate sacrifice, and your life should be a sacrifice. The Novus Ordo has become about accommodating and giving everyone what they want to hear. The fruits of such an approach are apparent. If Tridentine was good enough for Day, it's good enough for me. The Next Worker welcomes Summorom Pontificum and hopes the feeling is universal.

"This is probably my last chance, this issue of the Catholic Worker for me personally to write about some things that are in my heart about the Mass, for instance, that holy sacrifice, which is the heart of our life, bringing us into the closest of all contacts with our Lord Jesus Christ, enabling us literally to "put on Christ," as St. Paul said, and to begin to say with him, "Now, not I live, but Jesus Christ in me." With a strong consciousness of this, we remember too those lines, "without Me, ye can do nothing," and "with Me you can do all things."

The New Man

We know through long experience how hard it is to think in these terms, and only through constant exercise in the works of love and peace, can we grow in faith, hope and charity. Only by nourishing ourselves as we have been bidden to do by Christ, by eating His body and drinking His blood, can we become Christ and put on the new man.

These are great mysteries. Most of the time we do not comprehend at all. Sometimes the Holy Spirit blows upon us and chases some of the fog away and we see a bit more clearly. But most of the time we see through a glass darkly. Our need to worship, to praise, to give thanksgiving, makes us return to the Mass daily, as the only fitting worship which we can offer to God. Having received our God in the consecrated bread and wine, which still to sense is bread and wine, it is now not we ourselves who do these things except by virtue of the fact that we will to do them, and put ourselves in the position to do them by coming to the Holy Sacrifice, receiving communion, and then with Christ in our hearts and literally within us in the bread we have received, giving this praise, honor and glory and thanksgiving.

How inadequate words are to say these things, to write them. [snip]
But the Mass begins our day, it is our food and drink, our delight, our refreshment, our courage, our light. [snip]

With this recognition of the importance of the Word made flesh and dwelling among us, still with us in the bread and wine of the altar, how can any priest tear through the mass as though it were a repetitious duty? This is the impression they give people when they do this, like the children at Fatima who used to say only Hail Mary, or Our Father, and think they had said their prayers, and perhaps they had if they realized the holiness of these words. The priest often says the first words and slides through the rest in meaningless mutter. And some of the best priests I have met do this, abusing the prayers of the Mass in this way.

I am begging them not to. I am begging them to speak as though the words were holy and inspired and with power in themselves to produce in us the understanding--the participation that should change our lives."

"The Council And The Mass"
By Dorothy Day
The Catholic Worker, September 1962, 2

Warning! Journalism ahead.

"I shouldn't care what people think or say. It's just the fact that everyone knows I'm the kid. It was bigger than Houston. It was bigger than Texas. It was bigger than America. Everybody in the world knew what had happened and everybody knew the details of it."
-David Ritcheson

I can always depress myself by reading headlines. I came across this story and was reminded once again on how much today's media fails us. Here's a young man who was made a victim, not once, but twice. First by the deviant actions of some classmates and second by a media hell bent on exposing every disturbing detail of the crime to the world at large in the hopes of scoring more viewers and readers. This is a disturbing trend. Not only do we have to worry about excessive sex and violence in our movies, video games, websites and TV shows (many of it fictional, and grossly exaggerated) ; we have to be weary when reading the headlines and watching the news with our families after dinner. No longer is the journalist concerned with passing along information, he or she seeks to expose the gritty details better left unsaid. We've moved beyond the "if it bleeds it leads" motto which allowed us to show a twisted wreck of a car on the news to showing bodies in sheets, detailed descriptions of injuries and in depth interviews with grief stricken families. And don't think for a minute, these newsmen give a damn about what they're covering. Maybe I'm a skeptic or maybe I'm just ignorant of how things have always worked. I know it's not entirely recent; I've got a book of Weegee prints. But when did graphic depictions of sex and violence become newsworthy at even the highest levels, beyond the cheesy tabloid? This young man was attacked. Do we need to say how? Does everyone need the details? Why do people in Maine need to know about this party in Texas? What does that sensationalism do besides contribute to the desensitization of sane people and over-stimulation of the rest? Is it just me or does it seem like every abduction, party gone bad, or hazing ritual now involves sexual assault-all of which is given in detail on the 6 p.m. news for junior to hear. Where are these misfits getting the ideas for these attacks? Does the news normalize this violence? I don't know, but it does make it seem common. I would never suggest restricting freedom of speech. But what steps must be taken to stop people from consuming such media filth? I'd like to think that as decent people, we are abhorred by perverse and violent behavior and would do everything to prohibit it's spread. However, when one continues to consume violent and overtly sexual movies, TV shows, video games and support media outlets who profit from proudly detailing events *stranger than fiction* I see no end in sight. It wears us down and chips away at our morality when exposed to this trash day in and day out. What would have made our grandparents blush, is commonplace for most Saturday morning cartoons. The media believes this is what we want and they are ruthless in their hunt for the most private, personal and ultimately painful memories and details of *the story.* What control did David Ritcheson have over the media frenzy around his story? What control does any deceased victim of violence, or their family, have over the flashbulbs and microphones if their tale has been dubbed newsworthy? Yes, the attention may also bring forth prayers, donations, community support but that is not reason the story is being told over the airwaves and survivors are foolish is they believe so. If we truly want relevant news that affect us instead of frighten, educate instead of brainwash, we need to be selective in our media choices and more than likely, we need to limit our exposure. There is good journalism, and good journalists, we just need to find and encourage them. St. Frances de Sales, pray for us!

The right ordering of work

"It is natural that the worker should seek an increase of wages and shorter hours. There is no longer any relationship between their work and themselves, other than that of its being a marketable commodity, to be governed by the same laws as govern other commodities. Such work is a curse and the only hope of the worker, of the country, is that the periodical revolt for higher wages and shorter hours will be diverted into what should be its real end, a demand for a return to the right ordering of work in accordance with the nature of man. The greatest of all dangers is that men shall accept this state of things and consent to their complete degradation, for the spiritual outlook was crushed out in the early days of the [industrial] revolution. The great strides made in the perfecting of the system, the enormous extension of the use of machinery and the greater efficiency of the same, the blind acceptance of the system by the people generally as being inevitable, and greatest of all, the physical comforts made possible at the price of his soul, all combine to make it very difficult for the workman to visualize a state of things more in accordance with the dignity of labour."

George Maxwell
From his essay, "The Reconstruction of the Crafts"
which was Chapter IX in the book, 'Flee to the Fields, The Founding Papers of the Catholic Land Movement'
Originally published in 1934, currently available through IHS Press

Where it is easier to be good...

"A thousand years are as one day" in the history of the Church, so of course the Church has not gotten very far in the solving of this problem which started with Constantine. Actually if the State, City, and the whole secular world with its "inspector generals" and bureaucracies did not demand our conformity to such insane standards of luxury, Holy Mother the Church would not have to be pleading for funds for schools, and books, and buses, and health and welfare aids. (As St. Hilary wrote a thousand, (or a few days) ago, "The less we ask of Caesar, the less we will have to render to Caesar." This was his commentary on Jesus' words--"Render to Caesar the things of Caesar and to God the things of God.")

How good it would be to see the Church closer and closer to poverty and the poor; little schools set up on every block, in idle rooms, in empty buildings, with the students themselves helping repair them and getting meanwhile some sense of the joy of manual labor (and the pains of it, too). And idle Church-owned lands given over to the disorderly poor, the unworthy poor, to build up little villages of huts, tepees, log cabins, yes, even outhouses. Which might come to resemble (if a Church of sorts were built in the center) an ancient Irish monastery. Ireland used to be called the land of Saints and Scholars.

Actually, we see some of these attempts today in "communes" all over the country and among the dreamers, the "freaked out." Even the shacks of the farm workers on the lands of the growers could be made into a community of common purpose--"to make the kind of society where it is easier to be good."

Overcoming our enemies is slow work indeed. Loving our enemies is commanded of us by Christ. And I can lie here on my couch on a snowy January afternoon and dream dreams, and write this letter to our readers. But of course our greatest enemy is ourselves, our lethargy, our neglect of those most powerful means--prayer and fasting (and the sacraments)."

"On Pilgrimage - January 1973"
By Dorothy Day
The Catholic Worker, January 1973, 2, 6.

The Middle ground

My husband and I have been having many discussions of the importance of community. More specifically, a Catholic community of friends to stay close to when all the temptations of the world seem to be creeping in. We talk with friends about starting a community off some where in the hills away from the barrage of sexual stimulation and consumerism that runs unchecked through mainstream society. Most think of such things as pipe dreams or fantasies. I read of earlier attempts at a Catholic Land movement or Catholic 'communes' and see their strong points and their failings. My question is, how far away does one have to be to insulate themselves from the unholy distractions of the modern world but yet stay close to those who most need our charity and our example? My greatest concern is for the souls of myself, my husband and our children. It would be so easy in one sense to pack up and move away and cloister ourselves away in a cabin somewhere; but should concern for our own eternal salvation keep us from leading others to Christ through our work? Are we selfish for wanting to avoid temptation? Is it wrong to avoid helping others for fear of leading one's soul or the soul of a child astray? But perhaps, I'm worrying about nothing. If our intentions lie in helping others, wouldn't He protect the innocence of our children along the way? Is their a *safe* charity that does real good? There is also the argument that we do our children a disservice by shipping them off somewhere and living in an exclusive Catholic community or commune (although I dislike that word.) After seeking out a community I would be devastated if my children left the faith, because it has happened in the past. So I guess I could screw up either way. Can you see my dilemma? We're looking for the safe middle ground and I guess, it doesn't exist. For now, I pray for guidance and strength and always for my children.

Early summer thoughts

At what point in life does time suddenly go into hyper drive? For my three and four year old, days seem never ending, weeks eternal, their last birthday is a distant memory their next birthday is a lie, a carrot I dangle in front of their nose whenever they ask for a new toy: "Just put it on your birthday list. " They think I mean never. For me, I have to stop and think every time someone asks my age, mentally I'm still fresh out of college, physically...well, I've started purchasing Oil of Olay.
For my children, summer is just starting, they have so much to look forward to. I've manged to fill practically (read: overschedule) every weekend through August and there's still tons of people and places we won't get to see. The older I get the faster the years go because I'm living life on the weekends. People waste five days a week at work and try to do what matters in two. I think 'weekend living' intensifies in the summer. Why doesn't somebody plan something to help me through those long, dark, cold January weekends?
I've been less motivated to blog since my passions haven't been aroused with any current events lately, or maybe, I'm just too distracted to notice much these days. Sometimes, I think I have nothing left to say but then I'm struck with an idea I forget to write down. Eventually, these brilliant insights might make it into cyber space but until they do, please excuse any gaps in posting. Until time slows down, my children find endless ways to amuse themselves and social events and far flung travels are spread neatly during the week and through out the year I leave you with something from someone who always has something to say.

"Children, too, need to be taught a mysticism of labor. Peter Maurin used to call it a philosophy of work. Fr. Jimmy Tompkins used to say that all work should be considered in the light of the works of mercy. Is our work that we are preparing to do in life helping to feed, clothe, shelter people? Are children being taught a reverence for the soil, out of which all things come, since we are but dust? The table we work at, the food we eat, the bed we lie on, the covers on it, all come from the soil. To dig, to sow and reap, to build and construct,--all children love to do these things at first. But in school literacy takes first place and reading is no longer taught, beginning with the Little Office, Our Lady's Primer.

I remember one of my young nieces coming home from school with a project book she was making. Her task was to furnish a home, to cut out all the things one would need in that home, and she pored over magazines, and cut out linoleum, furniture, kitchen sets, parlor sets, gadgets, and had a lovely time doing it. And all the while standards were being set up in her mind desires were being stimulated to buy what the advertisers present and to get the job, to get the money, to buy what the advertisers present. [snip]

Are our children being taught not only to work for what they need, not what they want, and also to work for others, so that they will always have a surplus to give away? Are they taught to tithe themselves to give even one-tenth of what they are going to earn, to the poor?"

"Education and Work"
By Dorothy Day
The Catholic Worker, September 1953, 2,6.

Enough

I recently finished reading 'Ten Acres Enough', by Edmund Morris. Written around 1864 it is a fascinating account of the authors family moving from Philadelphia to South Jersey and establishing a small farm on 10 acres. When I first received the book, I didn't realize the close proximity of the author's homestead to my suburban apartment. It is sickening to me to read the prices he quotes for acreage and the descriptions of rural solitude, yet close proximity to urban entertainment. He lived in Jersey when it truly was "The Garden State." Yes, prices go up everywhere over the course of 150 years, however, the New Jersey of today would seem alien to Morris. Reasonably priced, affordable homes are nonexistent and the closet *farmers* market to my home sells mostly cheap imported plastic doo-dads and fast food. There is one butcher and in the summer I think maybe two tables of produce. The way the locomotive opened up Jersey for farmers supplying Philly and NYC, the automobile opened up Jersey for suburban sprawl extending from those same locations. Reading Morris's book allowed me to escape back to a simpler era in Jersey's past. It's funny how even in the early 1860's Morris was itching to escape to the country, and today many suburbanites and city dwellers aspire to the same goal. How do so many country folk find themselves in the city or the vast suburban wasteland? What lies have we been telling ourselves and false goals have we slaving towards before realizing that true happiness lies in self sufficiency, not consumerism.

"I knew that I was not rich, but it was certain that I was not poor. [snip] The millionaire could not have more than his share of the pure atmosphere that I was breathing, while the poorest of all men could have as much. God only can give all these, and to many of the poor he has thus given. All that is most valuable can be had for nothing. The come as presents from the hand of an indulgent Father, and neither air nor sky, no beauty, genius, health, or strength, can be bought or sold. Whatever may be one's condition in life, the great art is to learn to be content and happy, indulging in no feverish longings for what we have not, but satisfied and thankful for what we have."
Ten Acres Enough, E. Morris pg, 22

If Jersey is where I am to be, than I will find happiness in Jersey. Despite many things, I am happy here, and I will make a 10th of an acre enough, if that is what we acquire.

"It takes mankind a great while to learn the ways of Providence, and to understand that things are better contrived for him than he can contrive them for himself."
T.A.E., E. Morris pg, 89

A.P. eats from hand of dictator

Quick quiz, who recently made this quote;
"The agrarian revolution has arrived."

a. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture
b. National FFA President
c. Hugo Chavez

The answer, is Hugo "Adolf" Chavez. In a recent AP story, Chavez is portrayed as the savior of the nations poor with hundreds running up to his Toyota 4Runner to praise him and, otherwise exalt this god-like being. Sure, he's buying up the nations private companies and putting them under his control but let's talk more about U.S. imperialism. I hope Chavez didn't mind the AP reporter salivating over his notes while discussing Chavez's socialist propaganda. If Mr. James is lucky, maybe he can get a job at one of the new state run papers in Venezuela and write glowing stories about Chavez all day.
Back to that lovely quote, yes, Chavez thinks he's starting a agrarian revolution, but let's clarify how his view may differ with fans of the Catholic Worker and distributism.

"Even as Venezuela is transformed into a socialist state, Chavez promised private property will be respected.

"There will continue to be all the individual freedoms, collective freedoms, fundamental rights," he said. "We accept private education. We accept private health care, as long as it's regulated and in keeping with national policy. ... The same goes for banks." [snip]

His government has also taken over what it considers underused agricultural lands, including the cattle ranch he visited Saturday. He described plans for housing, more cattle and cooperative farms on the giant plot as he circled overhead in a helicopter.

"The agrarian revolution has arrived," he said."

Yes, private *regulated* land and the taking over of *underused* agricultural land. Funny how no where in this article is there mention of Chavez's views of the Catholic Church and the treatment of those who disagree with his new utopia, Catholic or otherwise. For now, Chavez is buying out businesses who disagree or "pose a threat" to his person. Can ghettos really be that far down the road? In 100 years will we remember the Venezuelan martyrs? Pray for Venzuela.

"Another weapon I discovered early was the power of the printed word to sway souls to me. The newspaper was soon my gun, my flag - a thing with a soul that could mirror my own."
Benito Mussolini contributing to the "London Sunday Express,"
December 8, 1935:

We...can conquer the world.

"Our faith is stronger than death, our philosophy is firmer than flesh, and the spread of the Kingdom of God upon the earth is more sublime and more compelling. We Catholics must pray, act and sacrifice together for Christ the King, for the spread of His Kingdom and the salvation of the world. We Catholics, together, can conquer the world.

The Liturgy, then, is common worship, concorporate worship, worship in one mind and with one heart, and with one mouth. Our common action in the Sacrifice of the Mass, impersonal, anti-individualistic is the best weapon against the world.

"Pius X tells us that the liturgy is the indispensable source of the true Christian spirit.

"Pius XI tells us that the true Christian spirit is indispensable for social regeneration.

"Hence the conclusion: The Liturgy is the indispensable basis of Christian social regeneration.""

"Liturgy and Sociology"By Dorothy Day
The Catholic Worker, December 1935, 4.

Community Improvement Projects

It starts with city counsels condemning waterfront property in order to redevelop downtown. They say the homes are blighted, regardless of their condition and offer the homeowners enough money to move somewhere else. The amount usually falls far short of what it would cost to buy another house in the same area, most especially the new construction. Sometimes, the community does benefit from eminent domain. Perhaps, a new highway...and, um...I suppose there are lots of other legitimate reasons to seize private property. I wonder though, what sorts of compensation the founders of our country had in mind when they drafted the 5th amendment; because it seems to me, compensation is offered at a level to keep the poor, the lower and even upper middle class out of most new "community" redevelopment projects. It is not the current residents of a "blighted" area that most developers and city counsel members have in mind when they are envisioning new high rises, casinos or gaming venues. Cities and communities will improve when the residents of said area take the initiative themselves to improve it. Elected officials, many out of touch with the lowest of whom they *serve* want to attract money and care little for building and saving a community. It is a slippery slope once we start seizing property to create luxuries for the upper crust of society. Where could it lead I wonder?

Beijing to Evict 1.5 million for Olympics
BEIJING (Reuters) - Some 1.5 million residents of Beijing will be displaced by the time it hosts the 2008 Olympics, many of them evicted against their will, a rights group said on Tuesday, prompting a sharp denial by China.
The Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) said residents were often forced from their homes with little notice and little compensation, as the government embarks on a massive city redevelopment to accommodate the Games.

New Link

Check out the new link at right for BALLE, the Business Alliance for Local Living Economics. Distributism and subsidarity at work. See what's happening in your backyard or get something started. H/T The Distributist Review.

Think small

Thank you for the excellent comment Athanasius;

"Might I suggest the power of local government though the participation of a whole community. Everyone is obsessed with what goes on in D.C., which has nothing to do with the decisions we make. If we vote for A we get B, and if we vote for B we get A.

If people paid attention to their local government, and say, 10,000 people picketed the mayor or 1st selectman every time he did something that gave big business or big government more power, there would be results! If 3rd parties got started by running and creating awareness at the state level, we could accomplish Distributist goals on a small scale, and put us in place at a national level to be recognizable. 3rd parties don't get traction because no one knows who they are. Suppose they started running locally in all 50 states? They might win more often.

Your post is right on. We are Catholic first, not Americans or Republicans. That doesn't mean we can't love our country or be patriotic, but we must put the Church advocates (the Church universal) ahead of what Rush Limabaugh advocates because the social kingship of Jesus Christ is more important than the 1st amendment."

Local political involvement should become the preferred approach in combating 'big government.' However, I'll bet most people don't even know who their local mayor, country commissioner or board of supervisors' members are. Would you know who to picket if the town wanted to seize your house by eminent domain? As a newspaper intern or stringer, I covered many township meetings. Often the board members were my grandfathers age and had held their position for over a decade. I was sometimes the only non-township employee at the meeting and if I had company it was a resident older than the board members or someone looking to build a deck or complain about the trash on a neighbors lawn. It's not until a Wal-Mart tries to set up shop that local government meetings get any attendance at all. If we want to work from the bottom up, and bring distributism to our neighborhoods (and eventually our country), there's a easy way to do it. All we have to do is care about our local government because not many other people do.

1. Start attending meetings. Yes, they can be boring as hell, but you will learn tons about the area in which you live.
2. Get to know the board members. They'll probably notice you if you're a regular attendee. Most will be happy to discuss local goings on.
3. Get to know the people in your town. Community involvement through Chambers of Commerce, volunteering, work the polls, hang out at the local diner, etc.
4. Run for a local government position; start small. These elections are nothing more than popularity contests. It will be easier if a position is opening up-you might not have anyone to run against. It will be harder to oust an incumbent as most people don't care who serves and they will vote for the status quo. Sadly, most voters are ignorant about local officials and their duties so they don't even show up on election day. You will have to present convincing evidence on why this person shouldn't be where he/she is, for example, they approved the destruction of the orphanage for *another* strip club. If you can rally enough friends or outrage enough people who show up to vote, you'll win.
5. Once in office, your opportunities for promoting the cause may be limited but you'll certainly be gaining experience and making more friends who will help you on your way up the ladder. You'll also have the opportunity to convince other like minded individuals the importance of local government involvement and hopefully bring some onto the payroll with you.

It will be much easier to get Catholics, Distributists, etc. into state office if they've made their name in their hometown. If you don't want to hold office, than by all means, at least stay informed and organize against causes contrary to our true faith. Someone has to start the petition, march on the state capital and stand up against some of these local officials who think a county position gives them the right to ignore the wishes of the voters and in many cases, keep them in the dark about what is going on. Learn about Sunshine Laws and the Freedom of Information Act and hold officials responsible for what they do. Given our current system, a third party candidate has no chance, usually, in the presidential election. However, a third party candidate is just another candidate at the local level where party allegiance is not crucial. Let's take back our country one municipality, one town, one city and one state at a time.

Allegiance

I'm heading away for another family visit butt I wanted to put up a quick post on the whole Cindy Sheehan thing. I've avoided mentioning her in the past but some comments she made in an AP story actually reminded me of the Pro-Life movement.

"I have tried every (day) since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives.
"It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most."
She said she had lost faith in the anti-war movement's ability to make change and even in Democrats, who are largely opposed to the war and who took control of the House and Senate last year.
"Bush will never be impeached because if the Democrats dig too deeply, they may unearth a few skeletons in their own graves and the system will perpetuate itself in perpetuity," she said.

What strikes me is that, whether you agree with the methods she employed in protesting the war, she is pulling out because she feels she is now getting lack of support from those who originally stood by her; ie liberals, specifically Democrats. This should be a lesson to anyone who hopes to change the state of our country or the world by aligning with a political party. Pro-Life republicans, take note, you're going to get burned next; if you've held on this long. Our two party system is not working in this country. I don't know what a better option is. Obviously something along distributism lines but beyond that, I'm no political pundit so your guess is as good as mine. The lesson to be taken away is this; if you wish to help people, just do it. Don't align yourself with any government or political entity because they will take it upon themselves to build you up, if it suits them and smash you into the ground if you stand in their way. And along the way, they'll try to dictate your every move and word. In fact, I would run the other way if too many people on one side of the fence started defending what I do or say. Cindy Sheehan became like any Hollywood celebrity basking in their five minutes before some gossip rag, which previously heralded their triumphant debut on the red carpet, trashed their reputation. You will not succeed in your mission if you become a liberal media darling. We'll see if Sheehan learned her lesson. Let this be a warning to the rest of us fighting the powers at be.

Yet another new link

Another new link for the Catholic Worker Digest blog. If you don't get the Catholic Worker paper out of NYC, it'll let you know what you're missing.

A philosophy of work

"One night, just as we were beginning compline, two young boys came from Mott street, hitch-hiking, to pay a call on us at Maryfarm, Easton, 75 miles from New York. They would not come upstairs to the chapel, so while I fed them bread and milk and tomatoes (that was all that was left of supper), I talked to them. One is half Polish and half Italian, and the other Italian. They are both sixteen, smooth-cheeked, round eyed, young, strong and soft. Both have been in trouble with truant officers and probation officers for years. The reform schools are all crowded, accommodating sometimes twice as many as they have room for, so the boys know that there is no penalty for their minor misdemeanors. They merrily go on their way of petty stealing from their mothers and families, hanging around street corners and social clubs, of which our neighborhood is full, loafing, swearing, smoking, drinking--well on their way to more serious crime. The courts are full of just such young ones. How to reach them? They are cynical, they gamble, they want to get rich quick. They play the numbers, the horses. They don’t want a job, because they want big money. They see others making a killing. Everyone wants to get ahead, to be better off. This is what they are taught in the school, public schools and in the Catholic schools. But they are not taught to work--they are not taught a philosophy of work. They are not taught a philosophy of poverty which will make them use their talents rather than seek wages.

Begin at the Beginning

"You'’ve got to begin at the beginning," a priest said to me when I was talking to him about the Carmens and the Pasquales of our acquaintance.

You cannot talk to these boys on religious grounds because they are not convinced there is a God, nor that the Bible is His inspired truth. They don'’t believe in the ten commandments, nor in the Gospel of love of the New Testament. And they don'’t believe because they do not see it worked out in the lives of religious any more than they see it worked out in the lives of lay people. We live in a business world just like everyone else, and we live by investments, usury, big business; by our present industrial system which is materialist and as godless as Communism. So how can we talk to them. It is too late to reach them in ordinary ways. They need a conversion. A shock treatment. They are too old. Only a revolution will change them. That’s why people accept Hitlerism, Fascism, Communism. They accept it like a religious conversion." [snip]

"It is significant that it is in reformatories that boys are taught crafts and trades. It is significant that it is in insane hospitals that the patients, some few of them, are taught to use their hands to do creative work.

But the sad part of it is that though they have these schools, teaching skills, and some learn to do things very well, and probably get great joy out of doing them, they do them with the sad sense of futility, of boondoggling, of having been given something to do because they are either criminal or insane--and not that they are doing things which are good and natural to man that they can continue doing when they get out, creating, making, using mind and body to work on beautiful things God has given man, raw materials He has provided, and in so working on God’'s good things, getting a sense of the sacramentality of life, the holiness, the symbolism of things."

"Reflections on Work - November 1946"
By Dorothy Day
The Catholic Worker, November 1946, 1, 4. Emphasis added.