The Anchoress

There is a a lovely post up over at the Inside Catholic blog, wherein Zoe Romanowsky links to Fr. Hugh Vincent Dyer, OP (is it me or is the Dominican Order absolutely all over the internet and using it very well, indeed?), and his encounter with a Muslim woman that might surprise you.

One day last week I stood in front of St. Stephen Martyr Church in D.C. with a young religious sister and the pastor of the parish. The scene would have made for a typical beginning to a joke, “A priest, a nun, and a friar, were…” We were talking, laughing, and enjoying the sun; a diocesan priest in black, a Franciscan sister in brown and a Dominican in white.

A young lady with olive skin, black hair, and black eyes approached us. Her accented voice trembled as she asked us to pray with her there on the street. She explained that her brother had been killed in Baghdad and her father had been kidnapped a year ago. We all closed our eyes and bowed our heads as Monsignor prayed…

You really do want to read the whole thing.

It reminds me a little of a story I linked to last year, by another priest, this time one taking a lesson from a newly-baptized Iraqi woman who took her life in her hands to leave Islam and embrace the Christ:

…this woman, who must remain anonymous, was touched deeply when she realized that the U.S. medical personnel not only treated wounded Americans and Iraqi civilians, but also treated wounded enemy combatants, including one who was known for having killed U.S. Marines. As she put it, “This cannot happen with us.”

This dramatic extension of mercy even to enemy soldiers caused her to take the next cautious step. She asked Father Bautista to “tell me more about Jesus.” As Father described Jesus and his life in the Gospels, one thing stood out among the rest for the Muslim woman he called “Fatima” (not her real name) and that was how kindly Jesus had related to, as she put it, “the two Mary’s.” Fatima was moved to see how Jesus deeply loved Mary, his mother, who was sinless, but also how Jesus deeply loved Mary Magdalene, who was “a great sinner.” As these discussions continued, Fatima reached a point where she said to Father Bautista, “I want to become a Christian.”
[…]
…Father Bautista became concerned for Fatima’s well-being and cautioned her to look carefully at the consequences of her decision and to think seriously before continuing her path into the Church.

Fatima paused for a moment and then looking intently at Father Bautista asked, “Do you give up so easily on Jesus?”

I like how the Mother of the Christ, Mary, riffs through these two stories in one way or another, through the “Fatima” connection or the Hail Mary in the first story. Mary, of course, is revered in Islam, although differently than as in Catholic or Orthodox Christianity. She also appeared at Fatima, in Portugal, a place named for the most-favored daughter of Mohammed.

I would have linked to Zoe Romanowsky’s post anyway, but right now I also do so in a special way. After trying very hard to keep my own east-and-west separately, today I finally toss it all up to God (in the same way I used to pick Buster’s pacifier up from the floor and give it back to him without major sterilization procedures) and say, “hey, while you’re there at Inside Catholic, go read my piece, which revisits - from a somewhat different angle - the Egan/Giuliani Imbroglio I second-parted here. Call it a part-three.

Deacon Greg has discovered Bruce Wayne or maybe Elastagirl, given my runs up and down the scale!

Q: Anchoress, if someone tells you that you cannot be credibly pro-life until you adopt a sick baby, and then you go out and adopt a sick baby (and then a second) and that person - who promised to become “pro-life” if you did it - never kept his end of the bargain, what does that mean?

A: It means you can’t form a conscience in fits and starts. You cannot become “pro-life” because of what someone else does, unless you are really willing to let their actions open up within you what you have previously closed and locked tight. And since Jim Caviezel gives witness that picking up on this friend’s cynical prompting has enriched his life and blessed him, it also means that God speaks to us through anyone - in any way - he chooses, even if they seem unlikely candidates for the job, so you might as well listen up respectfully and be sweet to everybody.

Q: Will there always be an England?

A: Starting to look a little doubtful, isn’t it? Within the last week we’ve seen the nation all but cancel St. George’s Day for fear of insulting their Islamist population, and they allowed the EU to issue a map without Great Britain. Note “The English Channel” is now “The Channel Sea.” My Celtic ancestors must be spinning in their graves. Brits at their Best has more on all that.

Q: So, Anchorage is digging out from yet another massive snowjob snowfall. But these folks say global warming is not cooling. Do you still say it’s all hoo-hah?

A: Yes, I say whether we are in any sort of “preventable” weather cycle is debatable, whether we can actually affect the earth’s weather is dubious (we can’t even predict next week’s weather accurately) and whether any of the interesting weather anomalies is “manmade” is hoo-hah, especially since we steadfastly ignore the sun. Mark Steyn is looking at ethanol ethics, as I did last week and last month. IBD wonders if we can undo the ethanol mistake. There’s all kinds of inconvenient truths out there, but the really troubling one, to my way of thinking, is people going hungry.

Q: Why do you refer to “Manmade” Global Warming as “hoo-hah” - don’t you know that’s a slang for a woman’s private parts?

A: Not in my neck of the woods. I don’t know who calls vaginas and vulva’s “hoohah’s;” on this blog we just call them what they are, and routinely mock the vulvic-worship. I learned “hoo-hah” at the knee of my Jewish neighbors, and I love the way it dismisses nonsense with beautiful and semitic simplicity. Kipling said “a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.” I say a vagina is just a vagina, but a surpassing bit of absolute blarney is a hoo-hah!

Q: Are you missing William F. Buckley?

A: Actually I do mean to read God and Man at Yale, but as with Ronald Reagan, I came to appreciation of Buckley rather late. However, there is a new piece up on the man by Fr. George W. Rutler. Rutler, you may remember, was the man who said to Christopher Hitchens, “you will either die a Catholic or a madman…”. Rutler offered to tell Hitchens the difference at that point, and I wish Hitchen had allowed him to, because I really want to know what it is. Hitchens, however, busily plugging his book with a “Whack-a-Christian” tour, did not allow Rutler to explain. This disappointed me. I think as a rule Hitchens’ very curious mind (and his sense of humor) would have looked forward to the answer as a whole new point of debate; but strangely, he didn’t want to know. Speaking of atheism, I notice that Pajamas Media has a feature piece on the Scientific embrace of Atheism, which looks like a good read. I have no problem with atheists, myself. I just think they should be as tolerant of my creed as I am of theirs, and stop trying to force their beliefs on me..

Q: Last week you were unhappy with Lisa Miller at Newsweek for her piece about Pope Benedict; do you like them any better this week?

A: You mean that incredibly tone-deaf piece on why Benedict didn’t “connect” with people? Too funny in retrospect, isn’t it? I have no animus toward Miller or Newsweek; I just think the magazine’s writers are supremely out-of-touch - almost endearingly so - with a huge portion of the country. They prove it again this week with this startlingly bigoted piece by Michael Hirsch in which he basically disses and dismisses people who are not like him and don’t live in the elitist coastal enclaves:

“…what we know today as Red State America. This region was heavily settled by Scots-Irish immigrants–the same ethnic mix King James I sent to Northern Ireland to clear out the native Celtic Catholics…Southern frontiersmen never got over their hatred of the East Coast elites and a belief in the morality and nobility of defying them. Their champion was the Indian-fighter Andrew Jackson. The outcome was that a substantial portion of the new nation developed, over many generations, a rather savage, unsophisticated set of mores. Traditionally, it has been balanced by a more diplomatic, communitarian Yankee sensibility from the Northeast and upper Midwest.

He also calls his fellow countrymen “yahoos” and goes on blathering like that for a while. Well, goldarnit, Barack shure did warned us ’bout folks like this ol’ boy, clingin’, bitterly, to his’n identity n’his secular-humanist creed!

Q: Um, aren’t you a New Yorker?

A: I am, born here and live here now, but there was that whole adolescence spent in the unnamed place among the cowpokes and prospectors, and I will forever have some real perspective into the south and west which allows appreciation. Hirsch should get out more and broaden his horizons a little. There is a whole interesting world beyond the Smuppity West Side.

Q: Aw, did you just invent a word? Smuppity?

A: Why yes, I did. Smug & Uppity = Smuppity. My word, as of right now. But you can use it.

Q: You’re awfully quiet on the Hillary-front, lately.

A: Well, I am busy inventing new words for the lexicon, but Hubbard is both amusing and smart on Hillary today.

Q: So, Anchoress, then you’ve had your fill of writing about Pope Benedict XVI?

A: Well, actually, I am going to be quoting rather extensively from his tremendous book God and the World (which is actually a three-day conversation with writer Peter Seewald, and it’s fascinating) during the week, but for now others are doing Benedict, or things papal, very well indeed. Check out Deacon Greg’s links about the book of victim names which Cardinal Sean O’Malley handed the pontiff in Washington DC (somehow I’d envisioned a yellow legal pad, but I’m not artistic), and this interview with a Jewish journalist covering the pope’s visit. Never forget to check out the Deac’s homily for the week, which is always an insightful gift.

Then check out Irene Lagan’s coverage of the pope’s Regina Caeli address to the audience following his ordination of 29 new priests, during which he mentioned some trouble spots in the world (particularly Africa) and also his recent visit to the US:

I thank God who greatly blessed this unique mission and allowed me to make be an instrument of hope of Christ for the Church and for the country. At the same time I thank him because I myself was confirmed in the hope of American Catholics: I found it a great vitality and determination to live and bear witness to the faith in Jesus.

The tireless Rocco Palmieri has the full text of the address.

Most surprisingly - and worth mentioning in light of Benedict’s ongoing, full-on engagement of both Islam and the Arab peoples - one of the newly-ordained is an Iraqi.

Meanwhile, I totally agree with this comparison between John Paul II and Benedict. And I agree with Rod Dreher that this is a great “commercial” for Catholicism.

Q: Well, you just live in a sunny, “everything-is-beautiful” la-la land, dontcha?

A: No, I don’t, and I’ve had my forays into the darkling company, but I’ve never written about it with Gerard’s power and unstinting honesty. And for a sad but also rather lovely and uplifting story, check out Okie on the Lam’s tribute to his late mother-in-law. The greatness of the Greatest Generation was not gender-exclusive.

Q:Get any interesting review copies, lately?

A: Well…yes and no, but mostly no. I have an advance of A Persistent Peace by Fr. John Dear, S.J., which will soon be released by Loyola Press, (forward by Martin Sheen) and I will talk more about it when I’ve finished it, but so far…well, I’m trying very hard to appreciate the good father’s ultra-pacifist philosophy (and I’m sure some regular readers of the blog may enjoy it) but - perhaps because I am Irish - I don’t quite get it. I know all the intellectual arguments for pacifism (it reduces us to the behavior of the aggressors, violence begets violence, love is the answer) and I even agree with that to a point. There there is that point, where I must say that “yes, love, love, love is the answer but it is not expedient.” And sometimes - as when you have people plotting to release poison in a subway, or something, expedience is the other answer. This is why I can never fully embrace either the “full pacifist” stance or the warrior mentality. Too much of either seems out-of-balance to me, and Fr. Dear’s book - page after page of noble pacifism drenched with hero-worship of Ghandi and Tutu - after a while makes me feel rather clammy. Oh. I guess I did just review it!

On the other hand, Instapundit has received a review copy of a book I wish they’d have sent me: Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II. Insty calls it: A collection of essays, including one on a particular breed of pacifist that Chesterton saw as new in the 20th Century: “He does not so much believe in his own conscience as disbelieve in the common conscience which is the soul of any society. His hatred for patriotism is very much plainer than his love for peace.”

Indeed. Heh.

Speaking of Chesterton, Maureen Martin has some fun with him, here:

Chesterton joked that while his friends Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton led lives that convinced people to help the poor and commune with God, that he, Flannery O’Connor, and Walker Percy were quickly becoming the patron saints of people “who just read all the time.”

Very cute.

Q: Don’t you think Chesterton and Antonin Scalia would have hit it off?

A: Absolutely. I’d love to have seen Stahl interview both of ‘em.

Q: Was that you I saw last Friday night at Carnegie Hall singing Molly Malone with Bryn Terfel?

A: Yep! I agree with Nordlinger, too, that his Mozart was the unintended highlight of the night. Bryn’s voice and Mozart are a match made in heaven.

:::SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE:::

It seems almost silly to say I am bringing coverage of Benedict XVI’s extraordinary sojourn in America to a close (actually, my final final thoughts are here) because the truth is I will likely be reading all of his addresses more closely and bringing them up in coming weeks, but the wall-to-wall writing will end here. I do want, though, to end with a thought that blipped through my head when Benedict was in DC, and again as he addressed the United Nations.

Benedict XVI is the last man of the 20th century to walk the global stage. He saw tyranny overtake his county and the minds and imaginations of his countymen, as well as his own liberty. He watched the cold war play out and worked closely with one of the destructors of that system. That he viewed all of these things through the lens of faith and mystery means that his perspective is not only singular, it is supernatural, as well.

Before we knew him as Benedict, while he was still Joseph Ratzinger, he was telling us what he knew, but between his “rottweiller” caricature and all the religious wrappings, we missed it:

“…the population of an entirely planned and controlled world are going to be inexpressibly lonely … and they will then discover the little community of believers as something quite new. As a hope that is there for them, as the answer they have secretly always been asking for.” [emphasis mine - admin] — (from God and the World)

He knows. Listen to this 20th century man who sees what comes ahead because he vividly remembers all that came before - all that we want to believe we’ve left behind. He recognizes the tyrant because he has seen it, has felt its breath on his very neck. And in that statement, he acknowledges for us that the tyrant this time will eat up liberty so thoroughly that only in the spirit will freedom be found, nourished and strengthened. A totalitarian world without a spiritual defense will be unsurvivable.

Someone asked me why I did not write about Bill Maher’s standard-issue hate words about Benedict - timed to coincide with his visit and thus garner Maher the most attention.

I did not comment on Maher because it seemed pointless to; every word he speaks about Benedict proclaims himself, and his own lonely creed of atheism.

Bill Maher is a 21st century man; a fervent atheist, as fierce in his secular faith as the holiest of rollers. When I consider that line by then-Cardinal Ratzinger…”the population of an entirely planned and controlled world are going to be inexpressibly lonely…” I think Maher is already living there in that cold place, where one may lunch with the cool kids who hold court in the lunchroom, but then go home to a solitary room, hoping in nothing beyond their still-deigning to like you tomorrow.

Atheism may be the burgeoning movement, but that’s only because atheism is so easy. It requires nothing more of you than your willingness to cultivate cynicism, which is the laziest thing to grow. It lives of a piece with Benedict’s “dictatorship of relativism” and his counsel that

“relativism…does not recognize anything as definitive [its] ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires.

…An “adult” faith is not a faith that follows the trends of fashion and the latest novelty; a mature adult faith is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ. It is this friendship that opens us up to all that is good and gives us a criterion by which to distinguish the true from the false, and deceipt from truth.

Relativism is a growth-stunter. When nothing matters and you answer for nothing, you’re living the life of a child, and a nation of children cannot survive for very long. Relativism-embracing Europe is dying for that reason, because growing up and parenting others is not just difficult, it is selfless; in relationships one is answerable to another.

In Christ we have a relationship, and Jesus calls us on it. We are answerable to Him, and (insofar as he has promised it) he to us.

Benedict knows this, just as he knew that sex scandals and bishops - including himself - must be called on and made answerable by and to the faithful, who in turn have their own responsibilities and relationships to maintain. This is hard stuff, not easy; it requires the cultivation of faith and trust, not cynicism. It requires the difficult, painful work of looking at things one would rather not, and asking forgiveness and trying to heal and rebuild. If we do that work, we can - eventually - look each other in the face, standing free and independent, living honorably together, in truth, and with no need to hide. We’ll be able to withstand the vagaries of life with hope, and joy and real peace.

Relativism is a game of hide-and-seek. Benedict XVI is calling out, “olly-olly-ox-in-free.” He’s saying “let’s get everyone out from the shadows” including the church itself.

That is the work of adult faith and if we now continue in this vein, we will be strengthened; we will grow; we will survive and be ready to face that cold, lonely “planned and controlled” world, and to ultimately defeat it. We begin again, as we mean to continue.

UPDATE: Just finishing my thought: Benedict is only a man - with all that coverage you might wonder if I have forgotten that, but I have not. He is a man, trying to shepherd the 21st Century, with the wisdom gleaned in the last century, the most deadly century. Actually, he is the last active soldier of the greatest generation, still standing, still fighting, and he will, I think, cast a giant shadow

Linking to this piece, Brian Saint-Paul at Inside Catholic makes a very insightful observation:

21st century man has skipped the last 100 years entirely. That’s why he can continue to parrot the parlour atheism of the 19th century without the 20th century’s sad lesson on where such things lead.

Beautifully said.

***

If you’ve enjoyed the coverage here, I hope you’ll consider supporting the site either through the donation buttons or by buying the Benedict Books You Know You Crave through Amazon via this site, or by purchasing some of the (I promise you) absolutely splendid coffee from the Mystic Monks (see right sidebar) whose Dark Roast, Columbian and Hazelnut coffees are the smoothest and most delicious coffees I’ve ever had. I hate to rattle the tin cup, but - you know…sigh.

In looking again at the text of Pope Benedict’s White House address, I was struck by how serious were his remarks within the context of such a short speech given amid such pomp, particularly here:

Historically, not only Catholics, but all believers have found [in America] the freedom to worship God in accordance with the dictates of their conscience, while at the same time being accepted as part of a commonwealth in which each individual and group can make its voice heard. As the nation faces the increasingly complex political and ethical issues of our time, I am confident that the American people will find in their religious beliefs a precious source of insight and an inspiration to pursue reasoned, responsible and respectful dialogue in the effort to build a more humane and free society.

This is a very interesting paragraph in light of the fact that Europe is slowly losing its ability to dialogue about faith (or about much of anything) in the face of its own laws — which suppress free speech in the name of “tolerance” — and its intimidated response to an aggressive strain of Islamic fundamentalism that continually preaches blood over brotherhood. Europe, which twice in the 20th century needed rescuing from totalitarian jackboots, is rather quickly becoming subjugated again; it is a place where Bridget Bardot can be legally prosecuted for daring to express her own thoughts and filmmakers, writers and artists must quell their own voices or submit to a life in hiding, where Shari’a law is making inroads because western law - and lawmakers - are standing aside for it and hoping to stay out of the crosshairs.

Like his predecessor John Paul II, who lived as a slave under the Nazi’s and then had to preach and teach in the sight of the restrictive communists, Benedict knows what it is to live under tyranny. As a 14 year old seminarian he was forcibly conscripted into the Hitler Youth, from which he deserted, hiding until he was found by Americans and taken as a prisoner of war. Benedict is likely the last 20th Century man standing in a position of world power, and his voice is one of experience and personal knowledge. He has been a witness to the power of hope and faithfulness over tyrants and terrorists, and he is telling us something very important, very serious:

The preservation of freedom calls for the cultivation of virtue, self-discipline, sacrifice for the common good and a sense of responsibility towards the less fortunate. It also demands the courage to engage in civic life and to bring one’s deepest beliefs and values to reasoned public debate. In a word, freedom is ever new. It is a challenge held out to each generation, and it must constantly be won over for the cause of good (cf. Spe Salvi, 24).
[…]
[The Church] is convinced that faith sheds new light on all things, and that the Gospel reveals the noble vocation and sublime destiny of every man and woman (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 10). Faith also gives us the strength to respond to our high calling, and the hope that inspires us to work for an ever more just and fraternal society.

Reading that reminded me of Al Qaeda calling for America to convert to Islam and their forced conversions of two kidnapped Western journalists, Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig. After their “conversion” there was some spirited and useful debate about whether one should convert to save one’s life.

Benedict’s words seem to suggest that we ought not allow things to get to that point. He has, himself, offered to meet with Muslims for dialogue; moderates will meet, some others have said they will not. I believe Benedict - whose mein and manner the writer “Spengler” has characterized as “I have a mustard seed, and I’m not afraid to use it”, is praying for peace, and religious and political co-existence, but he knows it may be a long hard slog, though different than the one Bush has initiated.

At the release of those kidnapped journalists I wrote:

But whether Centanni and Wiig were men of faith, or not, their “conversions” were a sort of victory for our enemies. They displayed to the world what the West “holds dear.” I am not saying the newsmen were cowards [but]…their pronouncements about Allah and Mohammed, and their confession of new, Islamic names, was a real-time demonstration to the Islamofascists in our midst that “staying alive,” means the world to us. It can be translated as “look at these callow Western dogs, so in love with life, so beholden to nothing that they will say anything, do anything, even allow us to rename them, to cling to life…while we will give up everything…”
[…]
…To allow someone else to name you is to count yourself the lesser…By proclaiming their new Islamic names Centanni and Wiig - probably quite unwittingly - were declaring themselves new men in Allah. They were also living metaphors for the surrender of “the lesser” West.

I wonder, in war, can any innocent captive live or die only to themselves? I don’t think so, not when our enemy is so fluent in the language of symbolism and imagery.
[…]
Am I urging the West toward martyrdom, here? No, I am not urging it. But I am suggesting throughout history, martyrs have spilled blood and it has made a difference. I am suggesting that down the line some may well be called to martyrdom, and we might be wise to anticipate it and understand its use. I am suggesting that when one is caught in a fight between darkness and light - a fight that is more super than natural - such blood might well be required. It always has been, before.

Pope Benedict can see what surrender to a murderous and extreme movement will lead because he has seen it before; while the face of the oppressor may be new, the oppressor himself is an old, old foe. In a very socially unserious age, let us hope that the seriousness of this very quiet-but-serious man pierces our fogs and fantasies.

Sr. Lorraine sees Benedict’s constancy.

My piece comparing and contrasting the press’ dire predictions about Pope Benedict XVI with the reality of the man is up at Pajamas Media today.

As if making my point for me, Newsweek has two pieces on Benedict, both falling rather heavily “pro” Benedict and “con” Benedict - I think perhaps the press is past understanding that balance means “a little bit of both.” The first piece, by George Weigel, I recommend to you because although it glows for Benedict, it also gives you an excellent sense of how deeply this pope may effect our age. The second, by Lisa Miller is your basic predictable condescension about how Benedict does not “connect” with Catholics…except for all the ones who love him, especially the young, but since they’re probably living in the woods with Barack’s “bitter” gunslingers, they don’t matter, do they?

Funnily enough, Sissy Willis manages to look at Benedict and Barack. You’ll like!

Related: Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes

Lots of good stuff over at Pajamas Media, btw, there besides my poor effort. Bill Bradley has two piece ups, both on “Bittergate”, with the second looking at how Obama’s stunning elitism will be used against him, Mohammed Fadhil says the Iraqi government has a golden opportunity if they’ll take it, and Glenn and Helen are talking to Michael Yon.

Deacon Greg, and Miss Kelly and Sissy Willis are all writing about Peggy Noonan’s very good piece on the upcoming visit of Pope Benedict to the United States (and Sissy has a few words for those who don’t appreciate the full genius of Papa Ratzinger, besides).

Because so many are discussing Noonan’s piece, I don’t have to say much about it other than recommend you read it. I like how she notes that Benedict - unlike most “world leaders” - has no problem praising his predecessor and how she points out his use of the word “supernatural.” Benedict is a man of precise speech, so that is interesting. Noonan also writes:

John Paul made you burst into tears. Benedict makes you think. It is more pleasurable to weep, but at the moment, perhaps it is more important to think.

A Vatican reporter last week said John Paul was the perfect pope for the television age, “a man of images.” …

Benedict, the reporter noted, is the perfect pope for the Internet age. He is a man of the word. You download the text of what he said, print it, ponder it.

Yes, this is what I was writing about yesterday. You saw John Paul - the “mighty organ” and you were stirred and inspired. Benedict - the tinkling piano in the other room - makes you wonder “what is it,” and you seek him out in his writings, and then fall in love.

Noonan is at her best when she is writing about her heroes, whether they be secular or religious or some combination of both - in fact, if you like today’s piece you should really go back and read her 2002 piece, John Paul the Great which is breathtakingly well done, and very moving; a definitive snapshot of that astonishing man, and his effect on us.

To me the only burr in today’s otherwise excellent article was her rather gratuitous-seeming snark at the expense of President Bush, which seemed both uncharitable and out of place, like a pothole (on an otherwise smooth road) that needn’t have been hit.

The trip begins in Washington, and the White House has announced that the pope and the president will “continue their dialogue on the interplay of faith and reason.” (This prompted a long-suffering Bush supporter to say, “I’m seeing the collision of matter and antimatter.”)

It is so easy to go for a cheap laugh at Bush’s expense that I felt the gag was beneath Noonan, and was sorry to see it. For all that Bush has clearly disappointed Noonan and many conservatives, the sincerity of his faith and his obvious respect for Catholicism and for two popes should have been enough to have led her not into that temptation.

Speaking of Benedict and Bush, Rocco at Whispers on the Loggia has a long and terrific piece up on the upcoming meeting. My Li’l Bro Thom sent it my way with the remark: “I can’t imagine Hillary or Obama ever referring to him as ‘His Holiness’ or ‘The Holy Father.’” No, nor can I.

Meanwhile, Brits at their Best report on some of the musical folks at the Yankee mass and AggiesCatholics has all things “Benedicte-visit” wise, including links to EWTN’s live stuff.

UPDATE: Predictions that Benedict will again anger Islamists, at Ground Zero

:::SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE:::

So, a few days before Easter, Osama bin Laden - who may or may not be dead - claimed a conspiracy against Islam being headed up by an 81 year old feller who likes cats and plays Mozart.

At the Vigil for Easter, the old feller, who also wields a crozier, writes tirelessly and uses the soft answer to turn away wrath, made his gentle response. He baptized with his own hands, and publicly, one Magdi Allam, who chose the baptismal name “Christian”.

Magdi Christian Allam — or Christian Allam, however this very brave man wishes to style it — told reporters, after receiving baptism, confirmation and his first Holy Communion, “this is the happiest day of my life,” and he also had a few words to say about the current state of Islam.

Christian Allam knows that he is now a target, that in some extremist quarters his conversion is seen as justification for his death.

But Christian Allam is now justified by Christ.

I am sure the timing of this baptism was no accident. And I have read more than a few comments suggesting Christian Allam go into hiding, somewhere. But I doubt he will. He seems made of tough stuff.

Christian Allam now feeds on the Body and Blood of Christ - through his veins the blood runs both royal and supernatural. If Christian Allam is now killed for his faith he knows his place in eternity; he knows, too, that anyone stupid enough to murder him for his faith will speed Christian Allam’s way to heaven wearing a martyr’s crown - and a true martyr eats not the golden raisin nor plunders the numerous virgins; he becomes a saint in heaven, and an inspiration. He also becomes an intercessor-in-prayer for the rest of us.

So, Benedict and Chrstian Allam have made a response to Osama bin Laden and the response is: you love death; we love life. You deal in death, which is a conquered trade, for the One we follow has overcome death. Death, your idol, has no power over us, because we are alive in Christ, who was slain and who rose, and is Alpha and Omega and with us even now. We eat his Flesh and drink his Blood; he remains in us and we in him.

That’s one powerful message. I hope bin Laden, or whoever is running the increasingly unpopular deatheater glee clubs can manage to take the message in, and find a healthier hobby.

God bless Magdi Christian Allam. God bless the pope who baptized him.

:::UPDATE::: Wasting no time, Magdi Christian Allam gets right down to business and asks his fellow Muslim converts to come out of the shadows, even if it means fearing for one’s life:

In his “letter to the editor” published on Sunday by Corriere de la Sera, Allam explains that it was a meeting with the Holy Father which allowed him “to see the light, by divine grace, as the healthy and ripe fruit of a long process.”

Allam also explains that his decision came “as a gradual and deep interior meditation that I could not avoid, considering that, for five years, I have been living a shielded life,” in reference to the police protection.

“Yesterday has been the most beautiful day of my life, when I chose the most simple and explicit name. Since yesterday, my name is Magdi Christian Allam,” he wrote. [emphasis mine - admin]

Explaining the stages of his conversion, Allam said that “at some point I had to take action” after discovering that “the roots of evil are intrinsic to Islam, that [it] is physiologically violent and historically conflictive.”
[…]
But Allam says that the most decisive factor was his meeting with the Pope “whom I have admired and defended as a Muslim for his brilliance in presenting the indissoluble link between faith and reason as the foundation of true religion.”

He praised the Pontiff for agreeing “to personally give me the Sacraments,” thus launching “an explicit and revolutionary message to a Church up to now too prudent regarding the conversion of Muslims.”

Addressing Corriere’s editor in chief Paolo Mieli, Allam writes: “you have asked me if I fear for my life. You are right. I realize what I am going up against, but I will confront my fate with my head high, with my back straight and the interior strength of one who is certain about his faith.”

According to Allam, in Italy “there are thousands of converts to Islam who peacefully live their faith. But there are also thousands of Muslim converts who are constrained to hide their new faith.”

In his open letter, he finally expresses his hope that these former Muslims “from the Pope’s historic gesture and my testimony may be convinced that the time has come to come out from the shadows of the catacombs.”

Whispers in the Loggia: has Allam’s translated article - My Name is Christian

Why do I have the feeling that we are seeing something momentous unfolding before our eyes?
:::End Update:::

Do go see Kate-the-Great’s exclusive: Benedict’s response to Osama Tim Blair has more.

At Inside Catholic, Zoe Romanowsky and Deal Hudson are writing on it. Zoe wonders, with the Vatican’s expressed concerns for the pope’s safety, why the baptism was so public. Hudson says, essentially, Benedict clanks when he walks!

Julie at Happy Catholic has a warning for Christian Allam. Also, please look at her post-Easter Sunday links which are uniformly great!

Prof. Bainbridge says Benedict is not lukewarm.

Margaret Cabaniss emphasizes that Benedict is a mystery to the worldly…and the press!

Opinionated Catholic says Oriana Fallaci must be smiling. Heh. I thought of that, too!

Benedict: Still a mystery after three years

Miss Kelly: I have a mustard seed and I’m not afraid to use it

Rick at Brutally Honest notes some offense taken in the usual quarters.

Related: Faith, Reason and Forced Conversions.
Abdul Rahman Thanks Pope Benedict

WELCOME: INSTAPUNDIT readers: While you’re here, please look around. If you feel our national discourse on race relations hasn’[t quite happened yet, you might find this interesting. If you can’t get enough of Hillary’s tall tales, we’re talking about them, too. Also, Freedom never cries. And astonishing Chinese Acro Ballet.

Günter Grass, in his memoirs, recalls an encounter with the young Joseph Ratzinger while both were held in an American prisoner-of-war camp in 1945. The young Grass, a Nazi who had been proud to serve in the Waffen-SS, was taken aback by this soft-spoken, gentle young Catholic. Unlike God, the future pope played dice, quoting St. Augustine in the original while he did so; he even dreamt in Latin. His only desire was to return to the seminary from which he had been drafted. “I said, there are many truths,” wrote Grass. “He said, there is only one.”

Sixty years later, just before the conclave that elected him pope, Ratzinger proved that he had never changed. The then prefect of the Congregation of the Faith — in effect, the church’s theological backstop — preached a sermon to the assembled cardinals in which he denounced the “dictatorship of relativism.” From that moment on, there was no other serious candidate.
Daniel Johnson; Understanding Benedict, NY Sun

Very hopeful post from Gateway Pundit, that you’ll want to go read. It is a translation of a statement put out by Muslims urging discipline over Benedict’s speech of September 12, although it still seems not to really get his point. It is heartening to read.

I’m troubled by this line, though: What is needed now is an international agreement to punish all who insult God’s religions.

A troubling line because it suggests that all religions need to take on a warrior mindset, that religions need to “band together” to punish unbelievers. I don’t like that. It is not the job of religion to punish.

I would say what we need now is an understanding by all of God’s religions that God is big enough to take an insult and can deal with insults quite justly without our bloody intercessions.

Still, overall, this statement is a step in the right direction - it’s a damn sight better than much of the rhetoric we have been hearing from Islamists. We have certainly known all along that the radical, fundamentalist Muslims who get all the news coverage could not be the only voices in Islam…but it’s good to finally hear these others. Let us be grateful.

Benedict’s speech is not going away. Whether one believes it was needlessly or needfully provocative, a week later it is still being talked about and written about and shouted about, and that indicates a move away from stagnation and the status quo, and toward real dialogue, which is desperately needed, as the pope was trying to say all along.

Paragraph Farmer Patrick O’ Hannigan muses over at The American Spectator that Benedict’s is still a bear and a rottweiler, too:

[Benedict] has now posed a question that Amy Welborn ably summarizes as “a point of clarity for the Muslim world,” namely “Can you explain how the expressions of Muslim law, as lived out in your societies, are consistent with other teachings of your own religion, not to speak of thinking about basic human rights, which the rest of the world has arrived as via…you know…centuries of…reasoned thinking?”

If the only response to that from Muslim authorities is that it is rude even to ask such questions, then the reciprocal respect for which Benedict works as a way to interfaith peace becomes harder to maintain. And while it’s true that secular Western journalists typically shift from “theology is hard” to “let’s you and him fight,” it is also true that were it not for the hook of that the provocative medieval quote in Benedict’s lecture, very few people would still be reading or thinking about the important issues that the pope raised.

Patrick also quotes from this superb piece on Benedict by Daniel Johnson, in the NY Sun. I’d meant to pull the quote for you yesterday but had forgotten, so I was glad to see Patrick use it today:

Moreover, as Daniel Johnson pointed out…Benedict is the first pope elected since September 11, 2001. Johnson also noticed that “Benedict believes passionately that people of faith in general, and Catholics in particular, must either fight for their corner in the intellectual arena or shut up shop.” [all emphasis mine - admin].

Jesus said we would know a tree by its fruit - that we’d know the worth of a work by the fruit it produces. Benedict’s speech is going to produce much fruit, all kinds of fruit, for a while. An apple tree’s first fruits are inedible, but then the good things come.

I remain hopeful.

Also read:
Fr. Roger J. Landry; Reason vs Rage
Austin Bay;how the press ambushes
Bret Stephens;Pope Provocateur
Jonah Goldberg; Jihad Enabler
Ed Morrissey;Lord Carey delivers the real thing
Kathleen Parker;Translating the Pope
Tony Blankley;The Pope and Kissinger Warn the World
Carey backs pope and issues “warning” on “violent Islam”

The fearless Oriana Fallaci has died at age 76, after a long battle with cancer which inspired her to drink champagne, if she couldn’t eat, but which never silenced her furiously working brain.

Fallaci was an unapologetic woman of the left who - like Christopher Hitchens - had the brains, moral courage and obstinacy to depart from leftist orthodoxy when intellectual honesty demanded it. She was no one to simply “fall in line” with the prevailing thought-of-the-day. She dared the left to honor its pretensions to liberalism and open-mindedness by speaking her mind in dissent. And the left never forgave her for it, either. In fact, they called her a fascist, for it. (As you know, only they are allowed to fling that word about.)

The WaPo piece linked to above does not do her justice. Given her provocative last books, The Rage and the Pride and The Strength of Reason, which brought her up on charges for -essentially - daring to call Europe “Eurabia” and freely criticizing Islam, I would imagine they dare not go into just how solidly leftist were her views. (Both books are available via The Bookshelf). This New Yorker piece by Margaret Talbot does a better job of it, and you’ll really want to print it out and read it to get a sense of this woman:

As a teen-ager, during WWII, Fallaci did clandestine work for the anti-Fascist underground—she had her own nom de guerre, Emilia, and she carried explosives and delivered messages.[…]

For two decades, from the mid-nineteen-sixties to the mid-nineteen-eighties, Fallaci was one of the sharpest political interviewers in the world. Her subjects were among the world’s most powerful figures: Yasir Arafat, Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Haile Selassie, Deng Xiaoping. Henry Kissinger, who later wrote that his 1972 interview with her was “the single most disastrous conversation I have ever had with any member of the press,” said that he had been flattered into granting it by the company he’d be keeping