Steve Skojec

I went to Mass at a new church today. One which has recently added the extraordinary form twice a month following the promulgation of Summorum Pontificum. Jamie and I decided to do Mass in shifts, so we could both remember what it’s like to be Catholic and look at our missals and spend Mass in a pew (instead of the back of the church, or the bathroom, or outside) and focus on praying and stuff.

The parish I went to was literally just built. In fact, it’s still being built, with more stained glass coming, etc.

The architecture is tasteful, if not entirely classical. It is a far cry better than most of the hideous Catholic architecture found in Northern Virginia. One of the first things I noticed is that the church - which is quite large - was probably about half full. Since this is not the first week with the extraordinary form, I took this as a good sign. By and large, the people look like they’ve never done this before. Their clothing is still the Sunday casual permitted by decades of “God does’t care what you’re wearing to Mass” novus ordo fare. Some looked bored, or distracted. Others were busily trying to find their places in the little red books provided by the parish. The music was, to put it bluntly, awful. (Then again, scholas don’t grow on trees, and female soloists with modern Churchmusik repetoirs do, apparently.)

But the congregation as a whole was quiet, attentive and respectful. There was a sense, on the part of some of the older attendees, of trying to remember.

“We always used to stand during this whole part,” a man whispered to his wife, likely remembering high Mass rather than the low that was offered today.

In line for communion, a woman of about sixty, dressed in a matching red skirt and blazer, was trying to figure out what was going on. She asked an elderly gentlemen at least a decade her senior in front of her (and directly behind me):

Woman: “They let them kneel to receive communion?”

Man: “It’s required.’

Woman: “It is? But why?”

Man: “It’s tridentine. You’re required to kneel and receive on your tongue.”

Woman: “Well, glory be to God!”

Woman (after a pause, and in a quiet, awe-filled voice): “It’s just like it was when I was a kid.”

Man: “Exactly.”

Man (turning around again after a pause of his own): “Which is why you’re also supposed to have something on your head.”

Woman: “Oh no!”

(At which point, she fusses with her shawl, making it quickly into a scarf, which she ties under her chin.)

Woman: “Luckily, I had something I could use!”

It’s one thing to go to a parish that has done the TLM for years, where the people know their prayers and when to sit and stand and kneel. That can be quite comforting, and I admit I prefer it.

But going to a parish like this one and seeing all the potential, that gives me a sense of hope that I don’t get where people have been treasuring the extraordinary form for a very long time.

The beauty of this ancient liturgy being rediscovered by Catholics who perhaps never even knew it was there is what, in my opion, the “New Springtime” really looks like.

We hear it all the time - some variant on the well-worn adage: “With Saddaam out of the way, America and the world are a safer place.”

But are we really? Living and working so close to Washington, D.C., I think all the time about how easy it would be for us to be attacked. I can only imagine how fragile our national psychological state would become if a series of Hamas-style suicide bombers began blowing up our crowded subway trains and city buses.

It wouldn’t take much - only a handful of such attacks would be devastating to a country that has suffered so few violations of its sovereignty, let alone its comfort and ignorant bliss.

And every time I read something like this, I remember that it’s only by some miracle that another September 11th-style attack hasn’t happened.

Two sets of confidential blueprints for the planned Freedom Tower, which is set to rise at Ground Zero, were carelessly dumped in a city garbage can on the corner of West Houston and Sullivan streets, The Post has learned.

Experts said the detailed, floor-by-floor schematics contain enough detail for terrorists to plot a devastating attack.

“Secure Document - Confidential,” warns the title page on each of the two copies of the 150-page schematic that a homeless, recovering drug addict discovered in the public trash can.

“Any time a sensitive document is unintentionally left behind, it’s a treasure trove for a potential adversary,” aid Robert Strang, CEO of Investigative Management Group, a global security firm. “It enables them to look for vulnerabilities in design that they can target - an age-old military tactic.”

Between open borders, sleeping or absent (or just plain stupid) TSA screeners, and this kind of nonsense, I really find myself wondering when it’s going to happen again. I’m obviously no advocate of a police state, but a heavy application of common sense might be appropriate here.

There are some ominous portents afoot. Cham E. Dallas, an expert on terrorism, mass destruction attacks, and response strategies at the University of Georgia, testified before Congress recently that we should expect a nuclear attack in a major U.S. city in the next 20 years:

A nuclear device detonated near the White House would kill roughly 100,000 people and flatten downtown federal buildings, while the radioactive plume from the explosion would likely spread toward the Capitol and into Southeast D.C., contaminating thousands more.

The blast from the 10-kiloton bomb — similar to the bomb dropped over Hiroshima during World War II — would kill up to one in 10 tourists visiting the Washington Monument and send shards of glass flying the length of the National Mall, in a scenario that has become increasingly likely to occur in a major U.S. city in recent years, panel members told a Senate committee yesterday.

“It’s inevitable,” said Cham E. Dallas, director of the Institute for Health Management and Mass Destruction Defense at the University of Georgia, who has charted the potential explosion’s effect in the District and testified before a hearing of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. “I think it’s wistful to think that it won’t happen by 20 years.”

Of course, it might not happen. But what’s to say that it won’t? If you’ve ever lived in a border state, or crossed back and forth between the U.S. and Mexico, you know that much of what protects us from foreign malcontents is little more than a shallow river, an easily breached fence, or an imaginary line.

Do you feel safer? Do you think the idea of some of Russia’s missing nuclear material falling into the wrong hands is too far fetched? What sort of response would a nuclear attack on America provoke if it came from an asymmetrical threat like Al Qaeda, where the Cold War stalemate of “Mutually Assured Destruction” can’t factor in because the network is dispersed across so many countries and America isn’t likely to bomb them all, if any?

These are tough questions, and we need to be asking them both individually and as a nation. On the individual level, I don’t know what to make of reports like this, or what to expect. Just because it hasn’t happened doesn’t mean it won’t.

The MP3 file of my interview with Sacred Heart Radio that I posted earlier this week was a bit large, so I’ve dumped it into a streaming video and uploaded it to Google Video (it was too long for YouTube) if you’d like to hear it:

Considering that this was my first such interview, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

D. Mac at Creative Minority Report has the scoop:

A cleric friend of mine reports in from the papal Mass in DC:

“I was distributing communion on the first level on the South Capitol side of the stadium. About 10 minutes into distributing communion, I start smelling burgers, popcorn, pizza, etc. I turn around and see that all the concession stands have raised their gates and were selling food! And people were in line! Now I didn’t have anybody come to me with a hot dog in their hand, but with length of these lines it was clear people were receiving communion and then going for a pizza.

The concession stands were open until right before Mass. Then they reopened during communion. I figure the stadium staff didn’t know any better and thought it was something akin to the 7^th inning stretch. And why they shouldn’t they? To non-Catholic, nothing seemed prayerful about the Mass. With the “Benedetto” chants erupting after his homily, and a failed attempt to begin a wave, the music, the disposition of the assembly…. Why wouldn’t they think “Oh, they’re taking a break, let’s sell some burgers.”

We can see now why some months ago Pope Benedict expressed his concern that our Lord did not intend these large Masses when he instituted the Eucharist…”

The emphasis here is all mine. The story speaks for itself. Yet another reason why I really can’t stomach (no pun intended) these kinds of events.

Why do they go to “Sister” Joan Chittister? I am watching CNN right now and I just caught the end of a rant by the crazy old bat (paraphrasing):

“You people are all taking pictures! Look! What do you see? Who do you see surrounding the pope on the altar? MEN!”

The female anchor, who apparently found the rabid “nun” simply adorable, quipped: “I would LOOOOVE to have you as MY priest…”

Gag.

I’m getting weird characters in my blog posts that do not exist in the editor. I’ve checked the HTML, and there’s nothing there. I don’t get it.

If you’re smarter than me and have an idea on what might be causing this, drop me a line, willya?

Dan Balducci. Brad Thor. Tom Kratman. Michael Flynn. These are the authors whose novels I’ve read in the past two weeks, and I’ve been thoroughly enjoying them. I just couldn’t do any more non-fiction for a while…it wasn’t working. I had been trying to read the same book - an interesting book at that, about the Founding Fathers and the original battle over church and state - for at least a month. I was maybe 60 pages into it. I realized I was burned out on all the non-fiction I had been reading and had to make the switch to something I couldn’t make myself put down, rather than something I couldn’t make myself pick up. I can’t mix genres, so it’s one or the other.

Dan Balducci’s book, Stone Cold, was mediocre. The guy has over 50 million books in print, so maybe I’m missing something, but I found the dialogue to be unbearable at times. It was like watching Die Hard 7. I picked this one up because it was actually available at the little library annex I discovered downstairs on the day I registered for my card. It held me over until my inter-library loan books came in.

Brad Thor’s The Lions of Lucerne was quite enjoyable. As it was a military/political thriller (but much more well-written than Stone Cold) I don’t have much to report. It was a fun read, quite suspenseful, and it made the time on the train pass quickly. I’ll definitely be reading more from Brad Thor.

Tom Kratman’s Caliphate is something I’ve already been talking about. Set 100 years in the future, Kratman examines what Europe looks like after it’s been taken over by the Muslims and subjected to Sharia law. Two of the main characters are children who grew up in dhimmitude as German Catholics. After their father is unable to pay the jizya, one is sold into slavery (and eventually, prostitution) and the other is forced to become a Janissary, who re-discovers his faith after being forced to crucify a priest.
 
The third protagonist is a soldier in the American Empire - an empire rooted in a common will to wipe Islam off the face of the earth after a multi-city nuclear bombing campaign (which was only half-successful, due to the inadequacies of the bombers) left three cities leveled and 4 million Americans dead.
 
Interspersed are flashbacks to the present, as portrayed through the relationship of a secular, liberal, atheist German artist and her nominally Muslim (later convert to Christianity) boyfriend. This aspect demonstrates how Europe simply let itself be taken. The book is not subtle, but it’s dead-on, and I appreciated the editorial essay from the author at the end.

I’ll warn you that this one is a difficult read at times. The book depicts a rape, several acts of prostitution, child abuse, slavery, and its fair share of violence, and it can leave you feeling pretty down about mankind and our prospects for the future. I never had a moment’s peace while reading it - I always found that at some point, I was experiencing discomfort over what I was reading. Hilary says it reads too much like a comic book for her tastes, but for those of us with less distinguished palates I think it’s a really worthwhile read with an ominous and accurate glance at what the future may hold. (Thanks to Dale Price for the heads up on this one. There’s an interesting discussion on the combox there, including quite a bit from novelist S.M. Stirling and an appearance or two by Mr. Kratman himself.)

The book I’m reading now is Eiefelheim by Michael Flynn. This one is about a priest in 14th century Germany who, along with his town, encounters a first contact scenario. That’s right - aliens in the hamlet. It’s really quite beautifully written (I think; Hilary may disagree) and so far (I’m 50 pages in) it’s about 100 times more interesting than it sounded when I read the description that follows:

A present-day scientific odd couple who are longtime domestic partners, physicist Sharon Nagy and historian Tom Schwoerin, look into the fate of the Black Forest village of the title, which apparently vanished in the plague year 1348, in Flynn’s heartbreaking morality play of stranded aliens in medieval Germany. Most of the narrative focuses on the consequences of the discovery in the 14th century by Eifelheim’s pastor, Father Dietrich, of a crashed space ship carrying the “Krenken,” horrific grasshopperlike aliens. Despite Inquisitorial threats, Dietrich befriends, baptizes and attempts to help the aliens return home. Flynn (The Wreck of the River of Stars) masterfully achieves an intricate panorama of medieval life, full of fascinatingly realized human and Krenken characters whose fates interconnect with poignant irony. Through human frailties, the very Christianity by which Dietrich hopes to save Krenken souls dooms them all.   

I’m thinking I may just enjoy this one most of all.

(Thanks to Mark Shea for putting the idea in my head of checking out some of these authors, several of whom are Catholic. I still have Tim Powers and John C. Wright in a holding pattern in my drawer o’ books here at the office. )

With the pope in town, things in the nation’s capital are decidedly more secure. As I emerged from my train in Alexandria this morning I immediately noticed a police officer in tactical attire, an assault rifle clutched to his chest as he carefully observed the morning commuters.

Despite what some may think about D.C., this is not a common sight. Not since the early days after September 11th, 2001, when 50-caliber turrent mounted Humvees manned by U.S. marines in full combat gear stood sentry outside the Pentagon along the I-395 corridor have I seen anything comparable. Which is not to say that the place was swarming with cops. I intentionally avoided L’Enfant plaza for this reason - all roads to the pope’s Mass lead through this station, and security was expected to be heavy athere - but I still found myself intrigued.

In Europe, police in near-military outfitting are common. The Carabinieri in Rome carry machine guns. The Austrian and German police who patrol the trains from time to time look more like green berets than beat cops. And in Slovakia, the train stations were manned by what looked like SWAT teams, dressed all in black nomex, fatigues and combat boots and keeping weapons in plain view.

What is odd is that America, for all of it’s subtlety in allowing the police to make a show of force, is far more secure than any nation in Europe seems to be. As the Europeans sell their heritage for a chance to be open-minded and multicultural, their collective kowtowing to the demographic invasion if Islamic immigrants (and customs - including the dangerous ones) imperils the citizens of the EU.

There’s something different about America, for all of our tendencies toward political correctness and our failure to resist liberal secularism. America has the will to live, to survive, to keep things safe and secure. Our guard is lower than it should be, but our people are more willing to stand together for the cause if need be. The nationalism that European countries and kingdoms were famous for seems now reserved to the United States, Mexico and Latin America, and the Chinese. Patriotism is as yet not a dirty word in these places, and the willingness to pay homage to our honor and our flag may yet save us in the end.

I don’t have a point here - I’m just musing - but the contrast was one I hadn’t really paid attention to before today. As such, I haven’t really figured out what I think it all means.

One place I do wish we would offer a show of force, incidentally, is in situations like this. Nothing would make me happier than to see John Kerry and Nanci Pelosi tackled by a SEAL team or perhaps a detachment of Swiss Guards as they attempted to flaunt their sacrilege in the face of the Holy Father. Maybe we could ship them off to Guantanamo for a while.

A guy can dream, right?

Unless you’re a total geek, you probably won’t even have a clue about why I would be excited by this. Dreamworks has aquired the rights to produce a live-action, 3D version of the Japanese anime and manga series, Ghost in the Shell.

Steven Spielberg, the fanboy who brought my dreams to life in last year’s campy-but-enjoyable live-action film adaptation of Transformers, is the driving force behind the aquisition.

Universal and Sony were also chasing “Ghost in the Shell,” but Steven Spielberg took personal interest in the property and made it happen at DreamWorks.

” ‘Ghost in the Shell’ is one of my favorite stories,” Spielberg said. “It’s a genre that has arrived, and we enthusiastically welcome it to DreamWorks.”

Ghost in the Shell is hardcore, esoteric cyberpunk. It’s a cyborg laden, robot tank infused, hacker plagued vision of future Japan that involves an elite police paramilitary/covert operations unit called Section 9. The main chacter, Major Kusanagi, is a fully cybernetic humanoid who underwent the traumatic transformation from human to cyborg after surviving a plane crash as a child with extreme injuries.

The philosophical questions that arise over what constitutes humanity are thought provoking, if not Christian in their perspective. There is a lingering question of whether Kusanagi’s soul, or “ghost” remains in her cybernetic body, or “shell”, hence the title of the series.

The imagery seems borrowed largely from the pages of William Gibson’s award-winning cyberpunk novel Neuromancer - which was published in 1984, five years prior to the first installment of GITS - from the therm-optic camouflage worn by the Major to the neural interface jacks that allow modified humans to interact directly with computer systems. Unlike other cyberpunk, the future is less dystopic in appearance, if not in philosophical substance. With that exception, it could be argued that the Wachowskis drew heavily on influences taken from Gibson and GITS for the technical ideas and imagery used in The Matrix.

The story lines are incredibly complex. I’ve never read the manga, but I’ve seen both full-length films (the second is better) and half of the first season of the GITS: Standalone Complex series.

If Dreamworks could do a faithful adaptation - and I’m not holding my breath, considering the depth and complexity of the characters and storylines - I’d very much like to see it.

(A word of warning to those who might be interested in checking this out: the original Ghost in the Shell film contains a substantial amount of animated nudity, albeit in a non-sexual context. For those unacustomed to such a thing, it can be a bit jarring.)

I got a call from my buddy Joe last night. Joe is an officer in the Army JAG Corps and is stationed in Maryland.

Joe: Guess what I’m doing right now?

Steve: Uuuuuuuuuuuuuh….I don’t know.

Joe: I’ve been summoned to the Pentagon.

Steve: Why?

Joe: They want me to greet the Holy Father at the White House.

Steve: What?!

Joe: They didn’t tell me that, but I know all of the security codes, and this is for something at the White House tomorrow morning.

Steve: Call me back when you find out more!

Several Hours Later….

Steve: So what’s the deal?

Joe: They won’t tell me anything. All I know is that I am to report to the White House at 8:00 AM.

I checked the Papal schedule, and the White House meeting is going to be happening at 10:15AM. I think Joe’s gut feeling is dead on. More when I know.