Personal Stuff

I really need to make more money. Tomorrow, I am going to start applying for part-time work at portrait studios.

Also, I need to downsize my outgo. :-) I am trying to refinance my mortgage, but so far I'm getting nowhere fast.

Please keep me in your prayers.

And, if you have any cool ideas for other work, let me know. The last time I asked, I did get one really good lead, but I would have had to relocate, which I really don't want to do.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 07/09/04 10:22:19 PM
Categorized as Other.

Kerry the Heretic

Including my own "translation" of the canonical petition.

More on the denunciation of John Forbes Kerry as a heretic.

Canonist Pete Vere — surely known by now to you, Faithful Reader — says that the action by Marc Balestrieri is well-founded: "He spent six months researching this petition, and his research, presentation, and handling of the facts and of the law is solid".

Pete is also considering joining Balestrieri in the battle:

.... Earlier today, Marc Balestrieri invited me and a handful of other gen-x lay canonists to join his canonical petition to the Archdiocese of Boston concerning John Kerry's heretical views vis-a-vis abortion. I had already committed to publicly defending him in the media as well as raising money to help the cause, because it is the right thing to do. But getting involved with the procedural end of things requires a whole other level of committment that those of us invited to join must carefully weigh. In for a penny, in for a pound as the old saying goes.

Having spoken to a mutual friend of ours who is also a lay canonist that has fought some of the battles against pro-abort Catholic politicians — I will call him Anselmo for the moment — we recognize that we need to stand by Marc. Even before Marc extended the invitation, Anselmo expressed his eagerness to get in on the procedural action and is just looking for the best means to do so. I'm hoping he can come up with something in the next week, since Anselmo is noted for his careful preparation and meticulous canonical research before going into battle, so it will be a lot easier if I can just add my name to whatever he comes up with.

On the other hand, with my canon law books presently in boxes, I'm in no position at the moment to go it alone in supporting Marc right now. In short, I'm just not properly prepared at the moment to fight the procedural end of this battle. On the other hand, given the grave scandal involved and the great number of innocent children in the womb whose blood is being shed, I cannot in good conscience allow Marc to go it alone as is the case right now....

All praise to Oswald Sobrino — whose weblog you should not fail to visit daily — who will be donating book royalties to the cause:

Royalties from the newly revised version of the Catholic Analysis book Unpopular Catholic Truths will be donated to support the canonical petition filed by Los Angeles canon lawyer Marc Balestrieri against Sen. Kerry for heresy on the abortion issue. Author royalties from orders placed between today, July 8, 2004, and Election Day, November 2, 2004, will be donated to support the efforts of Balestrieri, whose website is DeFide.com.

The revisions to the Catholic Analysis book make some stylistic improvements to the book plus add new references to John Paul II's book Love and Responsibility, which the Pope wrote as a young Polish bishop in 1960. On the sometimes thorny and confusing issue of whether the primary aim of marriage is procreation or conjugal love, I found that some of the sources I consulted did not satisfactorily address the matter. Then, I came across some passages in Love and Responsibility that hit the nail on the head. This small experience is further evidence that our current Pope was and is a prophet well ahead of his time.

I will attempt a translation of the canonical petition; keep in mind that it extends to 18 pages, so in certain important respects one can hardly do it justice in a few words:

John Forbes Kerry is a damn heretic. By word and deed, he espouses the heresy that The Blog from the Core will call The Right to Murder Unborn Children. The Church has dogmatically defined that the deliberate taking of innocent human life is intrinsically evil, and that procured abortion is included in this definition. John Forbes Kerry is a damn heretic. Though he says that he personally believes what the Church teaches about abortion, he nonetheless espouses heresy by what he does: he pro-actively, even vigorously, does whatever he can to assure that an intrinsically evil act is legal and will remain legal, and to advance its status in society to the point that it will be understood as an everyday human right and acknowledged by mainline churches as such.

John Forbes Kerry is a damn heretic. His heresy is demonstrated and proven by his actions — his verbal protestations to the contrary notwithstanding — because he clearly, even proudly, promotes a belief that is clean contrary to beliefs dogmatically defined, in a multitude of ways — namely, The Right to Murder Unborn Children. John Forbes Kerry is a damn heretic. By Kerry's own admission, he knows that the Church's teaching concerning abortion is "an article of faith", so he has no excuse, and is in fact already excommunicated ipso facto by his own actions.

He nonetheless continues to receive Holy Communion, in defiance of the stated instructions of numerous Catholic authorities, and he even attempts to intimidate ecclesiastical authorities by making the Sacred Rites into a spectacle before the world. By all this, he openly and brazenly demonstrates contempt towards the Sacred Species, and for this too he is already excommunicated ipso facto by his own actions — an excommunication the absolution of which is reserved to the Holy See. (This point, if I may say so, is the crux of the petition, for it certainly takes the matter out of the hands of any ecclesiastical authority outside Rome.)

John Forbes Kerry is a damn heretic. He has caused and continues to cause great harm to the Catholic Church and to individual Catholics by stirring up doubt among Catholics and others about the Church's teaching and the Church's authority to teach, and by other scandals — even to the point of leading innumerable others, including Catholics, into believing The Right to Murder Unborn Children heresy — not by what he professes to believe but by what actions he takes and does not take, which is all that really matters.

Because of this harm — which Kerry has inflicted for many years, which he clearly shows no intention of stopping, and which no ecclesiastical authority has yet actually done anything to stop — and though he would much rather have Kerry repent, the petitioner has no choice but to demand that the Church must formally declare Kerry to be the excommunicate he already is. So, get to it! John Forbes Kerry is a damn heretic.

Here's hoping that one of the lawyerly types around St. Blog's will correct any error in translation.

P.S. I made some minor changes, Jul. 11, to the text of the "translation", mostly for the sake of more precise reference by way of pronouns and the like. John Forbes Kerry is a damn heretic. I also broke it up into paragraphs. Pete Vere has kindly taken note of this here translation. :-)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 07/09/04 09:45:33 PM
Categorized as John Kerry & Most Notable & Religious.

"Criticism of Kerry's Purple Heart is Just"

Funny how mainstream media isn't "flooding the zone" about this story.

The silence veritably echoes.

Retired U.S. army colonel David Hackworth defends presidential candidate John Kerry's Purple Hearts. He correctly notes that they are awarded for a wound that necessitates treatment by a medical officer and that is received in action with an enemy (''The meaning of a Purple Heart,'' The Forum, June 16).

I was the commanding officer to whom Kerry reported his injury on Dec. 3, 1968. I had confirmed that there was no hostile fire that night and that Kerry had simply wounded himself with an M-79 grenade round he fired too close. He wanted a Purple Heart, and I refused. Louis Letson, the base physician, saw Kerry and used tweezers to remove the tiny piece of shrapnel — about 1 centimeter in length and 2 millimeters in diameter. Letson also confirmed that the scratch was inflicted with our M-79.

We admire Col. Hackworth, but he, above all people, knows why it is unacceptable to nominate yourself for an award. It compromises the basic military principle that we survive together. To promote yourself is to denigrate your team. I hope Col. Hackworth will rethink his characterization of Kerry's swift-boat comrades as ''grousers'' passing on ''secondhand bilge.'' In our case, this is firsthand knowledge, and our integrity is unquestioned.

Kerry orchestrated his way out of Vietnam and then testified, under oath, before Congress that we, his comrades, had committed horrible war crimes. This testimony was a lie and slandered honorable men. We, who were actually there, believe he is unfit to command our sons and daughters.

Grant Hibbard, retired commander
U.S. Navy, Gulf Breeze, Fla.

Louis Letson, M.D.
Retired lieutenant commander
Medical Corps, U.S. Navy Reserve
Scottsboro, Ala.

Here is Hackworth's piece, Jun. 15:

.... Now a number of war veterans have picked the campaign-stumping season to question the first Purple Heart that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry received during his four months as a small-boat skipper — where one day out on Vietnam's rivers and canals was a lifetime, and four months had to have been an eternity.

That Purple Heart was one of three awarded to Kerry. (He also won Silver and Bronze stars.) His critics — who incidentally never served under Kerry on his swift boat — are saying his particular wound wasn't serious enough to warrant the award.

But the Pentagon regulation governing the Purple Heart reads: "A wound which necessitates treatment by a medical officer and which is received in action with an enemy." ....

As we can easily see, Hackworth's claims are blown out of the water by Hibbard & Letson: men with whom he served at the time say there was no enemy fire on that occasion, and Kerry was most likely "wounded" by his own actions.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 07/09/04 07:21:32 PM
Categorized as John Kerry.

He Was Furious

Bill O'Reilly, that is.

I happened to catch the Talking Points Memo last night. I've never seen Bill O'Reilly so furious before, and I've seldom seen anybody on TV so furious:

.... It is insulting and dishonest for Americans and Canadians and Europeans to condemn this country because they don't like certain policies. Dissent is good. Slander is unacceptable.

The truth is that the USA has freed more human beings in 230 years than the rest of the world combined. France has freed almost no one. Ditto Canada.

So, pardon me as I object to the Michael Moores of the world — and that man is too cowardly to come in here, all right? Pardon me as I object to the anti-American foreign press and bums like Chirac in France and Chretien in Canada.

America has a provable history of freeing oppressed people all over the world in fighting evil dictators. Canada should be ashamed that so many of its young people are flat out ignorant. And Americans should wise up and realize we are living in a changing world. Old friends are not necessarily true friends.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 07/09/04 06:02:35 PM
Categorized as Social/Cultural.

The Cardinal's Roman Missive

Last month, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith sent a memorandum to Theodore Cardinal McCarrick of Washington: the text — which Ratzinger is said to have written himself in English — was published, Jul. 3 (brackets and ellipses in original).

1. Presenting oneself to receive Holy Communion should be a conscious decision, based on a reasoned judgement regarding one’s worthiness to do so, according to the Church’s objective criteria, asking such questions as: “Am I in full communion with the Catholic Church? Am I guilty of grave sin? Have I incurred a penalty (e.g. excommunication, interdict) that forbids me to receive Holy Communion? Have I prepared myself by fasting for at least an hour?” The practice of indiscriminately presenting oneself to receive Holy Communion, merely as a consequence of being present at Mass, is an abuse that must be corrected (cf. Instruction “Redemptionis Sacramentum,” nos. 81, 83).

2. The Church teaches that abortion or euthanasia is a grave sin. The Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae, with reference to judicial decisions or civil laws that authorise or promote abortion or euthanasia, states that there is a “grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection. [...] In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to ‘take part in a propoganda campaign in favour of such a law or vote for it’” (no. 73). Christians have a “grave obligation of conscience not to cooperate formally in practices which, even if permitted by civil legislation, are contrary to God’s law. Indeed, from the moral standpoint, it is never licit to cooperate formally in evil. [...] This cooperation can never be justified either by invoking respect for the freedom of others or by appealing to the fact that civil law permits it or requires it” (no. 74). 3. Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.

4. Apart from an individuals’s judgement about his worthiness to present himself to receive the Holy Eucharist, the minister of Holy Communion may find himself in the situation where he must refuse to distribute Holy Communion to someone, such as in cases of a declared excommunication, a declared interdict, or an obstinate persistence in manifest grave sin (cf. can. 915).

5. Regarding the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia, when a person’s formal cooperation becomes manifest (understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws), his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist.

6. When “these precautionary measures have not had their effect or in which they were not possible,” and the person in question, with obstinate persistence, still presents himself to receive the Holy Eucharist, “the minister of Holy Communion must refuse to distribute it” (cf. Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts Declaration “Holy Communion and Divorced, Civilly Remarried Catholics” [2002], nos. 3-4). This decision, properly speaking, is not a sanction or a penalty. Nor is the minister of Holy Communion passing judgement on the person’s subjective guilt, but rather is reacting to the person’s public unworthiness to receive Holy Communion due to an objective situation of sin.

[N.B. A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favour of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons.]

Remarkable but unsurprising discrepancies between what Cardinal McCarrick had said about the memorandum and what the memorandum itself actually says have been thoroughly analyzed, Jul. 6, by Barbara Kralis.

The authenticity of the published text of Ratzinger's memorandum has been confirmed.

Apparently, the memorandum was accompanied by a cover letter, the text of which has not been released. I doubt it will take long for the text to surface in one venue or another: profound insight is not required to realize that the memorandum was published precisely to correct the misrepresentations by the Subversive Traitor archbishop of Washington.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 07/09/04 05:45:15 PM
Categorized as Religious.

Core's Laws and Where the Buck Stops

One could hardly hope to find a better exemplar of Core's Laws than in this diligent investigation by Stuart Buck:

The New York Times, today:

[N]one of the shortcomings of the G.O.P.-controlled Congress are more confounding than its failure to renew one of the acclaimed successes of the past decade, the welfare reform law of 1996.

Much of the partisan angst and philosophical conflict that marked the original passage dissipated as the law sharply shrank welfare rolls by 60 percent and guided millions of recipients from the dole to low-income employment and career opportunities. In keeping with the law's emphasis, states and localities began exercising creative authority to tailor federal block grants to the particular child care, transportation and education needs of welfare recipients and the working poor. Renewal, with some moderate tinkering, seemed a no-brainer.

Renewal of welfare reform is a no-brainer, huh?

But back in 1996, the welfare reform bill was a "draconian" means of "punishment" that would throw "a million children into poverty." Not only that, it was "atrocious," "harsh," "extreme," "devastating," "not humane," "punitive," "odious," "shocking," and "arrogan[t]." If that wasn't enough, it was not "acceptable."

Thanks to LEXIS, here's what the New York Times said then: ....

A refresher course:

• Core's Law of New Media: There Is No Such Thing As Local News Anymore: In the Internet Age, anything anybody has said anywhere, anytime, can sooner or later become known everywhere else.
• Core's Law of Old Media: We see the Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode partly because America's liberals believe their own lying propaganda.

Happily, the Democratic Establishment — including the mainstream-media branch and the political-party branch — seem to have no clue yet that these laws exist.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 07/09/04 11:28:32 AM
Categorized as Media.

Karl Rove Couldn't Have Planned It Better

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCCXXVIII

Though I "photoshopped" the enlargement and the black & white text, this is otherwise a true photograph.

See also USA Today, Jul. 7:

.... There also were a couple of unscripted moments that didn't fit with the day's story line of a ticket in touch with America. When the Kerry plane landed in Cleveland, the two wealthy couples walked onto a portable stairway that bore the company logo: Million Air. And Heinz Kerry stirred local rivalries when she likened Cleveland to her hometown of Pittsburgh. When some in the crowd protested, she said, "Don't be sore." ....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 07/09/04 08:19:51 AM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Photos.