In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

Catholic Charities shocking video instructing Illegals on how to avoid ICE. You tax dollars fund this sh*t. They receive millions in Government grants. pic.twitter.com/LtG0OLGYwr — Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) January 27, 2025 Via Catholic News Agency: The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) on Sunday argued that its long-standing refugee program is a “work of mercy” after Vice President JD Vance criticized the bishops’ positions on immigration issues.' . . . The USCCB on Sunday argued that its own work with refugees is part of a “long history” of Catholic advocacy for vulnerable migrants. “In 1980, the bishops of the United States began partnering with the federal government to carry out this service when Congress created the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP),” the bishops said in the statement, which did not mention Vance. “Every person resettled through USRAP is vetted and approved for the program by the federal government while outside of the U...

I found a surprisingly even-handed story on Vice President Vance's exchange with Margaret Brennan on yesterday's Face the Nation that covered, in part, the USCCB's condemnation of Trump's immigration-related executive orders, at America magazine. The full interview is embedded above. The America piece reports, In Vance’s first interview since becoming vice president, host Margaret Brennan noted that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops “condemned” Trump’s immigration-related executive orders, and asked Vance, “Do you personally support the idea of conducting a raid or enforcement action in a church service, at a school?” “Of course, if you have a person who is convicted of a violent crime, whether they’re an illegal immigrant or a non-illegal immigrant, you have to go and get that person to protect the public safety. That’s not unique to immigration,” he said. “But let me just address this particular issue,” he continued. “Because as a practicin...

The most succinct comment on Trump's first week was from Greg Gutfeld, who said Trump shows the difference between a "real president and a cardboard prop". Yesterday I called him a Republican president with industrialist, federalist, reconstructionist, even partly Catholic leanings, thinking in particular of Lincoln, Grant, McKinley, and Roosevelt. Although comparisons of Trump with Theodore Roosevelt are easy, before this past week, I thought more of Grant. Via Wikipedia , In 1885, impoverished and dying of throat cancer, Grant wrote his memoirs, covering his life through the Civil War, which were posthumously published and became a major critical and financial success. At his death, Grant was the most popular American and was memorialized as a symbol of national unity. Due to the pseudohistorical and negationist mythology of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy spread by Confederate sympathizers around the turn of the 20th century, historical assessments and ran...

As I had hoped, a visitor set me straight on the question of the Anglican vestments at the National Cathedral post-inaugural prayer service: I'm not sure that they are "black stoles" but, rather, "scarves." The stole as a liturgical vestment was discarded in the Church of England at the Reformation and did not return until the Oxford Movement, and that unofficially and indeed, arguably, illegally. Nor were the traditional Catholic liturgical colors for vestments preserved after the English Reformation; they, too, came back with the Oxford Movement. The same was the case in the Episcopal Church, although their restoration to use in some circles in PECUSA met with less violent and less prolonged opposition in the former, than it did in the Church of England (among Evangelicals especially). In both the CofE and PECUSA the wearing of such post-Reformation style of vestments tended to hang on in cathedrals and especially big public services of a politica...

In Wednesday's post, I noted that the clergy presiding over the post-inaugural prayer service for Trump's second inauguration wore black stoles. This puzzled me, because I was an Episcopalian for over 30 years, and I've been a Roman Catholic for a dozen, and the liturgical colors for The Episcopal Church follow those of the Catholic Church. The current Catholic liturgical season is "Ordinary Time", for which the color is green. The Episcopal Church regards this season as an extended "Epiphany" that lasts until Ash Wednesday, but its liturgical color is also green. Thus a priest or deacon presiding over a normal eucharist or prayer service at this time of the year would wear a green stole, not a black one, and black isn't normally listed as a liturgical color -- just red, white, purple, rose, or green. According to Wikipedia , in Roman Catholic practice, which Episcopalians have followed since the Oxford Movement, For the celebrati...

Via the UK Daily Mail , Kamala Harris was all smiles and affection for her 'beloved' second gentleman Doug Emhoff in the immediate aftermath of her crushing presidential election defeat. But now that President Donald Trump has been sworn into office, for sore loser Harris, it is now all about the blame game, and her target has flipped to her 'dead weight' husband. And as she weighs her political future – maybe a 2026 run for Governor of California or another try for the nation's top job two years later – she has to consider whether Emhoff is an asset or a liability. . . . Despite their brave united front at the inauguration and at President Jimmy Carter's January 9 funeral, those close to the couple believe all is not 'hunky dory' between them. And word is the husband of California girl Kamala has already signed up for a job with a Big Apple law firm which would require them to split their time between New York and Los Angeles. The...

The intgriguing thing about Episcopalian Bishop Marianne Budde's homily at yesterday's National Prayer Service is how many people it confused. Just for starters, DeVory Darkins, the YouTube commentator in the clip above, says at 2:35, I didn't know you could be a bishop as a woman, I'm just being honest here, I'm not too familiar with the Catholic religion, I'm a Christian. . . The commenters quickly explained that Bp Budde isn't Catholic, she's Episcopalian -- but nevertheless, aren't the Episcopalians hitchhiking once again on Catholic prestige here? She's vested in a strange mishmosh of a surplice-cum-black-stole that's at least reminiscent of Catholic tradition, and the service is conducted in a faux Catholic-style cathedral with faux medieval stonework and a rose window, which calls itself the National Cathedral. Wikipedia says , The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the City and Diocese of Washington, comm...