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Dawn Eden provides some interesting insights on John Paull II’s Theology of the Body, her own expereiences and a sermon by a rabbi who preached along similar lines.
In one section she says:

While the feminists of the world rage against sexual harassment and media depictions of women as sex objects, their No. 1 political goal is "choice," a k a "reproductive freedom"—the right to have sex with whomever they want to, without physical consequences. Yet it is this very "right" that ensures that women, as well as men, are exploited and enslaved.

I not so sure that modern feminists rage against media depictions of women as sex objects. While there is a debate within the feminist community as to whether pornography can degrade women and encourage violence against them – these voices seem to be mute against the predominant messages made. Feminist constituents like the American Library Association have done all they could to not have filters on library computers. Feminist friendly groups like the ACLU have argued to protect pornography and even animated child p o r n. Hollywood which is infested with radical feminist ideology has worked overtime to further devalue women as sexual objects. The destruction of the family which further impoverishes women is no bright light in modern times

If I was the classic male chauvinist pig (MCP),I could not wish for anything better then modern feminisms. Abortion, contraception, sex outside of marriage, sexual licence – I mean was is there that a MCP would not like? More access to sex, less responsibilities or problems due to messy children getting in the way. I mean this is a win-win situation for MCPs. Contraception and backup contraception (abortion) are MCP enables.

With all the ecclesiastic powers invested in my blog, I hereby declare today Church Militant Day. On November first we celebrated All Saints Day to honor the Church Triumphant. Then we celebrated All Souls Day where we prayed for those in Purgatory in the Church Suffering. So I think it follows for today to remember the Church Militant. Too often we are the Church Pacifist or the Church Apathetic when it comes to spiritual warfare. We deny that there is evil and we cease to fight against our own sins. Like pacifists we become isolationists in that we don’t worry about sins that don’t seem to personally affect us. That we can bring inner peace through spiritual diplomacy – where we compromise with the world to get along. Spiritual appeasement is even more dangerous then normal appeasement. To lose your life from aggressors is one thing and losing your mortal soul is quite another.

We forget that we are on a pilgrimage and that the world and its allures are not our final end.

O GLORIOUS St. Joseph, you were chosen by God to be the reputed father of Jesus, the most pure Spouse of Mary, ever Virgin, and Head of the Holy Family. You have been chosen by Christ’s Vicar as the heavenly Patron and Protector of the Church founded by Christ. Therefore, with the greatest confidence I implore your powerful assistance for the whole Church Militant. Protect, in a special manner, with true fatherly love, the Sovereign Pontiff and all the bishops and priests in communion with the See of Peter. Be the protector of all who labor for souls amid the trials and tribulations of this life; and grant that all the nations of the earth may submit with docility to that Church out of which there is no salvation.

Dearest St. Joseph, accept the offering I now make of myself to you. I dedicated myself to your service, that you may ever be my Father, my Protector and my Guide in the way of salvation. Obtain for me great purity of heart and a fervent love for the interior life. Grant that, after your example, all my action may be directed to the greater glory of God, in union with the divine Heart of Jesus, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and your own paternal heart. Finally, pray for me that I may share in the peace and joy of your holy death. Amen.

Here are some suggestion I wrote for a Church Militant Boot Camp before.

I just fixed a problem with my comment spam protection that was rejecting all comments. Spammers had included a fake url that when added to the blacklist caused all comments to be rejected.

You don’t often see a headline that is titled Feminists and Faith and then goes on to say.

She believes abortion is morally wrong, the advent of contraception did a disservice to women and the priesthood should be reserved for men only.

But 20-year-old Hilary Rowe doesn’t hesitate to call herself a feminist.

"
The more I was learning about feminism, the more I was intrigued by it, but I really struggled with the life issues," said Rowe, a devout Catholic who began studying feminism when she arrived at CU two years ago. "Finding that there was a feminism that supports the dignity of human life from conception and the dignity of women really struck me."

Rowe is among a growing number of young Catholic women who prescribe to what they call a "new feminism," one that not only strives for equality between men and women but also emphasizes the "true dignity of women" as mothers and caregivers.

As a volunteer with the new Denver-based Catholic feminist group ENDOW (short for Educating on the Nature and Dignity of Women) she recently helped launch a new study group on the CU campus for young Catholic women seeking a feminism that is more in line with their Catholic beliefs. The eight-member group is one of 20 ENDOW groups now meeting across the nation, and proponents of the movement anticipate it will continue to grow.

"Everyone is just hungry for it," said Rowe, who believes that, in many ways, the secular feminist movement has done a disservice to women. "Instead of looking at what is truly feminine and valuing that, it asks women to change into the qualities that we see as masculine. That never appealed to me."

It then goes on with the normal feminist tripe from the President of the local chapter of NOW of how listening to the Pope will never get women ahead in the world.

John Hawkins of Right Wing News offers some basic tips in "Your Basic Guide To Computer Maintenance" Besides the funny stories he offers from personal experience in doing internet tech support he has some good basic computer tips.

The Washington Post does a short article on religious blogs which includes mention of St. Blogs and especially the first member of St. Blogs (she also coined the term) Kathy Shaidle of Relapsed Catholic. They under reported the size of the St. Blogs parish by about 300 hundred since they said there were only about 100 lay people along with priests, canon lawyers, choir directors. [Link via Legislating Gremlins]

One thing I thought odd in the article was this statement.

Because the overwhelming majority of people who have the time and equipment necessary to blog are white middle-aged, well-educated and affluent, there is a conservative tinge to the blogosphere, said Lynn Schofied , a new-media scholar at the University of Colorado whose research focuses on the internet.

The only equipment necessary to blog is any device with an internet connection and the will to opine. I know Quenta Nârwenion blogs from the computer at a public library. My impression of the blogospere is not that it skews middle-aged but that the vast majority if bloggers are in their 20s or 30s. I also wonder how many bloggers in St. Blogs would see themselves as affluent, though I would say most are well-educated (not necessarily via educational institutions.) But maybe I should not complain to much (being a white, middle-age, high school educated, middle-class blogger) is that often you do not find the words well-educated and conservative in the same paragraph in the WaPo.

I just got my power back after a little over two days of electrical outage. If this keeps up I am going to get a wind-powered blog. But then again most blogs, including mine, are already powered by hot air. Considering the tragedy that Hurricane Jeanne caused in Haiti to just be inconvenienced for a couple of days is a blessing. It seems every time I heard an update on the death toll there it was like some evil hit counter piling up the count. So please pray for the victims and their families left behind and maybe help them out through World Vision or another charity.

One positive thing about this forced two days of silence is that one of the books I read through was Father Thomas Dubay’s "Prayer Primer: Igniting a fire within." This book is outstanding and I think it should be recommended reading for anyone starting a prayer life or who are trying to get their prayer life back on track. The book is extremely easy to read with much sound advice about prayer. This is not a book about prayer techniques – something at which Fr. Dubay pretty much frowns upon. The only recommended technique is love of God. This book answers many questions people might have about a prayer life such as when to pray, how long should they be praying, dryness in prayer and many other topics. He touches on the subject of contemplation since he wants the reader to understand what a prayer life should progress towards and the book ends with various common questions and their answers.

Everything I have ever read from Fr. Dubay was rewarding and if you were to start off with any of his books I would think that this Prayer Primer is the perfect start before going on to his other books like Fire WIthin. His book on Seeking Spiritual Direction and The Evidential Power of Beauty are also worth reading.

The Old Oligarch links to an answer in EWTN’s forum by Fr. Echert on one of the New American Bible footnotes and he goes on to say.

Bravo, Father, bravo. Let us swing the hammer and strike blows against that mass of modernist, agnostic commentary which presently enjoys the recommendation of the USCCB and is sold as "the" modern Catholic Bible in so many bookstores. Some aspects of the apparatus are great, but others are toxic waste, plain and simple, and deserve to be relegated to the dungpile history as a grave methodological mistake.

I bought The Catholic Bible Personal Study Edition NAB before coming into the Church. The text of the NAB is actually copyrighted by the by United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. At first I though it was a shame that they did not make the text freely distributable, but after reading it I am glad they didn’t. The NAB is a dynamic translation and I and I think there were a lot of questionable decisions as to how it was translated. But the footnotes in the study version are unbelievable. I think they outsourced them to a group of agnostic bible scholars or wannabe Jesus Seminar types. At times I would read the footnotes just to see how far off they would be and to get a good laugh. I expected after reading a passage in the Gospels of a saying by Jesus for the footnote to say "no he didn’t" or else "this was added later" Then again those footnotes would have been more honest then the ones they had. If they come out with another edition I wonder if they will advertise it as "Now with even more heresies!"

Welcome Hugh Hewitt readers and thank you Hugh for the plug. It was quite cool to be listening to his radio show and then to see the referrals coming from his blog.

If you are new to my blog you might want to check out my Microsoft Forger parody.

And on the third day there was light, power, and other utilities. My forced blogging absence was brought courtesy of Hurricane Francis. Somehow the lack of power had an influence on blogging. That would explain the lack of Amish bloggers. I do wonder if Amish blogs would have a uniform black and white template and instead of I.P. banning would incorporate I.P. Shunning? Zip files would also be a problem for them with that zipper icon, though they don’t seem to have a problem with buttons. Hurricane Francis descended on Florida like the flood of lawyers after the 2000 election; they were everywhere annoying people and we could hardly wait till they left. The chance of a barbeque this Labor Day weekend was the same chance of making ice sculptures in Hell. If the rain had continued another day I would have been looking for ark plans and heading to a home improvement store to load up on gopher wood. In Jacksonville we seemed to be on the outer parts of the storm for most of its inhabitation of Florida. My house faired well except for the T. V. antenna that fell to earth like the Skylab on Perth, Australia. My yard and most of the city got natures equivalent of wall-to-wall carpeting. Trees left their shrapnel everywhere and I spent most of yesterday just cleaning up the effects of the storm.

I am pretty thankful that there was so little loss of life caused by Francis and knew it could have been much worse if it had arrived as a Category III or IV storm To only count inconveniences is much better than what might have happened. Luckily we had planned on such an occurrence (but not the duration) and had not stocked up the refrigerator so as not to loose much food. I have had a lent’s worth of tuna fish, though I shouldn’t complain.

During the last couple days listening to the radio you would hear about crews working to restore power. First it started with them saying 100,000 houses here were without power. Then 65,000, 50,000, 25,000, 28,000 etc. The number kept lowering and we were still out of power. I figured that towards the end the radio would say power has been restored except for Jeff Miller’s house.

Sometimes when reading about monastic life you can romanticize it and think how it would be nice to have that amount of time to pray and meditate. Then when the chance occurs like a power outage you think of doing anything but praying or meditating. God has a funny habit of shining spot lights on our weaknesses. I ended up doing a lot of reading and some praying. The Rosary still works fine without electricity, though it does require will power.

Then there is also the inevitable setting of clocks and devices once power came back on. Everything now-a-days has a clock on it. I was tempted to set each clock to a different time zone. What time is it in China? – check the microwave. What time is it in Italy? – check the stereo. We have multiplied our clocks and we still don’t find the time to do what we should.