December 2006 Archives

You might notice that I don’t post a whole lot of personal information on ye olde blog. Well, there’s a reason for that. I’ve been burned a couple of times by people trying to get hold of my credit or steal a credit card number. The idea is not to give them anything on the blog that they can use to assist in the theft. I regularly get a few hits each month from someone Google-ing my name, and that’s rather worrisome given the situation I find myself in now...again.

I’ve thwarted most of the attacks. But regardless of how hard I've tried to prevent it, they got me again for the second time in a year. But this time, they left a trail…

It seems that the rocket scientists that stole my credit card aren’t very good at stopping for red lights. Back in September they got a ticket in Council, Iowa. This ticket remained unpaid until November when the license was threatened with suspension. They had the audacity to use my credit card to pay the fine and clear the suspension. Now, stop and think about it for a minute. What does the trusty constable in Council, Iowa do when he gives a ticket? He takes down all the information from the Oklahoma drivers license of the red-light-runner. The state of Iowa has taken exception to being thusly abused, and I have an appointment to talk to my local police force fraud unit later today.

So, on the outside chance that the lady and gentleman who borrowed my credit card are reading these lines:

I know who you are.

A Note On The Study Of History

My degree is in history. Though my grad school work was very far from ancient history (and I never earned my MA as we started having kids while I was still in school), there are some things common to the study of history throughout all periods of time.

In a purely academic setting, the source material quoted in a project like this would be firsthand writing by contemporaries of the subject. Unfortunately, the real world won’t permit me to dig into the primary source material as I would have in college. I don’t have time to dig that hard, and you don’t want to wait for me to do so (it would take months of translation work alone). So I freely admit that someone out there, if they really wanted to press the issue, could take exception to the source material used here – and they’d have a point. However…

...and since there haven't been many questions on the first two of the papacy posts, I've decided to go ahead and post the next installment.

Greek 101

ΚΕΦΑΣ (Pronounced Kephas. Lower case is κηφάς)

ΠΕΤΡΟΣ (Pronounced Petros. Lower case is πέτÏ?ος.)

ΠΕΤΡΑ (Pronounced Petra. Lower case is πέτÏ?α)

Of Boulders and Pebbles

There’s a difference between the Greek words ΠΕΤΡΟΣ and ΠΕΤΡΑ – Petros and Petra respectively – a difference in meaning, not just a difference in the odd looking letters. A Petra is a huge stone, immovable and unbreakable. A Petros is a pebble. According to the scriptural citation most used by Christians, Christ called Peter Petros. He would never have tried to found his church on a pebble, would he?

Caveat

I am no scripture scholar, so be charitable in your reading here. I’m much more comfortable with the historical and linguistic part of this. As always, this isn’t meant to be the final word, but a starting point. Here’s hoping.

So, What Exactly Are We Talking About?

This post will be the first of several to discuss the papacy. This series will delve into several different aspects of the papacy, its origins and its succession, with the idea of explaining the office to those thinking of conversion. This is a general introduction intended to bring a few points to the surface before the detailed work begins.

Well, the papacy posts are done – I hope someone out there is still interested. Actually, I have one left, but the majority are done enough that I can start putting them up. The first of them goes up on Monday. I intend to post one each Monday for the next five or six weeks (and I’ll likely not post anything else in the meantime). I’m going to do it this way to allow time for questions in the comboxes (and hopefully allow for time to answer them as well). I’ve also opened a file that you’ll see on the right sidebar for future reference. Look for the link that says “The Papacy”.

A word of warning – some of these posts are long. By blogosphere standards they're huge. That can’t be helped. Keating spent 16 pages on the papacy, and my idea was to go more deeply than he did. Little did I know how deep this project would go when it began.

This has been, without doubt, the largest and most extensive writing project I’ve attempted since graduate school. I’m still doing the edits, so the final page count isn’t in yet, but it looks like the finished product will be over 40 pages.

Here’s hoping they help someone somewhere.

I've gotten the following questions from some recent search strings:

1.Vitam Impendere Vero – To stake one's life on the truth
2.Truth, what is truth – Veritas, quid est veritas
3.And also with you – Et cum spiritu tuo – “And also with you” is a sloppy translation. The Latin really means “And with thy spirit.”

Hope that helps.

I note the departures of Jeff Culbreath and Nate Nelson from the blogosphere. I'm not sure where Nate went, but he's vanished again. Both are good guys and I wish them well. I'm sure that they'll be back again someday.

That reminds me...I really need to update the blogroll. I'll get to that.

One of the best of the blogosphere - the Pontificator - has been ordained! I'm late in catching up on the news, and late in posting congratulations, but I've been preoccupied of late.

I am most happy for Fr. Al, and I wish him many years. May the grace of God guide him, that he might guide others.

There is a photo essay here.

Well, the transition period at work is over. Things didn't go all that smoothly. Everything is working, but not as efficiently as is necessary. It's going to take a few more days to get everything moving. I'm absolutely exhausted, bleary eyed, numb. Tomorrow is another day like this one, and then another, but by Friday things should start returning to normal. Hopefully by the end of this week, or the first part of next, I'll be able to bring ye ole blog back to life. Let's make it the beginning of next...I could use the rest this weekend.

In the meantime, perhaps the ever patient readers of this forlorn site would appreciate my favorite quote from Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen:

If He is what He claimed to be, a Savior, a Redeemer, then we have a virile Christ and a leader worth following in these terrible times; One Who will step into the breach of death, crushing sin, gloom and despair; a leader to Whom we can make totalitarian sacrifice without losing, but gaining freedom, and Whom we can love even unto death. We need a Christ today Who will make cords and drive the buyers and sellers from our new temples; Who will blast the unfruitful fig tree; Who will talk of crosses and sacrifices and Whose voice will be like the voice of the raging sea. But He will not allow us to pick and choose among His words, discarding the hard ones, and accepting the ones that please our fancy. We need a Christ Who will restore moral indignation, Who make us hate evil with a passionate intensity, and love goodness to a point where we can drink death like water.

Amen