Elizabeth Smart Recounts the Grim Details of Her 2002 Abduction

Like everyone else (other than the two psychos who kidnapped and brutalized this innocent child), I was elated to hear the news, several years back, that Elizabeth Smart had been rescued from the nightmarish captivity imposed on her. Few people imagined that her situation would have a happy ending — at least as happy as an ending can be in a case like this. I thank God for her deliverance. Now, at 21, she is speaking publicly about what happened.

Elizabeth Smart said Thursday that the man accused of snatching her from her Utah bedroom seven years ago, when she was a 14-year-old girl, raped her repeatedly — three or four times a day — during the nine months he held her captive as one of his wives.

Smart, now 21, was testifying for the first time against suspect Brian David Mitchell, though the two never came face-to-face in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City. Mitchell was removed before Smart arrived and taken to a holding cell where he could listen to the proceedings.

Smart said Mitchell, 55, raped her for the first time right after her June 2002 abduction — which occurred in the dead of night in her Salt Lake City home.

She told the court that the rapes continued three to four times a day for nine months, and that Mitchell told her she would be killed if she yelled or tried to escape.

She described Mitchell as "evil, wicked, manipulative, stinky, slimy, selfish, not spiritual, not religious, not close to God."

It marked the first time Smart has testified against Mitchell, who is accused of abducting Smart and making her his "wife" to fulfill a religious prophecy.

The court is currently conducting a competency hearing for Mitchell, who has twice before been deemed mentally unfit for trial. A judge ruled earlier this week that Smart's testimony is relevant to determining Mitchell's mental competency.

Smart was poised and composed while testifying for just under two hours.

She said Mitchell abducted her in her bedroom at knifepoint in the middle of the night, took her to a mountain camp and performed a ceremony she said was intended to "marry" the two. . . . (continue)

How an earthquake might create a tsunami off California coast

(source)

Video of first Tsunami Waves Hitting Samoa

As a public service announcement, let's review Tidal Wave Rule #1 : When you see a tsunami, or even something that looks like it might be a tsunami, rolling in from the ocean, do not stop to take pictures of it with your tricked-out camera. Bad things will happen.

These waves and the earthquakes that are causing them (Samoa, Indonesia) are killing hundreds of people, maybe more. Let's not forget to pray for these folks who are suffering through these terrible ordeals. There's no reason to imagine that we in the U.S. won't get hit with something similar at some point.

Below is an interview with an eyewitness to the waves:

If you'd like to help honor Archbishop Chaput, please act now

With just a week left to go, I don't want anyone to miss the opportunity to get a seat (or table, if you'd like) at our Envoy Institute event next week in Charlotte (October 8th), to honor Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver for his courageous public leadership on Catholic moral issues (among other issues). If you’d like to reserve a seat or table for yourself (or your group), please click here or click the blue banner above.

Also, if I may ask a favor of you, we have many priests, religious, seminarians and college students on a waiting list to attend this event. They very much want to be present to hear Archbishop Chaput, George Wiegel, Joseph Bottum (First Things Magazine), Fr. John Corapi, Supreme Knight Carl Anderson, and others who will speak that evening.

If you can, please sponsor a table so that we can seat these priests, students, etc. The Hilton charges us for everyone who attends, so we do need to have every seat paid for!

Any donation you can make to help us with these expenses would be a great help. You can do so securely by clicking here.

Please think about what this means today, in the culture we live in. Many Catholics stood up to honor the late Ted Kennedy for his life's work, invoking his “Catholicism,” even though so much of what he did in his public life was directly contrary to what the Catholic Church teaches.

The University of Notre Dame — once widely considered the flagship Catholic university in the U.S. — dished out major accolades and honors to the president, a man who has made it his life’s work to promote and protect the hideous evil of abortion. You can see the problem.

I believe we need to be just as willing to stand up, speak out, and publicly support this man — Archbishop Charles Chaput — for his untiring, courageous public defense of Catholic teaching. He really puts his Catholic beliefs into action in the public square. And I want to stand up and publicly honor and encourage him for that.

Will you help me?

I hope to see you in Charlotte on October 8th!

Thanks, Everybody!

Well, now that Patrick is back in the saddle and posting away, I guess I can turn in early.

Actually this is a picture taken by my son during a recent backyard campout…one of only three campouts I’ve been on in my 49 years (the first was in an aunt’s suburban backyard, the second was on a baseball diamond in my native Jersey City…as an urban cub scout that counted as the great outdoors).

Perhaps, one day, my son and I will set out on a real camping adventure (if the neighbors don’t mind us using their yard).

I want to thank you all for your kind attention these past two weeks as I enjoyed an adventure in blogging courtesy of Patrick’s kind invitation to sub for him while he was away. It’s been a pleasure spending time with you.

For those of you who are Envoy subscribers, I’ll see you next issue in my “Rocking the Cradle Catholic” department. For those of you who aren’t subscribers, I hope you’ll consider signing up. Envoy is a fun way to learn about our Catholic faith.

Did You Hear the One About How the Pope Will Be the Beast of Revelation?

This theory has been making the rounds for a few hundred years now, and it typically centers on the (bogus) claim that one of the popes' alleged official Latin titles — Vicarius Filii Dei (Vicar of the Son of God) — is the fulfillment of the infernal "number of the beast," described by St. John in Revelation 13:17-18:

“[I]t causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six.”

In this audio clip from my EWTN TV series, "Pope Fiction," I give you a basic overview of how to debunk this argument.

NY State Says: "Get Vaccinated or Get Fired"

Hmmmm...

What do you suppose the reaction would have been to these kids playing overtly Christian tunes?

What's wrong with this picture?

I just learned that this Wednesday, New York's Empire State Building will light up red and yellow to commemorate the 60th anniversary of COMMUNIST CHINA.

Am I the only one seeing Red here?

Dear Elliot . . .

Pray for Your Brothers and Sisters in the Philippines

There's more in-depth information (and more pictures) regarding this catastrophic flooding at the Catholic Seeking blog.

Catholic Grocery Store Owner Under Attack for Displaying Crucifix

My friend Richard Lane brought this irksome story to my attention, and so I now bring it to yours:

“It startled me. It seemed so out of place” was the comment of a patron of the new downtown Schnucks Grocery Store in St. Louis, Missouri. While driving to work this morning, my wife and I were listening to commentary KMOX Radio on this issue and then I went online to get the story from St. Louis Today Website.

Basically the person who felt the Crucifix was ‘out of place’, (also was Jewish – I am in no means insinuating that all Jewish brothers and sisters feel this way) went out of their way to write a letter to their local Jewish Newspaper on this issue complaining about what many say is the ‘obvious symbol of not just Christianity, but Roman Catholicism, since the dying Corpus of Christ was placed on a Cross. Obviously people are disapproving of this display of someone’s faith, Culinaria (Store) Manager Tom Collora, Jr., who is a parishioner at the Old Cathedral, located in downtown St. Louis, Missouri.

"It's bad taste and bad business. Who wants to (shop) where someone else's faith is being pushed down your throat?" were the comments from an Atheist who lives next to the store. Personally, if this Atheist was so loyal to his cause, then he should not be using United States Currency, which displays this Country’s Faith… but this is not the point in my opinion.

What Mr. Collora has done, is answer the call of the New Evangelization, specifically the Mandate of Christ to ‘Go an make disciples’ by sharing our Faith; by sharing the Salvific Message of the Corpus of the Messiah on the Cross, which is not a sign of exclusion, but the opposite; this is the Glorious Sign of Inclusion into the Body (all pun intended) of Christ, who was ‘lifted up’, suffered, died and rose three days later in Triumph over death.

According to Pope Paul VI; the Roman Catholic Church exists so that She may Evangelize, taking the Eternal Message of Salvation to every end of the earth, every Home, Hamlet and Hovel; every Town, City, State, Country and Territory; Our (Roman Catholics) mission is to share the GOOD NEWS of Salvation through Jesus Christ to all mankind… and as Christ told us; “Do not be afraid!”

As one who has given up a secular life to continue to proclaim the Gospel, I applaud Mr. Collora and wish the other 1 Billion Catholics around the World would imitate his example. . . . (continue reading)

Discouraged by Your Failures? Watch This

The price you've got to pray...

My earliest memories of prayer are wonderful.

Mom would sit on the edge of my bed and lead me through—if memory serves—an Our Father, a Hail Mary, a Glory Be, and a prayer for vocations (I’ve often wondered if that vocations prayer was my Dublin-born godmother’s idea, since she always wanted me to be the first Irish pope...the fact that I’m second generation American notwithstanding).

When I eventually left home to venture the two blocks uphill to grade school, my prayer experiences got a little less rosy.

You know what I mean. Any Catholic school kid who ever went to confession can remember slogging through a handful of Hail Marys and Our Fathers as if they were a cold pile of mashed potatoes Mom was forcing you to eat.

“Hey, what happened to Joey? I haven’t seen him around.”

“He’s doing ten to twenty.”

“Years?”

“Worse. Hail Marys.”

How can I say such a thing about the Hail Mary? Easy.

Hand a rosary to your average cradle Catholic who has grown up being told, essentially, “You’ve been bad. Now, you have to say prayers.” and see how excited he gets. He doesn’t see the rosary as a beautiful meditation. He sees it as five consecutive sentences of ten prayers each (not to mention the between-decades stuff).

Who ever came up with the idea of prayer as punishment? Granted, it takes some serious thought to figure out constructive penances for grade school kids, but setting up our most beloved traditional prayers as a price to be paid just doesn’t seem right.

Reinforcing it for the rest of our lives doesn’t seem right, either, especially when adults are capable of much more in the way of sacrifice.

Here’s something the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about penance, “It can consist of prayer, an offering, works of mercy, service of neighbor, voluntary self-denial, sacrifices, and above all the patient acceptance of the cross we must bear” (CCC 1460).

Not to sound all revisionist like the Jesus Seminar, but I just can’t bring myself to believe that the Our Father was intended as a cross to bear. There are a good number of options listed there, yet we still go to confession only to be rapped spiritually over the knuckles with prayer most of the time. In addition to ruining perfectly good prayers, it lets us off the hook much too easily.

Of course, maybe we—and even some well meaning souls who taught us—have all missed the point of those prayers. Maybe we should look at them less as old, cold mashed potatoes and more as a way to wallow in the presence of the Father we’ve just renewed our relationship with.

After all, the Catechism also says, “Prayer is the life of the new heart” (CCC 2697).

"Tisk, Tisk, Tosca"

Greetings dear readers. My apologies for the long gap between postings. The last week brought many unforeseen challenges that prevented your stand-in-scribe from submitting his daily postings. But, alas. I'm back!

Following up on my Sept. 17th posting regarding the reports of a potentially sacrilegious season opening production of Puccini's Tosca. It turns out that the production was "cleaned up" prior to its opening night. Read Catholic League President Bill Donohue's posting on the dress rehearsal he attended. Nevertheless, the Director merited the boos and jeers of a disapproving audience that did not appreciate the many liberties taken with this classic opera.

I believe that this is a clear case of "The Fat lady singing". (I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.)