Capital Punishment

By now everyone has heard of Christa Pike's botched execution in Tennessee. I think it is nightmarish that they tried to kill her twice, and she is still alive, barely. 

I have been against capital punishment since 1959. I was 8 years old then. How the subject even got on my radar was the Charles Starkweather story. Charles Starkweather - Wikipedia

"Charles Raymond Starkweather (November 24, 1938 – June 25, 1959)^[2] was an American spree killer who murdered eleven people in Nebraska and Wyoming between December 1957 and January 1958, when he was nineteen years old."

This was the first major news story I can remember. I won't go into all the details here, if you want you can read the Wikipedia article.  I actually didn't know the details, most of the news went over my head.  I did know that Starkweather was "on the lam", everyone did. His path went through our area on his way to Wyoming, where he was apprehended. It was a scary time.  My parents usually didn't lock our doors, or take the keys out of our vehicles.  But during this time they locked up.  However Dad left his keys in his pickup, saying he didn't want Starkweather coming to the door asking for them.

Living "Yes"

This is my homily for today, the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A.  Today's readings are here.

Beatification of Archbishop Fulton Sheen

 I can say that I sorta knew a saint; well, I saw him on tv is closer to the truth.  My mom liked his program, we watched it sometimes in the 1960s. I think by that time some of the episodes were reruns.  But they were short; I think 30 minutes.  To the extent that I was paying attention as a kid, I thought he was somewhat entertaining, once in a while he'd crack a joke. I still would find him preferable to present day televangelists.

Here is the coverage from America Magazine: Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen declared ‘Blessed’ at beatification Mass in St. Louis - America Magazine

Children's Lectionary

I see in the comments to a recent post a short conversation about children's liturgies.  As it happens, we've recently restarted a Liturgy of the Word for Children (LWC) at our parish that had gone dormant during COVID.  There is a special Lectionary for LWC; it strikes me as considerably easier to understand than what we use in church.

Has the MAGA revolution failed? Or is it preparing for the final battle?

 Will desperation drive Trump and his henchmen to new violence,?  Will he use his gestapo like police force to stop people from voting? 

https://tinyurl.com/332tpb22

New Book Releasing Tomorrow (9/15/2026) -- Call It Evil: Understanding the Trump Era by Susan Neiman

The eminent moral philosopher Susan Neiman shows how naming and confronting evil is essential for preserving democracy in an age of demagogues.

"Possibly the best book title of 2026, I couldn’t agree more with philosopher Susan Neiman’s rehabilitation of the word evil, a very useful and necessary descriptor for the times we are living through. Setting millennia of moral philosophy against the livestreamed degradations of the 21st century, Neiman calls it as she sees it, and in so doing traces the dark path that has led us to this evil moment in history." —Jonny Diamond, Literary Hub

Call It Evil is a bold reckoning with one of the most fraught words in our vocabulary. Far from being a religious or outdated concept, evil is a vital lens, Susan Neiman argues, through which to understand the threats we face today.

Neiman is one of our most important philosophers, and one of the world’s leading thinkers on the nature and question of evil. She opens this sharp, revelatory work with the idea that the reelection of Donald Trump is the outcome not simply of political and economic forces but the erosion of values that have been subject to derision for more than a century. She goes on to show how we have been quietly bombarded from all sides with messages that undermine basic moral principles. Misreadings of Adam Smith and Charles Darwin have led to a view of human nature we now accept as common sense: ideals are for losers, or for politicians who wish to deceive them. Neiman then explores how that ancient view, first formulated by pre-Socratic philosophers, has been steadily promoted by corporate interests and (pseudo) scientists in the modern era. Drawing on history—from European fascism to the moral failures of recent U.S. leaders—she demonstrates how the normalization of evil corrodes trust, destroys justice, and endangers our future.

This is a book for readers who refuse to accept moral confusion as the price of political life, and who believe that confronting evil is the first step toward renewing it.

JD Vance, Catholic Convert and Author of "Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith," on James Talarico

“He won’t shut up about having traditional Christian values makes you a bigot, and I got to say, a guy that age who is so obsessed and focused on transgender children — I don’t know about you, but I never want to see that guy’s web browser history.”