HWX: Auld Lang Syne with Rep. Michele Bachmann

HWX returns for a final, gala broadcast of 2014. Brian Ward of Fraters Libertas and, filling in for a still vacationing John Hinderaker, Paul Happe, aka the Nihilist in Golf Pants, reconvene to discuss the critical issues of our time. Topics include:

* Sony Pictures vs. North Korea and the lingering ramifications on the culture wars and humanity’s capacity for freedom

* Minnesota’s lack of a white Christmas and the adult beverages we turn to for solace* Loon of the Week, featuring Anderson Cooper

* This Week in Gatekeeping, and the link (or no link) between cancer and breastfeeding.

We were also pleased to be joined by Rep. Michele Bachmann (MN-6). In a pre-taped interview moments after her final speech on the floor of the US House of Representatives, Michele reminisces on her eight, sometimes tumultuous, years in Congress. Michele addresses her thoughts on leaving office, her victories and her setbacks, and how she dealt with the specter of despair in the face of so much resistance and withering criticism.

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There are many ways to hear the podcast, including over on the mother ship at Ricochet.  You can be sure to never miss an episode by subscribing via iTunes.  Or you can just use the player embedded in the upper right hand corner of this website.  If all of these fail, send me an email and I'll come to your house and read from a written transcript.  Hope you enjoy.

A Small Flock With a Great Responsibility

Pope Francis recently sent a Christmas Letter to Christians in Middle East:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction, with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God" (2 Cor 1:3-4).

When I thought of writing to you, our Christian brothers and sisters in the Middle East, these words of Saint Paul immediately came to mind. I write to you just before Christmas, knowing that for many of you the music of your Christmas hymns will also be accompanied by tears and sighs. Nonetheless, the birth of the Son of God in our human flesh is an indescribable mystery of consolation: "For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all people" (Tit 2:11).

Sadly, afflictions and tribulations have not been lacking, even more recently, in the Middle East. They have been aggravated in the past months because of the continuing hostilities in the region, but especially because of the work of a newer and disturbing terrorist organization, of previously unimaginable dimensions, which has perpetrated all kinds of abuses and inhuman acts. It has particularly affected a number of you, who have been brutally driven out of your native lands, where Christians have been present since apostolic times.

Nor, in writing to you, can I remain silent about the members of other religious and ethnic groups who are also experiencing persecution and the effects of these conflicts. Every day I follow the new reports of the enormous suffering endured by many people in the Middle East. I think in particular of the children, the young mothers, the elderly, the homeless and all refugees, the starving and those facing the prospect of a hard winter without an adequate shelter. This suffering cries out to God and it calls for our commitment to prayer and concrete efforts to help in any way possible. I want to express to all of you my personal closeness and solidarity, as well as that of the whole Church, and to offer you a word of consolation and hope.

Dear brothers and sisters who courageously bear witness to Jesus in the land blessed by the Lord, our consolation and our hope is Christ himself. I encourage you, then, to remain close to him, like branches on the vine, in the certainty that no tribulation, distress or persecution can separate us from him (cf. Rom 8:35). May the trials which you are presently enduring strengthen the faith and the fidelity of each and all of you!

This Christmas season we should all say a prayer for our Christian brothers and sisters in the Middle East who demonstrate what real faith in Christ means. And give thanks that we live in a land where we don't have to worry about being persecuted for ours.

In Name Only

There is an insightful piece by an anonymous author at First Things on their experiences at their "Catholic But Not Too Catholic" school and church. Who Am I To Judge?

At noon I have to be at the local Catholic school—let’s call it St. Dismas—to train altar servers. I will arrive a few minutes early, and by 12:05 most of the kids will have trickled in. We are in Southern California, so most of the boys at St. Dismas wear short pants year-round. Students are required to attend one Mass per month with the school, but it has never occurred to anyone, not their parents, not the pastor, not the teachers, and certainly not the students, that they should wear pants to Mass. The girls wear skirts that in 1966 would have been described as “micro-minis.” When I told the boys’ parents that I expected them to wear their uniform pants to Mass when they become servers, the school principal—a genial thirty-something man who insists on the rigorous use of the title “Dr.” but often wears sweatpants and flip-flops to work—cornered me outside his office for a talk. He warned me that I might get some pushback from parents on the pants requirement. “We are only a medium-Catholic school,” he informed me. “We’re not really that Catholic.”

When we walk as a group into the nave (the church itself is almost barren of Catholic art or iconography), none of the kids bow or genuflect before the tabernacle. They are unaware that this is something they should do. They don’t know, because none of these children attend Mass on Sunday. When they do become altar servers, they will be dropped off moments before Mass begins and picked up by an idling SUV before the organ has finished the recessional. From time to time, the parents of altar servers can be seen standing outside the church, hunched over a smart phone, killing time while they wait for Mass to finish.

At this point in the school year, the first-time altar servers have developed a rudimentary understanding of what is expected of them during Mass, but when they began their training in September they needed quite a lot of attention. As I said, they attend Mass once a month with their class, but never on Sunday. Therefore, none of them are aware of the Gloria, the Credo, or the Second Reading. On the first day of training, several kids made the Sign of the Cross in the eastern fashion, and I had to take several minutes to correct them. I brought this up with a member of the school administration, and she was somewhat surprised. The kids say a morning prayer each day, she said, and they begin with the Sign of the Cross. It’s possible that no one ever corrected them. I have never seen any of the teachers at Holy Mass, so it seems likely that this sort of attention to detail isn’t a priority for them either.

The children know nothing of vestments, sacramentals, the prayers of the Church other than the Hail Mary and the Our Father, feast days, or the concept of Sanctifying Grace. None has been to confession since the first one, but all receive communion without any thought. If their parents are forced into Mass, they too will line up for communion and receive it happily and without qualm. The teachers aren’t practicing Catholics, the parents aren’t practicing Catholics, and the parish priest would never dare suggest to the congregation that they go to confession. He correctly understands that there would be outrage among his flock.

Keep reading the piece. It gets even better worse and is a perfect example of what ails too many Catholic parishes in America today. I foresee a day soon when there will be a shaking out within the Church which will lead to a separation of those who are more serious about their Catholic faith and those who are more loosely connected. It will likely mean a smaller Church, but hopefully a much stronger one.

Media Alert: HWX on AM1280 the Patriot

They said it would be a warm day in December when Hinderaker and Ward returned to the concrete bunker of AM1280 the Patriot, at least for something other than a legal deposition.

Looks like we get the last laugh on that one.

Twin Cities

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Back by popular demand, for one show only (filling in for Mitch Berg, who's taking a rare and well deserve break), the Hinderaker Ward Experience, from 1-3 pm today on AM1280 the Patriot.

And like today's weather, it's not the heat of this broadcast that will get you (a tepid 42), it's the humidity  - at 100%!  I think that's the functional equivalent of being underwater, so for goodness sake people stay indoors, stay safe, and stay glued to your radios.

Guests include:

*  Rep. Michele Bachmann, reminiscing on her 8 years in office, what she learned, where she's going, and what's it all about Alfie.

*  John Nolte of Breitbart.com, the point man on debunking the Lena Dunham allegations of a Republican rapist at Oberlin College.

Also Loon of the Week, This Week in Gate Keeping, and more surprises.

Check us out, from 1 - 3pm central, LIVE on AM1280 or via the internet on I Heart Radio.   Don't you dare miss it.