The Higgs Boson "God Particle": Of All Things Visible and Invisible
. . . The short answer is "no." Imagine for a moment that you're on an archeological dig on the outskirts of Rome. Standing in your carefully excavated hole, your spade strikes a metal box. Inside you discover a small, worn chisel, and a note written in 16th Century Italian: "Herein lies my favorite chisel." The note is signed, "Michelangelo Buonarroti." Well, if you're an art historian, what you now hold might be priceless. If you're also a person of faith who has viewed the magnificence of Michelangelo's Pieta, you may treasure this forever as one of the tools used to create a work of artistic genius. Your discovery might land on a shelf with your name on it in the Vatican Museum. There will be no doubt that what you discovered is a tool used to create an inspired work of art, but it is not itself the art's creator. . . .
These Stone Walls' Second Annual Stuck Inside Literary Award
. . . We are caught up on this same road. Whether we know it or not, whether we accept it or not, our entire life as individuals and as a Catholic community comes down to one crucial element: we are either instruments for the proliferation of evil or instruments for its defeat. None of the petty squabbles, devastating scandals, and addictive diversions that muddle us in the muck on this long, long road will come to mean very much in the end. We are instruments, and instruments of what depends entirely on our response to grace. This is the tale of The Lord of the Rings. J.R.R.Tolkien brings his characters again and again to the very brink of hopelessness, only to teach them - and us - that there is always hope. We cannot accept that there was, and is, a Christ without accepting that one true fact. To be without hope means to admit there is no grace at work in the world, and that is simply pointless, and demonstrably untrue. . . .
The Catholic Press Needs to Get Over Its Father Maciel Syndrome
. . . Most troubling of all - for me, at least - was that David Pierre also submitted his report to many Catholic newspapers and news magazines. They also ignored it, and frankly I had hoped for better. I can only conclude that the Catholic press has failed to cover the story of new evidence in my own case, and the much broader story of Catholic priests falsely accused, because of one individual case. In "The High Cost of Father Marcial Maciel and Why I Resent Paying It," I wrote of the priestly profiling that has taken place in the wake of evidence of guilt - mostly post-mortem - in the case of Father Maciel, founder of the Legionnaires of Christ. . . .
Fr. George David Byers: When Jesus Was in Prison
. . . Many TSW readers know of Anna Katharina Emmerick, who died in 1824, and was beatified on 3 October, 2004, by Blessed John Paul II, only some months after the screening of The Passion of the Christ. Mel Gibson partially based that film on The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, dictated by Anna Katharina to Clemens Brentano, whose secretarial skills seem to have left something to be desired. Nevertheless, The Holy See praises her accounts. She speaks of the Lord’s imprisonment. Although we don’t read of this in the Gospels, there is a space of time that is entirely conspicuous for its lack of description, the hours between the initial questioning and mocking of Jesus that first Holy Thursday evening and the following morning. It is a period of time in which, all things being equal, anybody in Jesus’ position would have been imprisoned for safe keeping until the next day. . . .
Pornchai Moontri: The Duty of a Knight - To Dream the Impossible Dream
. . . Editor's Note: The following is a guest post written by Pornchai Moontri. . . . I was a teenager when I went to prison. Over the years, I was sent back to solitary confinement over and over, for up to three-and-a-half years at a time, because I was so hostile. The longer I was there each time, the more inhuman I felt and became. Living for years on end in solitary confinement joined with the guilt I felt for the life I took during a struggle when I was 18 years old. So I just gave up on myself as a human being. I sank to the very bottom of the prison I was in, and stayed there. Then in the spring of 2005, after almost 14 years in and out of solitary confinement, I was told that I was to be shipped to another prison in another state. I sat for 10 months alone in my cell wondering about whatever hell was coming next, and I told myself I didn't care what comes next. Then one day, guards in riot gear came and chained me up. . . .
Accommodations in the Garden of Good and Evil
. . . That, for me, is Jamil's wake-up call. The Catholic Church in America - and I do not refer just to the United States of America - is in the process of being parked a block or so outside the Public Square, and it's going to be accomplished by a force I have written of before on These Stone Walls. It is the most insidious force of all, but it is vague and subtle and indistinct, and we cannot blame President Obama for it. That force is best characterized as "the noise of a few, and the silence of many." . . .
Bitter Herbs Before the Exodus: Skooter Changes Course for Lent
. . . I received some snail mail recently from Liz Feuerborn who frequently comments on my posts at These Stone Walls. At the very end of her letter was a scribbled P.S.: "You haven't mentioned Skooter in awhile. Is he okay?" Several other readers have also asked about Skooter in their recent comments, and it's odd that his name should come up right now. It's odd because on the day I received Liz's letter, I had just spent an hour outside in the freezing cold prison yard talking with Skooter. The short answer to Liz's question is “No," Skooter is not okay, but I'm pretty sure he will be. . . .
New Year's Resolutions, and a Remembrance From East of Eden
. . . So my resolution for the New Year in 2012 is to let the mourning of loss become the triumph of the Spirit. It's a tough sell to a world that measures success in the most material of terms. It's an even tougher sell within me, however, having to witness the world of grace from within prison walls, at least for now. Hence, the resolution. . . .
These Stone Walls at Year's End: My Hits and Misses for 2011
. . . A "cup o'kindness" in the Scotish tradition is usually something with the words "single malt" imprinted on the label. That, too, is not possible in prison. But I have some Starbucks coffee I've been saving, and I plan to brew it on New Year's Eve. I'll have a cup o'that in honor of you, the friends I have met on this long and winding road. These Stone Walls is such a strange and unlikely place, yet it exists, and from it every week you let me reach into your hearts in friendship, and with a shared vision of grace at work in our world. . . .
The "Stuck Inside Literary Award": At Sea with Patrick O'Brian
. . . A few TSW readers - notably Sharon Morris and Lavern West - have traveled to New Hampshire to obtain one of Pornchai's vessels. Lavern has a magnificent tall ship displayed in her living room window in Cincinnati with some beautiful handcrafted stained glass in the window just above it. She sent a photo which Pornchai proudly added to the collection on his cell wall. One day, a guard came into this cell and was looking intently at the photos of Pornchai's beautiful ships. When he saw the one in Lavern's window, he said "Wow! That's just incredible." Pornchai smiled and sat up straight waiting for the usual comments about his carving skill. Then the guard said, "That's some of the nicest stained glass I've seen!" I just about hurt my ribs laughing. Pornchai told me that on his next ship, he's adding a plank for me to walk. . . .
Pornchai Moontri: From Prison Blues to Poetic Muse!
. . . In the post, I made a brief mention of a letter from Father Neuhaus to Pornchai Moontri, and of how that letter was among the forces that caused Pornchai to become a Catholic. What surprised me was the number of comments mentioning my brief paragraph about Pornchai. He was certainly not central to that post, but lots of people mention him in their comments on several of my posts. In fact, I've noticed a pattern. It might be just my imagination, but when I mention Pornchai, readers seem to comment more. I showed the comments on that post to Pornchai and told him about my theory. He readily concurred. "If you don't mention me," he said, "no one reads it!" Well, I doubt that's true. At least, I HOPE it isn't true! . . .
These Stone Walls: More Loose Ends and Dangling Participles
. . . Somehow, at some point when I wasn’t looking, These Stone Walls became noticed, and it seemed to happen suddenly. In the last few weeks, some friends who keep track of such things have told me something astonishing. TSW is showing up on the first page in a number of Google searches. As a prisoner with zero access to the Internet, I can be forgiven for not having noticed. Google didn’t even exist when I was sent to prison, and the Internet was in its virtual toddlerhood. . . .
Come, Sail Away! Pornchai Moontri and the Art of Model Shipbuilding
. . . The art of woodcarving and model shipbuilding were honed in Pornchai during his years in a Maine prison. Pornchai was 18 years old when sent to prison with a sentence of 45 years. The first five were a blur of despair, violence, and trouble for Pornchai. Then he met Mike Tribou, a fellow prisoner and carpenter who offered to teach Pornchai his skills with woodworking. Mike is out of prison now, with a new family and a new life, but he and Pornchai remain friends. I am proud to say that Mike is also a TSW reader. . . .
New on These Stone Walls: Loose Ends and Dangling Participles
. . . Another reader wrote that she liked "Saints and Sacrifices," but pointed out that it was my third post in 12 weeks about Adolf Hitler, and I'm "beginning to sound a bit like the History Channel." OUCH! There's a strange irony in that. There's no character in history that I loathe more than Hitler. The irony is that as my trial ended in 1994, the prosecutor compared me to Adolf Hitler in his closing remarks to the jury.It was the sort of inflammatory statement that usually isn't allowed in court, but it was allowed in that court. The jury looked visibly alarmed, and I can only imagine how I looked to them. As with the rest of that trial, the Hitler comparison like Hitler himself - had nothing to do with the truth or with justice. . . .
Create in Me a New Heart, O Lord, and a Steadfast Spirit Renew Within Me
. . . I learned that a donor heart had been found for Christopher. As I write this he is in the middle of an eight to ten hour heart transplant surgery at Pittsburgh Children’s Hospital. The days and weeks to follow will be of critical importance for this young man. Your prayers are also of critical importance. Please pray for Christopher Warwick, for his new heart, for the heart’s donor, and for the Warwick family. . . .
These Stone Walls: Spring Cleaning and Loose Ends
. . . Are men in general like that? I sure hope not, though lots of prisoners are. Add to the mix a bit of prison paranoia and they make for a challenging population. A twenty-six year old came to my cell door last week with a worried look on his face. He had been to sick call that morning with a sore throat, nagging cough, runny nose, and headache. He seemed perplexed that he wasn't hospitalized immediately. Instead, he said, they gave him some Tylenol and cough syrup and told him to wash his hands a lot. . . I told him it sounds like he has a common cold, and washing his hands helps keep it from spreading to everyone else. He looked at me as though I was delusional, and walked away alarmed that I would share the medical staff's utter ignorance of the severity of his condition. He's still alive, but I've never seen him wash his hands. I washed mine twice while typing this post! . . .
In the Year of the Priest, the Tale of a Prisoner
. . . It's hard to describe the brokenness of the person sitting a few feet away staring intently, lost in a mindless TV show. Most of you do not have a category in which to understand the aftermath of such a shattered life. Skooter, his head shaved, his right arm covered in prison tattoos, looks as menacing as a wounded person possibly can. Skooter said I am the first person he has ever told of his past. I believe him. He wasn't able to tell most of it even to me. Instead, he spent all night writing, and gave his story to me in the morning. He titled it, "The Life of Skooter." It's not an easy story to tell. . . .
In Honor of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Patron of Prisoners, Priests, Bloggers
. . . On Saturday, April 10, 2010, our friend, Pornchai Moontri was welcomed into the Church when he received the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation. Father Anthony Kuzia, C.M., conferred the Sacraments in the prison Chapel. The Prison Chaplain, Deacon James Daly and I were witnesses. It was both a joyous and solemn event, but something very special occurred during the Sacrament of Confirmation. When Pornchai stated that "Maximilian" was to be his Confirmation name, Father Kuzia shared with us that just before his ordination to priesthood; he visited and prayed in the cell in Auschwitz where Saint Maximilian was martyred. . . .