Wonderful Local Catholic/Patriot Needs Your Prayers September 18, 2020
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, Basics, Dallas Diocese, Domestic Church.comments closed
It has been my great privilege over the past few years to become friends with my neighbor Steve Porter, owner of Porter’s Army Navy Store in Irving, a place frequented by many local Catholics, including a number of priests and brothers. The Porters are wonderfully devout Catholics, and as with many souls the Lord loves, they have had their share of crosses to bear. Quite possibly, more than their share. They are also incredible patriots, still performing annual fundraisers on Veteran’s Day to provide hundreds of boxes of goodies for servicemembers stationed in conflict zones overseas (for nearly 20 years now).
Steve is a great guy and has been enduring a number of health problems in this dread year of 2020. He is suffering from some acute difficulties right now. If you could, in your charity, pray for him, you can be assured of many prayers in return. Thank you and God bless you for your act of virtue.
Please Pray for the Repose of the Soul of Jim Middleton [UPDATED] September 18, 2019
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, Basics, Dallas Diocese, fightback, Four Last Things, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Interior Life, Tradition, Virtue.comments closed
[UPDATE]: See the bottom of the post for an addendum from my dad. I very briefly glossed over Jim’s career at Arco and he beefed it up a bit, for all of those interested. Yes, both of you]
Longtime readers may recall that I was once on a broadcast radio show with Jim and Vicki Middleton. The show ended in 2012 when Vicki unfortunately passed away rather suddenly. I think that was a grace of God, I don’t think she could stand to see what this country is becoming today. She was right about so very much, including the endlessly voracious appetite of the Left for tyranny. Equally sadly, Jim Middleton, her spouse of many years, passed away this past September 12. Jim was a very strong and patriotic American, a rock-solid conservative, and a devout Catholic convert. He was also a gifted engineer and high-level oil executive and played a vital role in opening up the North Slope of Alaska to large scale oil production and later served as President of Arco Oil and Gas. My dad worked with Jim for 25 years and knew him quite well.
The funeral was held at the Carmelite Monastery in Dallas, the same monastery that served host as the site of the diocesan Mater Dei Traditional Latin Mass community for many years prior to Mater Dei getting its own parish (one of the few good acts of the previous bishop of this Diocese, now Cardinal Kevin Farrell. “allowing” Mater Dei to have its own church – such generosity). Jim and Vicki gave extremely generously to the Carmelite Monastery over the years, and were extremely close with, and helpful towards, the Carmelite nuns. As such, by a special bequest, the mortal remains of both Jim and Vicki will now repose on the grounds of the monastery.
I was fortunate to be able to attend the Novus Ordo funeral Mass yesterday. Father Paul Weinberger, who has received a good deal of attention on this blog recently, and who was very close to the Middleton’s and played a great role in their becoming stalwart Catholics from episcopal converts, offered the Mass. So, yes, it was a Novus Ordo, but it was offered with as much reverence and dignity as is possible with this creation of “modern” man. The sermon was very solid as usual, as Father Weinberger devoted about half of the 15 minutes to ably destroy a number of protestant talking points against the Faith, such as, we do not worship images, works done in concert with Grace are necessary for salvation, the communion of saints and the existence of purgatory, and so forth. Since the attendance was at least 50% protestant, that was no small act, but was conducted with such charity and finesse that rather than rankle his sermon elicited a number of laughs and smiles.
Vicki and Jim were good souls and gave tremendously of their time, talent, and treasure for the good of the Church and souls. They deserve a prayer or two, or many. I pray I never forget them in my prayers for the souls of the deceased.
A few poor photos from the Mass. I thank the good Carmelite sisters for again opening their chapel, as they regularly do. I with them well and they may be assured of my prayers, too!
[Addendum]:
When the north slope was being developed, it was still a part of NAPD (North American Producing Division). Billy Jack Lancaster headed NAPD. Middleton was in charge of a special engineering group whose job was to fabricate the production modules and barge them from Ingleside to Point Barrow, and then offload them onto gravel causeways and roll them onto the slope. Billy Jack smoked himself to death and died of lung cancer. Bill Keeler head of Engineering for NAPD replaced Billy Jack. Keeler’s 16 year old son killed Bill and his wife. Ken Dickerson and Jim Coffee (lawyers) quickly popped the kid into Timberlawn and he never served a day in jail for the murders. Dallas had no more men in the line of succession. NAPD had always operated independently of Corporate (which was in LA), primarily because they generated 125% of the Corporations income. Not no more. This opening gave LA a chance to put their own man in charge. Then picked Glen Simpson who managed the Alaska operations – – he was a former Sinclair hand and followed orders well. He was a rigid disaster.
Meanwhile, Middleton was placed in charge of Anaconda (a mining operation that was, unbeknownst to ARCO, badly losing money at the time they bought it), and he stopped it from hemorrhaging cash. By that time NAPD had become Arco Oil and Gas, along with Arco Exploration and Arco Alaska. When Simpson was forced out, Jim became President of AOGC. He did a hell of a good job, and always backed me to the hilt.
I add, it was after Jim retired in 1994 that ARCO quickly went downhill, and its management sold out to BP in a panic in 2000. The only remnant of ARCO today is its chain of gas stations on the West Coast and in Arizona.
Which, it was our birthday, precious. And we are this many………. September 6, 2019
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, silliness.comments closed
……continuing a dumb annual tradition, just a couple weeks late:
Please Pray for the Repose of the Soul of Gregory Latz June 17, 2019
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, Four Last Things, General Catholic, Interior Life, reading, SSPX, thanksgiving, Tradition, true leadership.comments closed
I have asked for prayers for this man for some time. He fought a long battle with cancer and I learned to my sadness some weeks ago that Mr. Latz had died.
Please, if you would, also pray for my brother-in-law Brian Haeglin, who suffered a severe stroke about 2 weeks ago and is still hospitalized, and likely will be for weeks. Thank you and God bless you and your family.
They don’t call this a vale of tears for nothing.
I would also like to thank longtime reader Tim T for his continued support, and for his surprising gift in the mail this morning of some good and very interesting Catholic books. I haven’t read them yet, obviously, but I look forward to doing so, especially the biography of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. This is the one by Bishop Tissier de Mallerais. Interesting timing, I had been strongly considering ordering Michael Davies’ Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre. Do any of you familiar with both have any thoughts on these two books or preferences between them, as I believe they are generally regarded as the best studies of Archbishop Lefebvre. ?
Whatever one thinks of the SSPX, and I am personally well-disposed towards them and thankful for their existence (as they, at the very least, saved the public practice of the TLM, in my opinion), Marcel Lefebvre has had a huge influence on the Church in the past 60-70 years and more and deserves careful study. Plus, history has always been my favorite subject.
So thank you again Mr. T! I pity the fool!
No relation, I just felt like throwing a pic in this post.
Solemn Vespers of the Dead for the Centenary of the Conclusion of WWI at UD Nov 6 November 5, 2018
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, awesomeness, Dallas Diocese, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, history, Latin Mass, Liturgy, Tradition.comments closed
I hope I can attend this tomorrow night. Solemn Vespers for the Dead in the traditional Rite will be offered Nov 6 on the campus of the University of Dallas at 7:30 pm at the Church of the Incarnation. All details below:
Check out the generous confession times at the Church of the Incarnation, too – 45 minutes a day or more Mon, Wed, Fri, and Sat.
I heard the Catholic Action for Faith and Family Conference was a big success. My daughter was there yesterday to sing in the schola for the solemn pontifical low Mass Cardinal Burke offered on Sunday morning. Many other events over the weekend were sparsely attended because so many other folks were off at the big conference at the Irving convention center. Bishop Burns was there. I’ve heard some other good things about Bishop Burns in the last several days on other fronts. Even though he is closely associated with the sad triad of Wuerl/McCarrick/Farrell he seems cut from a bit different cloth.
But the opening of the diocesan records on priest boy rape is a nothingburger. It’s all been carefully checked over in advance but there may be a few belated revelations.
All that aside, I have a small but growing pious hope that in Bishop Burns Dallas has finally gotten someone a bit virtuous as bishop.
Please Pray for Reader Tim’s Mother September 13, 2018
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin.comments closed
Please pray for regular reader and commenter Tim’s mother Carol. She’s in ICU with pneumonia and pulmonary fibrosis. She made a Confession on Sunday and received Extreme Unction and Viaticum and received the Apostolic Blessing.
Please Pray for Greg Latz June 25, 2018
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, Basics, Domestic Church, family, General Catholic, Holy suffering, Interior Life, Revolution, sadness, sanctity.comments closed
A quick (if delayed) post for reader Tim, who knows a man stricken with cancer who then developed various complications he nearly died from. He is very weak and has a long road ahead of him, not least of which will involve further treatment for the cancer. The man’s name is Greg Latz and he is a father and head of a large family and, I am told, a quite devout Catholic. Please, if you would, in your charity, pray for his him and his family and loved ones.
Thank you!
I continue to be in a delicate situation with regard to el trabajando and this blog but I am going to try to put out something from time to time if I possibly can. This notice is weeks late but I pray it is better late, than never.
So do you think Kurt Schlichter is right, that the divide in this country and leftist extremism must, almost of necessity at this point, end in violence? David Harsyani also had some interesting thoughts on the growing insanity (leftists transferring their abhorrent online behavior into real life). My wife doesn’t like to hear about this stuff. She will, to a quite limited point, but overall she doesn’t want to have to think about it. How bad can it get in Irving, Texas, after all?
Worse than she hopes, I fear. We shall see. Stock up on most everything. Keep your powder dry. God bless you all. I miss conversing with you.
Dominus vobiscum!
Coulombe Critiques the Novus Ordo and a Few Pics from Fatima Conference May 3, 2018
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, awesomeness, Basics, catachesis, different religion, Father Rodriguez, General Catholic, Liturgy, Restoration, Revolution, Spiritual Warfare, the struggle for the Church, Tradition, Virtue.comments closed
A great excerpt from the weekly Tumblar House series of video Q&As with Charles Coulombe wherein Mr. Coulombe discusses the Novus Ordo and the problems with it. He gives a fair and accurate assessment, though not as harsh and thoroughly critical as perhaps I might be. He does note, quite rightly, that some “presentations” of the Novus Ordo are much better than others. Indeed, the Novus Ordo in Latin, Ad Orientem, offered with great reverence with the Asperges and a solid priest giving good catechesis in the sermon with all the bells and smells, is what the Novus Ordo perhaps should have been, though I would argue that no change to the Mass was necessary and that humans are always on perilous ground in playing around with divine creations, which I would say the Mass largely is. My family and I derived great fruit from just such a Mass for several years in the mid-2000s, and that experience paved the way for our eventual “transition” to the TLM. Having said that, I strongly believe the TLM is the once and future Mass for the entire Church, but getting back there will likely take a very long time.
But what is generally offered in most parishes is a far, far cry from that relatively benign Novus Ordo experience. In fact, what is offered in most parishes is a positive danger to the faith of many souls, especially those badly formed in the Faith (or formed well but in some false simulacrum of Catholicism).
What I really like in the analysis below, however, one thing Mr. Coulombe says: the Council did not address the problem truly affecting the Church, that the Mass did not need a radical makeover but that the penetration of Leftism into the minds and heart so most priests did, but this was ignored, as was the original driving force behind the Council, at least in the minds of the large majority of bishops polled before it took place – formally condemning communism as a philosophy and condemning those who embraced it.
I also very much appreciate the fact that many of the liturgical innovations that came as a result of the Council, though very few were called for in Sacraosanctum Concilium, already stood condemned before the Council took place! These were condemned by Pius XII in his encyclicals Humanii Generis and Mediator Dei (which reminds me, I really need to re-read those). Anyway, it’s a really good video and I hope you find watching it edifying:
Are those five Eucharistic miracles, or miracles associated with the Eucharist, he mentions above approved or clearly demonstrated? I’m only familiar with one or two.
The pics below came from the March conference of Our Lady’s Army of Advocates at the DFW airport. It was a wonderful experience, not only for the talks, but for meeting so many good friends and readers of this blog. The wonderful Rodriguez family of El Paso was there, and I got to take some pictures with members of their family, along with others. The pics are a bit on the blurry side, but you takes what you gets. Thank you to the kind Beatrice Rodriguez for sending these to me, and sorry it took so long to get them posted!
David Rodriguez, myself, Beatrice Rodriguez, and Father Michael Rodriguez
Michael Matt, Beatrice Rodriguez, me
Flightline Friday: The Awesome A-7 April 13, 2018
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, awesomeness, Flightline Friday, fun, history, non squitur, silliness, technology.comments closed
For nearly 40 years, my current house would have been very nearly directly under the flight path for Naval Air Station Dallas and the co-located Vought/LTV plant. Thus, from 1955 to the early 90s, Vought F-8s and later A-7s would have been in the air most every day, flying over my home (OK, the home didn’t exist for most of that time, but you get the point). Of course, by the time we moved into that house Navy Dallas was closed and Vought was out of the prime contractor business, no longer building whole airplanes, but that’s how it goes.
At any rate the A-7 was the result of a quickie project to build a replacement for the excellent Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, intending to greatly increase the range/payload capability of US Navy light attack assets. The project was a hallmark of the US aerospace industry at that time, roughly showcasing an industry at its historic peak, resulting in a program that went from conception to flying hardware in just about 4 years. Heck, they can’t even get half the specs for a bomb written in 4 years today, let alone those for a whole airplane. Vought responded to the Navy’s request for a new Light Attack aircraft – the VAL competition – with a modified version of its epochal F-8 Crusader fighter, basically a shortened F-8 with a wing modified to carry heavy payloads. Vought won that competition, and between December 1964 and early 1967 crafted the A-7A. This aircraft represented a quantum leap not in speed, because it wasn’t very fast, but in accuracy. The A-7 was the most accurate tactical bombing platform in US service until the introduction of the F-16 in 1978. Especially in its Air Force A-7D variant and subsequent US Navy E model copy of the D, the A-7 set radically improved standards in terms of bombing accuracy and range/payload capability, being able to carry the same payload as the A-4 twice as far, or twice the payload the same distance.
Prior to the A-7s arrival in Southeast Asia, virtually every Air Force tactical mission “up north,” whether launched from Thailand or South Vietnam, required air-to-air refueling. Even the long-legged F-105 required refueling after taking off with a heavy bomb load. As the first video below indicates, however, the A-7 was able to fly almost all missions over North Vietnam, with a heavy payload of about 9000 pounds of ordinance, pylons, and ammo, without air-to-air refueling. Now refueling was still pretty frequently done, but more to give the A-7 ridiculous loiter time up North – often over 2 hours – than because of basic necessity. Navy A-7s, operating much closer to their targets, virtually never required refueling.
The A-7 got its impressive accuracy through a combination of some of the first digital computers, embedded and computerized navigation systems (INS, Doppler, and a very accurate attack radar), and newly developed software algorithms that determined, electronically, a continuously computed impact point (CCIP) means of bombing that was a radical advance for its time. Later perfected to a much greater degree in the F-16 and F-18, the A-7’s CCIP system improved basic bomb-dropping accuracy by more than a factor of ten, from hundreds of yards down to about 20-30 yards, average mean miss distance. The second video, an absolute gift of an upload of a film from the old British firm of Elliot, which built some of the very first Heads Up Displays ever made, subsequently installed in the A-7D and E. Man how some like minded enthusiasts and I would have practically wept for joy to have seen truly excellent footage like this, showing exactly how complex, innovative systems were used tactically, 20 or 30 years ago. Great stuff.
I’m out for the weekend. Sorry for lack of posts, it was one of those weeks. Long live the memory of the great Vought Aircraft and its many excellent products! Built just about 5 miles from my home, they were in every respect Great Planes:
Now that the “multirole” is cheaper experiment has been tried and quite possibly proven a bad concept – especially when the roles are far too numerous and diverse – perhaps it’s time to return to some lower cost single mission types, for the vital roles like CAS and BAI? That is to say, Air Force and Navy jocks, just because it doesn’t have an “F” in front of its name doesn’t mean it’s second rate! Bomber pilots may make history, fighter pilots may make movies, but attack pilots make the boots on the ground very, very happy.
So How Would You Like This For a Pope? April 6, 2018
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, Art and Architecture, General Catholic, history, Papa, Tradition.comments closed
The HBO one season uncompleted series “The New Pope” ran a little over a year ago. It’s got an interesting premise – an ultra-conservative, highly traditional young American gets elected pope (choosing the name Pius XIII) by a confab of corrupt cardinals who think he will be a mere figurehead. There is much Machiavellian drama in little bits of the series I’ve seen, including numerous attempts by the corruptocrats in the Curia to get some dirt on the new pope and thus compromise and control him. This culminates in a young woman trying quite hard to seduce the pope, and failing.
At any rate, at some point in the series, the young pope who has held himself aloof not only from the world (refusing to perform public homilies or activities of any kind, or even to show his face) but even from the Curia, finally holds a little meeting with the cardinals, wherein he lays out his new program for the Church. In this, you could say, he proposes to turn the post-conciliar ethos on its head and set the Church on a radical new, but in many ways a very old, course.
The new pope is very mysterious to all, even, perhaps, to himself. He posits a return to Tradition and is loved by all the traditional priests, who form a sort of new coterie around the pope displacing parts of the existing bureaucracy. Most of these priests are quite young and devout, and make a marked contrast to the many corrupt bureaucrats occupying positions of power. Also dealt with are the infestation of sodomites deep into the heart of the Church.
The pope intends to use his aloofness, the mystery surrounding him, and his youth and physical attractiveness to the benefit of himself and the Church. There are intimations that he is saintly and can work miracles, and intimations that he might be insane. Or, perhaps, his mental prowess and sanctity cause him to behave in ways that people cannot comprehend?
Note the return of the sede gestatoria, fanon, and a sort of papal tiara, though one not nearly so grand as the old photos indicate.
Not sure if anyone’s seen this series, but late on a Friday afternoon when I have almost no time to post, I thought I’d give at least a little bit of Hollywood’s version of what a hardcore trad pope might mean. Let me know what you think from this little bit, and anything else you’ve watched.
Should I say, this guy looks positively dreamy compared to the current occupant? He sounds perhaps a bit severe and unyielding but after 50+ years of yielding to everyone and everything, perhaps that’s not such a bad thing? I can imagine such a pope as this might wind up like John Paul I.
I don’t think popes ever rode in the sede gestatoria standing like that.
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