The St. Gabriel Possenti Society promotes the public recognition of St. Gabriel Possenti, including his Vatican designation as Patron Saint of Handgunners.

St. Gabriel Possenti was a Catholic seminarian whose marksmanship and proficiency with handguns single-handedly saved the village of Isola, Italy from a band of 20 terrorists in 1860.

The Possenti Society offers a variety of materials related to St. Gabriel Possenti and a biblical understanding of self-defense.

The Savior of Isola

In 1860, a band of soldiers from the army of Garibaldi entered the mountain village of Isola, Italy. They began to burn and pillage the town, terrorizing its inhabitants.

Possenti, with his seminary rector’s permission, walked into the center of town, unarmed, to face the terrorists. One of the soldiers was dragging off a young woman he intended to rape when he saw Possenti and made a snickering remark about such a young monk being all alone.

Possenti quickly grabbed the soldier’s revolver from his belt and ordered the marauder to release the woman. The startled soldier complied, as Possenti grabbed the revolver of another soldier who came by. Hearing the commotion, the rest of the soldiers came running in Possenti’s direction, determined to overcome the rebellious monk.

At that moment a small lizard ran across the road between Possenti and the soldiers. When the lizard briefly paused, Possenti took careful aim and struck the lizard with one shot. Turning his two handguns on the approaching soldiers, Possenti commanded them to drop their weapons. Having seen his handiwork with a pistol, the soldiers complied. Possenti ordered them to put out the fires they had set, and upon finishing, marched the whole lot out of town, ordering them never to return. The grateful townspeople escorted Possenti in triumphant procession back to the seminary, thereafter referring to him as “the Savior of Isola”.

Sure enough, there are those that believe the story to be complete fiction, and others that believe it impossible that a monk would ever take up arms for any reason. I wasn’t there in Isola in 1860, so I don’t know for sure what happened. The Jeff Cooper Legacy Foundation calls him the Patron of Marksmen, and who am I to argue with the Good Colonel?

But I want to believe this story. I want to believe that not all that choose to follow Christ’s examples take their discipleship to also mean being pacifist in the face of imminent danger. Therefore, as far as this humble blog is concerned, I deem the story about St. Gabriel Possenti to be true, and I recommend he be designated by the Vatican as the Patron Saint of Handgunners.

Gabriel Possenti Society, Patron Saint, Handgun, Possenti, Isola

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“The Law” is an 1849 book by Frédéric Bastiat. It was published one year after the third French Revolution of 1848. The essay was influenced by John Locke’s “Second Treatise on Government” and in turn influenced Henry Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson”. It is the work for which Bastiat is most famous.

In The Law, Bastiat states that “each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property”. The State is a “substitution of a common force for individual forces” to defend this right. The law becomes perverted when it punishes one’s right to self-defense in favor of another’s acquired right to plunder.

Bastiat defines two forms of plunder: “stupid greed and false philanthropy”. Stupid greed is “protective tariffs, subsidies, guaranteed profits” and false philanthropy is “guaranteed jobs, relief and welfare schemes, public education, progressive taxation, free credit, and public works”. Monopolism and Socialism are legalized plunder which Bastiat emphasizes is legal but not legitimate.

From “The Law” is this quote:

“The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.”

Let’s compare and contrast Bastiat’s statements – which I totally agree with – with some in today’s political circus.

First is the media’s current Cutest Socialist, wife of Presidential candidate Barack Obama, Michelle Obama:

Most Americans, she said, don’t want much.

“They don’t want the whole pie,” she told the women. “There are some who do, but most Americans feel blessed just being able to thrive a little bit. But that is becoming even more out of reach.”

“The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.”

Isn’t that nice of elite Michelle Obama. She is so enlightened that she knows just how much of the pie to take from you and give to a complete stranger. After all you should feel blessed just being able to thrive a little bit, and certainly thrive no more than others.

Then from the Hildabeast herself:

“Many of you are well enough off that [President Bush's] tax cuts may have helped you. We’re saying that for America to get back on track, we’re probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We’re going to have to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”

and

“We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society. ”

Hillary Clinton, the “smartest woman in the universe”, is another Socialist, just like Michelle. Quit hoarding all the pie, you evil Conservatives, and free give what you have so that a complete stranger can have some pie without expending the effort to earn it themselves. After all it’s on behalf of the common good.

Breda, over at The Breda Fallacy, sums it up perfectly with this statement:

Dear Michelle Obama,

If you so much as try to touch my piece of pie, I will stab my fork through the back of your fucking hand – twice, if it’s pumpkin.

And God help you if it’s à la mode.

and this graphic:

Wow! I just HAVE TO make one of those for myself. I think I will. Here goes:

Remember when elitist Obama told a San Francisco moonbat audience, “It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations…”?

Bastiat, Michelle Obama

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1. Just one God
2. Put nothin’ before God
3. Watch yer mouth
4. Git yourself to Sunday meetin’
5. Honor yer Ma & Pa
6. No killin’
7. No foolin’ around with another fellow’s gal
8. Don’t take what ain’t yers
9. No tellin’ tales or gossipin’
10. Don’t be hankerin’ for yer buddy’s stuff

Any questions?

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Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., pastor emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago where Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has been a member for two decades, slurred Italians in a piece published in the most recent issue of Trumpet Newsmagazine.

“(Jesus’) enemies had their opinion about Him,” Wright wrote in a eulogy of the late scholar Asa Hilliard in the November/December 2007 issue. “The Italians for the most part looked down their garlic noses at the Galileans.”

Wright continued, “From the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth (in a barn in a township that was under the Apartheid Roman government that said his daddy had to be in), up to and including the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ death on a cross, a Roman cross, public lynching Italian style. …

“He refused to be defined by others and Dr. Asa Hilliard also refused to be defined by others. The government runs everything from the White House to the schoolhouse, from the Capitol to the Klan, white supremacy is clearly in charge, but Asa, like Jesus, refused to be defined by an oppressive government because Asa got his identity from an Omnipotent God.”

“In a world that is controlled by white supremacy, in a country that is on its way to hell in a hand basket because of lying politicians, in a culture that still thinks ‘white is right’ and with young people who do not have a clue as to our story, our history, our legacy or our destiny, we still have African-American Christians who are more concerned about ‘bling bling’ than about freeing our minds,” Wright wrote.

Then from National Review Online:

[The] Trinity United Church of Christ newsletter from last June seems to be making the rounds in Jewish circles. I have now had it e-mailed to me three times in the last 24 hours from friends who all more or less seem to have gotten it through their synagogues. On page 8 of the newsletter, entitled “Pastor’s Page”, Jeremiah Wright prints an “Open Letter to Oprah from Ali Baghdadi on her visit to Palestine.” Baghdadi is described as an “Arab-American activist, writer, columnist,” and the letter, among other things, accuses Israel of once working with South Africa “on an ethnic bomb that kills Blacks and Arabs.”

It also accuses Israel of war crimes, quotes Arnold Toynbee saying that “what the Zionist Jews did to the Palestinians is worse than what the Nazis did to the Jews,” speaks of “Israeli death squads” and so on.

For twenty years Presidential hopeful Barack Obama sat in the congregation of Trinity United Church of Christ and listened to Jeremiah Wright’s sermons. It is only now coming to light what Rev. Wright has been preaching for those last 20 years. And you want to tell me that Obama “condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy,”?

As much as I hate to agree with Hillary, her statement of “He would not have been my pastor. You don’t choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend,” is absolutely correct. Obama chose to remain faithful to both Trinity United and Rev. Wright, so there has to be something that Rev. Wright said that Obama wholeheartedly agrees with.

Jeremiah A. Wright, Trinity United Church, Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright

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Six Iraq war protesters disrupted an Easter Mass on Sunday, shouting and squirting fake blood on themselves and parishioners in a packed auditorium.

Three men and three women startled the crowd during Cardinal Francis George‘s homily, yelling “Even the Pope calls for peace” as they were removed from the Mass by security guards and ushers.

One Mass attendee, Mike Wainscott of Chicago, yelled at the anti-war protesters.

“Are you happy with yourselves?” he said. “There were kids in there. You scared little kids with your selfish act. Are you happy now?”

The group, which calls itself Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War, said in a statement after the arrests that they targeted the Holy Name Cathedral on Easter to reach a large audience, including Chicago’s most prominent Catholic citizens and the press, which usually covers the services.

Kevin Clark of International Solidarity Movement told the Chicago Tribune that he attended the Mass to serve as a witness for the protesters.

So here we have a peaceful Easter Sunday Mass at a large Catholic church. In the middle of the most important day in the Christian year a bunch of anti-war protesters start making noise and squirting fake blood on themselves and others in the congregation.

What ever happened so carrying signs and marching at the state capitol? Why attack an innocent church service and the completely innocent people trying to worship?

First let’s look at their primary apologists, the International Solidarity Movement (no, I won’t link to them):

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) was founded in 2001 by Ghassan Andoni, a Palestinian activist; Neta Golan, an Israeli activist; Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian-American; and George N. Rishmawi, a Palestinian activist. Adam Shapiro, an American, joined the movement shortly after its founding and is also often considered one of the founders.

According to a 2003 profile of ISM co-founder Adam Shapiro in the Jordan Star, Shapiro “justifies the Palestinian armed resistance against Israel as long as it is targeting Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

ISM was accused of being linked to the suicide bombers that attacked the Mike’s Place bar in Tel Aviv on April 30, 2003, killing three people.

So the International Solidarity Movement is a loose coalition of people determined to assist the “Palestinian cause”, up to and including violence, up to and including using suicide bombers. They also advocate armed conflict against Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers – and remember that Jewish settlers are civilians and innocent families. Now they’re starting to sound more like an average left-wing, pro-terrorist group … how “Progressive” of them.

And an absolutely great item for discussion by Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:

Why is a sponsor of the Palestinian cause sponsoring or at least offering apologetics for an attack on a Catholic Mass? One might expect the news media to ask that question, and to ask whether this is just an anti-war attack or whether it is an anti-Catholic, anti-Christian hate crime.

If that’s not clear enough, let me ask readers what kind of coverage this would have provoked had it been conducted against the worshipers at a mosque. If a group of anti-terrorist protesters had broken into Friday prayers at a Chicago mosque to spray stage blood all over Muslims in protest of al-Qaeda and the Taliban — a little stronger connection than that between the Catholic Church and the war in Iraq — the newspapers would have trumpeted it as a hate crime against American Muslims, followed by weeks of human-interest, anecdotal accounts of how terrible America is to its Muslim citizens.

Cardinal Francis George, Chicago, Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War, Holy Name Cathedral, International Solidarity Movement, left-wing, pro-terrorist, Progressive

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When he took over Trinity United Church of Christ in 1972, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. was a maverick pastor with a wardrobe of dashikis and a militant message.

The rebellious son of a Baptist minister, Wright was hired by Trinity United when he could find no Baptist church to take him. At the time he wore a fiery red Afro and publicly sounded off his unapologetically black power agenda. Had he been white, and issuing an unapologetically white power agenda, he would have been quickly branded a racist.

He has built a congregation of 8,500, including the likes of Oprah Winfrey and hip-hop artist Common, by offering an alternative to socially conservative black churches.

A young Barack Obama visited the church in 1985 as a community activist. Obama, was not a churchgoer at the time, but he found himself returning to the sanctuary of Trinity. Obama came to Chicago as a young unknown. Here was a black guy with a hidden desire for national politics. But he had a white mother, and had a long relationship with a white girl in college. He attended some assumed “white” private schools in Hawaii. He attended the assumed “white” college of Harvard. So Obama, to many in the black community, had too much “white” in him to succeed with black voters. That’s when he found Trinity and Rev. Wright.

Obama says that rather than advising him on strategy, Wright helps keep his priorities straight and his moral compass calibrated. Huh? Do Rev. Wright’s sermons direct any of your priorities or help keep your moral compass calibrated? Right the opposite, Rev. Wright’s sermons clearly show me what to veer away from.

Now, for the first time, Obama could “prove” his blackness to his future constituency by attending, and nodding to the sermons, bellowing out of Trinity. This was not an exercise in new-found Christianity – this was a calculated political device and action. Therefore no not take Obama’s “condemnation” of Rev. Wright as anything but another calculated political action, for he’s doing nothing now but pandering those Liberals that have weak stomachs. After all we can’t all hold hands and sing “Kum Ba Yah” while there’s racism in the air, right?

From American Thinker:

When Obama moved to Chicago and became a community organizer, he found it expedient to choose a Christian church to join. Even though his father and stepfather were both Muslims and he attended a Muslim school while living in Indonesia, suspicions based on his days as a child are overheated and unfair. Still, his full name alone conveys the biographical fact that he has some elements of a Muslim background.

Saul Alinsky, whose philosophy infused community organizing in Chicago, emphasized the importance of churches as a basis for organizing. There are literally hundreds of churches on the South Side of Chicago that Obama could have chosen from. He selected one that was headed by Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Junior. The anti-Israel rants of this minister have been well chronicled.

Pastor Wright is a supporter of Louis Farrakhan (who called Judaism a “gutter religion” and depicted Jews as “bloodsuckers”) and traveled with him to visit Col. Muammar al-Gaddafi, archenemy of Israel’s and a terror supporter. Most recently, as head of the UN Security Council Gaddafi prevented condemnation of attacks against Israel.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan received the “Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. Lifetime Achievement Trumpeteer” Award at the 2007 Trumpet Gala at the United Church of Christ.

This is a church and a pastor who Obama has relied upon to shape his views, to be his sounding board; the church is the largest recipient of his charity dollars; he proudly states that he admires the church and Jeremiah Wright, Junior. He prayed with Wright before he announced his candidacy for President. He is a beacon for Obama.

Wow. This is the guy that helps keep Obama’s priorities straight and his moral compass calibrated? But, to Obama’s advantage, this is also the guy that officially blessed Obama and publicly acknowledged that Obama is indeed black – something Obama sorely needed and couldn’t do himself.

Barack Obama, Trinity United Church, Jeremiah Wright, Liberal, Gaddafi, Louis Farrakhan

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Last Sunday was Palm Sunday.
Yesterday was Maundy Thursday.
Today is Good Friday.
Sunday is Easter.

This week, called Holy Week by many Christians, is the most sacred time of the year, and it commemorates the last week of the earthly life of Jesus Christ culminating in his crucifixion on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter Sunday. The Last Supper of Christ and his Twelve Apostles, the followers’ mourning over Christ’s death, and shouts of Alleluia when it is discovered that Christ rose from the dead.

For those of you that aren’t Christians I’m not going to force my beliefs on you. But please allow me to take a few days off to celebrate my beliefs with my family and loved ones.

Monday I’ll start back in with my typical ranting and raving designed to help me lower my blood pressure and calm the ulcers given to me by the throngs of neo-Socialists that live and vote in this country.

Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter, Holy Week, Christian, Jesus, Christ, crucifixion, resurrection, Last Supper

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At the age of sixteen, Patrick was taken prisoner by Irish raiders who were attacking his family’s estate. They transported him to Ireland where he spent six years in captivity. During this time, he worked as a shepherd, outdoors and isolated. Lonely and afraid, he turned to his religion for solace, becoming a devout Christian.

After more than six years as a prisoner, Patrick escaped. According to his writing, a voice – which he believed to be God’s- spoke to him in a dream, telling him it was time to leave Ireland. He walked nearly 200 miles from County Mayo, to the Irish coast when a dream tells him to return to Ireland as a missionary. After his ordination, he was sent to Ireland to minister to Christians already living in Ireland and to begin to convert the Irish.

The first public celebration of Saint Patrick’s Day took place in Boston, in 1737. On St. Patrick’s Day, which falls during the Christian season of Lent, Irish families would traditionally attend church in the morning and celebrate in the afternoon. Lenten prohibitions against the consumption of meat were waived and people would dance, drink, and feast on the traditional meal of Irish bacon and cabbage.

St. Patrick, Ireland, Christian

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The Archbishop of Canterbury says the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law in the UK “seems unavoidable”.

Dr Rowan Williams told Radio 4′s World at One that the UK has to “face up to the fact” that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.

Dr Williams argues that adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law would help maintain social cohesion.

For example, Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court.

Oh, goody! Now maybe the BBC can also televise live the stonings of women that have a false charge of adultery given them by a bunch of crusty old imams.

First let’s look at the context here. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, as well as the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The present archbishop is this idiot Rowan Williams. Williams is the 104th in the list of Archbishops of Canterbury, in a line that goes back more than 1400 years to the first, Saint Augustine of Canterbury, who founded the see, the oldest in England, in the year 597. Along with the Church of England as a whole, the Archbishops of Canterbury were in communion with the See of Rome until the English Reformation, around 1534, when the independence of the English Church was established. In the order of precedence, the Archbishop of Canterbury is ranked above all individuals in the realm, with the exception of the Sovereign and members of the Royal Family.

So whenever this clown speaks, people listen.

Says The Moxargon Group:

Dr. Rowan Williams is basically saying that the Judeo-Christian foundation of British liberty isn’t worth fighting for because it offends the sort of people who don’t want or deserve liberty.

What he should be saying is that Britain is a nation built on Judeo-Christian Liberty, and that all those who don’t like it, can leave it.

Of course you’d have to actually believe in something to say something like that, and I get the feeling that Dr. Rowan Williams is much too “intellectual” to actually believe in anything, let alone fight for it.

Social cohesion comes from people adapting to a new and ever evolving society, not from accepting the backward demands of thugs and bullies for fear of offending them. Better to get your head hacked off than live a sniveling little snot under the boot of a tyrant.

You do not build a cohesive society, by socially cutting people off from each other through custom-made legal systems based on ethnicity and religion. Instead you create a bunch of little societies, that are all at each others throats until cohesion is achieved through one side killing all of the other.

Ouch.

And “a bunch of little societies, that are all at each others throats until cohesion is achieved through one side killing all of the other” sounds strangely like Merry Ole Europe during the Middle Ages, doesn’t it?

Even forgetting the concept of “equal protection under the law”, why is mighty Britain bending over backwards to accommodate these immigrants, deferring to them instead of the people that actually built their once-great nation?

Archbishop of Canterbury, Sharia, Islam, Muslim, Church of England, Anglican, Rowan Williams

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A 70-year old woman remained in critical condition Sunday, January 27, in Bangladesh after suspected Muslim extremists reportedly tried to burn her alive to prevent her from being baptized as a Christian.

Rahima Beoa, who was planning to be baptized on February 13 in Muslim-majority Rangpur district, 248 kilometers (154miles) northwest of the capital Dhaka, suffered burns on 70 percent of her body, reported Compass Direct News, a Christian news agency investigating reports of persecution.

The attack apparently happened January 7 while she and her 9-year-old grand child were sleeping at home. Unknown attackers set their home, made from bamboo and wood, ablaze, local villagers said.

“The boy managed to escape the fire, but the elderly woman was injured and got 70 percent burnt on her body…The cattle and other stuff of the house were incinerated,” said Khaled Mintu, a regional supervisor of the Rangpur district of the evangelical Isha-E-Jamat Bangladesh denomination in published remarks.

“The unknown people wanted to burn alive the elderly woman because they came to know that she would be a Christian in the next month,” Mintu added. “It was a devilish conspiracy to stop her being a Christian,” he was quoted as saying.

No relatives or neighbors came to put out the fire, he told reporters.

Since 1988 Islam has been the state religion of Bangladesh, with 83% being Muslim and 16% being Hindu. The wholesale conversion to Islam of the population of what was to become Bangladesh began in the thirteenth century and continued for hundreds of years. Most Muslims in Bangladesh are Sunnis.

The more I read about the practitioners of Islam the less I dislike the use of nukes.

Bangladesh, Muslim, Christian, Rahima Beoa, Rangpur, Islam, Hindu, Sunni

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