Pavel Chichikov is making a very good point

In response to some of the more zealous pro-war types who are disgusted because the Pope and the bishops urge against war with Iraq, he writes in a comment below, "I don't *ever* want to hear my bishops advocating or justifying war. I want them to urge peace up until the last moment."

And, come to think of it, when *was* the last time you heard of a Pope or bishop *urging* war? Not just this Pope, but I mean, like, any Pope in our lifetime or in the lifetime of our great great grandparents? Did *any* Pope of the 20th Century *advocate* war? The popes on the eve of both world wars struggled mightily against it and urged that war not be fought. Were they also spineless wimps who loved dictators? Or were they acting as counter-cultural witnesses for peace? They did not (as our bishops do not) label the wars against aggression immoral. But they still urged against war while leaving it up to Caesar to make the final call.

The more I think about it, the more I would hardly expect (or want) them to do anything else. There's something appalling about the thought of a bishop or Pope *advocating* war. It's like the thought of a Pope standing outside a prison waving a frying pan during an execution and cheering. Or throwing a party to celebrate the termination of a tubal pregnancy. The Church's theology suffers the awful reality of just war and does not call it immoral. But to expect the Church to celebrate and root for war is somehow deeply tone deaf to the message of the gospel: "Blessed are the peacemakers."

I think, more and more, that the witness for peace of the bishops is something like the witness of celibacy. It's not binding on the rest of us, but it still challenges us to think of things higher than realpolitik and to try to strive heroically for peace rather than just settle for war with a sort of tired sense of inevitability.

As a layman, I still think the war with Iraq needs to be fought. But I do not share the contempt so many conservatives seem to have for bishops because they urge peace. I wonder more and more what the hell else we should expect them to do?

Tin Ear Award Goes to Planned Parenthood

For offering this sentiment...



in honor of a holiday which, for most Americans, is all about a Birth.

Brings new meaning to our Lord's saying: "Inasmuch as you did it to the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me."

What's next? The NRA taking out an ad on the glories of gun ownership on Martin Luther King Day? How about a special NASCAR event in honor of the anniversary of Princess Diana's death? A fireworks display on September 11? Such promotional ideas would only be slightly less tasteless than PP's latest contribution to our civilization.

Thanks (I think) to Minute Particulars for alerting me to this. And thanks to Veritas, which gave it to Minute Particulars.

Dude, wo ist mein Gehirn?

Okay, apart from the bizarre story itself

which of these passages from the sycophantic press apologies for Michael Jackson's bizarreness is more loony?

"There are also speculations the singer may pick up a Bambi lifetime achievement award on Thursday from the German Burda Publishing house." "Bambi Lifetime Achievement Award"?

or

"Michael is a very responsible father and it's just hard for me to believe that he dangled his son over the railing of his balcony" - Jackson's friend Uri Geller (!!!) (Well, if spoon bender and psychic quack Uri Geller vouches for him...)

or (my favorite) the ABC News headline "Michael Jackson Apparently Holds Baby out Window" It's accompanied with images like this:



"Apparently" he's holding a baby out the window. Five stories up. Apparently. But we shouldn't be in so much of a rush to judge. Cameras can play tricks on the eye, you know.

And here's another example of hard-hitting journalism going toe-to-toe with the Cult of Celebrity to defend the children:

The BBC's Glenda Cooper: "It was an eccentric way to greet fans"

Boy, with supercharged moral indignation like that, the rich and powerful will be lying awake tonight, knowing that the Vigilant Guardians of Children in our Press Corps are On the Job!

How could our bishops come to live in such an insular world when the free press is so aggressive against any and all abusers of children?

Memo to the Stupid Party

Lead, dammit!

It's finally in your power to save the lives of babies. Do it.

So does this mean the war starts anytime?

I mean, what's the point of inspections if Saddam is already cheating (which was not a huge surprise)?

'nother question: How do they know he's cheating if they haven't started the inspections?

Sad and bleak

There's a pagan sadness to these little "Remnant" groups, so clearly destined to wither like little flowers. Very often you find a few truly beautiful souls in them (often born into them), and a great deal of stoic pride that is trying soldier on to the Millennium through sheer dint of will. Such pride typically results in the sort of control freak behavior seen in the article. It's a pride that has no patience or room for the weak slobs which most of us are, and tends to go to its grave sounding like Hitler's Last Will and Testament, blaming the followers for not being worthy of the Greatness of their founder.

Like I say, Caesar is the guarantor of episcopal compliance with basic justice

If you will not obey the higher law of love willingly, you will obey the lower law of justice whether you will or no, Cardinal Egan.

I'm amazed to find myself agreeing with Richard McBrien.

The thrill of agony! The victory of defeat!

It's the WORLD ROCK PAPER SCISSORS SOCIETY!

Now, you're probably wondering how I'm going to tie this to Catholic faith, aren't you? You probably think I can't do it! Doncha? Huh? Doncha?

AHEM! Human beings differ from the rest of the animal kingdom in that, in the absence of biological opportunity, animals go to sleep. We get bored and invent stuff like Rock Paper Scissors. A tiny sign of our being made in the image of a Creator God. We are like animals in all the things that don't matter. We are unlike them in all the things that do.

But, of course, the real reason I blogged it is just cuz I thought it was weird and cool.

The Toxic Phase

When somebody has hurt you, there is a tipping point where you pass (if you aren't careful) from being cautious about trusting them (which is entirely sensible) to assuming the blackest and worst about them. Indeed, to *enjoy* thinking the worst about them. To take whatever they do and say, no matter how insubstantial the evidence of ill will, and turn it into yet another piece of evidence in the eternal court of law which your soul has become, dedicated to the everlasting collection of proofs that the one you hate is a miserable son of a bitch who is constitutionally incapable of redemption and whose every act, however apparently good-willed, is at best just a facade on the black and evil monster that they *really* are.

Some people I am running into in cyberspace are starting to reach that phase with our bishops. I mentioned below that Loverde actually ordered the priest in his diocese who was having an affair to cut off contact with the woman. He was, of course, ignored by the priest, who subsequently left the priesthood and married the woman. A reader announces his verdict that this is: "yet another example of a bishop protecting a sinful/weak priest (telling the priest to cut off contact sounds like the same policy followed with child molesters)."

My response: What else do you propose the bishop should have done with the priest who was having an affair? Sexual abuse against children is a crime, and you can call the cops. An extramarital affair is not a crime, just a grave sin. Do you suggest he should have handcuffed the priest to the radiator? What, besides giving him a direct order--which he did--was the bishop supposed to do?

We are now entering the "toxic phase" of lay distrust for bishops. It's the phase where people pass from being sensibly cautious about trusting bishops who have shown themselves untrustworthy to being reflexively bent on assuming the worst about every action and every word at all times and only grudgingly, if at all, relinquishing their steely grip on the will to condemn them on the slightest provocation. Just the other day I was being told by commenters on another blog that the "real" reason the American bishops oppose war with Iraq (and when was the last time you heard of bishops anywhere enthusiastically urging war?) was because they were sucking up to our "pacifist Pope" in the hope of getting back in his good graces. The evidence for this ridiculous scenario? Hey! Who needs evidence? No bishop could possibly have any good reason for anything they say or do! So simply assume the basest motive for any word or deed and assert it as fact. You'll always find a chorus of people to nod agreement to your stupid charge. It's bishops we're talking about after all, not human beings. It's not like they are capable of any goodness at all, ever, under any circumstance. So just attribute the basest motives at all times. It's easy! The Pope proposes new mysteries for the Rosary? It can't, of course, be because he believes prayer is necessary in this time of world danger. No, it's because (as a commenter remarked elsewhere in the blogosphere) he is egomaniacially trying to put his fingerprints on the Rosary, like Bill Clinton obsessed with his "legacy". Right. John Paul II: Egomaniac. Sure.

Elsewhere in the blogosphere, another alleged "Catholic" voice of "reform" is now writing "Vaticanus delenda est!" (The Vatican must be destroyed!). Right. The Petrine office is not a gift to the Church instituted by Christ (Matthew 16:18). It is purely evil and must be destroyed. Hey! We're only talking about an incontrovertible fact of revelation for Catholics, which we are no more at liberty to destroy than the doctrine of the Trinity. What does a triviality like that matter compared to my indulgence of hatred?

Our bishops have proven themselves abundantly capable of venality and corruptibility. This does not, however, justify asserting as *fact* that the only motive they have in every thought, word, and deed is "shelving the common good for the sake of episcopal image". Like it or not, one's rage does not give one carte blanche to ignore the Christian duty of charity. We are to be wise as serpents and not assume that unreliable bishops are automatically to be trusted. But we are also to be innocent as doves and not assume the worst about another person when we don't know what their motives really are.

To say "Vaticanus delenda est" is to abandon Catholic theology, however much you may claim to be Catholic. But it is just as serious, indeed more serious, to assume the Pope promulgated the Luminous Mysteries out of a vain Clintonesque obsession with his Legacy that cares only about his ego. It is an act of wicked sin to pass from legitimate disagreement with the bishops about their opinion on war, to asserting as fact that the "real" reason a bishop opposes war is to "shelve the common good for the sake of episcopal image". For these acts are fundamentally contemptuous of the divine demand for charity (and they make a fool of you to boot).

Theological blunders like calling for the abolition of the Petrine office can be due to profound ignorance. Not all Catholics know it is simply not something that can be abolished. They might, in their ignorance, conceivably think of it as a bit of bureaucracy that has outlived its usefulness and, in their zeal for the care of victims want to sweep it aside in the misguided notion that doing so will somehow reform the Church. It's a much more excusable error. But direct sins against charity--sins which seek to call white grey and grey black until all is black--are far more serious and involve a more direct application of the will to the hatred of other human beings. Such sins ought to make us tremble, for they will surely be remembered on That Day if we do not renounce them. In short, the Righteous should consider the mote in their own eyes. Bitterness and the will to condemn can damn a soul just as effectively as unrepentant episcopal malfeasance.

Andrew Sullivan needs to brush up on his theology

For reasons that are not too terribly difficult to grasp, Sullivan is eager to find examples of cafeteria Catholicism among the ranks of theocons like George Weigel. It makes his own selectivity about other aspects of Catholic teaching more palatable, after all.

Sullivan writes:

THEOCONS VERSUS THE CHURCH: I tend to agree with this essay by George Weigel, defending war against Iraq within the Catholic Church's just war tradition. He even argues that some clerics may not be the best candidates for figuring out questions of public morality:

There is a charism or gift of political discernment unique to the vocation of public service. That charism is not shared by bishops, moderators, rabbis, imams or inter-religious agencies. Moral clarity in a time of war demands moral seriousness from public officials. It also demands a measure of political modesty from religious leaders and public intellectuals, in the give-and-take of democratic deliberation.

Couldn't agree more. But isn't this a pretty flagrant dissent from Church teaching? And isn't Weigel one of the key intellectual supporters of enforcing Church orthodoxy on everyone, especially in the academy, who dare to question official Church teachings? That's one of my beefs with the theocons. They want strict orthodoxy on practical issues that have no deep moral meaning, like a celibate priesthood, but feel free to dissent openly on war, economics and social justice. Am I the only one to find their position just a little bit too easy?

Um, no, Andrew. I'm afraid you've got it wrong. From the teaching of Paul in Romans 13, which fully grants Caesar the power to use the sword within his proper sphere and the right to discern when to use it, to the present Catechism, Church teaching concedes to Caesar the right and duty to order society for the common good and an authority proper to him and not derived from the bishops. This does not mean he can, like Stalin, do whatever he likes since the Pope has no divisions. But it does mean that it is normatively up to Caesar to make the judgement call when a war is not clearly an immoral act. The bishops have not, contrary to what you say, issued any "official Church teachings" on war with Iraq. They have presented what amounts to their collective opinion, along with a big fat caveat that clearly and explicitly says, "We offer not definitive conclusions, but rather our serious concerns and questions in the hope of helping all of us to reach sound moral judgments. People of good will may differ on how to apply just war norms in particular cases, especially when events are moving rapidly and the facts are not altogether clear."

In short, the bishops are giving doctrine only insofar as they are saying, "Here are the tools called 'Just War theory' which the Church provides us with (CCC 2309). After this, they then use those tools to do their own bit of cogitating on this particular circumstance of the proposed war with Iraq. They say, in effect, "We don't think the case for war is all that great." But then, they make extremely clear that they are not binding anybody's conscience, and are merely giving their opinion which Catholics of good will can differ on, depending on their reading of the facts on the ground in light of the Church's tradition of Just War theory. This is precisely what Weigel does--and he too acknowledges that Catholics of good will can evaluate things differently using the conceptual tools provided by the Church's Just War Tradition.

This is not cafeteria Catholicism. Nobody on either side is saying "Screw Just War theory! Let's launch an aggressive war without provocation! Let's target civilians! Let's reduce Iraq to a vast plain of glass if they shoot down a single drone!" In order for your argument the Weigel is ignoring "official Church teaching" to really hold water, you would have to show, not that Weigel reads the situation differently in light of the same Church teaching as the bishops (which the bishops themselves acknowledge is completely legitimate for him to do) but that Weigel is saying "To hell with Just War theory."

Given that Jody has decided to take up more or less permanent residence in one of my comments boxes...

and only use his own blog to post short links driving all his traffic here, I feel as though I should do something. But what? Change the name of my blog to "Mark's Home for Wayward Atheists"? Or perhaps I should just charge rent. Nah. I don't really mind Jody being here. It's just that I'm afraid his mom and dad are going to start worrying about where he is. At any rate, he's welcome to stay. And if any of the rest of you want to abandon your own blogs for the much more fascinating conviviality of mine, you are welcome to do so. Just be sure to do like Jody and post a link driving all your traffic here. All advertising is good advertising.

Josh Claybourn on Catholic Conservative Nancy Pelosi

George Weigel on the Justice of War with Iraq

In a world riven by war and Islamicist terror, the American Humanist Association stood up for the things that really matter!

Rod Dreher on The Rapture Trap

I'm glad this fine book is getting some press. Ideas have consequences, in this case, both political and spiritual. Thigpen's book is a really fine piece of work that deals, not only with loony dispensational theories of The End, but also with how to deal with various loony Catholic notions, as well as private revelations of all sizes and shapes, and interesting legends from various sources. I learned quite a bit from his work. A valuable addition for anybody who wants to get a feel for healthy Christian eschatology.

Oh, and while I'm plugging eschatological stuff, if you have 50 odd bucks burning a hole in your pocket and want to get The Best Work of Exegesis on Revelation I know of, get Scott Hahn's outstanding tape series The End. This is a million miles away from the fevered speculations of Hal Lindsey and does a terrific job of setting Revelation in the real human context of early Christianity, rooted in the liturgy (the Mass and Revelation are inseparable), in the Old Testament imagery which clearly dominates the thinking of St. John, and in the events surrounding the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. You won't get any Jeanne Dixon predictions about the European Common Market or Saddam Hussein, but you will get what is easily the most sensible reading of Revelation there is.

Looks like I'm wrong about the OBL tape

Oh well. Looks like the hunt is on again.

Pelosi is a "Conservative Catholic"

Apparently, where she comes from "liberal Catholic", means somebody who openly worships Moloch, smears themselves with bull's blood in Dionysian orgies, and channels Ramtha's dialogues with Joseph Stalin. If not, I can't for the life of me grasp what she could possibly mean by "conservative Catholic." What will you wager me she favors unrestricted abortion, women priests and the normal menu of dissents du jour common on the menu among liberal dissenters?

Sparse blogging Monday

Running the fambly here and there, taking five-year-old Sean (who is now past his Viking Phase, thankyouveddymuch, and on to his Indian Phase) round to some Indian displays at local museums. Finally, a fascination with something local! I couldn't get to a Norse fjord very easily, but we actually have real live Indians in the area (abundantly attested by our magnificent place names like Puyallup (pyoo-al-up), Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Moclips, Samamish, Tacoma, Dosewallips, Duwamish, and the many other localities I savor as they come trippingly to the tongue). I think that may come as a shock to Sean. As far as he's concerned, Indians lived long ago and far away like all other historical figures in books. Wait till he finds out Israelites are still around!

This isn't a religious war or anything

A statement attributed to Al Qaeda threatened more attacks in New York and Washington unless America stops supporting Israel and converts to Islam, an Arab TV reporter who received the unsigned document said Saturday.

Authorities are puzzling over what "converts to Islam" might mean. They downplay any suggestion that the terrorists are motivated by Islamicist ideology and emphasize that modern wars are only fought for purely material ends.

Meanwhile G.K. Chesterton sez:

There is something we all know which can only be rendered, in an appropriate language, as realpolitik. As a matter of fact, it is an almost insanely unreal politik. It is always stubbornly and stupidly repeating that men fight for material ends, without reflecting for a moment that the material ends are hardly ever material to the men who fight. In any case no man will die for practical politics, just as no man will die for pay. Nero could not hire a hundred Christians to be eaten by lions at a shilling an hour, for men will not be martyred for money. But the vision called up by realpolitik, or realistic politics, is beyond example crazy and incredible. Does anybody in the world believe that a soldier says, 'My leg is nearly dropping off, but I shall go on till it drops; for after all I shall enjoy all the advantages of my government obtaining a warm water port in the Gulf of Finland! Can anybody suppose that a clerk turned conscript says, 'If I am gassed I shall probably die in torments; but it is a comfort to reflect that should I ever decide to become a pearl-diver in the South Seas, that career is now open to me and my countrymen! Materialist history is the most madly incredible of all histories, or even of all romances. Whatever starts wars, the thing that sustains wars is something in the soul; that is something akin to religion. It is what men feel about life and about death. A man near to death is dealing directly with an absolute; it is nonsense to say he is concerned only with relative and remote complications that death in any case will end. If he is sustained by certain loyalties, they must be loyalties as simple as death. They are generally two ideas, which are only two sides of one idea. The first is the love of something said to be threatened, if it be only vaguely known as home; the second is dislike and defiance of some strange thing that threatens it. The first is far more philosophical than it sounds though we need not discuss it here. A man does not want his national home destroyed or even changed, because he can not even remember all the good things that go with it; just as he does not want his house burnt down because he can hardly count all the things he would miss. Therefore he fights for what sounds like a hazy abstraction, but is really a house.

But the negative side of it is quite as noble as well as quite as strong. Men fight hardest when they feel that the foe is at once an old enemy and an eternal stranger, that his atmosphere is alien and antagonistic; as the French feel about the Prussian or the Eastern Christians about the Turk. If we say it is a difference of religion, people will drift into dreary bickerings about sects and dogmas. We will pity them and say it is a difference about death and daylight; a difference that does really come like a dark shadow between our eyes and the day. Men can think of this difference even at the point of death; for it is a difference about the meaning of life.

Followup on the soap opera with Fr. Haley and his bishop

I mention this below. Now a source familiar with the situation tells me:

1) When the bishop found out about the situation [meaning the affair between Fr. Jim and a parishioner], he personally ordered Fr. Jim to cut off all contact with the woman. So the allegations that the bishop knew and did nothing are simply untrue (with the implication that he would only take action to punish the whistle blower).

2) People close to this have characterized Fr. Haley as extremely zealous (like a new believer) but possessing no prudence. (And we know what the Church says about how essential prudence is to achieving the good).

I must say that his actions in the matter seem to be those of a child who tattles on a sibling or classmate (who really has misbehaved)and is puzzled by the fact that the adults around him don't automatically praise him as a "good boy" for doing so.

This, coupled with some of the comments by Patrick Rothwell in the box under the previous blog severely diminish my sympathy for Fr. Haley and my outrage at the bishop.

Had a lovely fambly day today

Went to Pike Place Market and had a splendid time wandering around the shops, sticking coins in Rachel the Bronze Pig, watching the shopkeepers throw fish around, and checking out all the wonderful diversity of the human race. Ate at a nice little family restaurant, popped into Golden Age Collectibles, savored the view of the Sound.

Heck, I savored the whole day! My kids thought it was cool and so did Jan and I. If you get to Seattle, Pike Place Market is one of the places you gotta see.

Oh, and had ice cream. The poifect Sabbath!

They don't know what's killing them

Exxxxxcellent!

New Muslim 'zine promotes interreligious dialogue

A True Word was established to provide an authentic Islamic viewpoint on contemporary issues, and to actively engage the non-Muslim world in a constructive and honest dialogue of ideas. We write for both Muslims and non-Muslims.

This magazine was born of a dissatisfaction with the level of dialogue in the Muslim world. We recognized the need to bring a fresh and coherent voice to respond to the challenges we face with reasoned and accessible arguments.

At the same time, we believe that the Muslim community needs to engage in constructive self-criticism and introspection, and be open and frank as we assess our successes and shortcomings.

In supporting that aim, we will endeavour to bring to our readership high quality, original and challenging articles that do not shy away from asking tough questions and proposing innovative solutions.

If you write them, for heaven's sake, don't be a belligerent Christian. These guys sound like they are interested in trying to have an intelligent engagement with the non-Islamic world and are open to self-criticism. Remember the merits of honey vs. vinegar, y'know?

The Latest Piece is Up on Catholic Exchange

Now you know what a Verihydripples is.

I'm outta here for the weekend

Many thanks for prayers! If you think if it, remember me to Our Lord.

Andy and Jody Fight a Straw Man

... as is the custom with atheists. I wrote that the answer to a diseased spirituality is a healthy one, not the watery mix of Mammon and Hallmark cards that characterizes so much of the West. Jody and Andy, on cue, reply with Straw Man Rebuttal #325: "Maybe I'm misreading something, but what I just read came across as "Secularism is weaker than fanaticism, so let's replace one fanatical spirituality with another fanatical spirituality - mine."

To which, of course, the reply is, "Of course you are misreading it. And if you took just a little time to think about that, you'd know it." But apparently they could not resist the tempation to just burp off rounds rather than think. I did not say that the answer to a fanatical spirituality is more fanaticism. I said the answer to a diseased spirituality (one that, for instance, has absolutely no room for religious liberty) is a healthy spirituality (one that, for instance, can produce a teaching like Dignitatis Humanae, which people tempted to cheap shots and shallow arguments should really familiarize themselves with).

What will never provide a sufficient response to Islam is precisely what Andy and Jody propose, a civilization founded on drinking lattes, reading newspapers and jeering.

Oh, and by the way, bin Laden's God is not "make believe". It is atheists who have to argue that 99.9% of the human race is absolutely wrong about the thing that matters to it most. Catholics can and do affirm that other theists have gotten *something* right, however much they have gotten other things wrong. If you took the trouble to find out what the Church teaches before talking about it, you'd know She teaches "841. "'The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day.'[LG 16; cf. NA 3.]" This is hardly an affirmation that the God worshipped by Muslims is "make believe." Bin Laden's God is real enough. It's bin Laden's idea's about Him that are screwy.

Justin Katz on Commonweal on St. Blog's

Still haven't seen the piece myself.

On not making the Dem's mistake

One of the things that sank the Dems was obsession with the past. They stopped having anything to say, because they were so obsessed with "overturning 2000" and other historical grievances. It's the same mentality that makes the Balkans the happy land you see today. Catholics pissed at our bishops and their failure to face up to their misdeeds now face a similar choice. You can chew the cud over the fact that bishops who have done wrong will, in some cases, not really appreciate the consequences of that before they stand before their Maker and kvetch endlessly that things did not turn out as you hoped, growing more and more bitter in the process. Or, you can move on, labor for the renewal of the Church in your little sphere, have hope, and grow in God with something to offer those around you. We live in a world that doesn't measure up to what we'd hoped for. That's life outside the Garden.

Me: I've learned from watching the Dems how to lose. I don't want to lose, especially when the prize is eternal life. Amy is right. Time to move on. We do what we can, not what we can't.

Comparative Cartooning

Scholars announced today that the legendary roots of the "Mouse Event" have been definitively proven. In a shocking revelation, a seven hundred year old fresco bearing an uncanny similarity to Mickey Mouse showed definitively that the long-accepted paradigm held by Disney traditionalists was in profound crisis.

According to Disney tradition, Mickey Mouse was "created" by "Walt Disney" c 1928 and leapt into popularity due to the efforts of a team of "cartoonists". Today's discovery, however, throws that commonly accepted myth into grave doubt.

"Clearly, the similarities are too great for this to be a coincidence. The entire historicity of the Mouse Event is now open to question," said Robert Funky, of the Mouse Seminar, in an interview with Larry King earlier today. "Indeed, we would argue that the Mickey we have come to accept today cannot be seriously believed in my any thinking person. And if he is in doubt, what are we to make of the outdated concept of 'Walt Disney'? Surely nobody today thinks there is a real mustachioed man who can allegedly draw thousands upon thousands of little tiny movie frames that only vary slightly from one another? Give me a break!"

Critics of the traditional Disney account of the origins of Mickey Mouse argue that the historical origins of the famous Mouse are shrouded in mystery, and probably find roots in such diverse sources as fairy tales, myth and legend. They agree with each other that it is simply impossible to trace the Mouse Event back to something as simplistic as "Walt Disney."

"Oh, it's a servicable enough notion for children and simple folks, I suppose." said John Dominic Hotcrossbun, who who holds the Iscariot Chair in Comparative Cartooning at RuPaul University, "but those of us who are truly educated can't accept such things at face value any more. This fresco simply lends weight to our theories."

Big Brother on the March in England

"People should not have to go through life being subjected to abuse because of who they are or what they believe in," says the irony-impaired Commander Cressida Dick of the (I'm not making this up) Diversity Directorate, adding, "You there! Stop laughing at my name! That's it! You're busted for sexual harrassment!"

Right thinking will be rewarded. Wrong thinking will be punished.

Me: I don't want Caesar punishing people for hating me. I want Caesar punishing people if they hurt me.

Yeah, I understand that there are "personalities" involved here

Like the case with the dumb priest who had kids wear nylons as an icebreaker and was subsequently threatened with bodily harm by some parents, you're looking at a relationship with a History here. Sources tell me that Fr. Haley is Not an Easy Person to Get Along With and exhibits some rather annoying Lidless Eye qualities that have made him a royal pain in the ass to people unfortunate enough to have to deal with him on a daily basis.

So the insta-template of Brave Priest vs. Craven Bishop doesn't explain everything here. But you know what? The bishop is still wrong, I think. Fr. Haley had information pertinent to the case and, since it was not protected by the Seal of the Confessional, Caesar has every right to ask for that info in order to make a just judgment. Clergy are not above the law.

UPDATE: On the other hand, reading the comments below, I wonder if the priest isn't even more of a prick than I'd thought. There's "obeying the law" and there's "glorying in salacious gossip". I'm gonna reserve judgment on the bishop's actions till I know more.

And here's the Bishops' Statement of Committment

About fraternal correction, they are non-committal.

I estimate 40 years before the vast majority of the people they hope to influence takes them seriously as moral guides again. I'll listen to them, because I'm a gung-ho Catholic fanatic who distinguishes between the person and the Tradition he is trying to articulate. But most people don't do this. That's life in the real world, your eminences. Exhibit A: your ignored teaching on the coming war. Nobody's listening to you.

From the "Strange Bedfellows" files

Andrew Greeley, of all people, springs to the defense of the revised norms. Unlike Lawler, he's not focusing in this article on what bishops should do about themselves when they are idiots, but what they are going to do about abuse, lay panels and all. And he mostly likes what he sees.

Odd world.

Philip Lawler on our Hapless Bench of Bishops

I begin to see why the Israelites wandered for 40 years after refusing to take the Promised Land. Sometimes you just have to wait for the old generation of cowards to die out. Well, like Amy said, what's done is done. Face reality, soldier on.

Fight Terrorism, Have Babies

The Pope continues to prove he read this blog. Rod Dreher was saying this just yesterday in my comments down below. Love ya, Holy Father!

Ann Coulter is just so fun

Yes, she's a bomb thrower. So was Tom Paine. I can't help but enjoy her anyway. Bomb throwers have their place in the political discourse of a nation. I hope the Dems follow her advice to the letter. I applaud the choice of Pelosi. We need more like her at the helm of the Dem party.

This is, in fact, rather close to what I think is going on
Why is it so far-fetched that somebody could have been recruited to do a bin Laden impression?
Modern secular Westerners have got to get over the idea that they are smarter than everybody else, as though nobody in the entire Muslim world would be capable of doing what Rich Little and thousands of other impressionists have done for a living. It leaves us unprepared for meeting clever people, whether they live in previous ages or in other cultures. And it leaves them wholly unable to deal with wisdom. We start thinking that our ability to make blenders makes us 2000 years smarter than the apostles and makes us invulnerable to clever people with box cutters.

I swear, I knew nothing about this speech when I blogged the previous blog

Nice to see the Pope is on my wavelength. I've long suspected he reads my blog. This just proves it.

Here's a passage from the "War of the Gods and the Demons" in the Everlasting Man...

that has haunted me since the war began. It's about the defeat of Carthage by Rome, when it was an absolute slam dunk that Rome was on the ropes and was sure to be destroyed by the overwhelming military superiority of Carthage:

In the whole world one thing still threatened Carthage, and that was Carthage. There still remained the inner working of an element strong in all successful commercial states, and the presence of a spirit that we know. There was still the solid sense and shrewdness of the men who manage big enterprises; there was still the advice of the best financial experts; there was still business government; there was still the broad and sane outlook of practical men of affairs; and in these things could the Romans hope. As the war trailed on to what seemed its tragic end, there grew gradually a faint and strange possibility that even now they might not hope in vain. The plain business men of Carthage, thinking as such men do in terms of living and dying races, saw clearly that Rome was not only dying but dead. The war was over; it was obviously hopeless for the Italian city to resist any longer, and inconceivable that anybody should resist when it was hopeless. Under these circumstances, another set of broad, sound business principles remained to be considered. Wars were waged with money, and consequently cost money; perhaps they felt in their hearts, as do so many of their kind, that after all war must be a little wicked because it costs money. The time had now come for peace; and still more for economy. The messages sent by Hannibal from time to time asking for reinforcements were a ridiculous anachronism; there were much more important things to attend to now. It might be true that some consul or other had made a last dash to the Metaurus, had killed Hannibal's brother and flung his head, with Latin fury, into Hannibal's camp; and mad actions of that sort showed how utterly hopeless the Latins felt about their cause. But even excitable Latins could not be so mad as to cling to a lost cause forever. So argued the best financial experts; and tossed aside more and more letters, full of rather queer alarmist reports. So argued and acted the great Carthaginian Empire. That meaningless prejudice, the curse of commercial states, that stupidity is in some way practical and that genius is in some way futile, led them to starve and abandon that great artist in the school of arms, whom the gods had given them in vain.

Why do men entertain this queer idea that what is sordid must always overthrow what is magnanimous; that there is some dim connection between brains and brutality, or that it does not matter if a man is dull so long as he is also mean? Why do they vaguely think of all chivalry as sentiment and all sentiment as weakness? They do it because they are, like all men, primarily inspired by religion. For them, as for all men the first fact is their notion of the nature of things; their idea about what world they are living in. And it is their faith that the only ultimate thing is fear and therefore that the very heart of the world is evil. They believe that death is stronger than life, and therefore dead things must be stronger than living things; whether those dead things are gold and iron and machinery or rocks and rivers and forces of nature. It may sound fanciful to say that men we meet at tea tables or talk to at garden-parties are secretly worshippers of Baal or Moloch. But this sort of commercial mind has its own cosmic vision and it is the vision of Carthage. It has in it the brutal blunder that was the ruin of Carthage. The Punic power fell, because there is in this materialism a mad indifference to real thought. By disbelieving in the soul, it comes to disbelieving in the mind. Being too practical to be moral it denies what every practical soldier calls the moral of an army. It fancies that money will fight when men will no longer fight. So it was with the Punic merchant princes. Their religion was a religion of despair, even when their practical fortunes were hopeful. How could they understand that the Romans could hope even when their fortunes were hope less? Their religion was a religion of force and fear; how could they understand that men can still despise fear even when they submit to force? Their philosophy of the world had weariness in its very heart; above all they were weary of warfare; how should they understand those who still wage war even when they are weary of it? In a word, how should they understand the mind of Man, who had so long bowed down before mindless things, money and brute force and gods who had the hearts of beasts? They awoke suddenly to the news that the embers they had disdained too much even to tread out were again breaking everywhere into flames; that Hasdrubal was defeated that Hannibal was outnumbered, that Scipio had carried the war into Spain; that he had carried it into Africa. Before the very gates of the golden city Hannibal fought his last fight for it and lost; and Carthage fell as nothing has fallen since Satan. The name of the New City remains only as a name. There is no stone of it left upon the sand.

Tangential thought: This is not my way of saying we will lose in Iraq. We won't. But it is my way of saying that I'm not at all confident of the West's ability to cope with Islam over the long haul. As time passes, I think that the West's materialist and secularlist philosophy will prove inadequate to meet the challenge of Islam over the long haul, just as Carthage's "practicality" proved incapable of dealing with real life. The West's attempt to hold to a watery spirituality combined with the worship of Mammon cannot vanquish a fanatical spirituality. The answer to the diseased spirituality of Islam is the healthy spirituality of the gospel. Only the truth of the gospel can do it, for only the gospel is eternal. Islam will, I think, force the West to either return to its Catholic roots or to perish.

This is hopeful

Also extraordinary was the Iranian student who contacted me by email, wishing to know all he could about Jesus and Christianity and eager to take whatever I could refer him to and translate it back into Farsi for his fellow students and teachers, who were also sick of Islam and deeply curious about the Faith. There are things going on under the ice over there. I sometimes wonder how strong Islam really is and whether a lot of it wouldn't cave in if it did not have the might of the state compelling adherence to it.

A reader sez...

Check out today's Goldberg File. I think it makes a very good point. The question he asks is essentially this: How does war against Iraq become moral just because Cameroon and Syria are now on our side? How does war become moral because we bought off France and Russia?

This is the question someone needs to ask our bishops, both here and in Rome.

If always had problems with the "UN, not US, as competent authority" argument. What carries more weight for me is the question of whether the benefits of the war are likely to be greater than if it had been left unfought. It's not a slam dunk that the region will be more stable afterwards. But since I'm not privy to intelligence information, what do I know?

Book burners cutters for Jesus

More Christians wasting time worrying about Harry Potter and being totally ignorant of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy.

A press release for people who are trying to think of something nice to do for a priest they love

WEB SITE TO BOOST MORALE OF ETHICAL PRIESTS GARNERS EARLY SUCCESS

LOUISVILLE, KY - In just its first three months of operation, the www.thankyoufather.com Web site has welcomed more than 25,000 visitors and received approximately 2500 letters.

"This site has greatly exceeded our expectations, because we thought this would be just a small way for Louisville area Catholics to say thanks to their favorite priest," said Rick Redman, one of the site's creators. "Now, we've received letters from all over the world. It's been nothing short of amazing."

Thankyoufather.com was started to provide Catholics in the Archdiocese of Louisville an opportunity to send special uplifting messages to priests who have ethically and diligently ministered to the community over the years. However, when the site received international media attention, letters started pouring in from all over the world.

"We've received letters from New Zealand, Australia, Spain, Italy, Brazil, Vietnam and India, just to name a few," added Joe Lilly, another of the site's creators. "Plus, the local letters are still coming in. We were especially pleased with a group of letters we recently received from second graders at a local elementary school. It shows that people or all ages are appreciative of the good and ethical priests who serve us every day."

Reaction to the site from priests has been extremely positive. One wrote, "I am one of those moved to tears on occasion, so touched by what I read --not only by postings I recognize as directed to me, but by postings which evidence the faith and support of the People of God and which highlight the faithful service of so many of my brothers in the priesthood. I just wanted you to know, from me, how profound an impact your love-in-action has made on me and how your support lifts and energizes me. "

The site does not, and will not, directly address the abuse crisis. Organizers agree that victims of abuse must receive justice. However, they stress that during this time, it's also appropriate to recognize that the vast majority of priests have been true to their vows to live a Christ-like life. "The best thing people can do is to thank priests personally," added Redman, "but this site has been added encouragement to all those good priests who shepherd us in our faith journey."

George Weigel on Rome's revision of the Norms

So the priest, the minister, the rabbi, the penguin and the dancing bear walk into the bar...

...the bartender says, "What is this? Some kind of joke?"

An interesting moral question

A reader sez:

Last week, I think, there was a particularly noisy thread on your blog about abortion.

One commenter was outraged about the "fact" that the Catholic church wouldn't allow Catholic doctors to do anything about a 13-year-old girl that had been raped and just came in to the hospital. She'd just have to carry the child to term.

Well, I don't think the objection captures the nuance of the Catholic position. The way I understand it, from reading several "conservative" Catholic medical ethics texts, there's some room for the doctor to give the patient a postcoital birth control pill with the intent that conception not take place, if the doctor knows that conception hasn't yet taken place. The male's sperm has no right to be where it is, and the act of intercourse was obviously not within the context of a marriage. So this isn't contraception in the sense that the Church opposes.

However, this would not work for someone who came in, having been raped sometime earlier, and was now, say, 10 weeks pregnant.

John Finnis, Benedict Ashley, Kevin D. O'Rourke, and some others, take this position. I can get you the citations if you're interested.

I don't know enough about the technology or about moral theology to make an intelligent assessment here. Offhand, it sounds as though such medication, if it does not act as an abortifacient, is legitimate. Any input from people who actually know something about moral theology and/or the technology is welcome. Light, not heat, folks.

My rabbi acquaintance, Andrew Sullivan and Cardinal Law

People are complex. I know a rabbi who makes very good sense about 95% of the time. The other 5% of the time, he holds to daffy ideas about "Bible codes" or regards mass transit plans (a very live issue out here in Seattle) as a harbinger of totalitarianism. Does this mean I should ignore his sensible conversation because I think some of his opinions are cracked? No.

Exhibit B: Andrew Sullivan. My description of his blog says it all: "Sensible About the War and Bush, Hopelessly Fuddled about Catholicism and Sex". If you want to hear some very insightful ideas about American politics and the war, Sullivan's your guy. If you want to hear blithering idiocy about the Catholic faith, Sullivan's your guy. People are, I say, complex.

So with Cardinal Law. Before he became famous for his disastrous idiocy with priestly abusers, he was rather well-known for other things too, including his very good work in many areas of social justice (particularly in the civil rights movement in the 60s). It is very simple--and wrong--to conclude that his idiocy in one place automatically means he has nothing to say about anything ever. People are complex.

More like him, please

My pal Pavel Chichikov...

in addition to beiing a fine poet, is also a fine photographer.



He writes:

I've been photographing at the Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception here in Washington DC. I recently offered the Shrine as a gift one of the prints (see below), a photograph, about 10 X 8, of Our Lady of Vailankanni, an Indian representation of the Blessed Virgin and Child. The Shrine isn't interested in having it. I'm willing to give it to any party, not private, who would give it a home. It's free of charge, and would be autographed in the margin. The only other person to have a copy is a Benedictine monk who administers a parish in Baltimore. I'm going to send a smaller version to a PIME priest in Mitapaly, Andra Pradesh, India.

For more samples of Pavel's photography, go here. There's 20 images.

People say there's nothing sacred...

but it ain't so. If you want to know what people hold sacred, it's very easy to determine: see what they regard as blasphemy. Chesterton observed long ago that we only blaspheme what we hold sacred. Try thinking a blasphemous thought about Loki or Odin. It wouldn't even occur to most people. Likewise, routine spitting on the commandment not to take the Lord's name in vain doesn't even exercise TV networks anymore. That's because God is not sacred to the chattering classes. But that doesn't mean there's no such thing as blasphemy for them. As a reader writes:

You know, I saw "Midway" on TNT not too long ago, and Turner's station had not bleeped a single blasphemous oath - but there was a "bleep" every other sentence. You know what the Forbidden Word was?

"Japs". Despite that movie's careful treatment of the internment camps, the whole sub-plot with the heroic pilot's Nisei girlfriend and all, and the niggling (oh, forgive THAT word!) detail that everybody called them "Japs" at the time...

It says something to our credit as a people that we do regard racial epithets as blasphemous (and therefore regard equality under the law as sacred). I don't poo poo that. But I do note that this sacred dogma of human equality exists more or less in isolation from any serious philosophical framework. It is a custom, not a intelligent and thought-out principle, and 9 Americans out of 10 would not know how to defend it if it came under serious and sustained intellectual attack. They assume--wrongly, as Jefferson did--that equality is "self-evident" when, in fact, it is no such thing. It is a mystical dogma having roots in the Judeo-Christian tradition and in nothing else. I am not at all confident it will survive long if the same culture that thinks nothing of blaspheming the God who made us equal continues on its present course. Remove the foundation, the house falls. For more on this, see my piece "We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident".

The Gospel According to Johann Sebastian Bach

It's fascinating to me, as a former Evangelical with the culture of "If you can't articulate it verbally, it's not really advancing the gospel" still coursing through my veins, that two of the greatest missionaries in the world are J.S. Bach, who communicates the Majesty through music and J.R.R. Tolkien, whose fiction is miraculous in its ability to somehow open hearts to the Catholic faith without ever mentioning Christ or God. Sacramentality at its finest.

I love the curious ecumenical cooperation of Bach and St. Francis Xavier too! Thrilling!

I love stuff like this

I need to make myself over into a super hero. Input from readers would be appreciated here. Super powers, costume design, origin story, mission in life, fatal flaw, faithful sidekick, and, of course, name ideas would all be appreciated.

Lay Involvement, Book of Acts Style

Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists murmured against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. 2 And the twelve summoned the body of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. 3 Therefore, brethren, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this duty. 4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” 5 And what they said pleased the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. 6 These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands upon them. (Acts 6:1-6).

Several things are worth noting here. First, Luke has no problem either with lay involvement in governance (d'ja catch that the occasion of the invention of the diaconate was ethnic bitching among "Hellenists" (Greek-speaking Jews)_and Hebrew-speaking Jews?). He also takes it for granted that the apostles have the final word, but not the *only* word in who gets named to the diaconate. That will offend hard-core authoritarian types who have the vague notion that post-Tridentine models of governance are eternal in the same way that Jesus and the apostles must always have spoken King James English.

Also worth noting is the language of the apostles as they describe their understanding of their role (and, by extension, the role of the bishop): "It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables." A bishop who said that today would be fried by all the pissed-off people who would insert the lecture on "Jesus the Servant Who Washed the Feet of the Disciples" in the tape player and let fly. Indeed, I don't doubt there are some who would see in these words the dreaded birth of clericalism. It would take scarcely a movement of the grey matter to spout such rhetoric. We'd hear endless cataracts of stuff about how bishops should be down in the trenches, working in soup kitchens, doing the Dorothy Day thing and so forth. Along with lots of stuff about the uselessness of theology and preaching and sacraments when the true gospel is only found in Service, etc.

And yet, it would be wrong. The apostles did not see their primary task as soup ladlers. The bishop is indeed called to serve the people. But his service is primarily, as the apostles teach, in "preaching the word of God". To be sure, he must also live the word of God. But there are many ways to do this besides soup kitchens.

I note that simply to point out that, yet again, Scripture refuses to simple confirm anybody's simple ideology, rhetoric and prejudice.

The problem is that, today, we don't have bishops or laity who seem to really believe as the folks in the book of Acts did. The New Testament sees the members of the Church as *members* of one body, literally body parts. We seem to operate in a quasi-Marxist framework which assumes that, when all's said and done, the clergy are the bourgeoisie and we are laity are the proletariat engaged in eternal class war. (Newspapers are especially fond of this framework.) Thus, getting lay input is, by definition, good because we manifest the charism of the Wisdom of the Voters or the Vanguard of History. Bishops, even if they weren't the dunderheads we have, would still be a monarchical imposition on our Jeffersonian lay goodness. No thought is given to the fact that we--we laity--lionized men like Paul Shanley for years and have proven ourselves just as incompetent to judge the things of God as some of our bishops.

Somehow we have to return to the theology of the body of Christ that dominates the entire thought of the New Testament. I don't know how to do that. But Acts 6 shows there is room for it in the Tradition. It begins, in the words of George Weigel, with "Fidelity. Fidelity. Fidelity."

McPaper Follows the LA Times Template of Presuming Accusation Equals Guilt

A reader writes:

Yesterday (11.11.02), USA Today had a long article and several related articles on priest sex abuse. Their staff has clearly done a lot of research and there were some very enlightening points. (Sample: less than 1% of priests serving in dioceses since 1965 have been accused; 1 in 10 accused priests account for more than half of the known allegations; 40% of those accused have been accused by just one person.)

The thing that I just could not understand was: USA Today published a list of EVERY priest they could find a record of being accused of abuse -- not those proved, not discriminating on the basis of amount of evidence -- just, there's a record of an accusation against you somewhere that we could locate, your name is now in print in USA Today as one of the accused.

I cannot see the point and it strikes me as grossly unfair to the priests. Here's the story (scroll down a bit) -- I'll be interested to see if you have any comments on your blog.

She then adds:

Here's the letter to the Editor that I just sent USA Today:

To the Editor:
Your article headlined "Facts of Priest Sex Abuse at Odds with Perception," published 11.11.02 was indeed very informative. As a Catholic, I especially appreciate your publication's effort to make an in-depth investigation into this horrible scandal. It was especially interesting, for example, to have it documented that such a large percentage of the (so far) reported abuse comes from a relatively small percentage of priests.

That said, I could not understand the rationale for publishing the names of all of the accused priests. SOME OF THOSE MEN ARE INNOCENT. Ironically, one of your headlines in a related article read, ''I'm Innocent,' but reputation is ruined, accused says.'

Exactly. I cannot understand what would be the purpose of printing the names of men who may be entirely innocent. If they are being unjustly accused, you have now nationalized and memorialized the smear.

If the point is to hold the bishops' feet to the fire for following up on cases, I am all for that. Couldn't that be accomplished by listing the NAMES OF THE BISHOPS and how many outstanding cases they have? Because it's odd, the dioceses are named, the priests are named, but not the bishops. (A few are named in the text of the story, but not systematically listed in the "database" you published.)

I want the guilty to pay, believe me -- both priests and bishops. And I believe the press has a very positive role to play in remedying this despicable abuse. (I also think the press reaction compares favorably with Church officials.)

I just cannot understand the editorial rationale for publishing, without regard to the amount or quality of evidence, the name of every priest who has been accused.

Are you also compiling a database of Boy Scout Troop Masters who have been ACCUSED of abuse? Will you be publishing the names of all of those men? What about Big Brother volunteers or pre-school employees? Or, how about a database of Protestant clergy who've been accused of adultery -- will we see those names in print?

It's true that too many lives have been and are being ruined by this horrible problem and its cover-up. But slandering the innocent only adds to the price.

Nice to see responsible journalism not fanning the flames of a witchhunt mentality.

Witch hunts can and do happen, you know. Here's a bleedin' ugly one that happened in Seattle's back yard.

Very good!

And I'm hopeful over Lott's aggressiveness on a partial birth abortion ban. Let's not panic because the Bushies are taking measured steps. I'm willing--for now--to trust it will happen. If they piss away this chance altogether however, I'll be disgusted.

"He has cast down the mighty in their arrogance"

and lifted up a sassy guy who refused to be put in his place by the insular mainstream media. Congrats, Drudge! Who could not love such a David v. Goliath story as your life?

Great and Terrible Os Speaks from Beyond Grave

Yeah? Lemme see him. Put up or shut up.

Man is the only creature capable of building Auschwitz. Man is also the only creature capable of going to its gas chambers singing praises to God

I am reminded of that when I read this. For this Muslim woman, I am hopeful that the favorable judgment of God will meet her in the person of the Lord Jesus, who goes with her to her cross. I hope the Nigerian gov't can stop the Bronze Age thugs. But if it can't I remain hopeful that one with such a trust in God will not be denied by our Lord. "When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. .They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus." (Romans 2:14-15). Whatever happens, may she find love and welcome from the true God which was denied her by worshippers of a cartoon god.

Prophets and Priests

We Americans respect prophets but not priests. That is, we respect people who bear authentic witness to a personally experienced truth that has changed their lives. We do not have much regard for priests, that is: the custodians of a Tradition which they neither invented nor have the power to change. Indeed, so deep is the American regard for prophets that we tend to talk as though every religious teacher is a prophet wannabe, even when he's obviously just a priest. This confusion can lead to problems.

So, f'rinstance, when the bishops come out with a perfectly legitimate statement opposing the war with Iraq (lots of Catholics of good will do), it's regarded with scorn simply because the person who's heading up the project is Cardinal Law. This is understandable, of course, and the bishops should really think about how such things will play with the audience they are trying to sway. But at the same time, we Catholics have to bear in mind that, insofar as the bishops are trying to articulate the Tradition, it matters not a whit what their personal morality or lack thereof is. Their personal morality or lack thereof doesn't alter what the Tradition sez, and there are some sound arguments, based on Just War doctrine, being put forward by faithful Catholics who are opposed to war with Iraq. I incline to disagree with them, but I respect them. Love ya, Rod. But insofar as Cardinal Law et al, articulate those arguments based on the Tradition, they should be given a hearing, not dismissed.

Just as important though, we should not encourage the idea that our attentiveness to a bishop's articulation of the Tradition should fluctuate with his personal morality. If I have a bad bishop, and he articulates the Creed, I am still bound to believe the Creed. (Obviously prudential judgements like war with Iraq are not the Creed, but the doctrine which underlies those judgements is still something we have to pay attention to.)

That said, you gotta wonder how the bishops could be so clueless as to expect the majority of American not to laugh at such a weighty message in the mouth of so absurd a messenger.

Just a point of consolation for Catholics

Nitwittery within the Church is usually a watered down version of nitwittery in the culture. When extreme ascetism was in vogue in the patristic period you had nutcases like Phibionites outside the Church and watered down nuts for ascetism like Tertullian within (till he left). When Calvinism was all the rage without, you had Jansenism within. And now (just to console you) it's worth pointing out that for all their idiocy, the Catholic bishops don't seem to be able to hold a candle to this guy (a Methodist) or Bishop Spong. How many tired cliches, condescensions, and bell-bottomed trousered theological fads of yesteryear can *you* spot in this warmed over bit of grooviness?

It's twaddle like this that inspired me to write By What Authority?

Hold off on that Tithing Boycott Crusade!

As an American I am in love with the idea of easy fixes, etc. So I suggested below the withholding of tithes in corrupt dioceses. I spoke too soon.

Fr. Paul (a very fine priest) writes in my comments box:

I just took over as pastor of a parish that was deeply divided by the arrogance of the previous pastor. Nothing scandalous, he was just a jerk. Several members of the parish organized a boycott - collections went down and the diocesan annual appeal met only half the goal for two years running. Meanwhile, the pastor doubled the payroll. In two years, the parish managed to accumulate $100k in debt, mainly owed to the diocese.

So tonight, I get to break it to the parish council that we're screwed: either I beg the diocese to forgive the debts (not likely), or we cut staff and bundle up on Sundays because we can't repair the heaters.

That's what boycotts do. And they're useless on the diocesan level. If we don't meet our assessments and appeals, it comes out of the parish collection anyway. IOW: you'll only end up destroying your local parish.

I replied:

Fr. Paul:

What if you tithe *only* to your local parish and stipulate the money can only be used in-house?

Fr. Paul writes back:

Mark: it can't be done. The diocese takes its "tax" regardless. First, we have our "assessment" which is based on offertory - something like 10%. The catch is that it is based on "estimated" offertory, which means if you have a situation like I do, where the offertory dropped off 30-50% because of the previous pastor, I still get taxed on what we should have been bringing in.

Then we have our Annual Appeal, which is ostensibly independent (the diocese asks each family to send in 1% of gross income), but will be assessed from the parish if not met. It still has to be paid, and if a pastor blows it off, he can look for another job.

Lovely, isn't it?

One catch about tithing only to the parish: in some cases you can give directly to projects in the parish without it being taxed. In my case, people give to the "school of religion" which is not taxed. But general offertory income is considered taxable.

A better alternative, and more of an answer to your original blog, is to give to "foundations" that can be targeted. My family has a CRUT (charitable remainder trust) that is currently with the diocese but we're about to switch over to a "Catholic Foundation". This foundation is independent of the diocese (but run by priests within it). It has two advantages: 1) it is protected from sex-abuse settlements, and 2) we can "target" it if we so choose (e.g. designating the funds to be used for seminary or scholarships or some such).

So, for those thinking about boycotting, two things: 1) don't decrease the tithe to your local parish. You'll only destroy it (unless, of course, you consider that a good thing). 2) If you are not happy with your bishop, then look into targeted tithing rather than the Annual Appeal. It will still hurt your parish (so maybe increase your local giving), but it will send a definite message to the bishop.

No easy answers here.

One final comment: the liability insurance rates in my diocese, used mainly to cover sex-abuse cases, have gone up 444%. Plus, we couldn't get as much as we had in the past. And we're a "fortunate" diocese that doesn't have the problems of Boston or LA. Guess how those increased premiums will be paid? From the health insurance premiums that parishes pay on employees. IOW, from the parish collection.

We're all in this together.

Hitchens on the lame "chicken hawk" school of argument

I've always thought the "Unless you have personal experience, you must not be allowed to have an opinion" school of argument was pushed way too hard. Yes, parents are probably better people to go to for advice on parenting than childless theoreticians. Yes, there is the reality that clueless academics know less about car repair than somebody who's done it. But really. Does anybody in the world think "Unless you've had cancer, you have no right to diagnose it or operate on it. Unless you've been in a car accident, you have no right to teach traffic safety. Unless you've been a soldier, you have no business talking about war." Unfortunately, with the last point lots of people thinks this, meaning that they want to exclude most of the population from the discussion.

I note, as well, that pro-abortion zealots routinely make appeals to this line of reasoning as well, as though nobody can make moral judgments about the morality of abortion if they aren't a woman. What this presupposes, of course, is that men and women are subject to different moralities. You might as well argue that women have no right to make moral judgments about rape since they just can't possibly understand the emotional and psychological pressures that drive men. It's a stupid way to approach moral reasoning.

Barbara Tuchman in The March of Folly

writes about the six Renaissance Pope who helped to provoke the Reformation:

The folly of the popes was no pursuit of counter-productive policy so much as rejection of any steady or coherent policy either political or religious that would have imporoved their situation or arrested the rising discontent. Disregard of the movements and sentiments developing around them was a primary folly. They were deaf to disaffection, blind to the alternative ideas it gave rise to, blandly impervious to challenge, unconcerned by the dismay at their misconduct and the rising wrath at their misgovernment, fixed in refusal to change, almost stupidly stubborn in maintaining a corrupt existing system. They could not change it because they were part of it, grew out of it, depended on it.

... No understanding of the protest, no recognition of their own unpopularity or vulnerability, disturbed the six minds. Their view of the interests of the institution they were appointed to govern was so short-sighted as to amount almost to perversity. They possessed no sense of spiritual mission, provided no meaningful religious guidance, performed no moral service for the Christian world.

Their three outstanding attitudes -- obliviousness to the growing disaffection of constituents, primacy of self-aggrandizement, illusion of invulnerable status -- are persistent aspects of folly. While in the case of the Renaissance popes, these were bred in and exaggerated by the surrounding culture, all are independent of time and recurrent in governorship.

American episcopacy: Read and learn.

Rod, the only guarantor of the bishops' compliance is going to be Caesar

"When you neglect the Big Laws, you don't get freedom. You don't even get anarchy. You get the small laws." - G.K. Chesterton

If the bishops continue to neglect the Big Laws about Not Raping Little Boys and Not Protecting Those Who Do then Caesar will be the only guarantor left that they don't get away with that. It's Caesar's job, after all, to punish people who rape little boys and obstruct justice. Look for lots of legislation, some of it sensible, a great deal of it draconian, micromanaging, and absurd, from Caesar, if the bishops refuse to get a clue.

Domenico Bettinelli on the LA Times on Rome

The LA Times obliges me by demonstrating what I was talking about in the "At the end of the day..." blog. They imagine lay review boards are "emasculated" because Rome points out what could always and only be the case: that the local bishop is the final word in his diocese. They also demonstrate that Assyrians, while useful cudgels in the hand of God for wayward Israel, are not good people to turn to for theological insights. Indeed, they don't even seem to have grasped English common law:

Among other things, the group emphasized priests' rights of presumed innocence, and it clarified the definition of sexual abuse.

This the LA Times thinks is bad, thereby implicitly arguing for presumption of guilt and for not having a clear idea of what constitutes sexual abuse.

The press, like Assyria, have played an essential role in bringing God's wayward Church to heel. They may continue to do that for a while. But don't forget that many, if not most, of the press do not love the Church and do not love God. It's a disconnect that always has to be borne in mind and little items like this are reminders of it. The primary goal of the media is to sell shampoo and and to hawk whatever the agenda might be of the few rich men and women who run it.

Good Morning! For your reading pleasure...

I have a couple of new pieces up on my site (scroll down and look for the stuff marked "New"). Consider them my clever way of distracting you from my minimal blogging today as I try to catch up on other stuff.

UPDATE: I fixed the code problem that was giving you "frame-in-a frame" annoyance. It's all readable now.

Lots of people talk as though PC is the end of civilization as we know it

It's not. It's the squishiness that precedes tyranny, the Weimar powerless before Nazism, as the Netherlands demonstrates in this article. Chesterton, ever insightful, denies that tyranny is the first stage of human political evolution, followed by the long march toward representative government. He argues very persuasively in The Everlasting Man, that tyranny is what you end up with after a democracy (or some variety of representative government) gets tired. People put up with rule by force because they lack the spine and will to go on guarding their rights against the abuse of power. The Netherlands are far down that path and are ripe for capitulation to Islamicist tyranny if they don't change. The same goes for large portions of the West. If it happens it won't be a thing foreign to biblical patterns. When Israel abandoned God they didn't get anarchy, they got domination from cruel foreign power with cruel foreign gods. This obtained till Israel repented and returned to God. It wouldn't be out of character for an apostate Christendom to experience something similar till it returns to Christ. No prophecy on my part. Just an observation. And leavened by the fact that no political entity is "chosen" as the Church (and the Jews) are.

One of my commenters on the "At the end of the day..." thread wrote...

If the bishop is the final word on governance in his diocese, then he can openly defy the Pope in matters of governance. Which is false. This discussion is sounding like an apologia for dissident ecclesiastics like Archbishop Hunthausen. The last authority in the diocese, yes. The last authority in the Universal Church, no.

No. If the bishop is the final word in his diocese, he is the final word in his diocese, not in the universal Church. How you get a defense of Hunthausen out of that is beyond me. The final authority in the universal Church is, as you say, the Holy Father. But the Holy Father (at least this one) obviously does not conceive of his role in the same way that Hildebrand or Innocent III did. And that's the problem again for those who want him to kick ecclesial ass. He disagrees and refuses--not neglects, refuses--to do so.

So again, we are faced with the fact that, judging from the Pope's actions, the local bishop is to be confirmed in his ordinary role as the final word in his diocese. That's a hard saying and people are still grappling with it. But it looks like this is the reiterated teaching of Vatican II, now being confirmed by the Pope in his actions. As I've said all along, it appears to me that the Pope is trusting in the grace of the office to penetrate the thick skulls and hard hearts of some of our bishops. Dunno if it will work. But it appears that this is what the Pope is banking on. That, and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. As JPII has made clear, the Church of Mary precedes and makes possible the Church of Peter. We don't take that seriously. But JPII does and we won't understand his actions if we don't come to realize he really believes this and is acting accordingly.

A reader writes:

I can't turn this into comment-boxable form, so I'm punting to you, perhaps hoping this can at least be grist for the mill.

Does it seem wrong, or at least odd, that people propose what boils down to a boycott of their own diocese? "If that rotten bishop doesn't do what I want, I'll just send my money elsewhere."

I have at least two problems with that. One is that this is a very American, or at least very Western, approach, giving new meaning to the term "sacramental economy". Using dollars rather than prayer and fasting as weapons . . . I don't get it. Or maybe I do. There's a lot more visceral satisfaction of showing the bums what's what in the first one. That doesn't make it a good idea.

The other, and given my own situation, perhaps more personal problem, is that even if it were effective, there'd be an awful lot of collateral damage along the way. Do you think the social outreach will be the last to go? How about stipends for retired priests? How about the expenses of the seminarians who are a necessary part of the hope for the future (that's the part that gets personal)?

It's like the people who wanted to go bomb "them" after 9/11. Somebody needed bombing, and I hope we did a good job of selecting who got it, but random violence against any vaguely Middle-Eastern looking foreigner doesn't cut it.

Am I making any sense?

Some sense. I agree that it's often counterproductive to just lash out and punish "them" without giving thought to who "they" are. Not a few of my commenters talk as though "the bishops" (that monolith) are "guilty" and need to be "punished". This is dumb. It's usually a good idea to find out if your bishop has done something wrong before you punish him for the crime of being a bishop. He might be a good one. Also, it's good to find out if your punishment is going to punish him or just punish some kid in your diocese who is getting help from some charity. Also, it's important that your punishment is not really just a way of saying, "Good! Now I can spend my tithe on that new DVD I've had my eye on." And, of course, if your bishop is demonstrating penitence (assuming he did something wrong) then some practical questions have to be addressed, such as "Are you going to eternally punish him anyway?" and "Do you want God to treat you like that for your repented sins too?" If such criteria are thought about, however, I would say that there *is* a legitimate place for laity, not to *withhold* their tithes altogether, but to direct them to something besides the coffers of a corrupt diocese that has pissed away the finances of hard-working people on things that bring the name of Christ into disrepute. Instead, direct your tithes elsewhere, to charities and ministries that are doing the work of the gospel (I suggest Mercy Corps or some prolife organization, perhaps especially on in Michigan). Lay people have precious few ways of making it clear to a corrupt bishop that his abuse of power is wrong. And they may have a positive obligation to see that their money is not used to subsidize evil. That's just my opinion, of course, and I'm open to other views if folks have them.

Are all Lidless Eye types this out of touch with reality:

"...we have found another proof of our contention that the document Reflections on Covenant and Mission issued by Cardinal Keeler and the USCCB is one in a long line of Vatican attempts to advance the Zionist agenda and change Catholic teaching."

Or is it just Bob Sungenis? Hell-O? Bob? Are you conscious? Do you remember this photo?:



Jew-bashing really seems to be the drug of choice for the Lidless Eyes. Hey! If it's old, it's gotta be part of the Tradition, right?

Popcak and Shea Together Again!

Greg Popcak and your humble scribe are releasing a really nifty four-tape set called "There's Power in the Blood: The Life Changing Power of the Eucharist." I know it was nifty cuz I was there when we recorded it together. The cost is $24.95 and you can call 1-877-PSI-3915 to order. If you enjoy our cyber-chattiness, imagine what it's like when you stick us in a room together and get us going about matters of faith and family. Big fun!

Exceptional Marriages will have the online ordering up in a week.

Rod Bennett is a delightful guy

Author of the extremely interesting and readable book Four Witnesses: The Early Church in Her Own Words, he also runs the Wonder Magazine website, which preserves lotsa stuff from the late great magazine Wonder, which he used to edit. Check it out.

Please pray for Mike!

A reader writes:

A friend of mine named Mike Rudzis needs prayers. He has four children ranging from about 3 to 14 years old, and is about 40 years old.

He has just started a bone marrow transplant to treat lymphoma which has not been conquered by any other means. If you could post something so many prayers would come his way, I would be very grateful.

Father God, please grant healing to Mike, skill to his doctors and strength and peace to Mike's family through Jesus Christ. St. Peregrine, patron of those afflicted with cancer, please intercede for Mike. Let all that you do bring your name glory. We ask this in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

"America is a Nation with the Soul of a Church" - G.K. Chesterton

Like no place else in the First World, America insists on investing its political leaders with religious significance. From the "America Needs JC" poster (featuring Jimmy Carter with long hair, a beard and a long white tunic like You Know Who), to Bill Clinton's grotesque claim to establish a "New Covenant" to this cringe-making bit of iconography, we tend to do this. It always makes me wince, but it's deeply American. The photo of Bush, at least is a bit of serendipity. His head happened to be in the right place at the right time. But still... ick. The man's a politician, not a saint.

At the end of the day....

Bishops are still in charge.

Appoint some FBI lady to make sure things are done according to Hoyle. She works for the bishops.

Select some review panel. They serve at the pleasure of the bishops.

Organize this or that reform movement. The bishops remain the head of the Church in their local dioceses.

Sponsor dialogues, conferences, task forces, committees, and commissions all you like.

At the end of the day, the bishop is still the final word in governance in his diocese.

It is this irreducible fact that I keep seeing people struggle with. The new FBI lady is appointed and everybody goes "Ah! Now things are gonna start happening."

Then, the next day, it dawns on people: "Waitaminnit! She works for the bishops."

Right. The bishop is the final word on governance in his diocese. This is the way Jesus set it up. You may not like that. Hell, I may not like it at the moment. But Jesus didn't consult us.

This means people are going to have to get used to thinking in some non-American ways. They are going to have to disabuse themselves of the notion this arrangement is something the bishops cooked up to keep a monopoly on power. Bad bishops would acquit themselves well if they had the grace to tender resignations (even if they are refused, as they will apparently be). They would acquit themselves well to say "Send me a co-adjutor for I am a chucklehead." But they would not acquit themselves well to say "Somebody else should be the final word on governance besides the bishop." For their task is to hand down the Tradition as Jesus gave it to us through the apostles. And one rock bottom, irreducible, non-negotiable feature of the Tradition, whether the man in the office is a saint or a jerk, is that the bishop is the final word on governance in his diocese.

It's important to remember that, because it's so easy for us mortals to throw the baby out with the bath and talk as though the bishops are "clinging to power" by holding on to the fact that they are the final word when in reality they are just doing their job in preserving that annoying feature of the Tradition. There are lots of things they can change (like, f'rinstance, how well they uphold the rest of the Tradition). But the bishop's final authority in governance is not one of them. So there's not point being outraged that lay review panels and FBI ladies work for the bishop. It's not like it could be any other way. The one who can operate independently of the bishop is Caesar. I'm all for letting Caesar do his job in cases of abusive clergy and criminal bishops. But it's silly to hope that some parallel or superior ecclesial authority to the bishop will emerge within the Church. Ain't gonna happen and *can't* happen. Jesus set things up as they are.

There are, of course, other forms of authority in the Church than ecclesial ones. But that's grist for another post.

A Fossilized Fragment of America's Anti-Catholic Heritage...

should be seen as a threat by all Christians--and swept aside.

My latest piece is up on Catholic Exchange

Why don't have a hope in the world...and that's okay!

Whoa! When Do I get to Have a Shot at a Snazzy Photo in the Jewish World Review?

Kudos and Huzzahs to St. Blog's own Eve Tushnet! You go girl!

Here's Eve basically repeating my point of yesterday:

The Republican position, broadly speaking, can be summarized as, "Follow the rules!" Republicans use textualist rhetoric, praising judges who stick to the plain sense of the law rather than enacting their own policy preferences. Justice Scalia is the most famous textualist; he's also one of the judges then-candidate George W. Bush named as his favorites.

And the Democrats? Their jurisprudential philosophy can be summed up even more quickly than that of the Republicans. It's just one word: abortion.

When everything else is sacrificed by liberals, when feminism is sacrificed by NOW to defend Bill Clinton against credible charges of rape, when the peaceniks of yesteryear are firing cruise missiles at Sudanese aspirin factories to fend off American interests from the depradations of Monica Lewinsky's testimony, when alleged death penalty opponents defend his human sacrifice of a mentally retarded prisoner in order to look "tough on crime", when the party that fought for civil rights sucks up to men as contemptuous of black interests as the creatures Sharpton and Jackson are, when triangulation, focus grouping, spin and general liberal whoredom compels liberalism to abandon every last one of its principles, one principle remains: the inviolable sacrament of abortion. It's the only real core belief of American liberalism. They have made a covenant with Death and the grave. Republican whores dally with it. But the Democratic party is married to it, a succubus that is draining the life out of the party with vampiric gripping strength.

I hope and pray our spineless and stupid Republican Party will have the moxie to say no to the covenant with death in more than mere words. God, perhaps, will again choose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. And there is no greater party of fools than Republicans.

Jeremy Lott writes me:

I read your comments about the ossuary with the inscription James brother of Jesus and couldn't help but realize that you've fallen into the same trap of many of your co-religionists: discounting possibly one of the most profound archeological discoveries of all time (from a Catholic point of view) because of a misplaced notion of what it would mean. Please, I beg you, read this article.

Thanks for writing, Jeremy. But You mistake me. I don't have a dog in the fight either way. If it's genuine (which we'll never know) it doesn't disprove the Perpetual Virginity of Mary. It just lends credence to the Eastern Church's tradition that Joseph was a widower.

I said as much on my blog a few weeks ago. What amused me was the seizure upon it (by some polemicists) as being certainly genuine when, in reality, we just can't know that. The critic of it's genuineness is a Jewish scholar, not a Catholic. She may be right that it's not James of Jerusalem's ossuary. I think it's unfair to call it a "fake" since we don't know who carved the inscription or why. It may have had nothing to do with Jesus of Nazareth.

Anyway, the thing doesn't much move me either way, whether it's the real McCoy or not. I think it would be cool if it was genuine, but we'll never know.

By the way, I know Scott McKellar. A good guy!

A reader asks

Is there any room, in your view, for lay boards to licitly have more power? Even if a Council of bishops were to take up the question? Or is this a question that the tradition has definitively answered in the negative?

Like I say, "final voice" does not mean "only voice". I think there can and should be lay involvement in governance. In fact, my parish (Blessed Sacrament in Seattle) has attempted it, using the Dominican model of communal discernment as our own. It had mixed results, largely due to a Lidless Eye faction that took every attempt at parish meetings as an ocassion to threaten and bully and act like thugs. But I think there's room in the Tradition for it, certainly, as Amy also mentions. In fact, I think it's quite on the cards that, since cardinals need not be ordained, we will someday see lay cardinals (both male and female) and I would welcome that.

But I'm cautious about doing this sensibly and not seeing a repeat and compounding of the stupid notions that took over the American Church after Vatican II. You know, the confusion between the notion of "the people of God" and "We the People." Laity can and should be involved in governance, I think. But at the same time, this must be done in accord with the Tradition of Jesus, not the tradition of Jefferson. And the theological illiteracy of so much of the American Church means that a learning curve is goin to have to be dealt with if we don't want to absolutely guarantee making matters worse. Remember: the bishops did not get us where we are by failing to consult the laity. Laity were consulted. The problem is that the laity were primarily lawyers and psychologists. This brings me back to what I mentioned before: namely that the bishops seem to have a weakness for listening to people who have a fundamental distrust of the Tradition. That too, must change.

It appears Amy and I are on similar wavelengths today

She has some (much more worthwhile) cogitations on the Norms on her blog. Go read her. She's much more clear-headed than I am.

Random and incoherent mulling about the Norms

A friend of mine tells a story about the gay 30 year old guy in his neighborhood who came on to him when he was a minor. The guy showed up in his basement during a party at the neighbor's and did the "I'm an expert in muscle therapy" schtick, offering to rub his neck. My friend thought it was weird, but being a kid, thought he should be polite and not be confrontational. So the guy rubbed his neck. Then he made his move and tried to get my friend to lie down and let him do a backrub. My friend balked and told him to leave. He did. Then my friend told his parents.

My friend's question is: why aren't more families going to the cops about abuse? I think I know part of the answer. Kids (especially younger ones) are ordered by the abuser to keep quiet and they comply. In such cases, unless there is another witness (and this does happen occasionally, to the everlasting shame of silent priests who know but don't talk), then there's no way for anybody to know. But in cases where the kid does talk, it's gonna come out to the parents before it comes out to the bishop. The bishop will know because the parents tell him. So my basic question is, "Why wait for the bishop to do something? Why not just go to the cops?" I sure as hell would if a priest harmed my son. Do the norms make it more or less likely that a bishop would obstruct civil investigation? It appears to me that they are saying the bishop is to cooperate with Caesar as he does his job here, but it appears that Fr. Doyle thinks otherwise. I'm still not clear why he thinks so. Lucidity without polemics, please, if you are inclined to reply here. I'm trying to get clarity, not win an argument.

With respect to lay review boards, I've always been ambiguous about them, because at the end of the day, the task of governance falls to the bishop. Complaints that the bishop remains the final voice in governance are, so far as I can see, complaints about the way Jesus chose to constitute the Church. Being the final voice is not the same thing as being the *only* voice, but it is very problematic (I think) for the bishops to have hastily slapped together this National Review Board, because it raises expectations in American hearts that the structure of the Church is going to be "democratized" in a way it can't ever really be.

Another point which occurs to me as well is that it seems to me to be exceedingly unrealistic to think that our mediocre American episcopacy is going to appoint people to their "Stop Me Before I Misgovern Again" board who are anything besides mediocre. Look at the Board: Clinton's lawyer (Bennett), another Clinton sycophant and acolyte of partial birth abortion (Panetta). A few other people of dubious fidelity and theological knowledge. Look at the Dallas conference: who did they have address them for theological input? Basically a bunch of people from the dissenting left wing of the Church. Where was George Weigel and other serious Catholics who were a sane voice of rebuke for episcopal misgovernance, but who did not also reject central tenets of Catholic faith and practice?

This peculiar tendency of our bishops to seize on "experts" who dissent from the Church's teaching is a curious, and apparently long-standing pattern. It concerns me, because this frankly worries me about Fr. Doyle's recommendations as well. Because, in addition to his very sound pastoral advice and his noble work in the trenches with victims, it seems to me that he too shares an ecclesiology that seems to be uninterested in some fairly important aspects of Catholic teaching that are not negotiable, such as the bishop as the final voice of governance, or the immorality of abortion (if the stuff I'm seeing about his apparent involvement with CTA or CFFC is accurate--and please correct me if I'm wrong.)

So all that leaves me where? Well, I don't know. I'm pleased that Rome is not being stampeded into giving the American bishops carte blanche to just leave their priests high and dry on the slightest and most unsubstantiated accusation, in order to cover their own sorry asses. I believe, however, that bishops should be *forced* to comply with Caesar when there is reasonable cause to think that a priest is harming a minor. This is not, I think, negotiable. The bishop and the priest is not above the law. Caesar has his proper sphere and when a priest has committed a crime, it is not the bishop's place to obstruct justice. If there is anything in the new norms that makes that possible or, God forbid, encourages it, then it is wrong. My question is: do the norms do that? I'm not enough of a legal beagle to really know. If Pete Vere or some other canonist can help, I'm all ears. And remember, my friends: Light, not heat, if you've a mind to comment here.

Cardinal Mahony Continues to Inspire Trust

Everything's under control. What we do with your tithes is revealed to you on a Need to Know basis.

I salute your uniform, Cardinal.

Popcak and Madrid Appear to be Combining Forces to Crush the Freedom-Loving Peoples of St. Blog's

It appears Popcak is playing the Good Cop/Bad Cop game with Madrid as the heavy, claiming some sort of sinister e-harrassment by Madrid to paint himself as the benevolent-and-unwilling-endorser of Madrid's ruthless suppression of the attempted coup on the Envoy blog. As one who has experienced the electrodes of the HMS Institute for the Criminally Insane close-up, I assure my readers that you are being taken for a ride. It's Darth Sidious and Darth Tyrannus all over again. Always two there are: the Master and the Apprentice.

Caroline has apparently been brain-wiped, judging from her docile and spaniel-like Envoy blogs of late. Which leaves me alone to rally the scattering forces of Light against the legions of Darkness.

Sigh. And I just got my computer working again.

St. Pat's Sex Stuntwoman Publicly Announces "I'm a complete moral cretin" Without Realizing It

"We didn't mean to come up there and have disrespect for the church," Loretta Lynn Harper, of Virginia, told the TV show "Celebrity Justice."

"We really didn't realize how serious this was."

In an age of moral bankruptcy, this is what the media calls "an apology."

My sources tell me Bishop Edward O'Donnell's resignation has been accepted

He's the bishop of the Diocese of Lafayette, LA: the guy who banned Flannery O'Connor's "The Artificial Nigger" because some ignoramuses were "offended" by the word "nigger" in the title (even though O'Connor was not remotely a racist) and, as St. Blog's parishioners remember, he was also the guy who shut Fr. Bryce Sibley up for his plain and pointed remarks about lavender seminaries and the gay mafiosi who helped so much to put the Church in its current straits. This fine example of ecclesial courage will be replaced by Bishop Michael Jarrell, a native of the Lafayette Diocese, and bishop of Houma-Thibodeaux. Dunno anything about the guy. Maybe some of you Louisiana types can tell me.

But enough about politics! Let's talk about something less controversial, like religion!

I promise to get back to things Catholic soon. I'm still playing catchup because of the upgrade to XP. Election stuff was easy and ready-to-hand. Soon I will return to gabbing about the Faith!

Ann Coulter: What a gal!

And she's dead right that the one irreducible principle holding the Democratic party together is a fanatical and unreasoning love of abortion. When everything else is abandoned, even by an unprincipled scum like Clinton, the love, indeed the sacredness of abortion, remains. It's the one and only principle to which Clinton stuck like a limpet through 8 years of disgrace. It undergirds everything else in the Democratic agenda. Dedication to abortion as a good animates everything else the party does. The fear which the party always falls back on is : If we lose, the Enemy will take away the sacrament of abortion. What a soulless thing American liberalism has become.

The very sensible George Weigel on dialogue with Islam

Again, this is why it's so important to distinguish between Islam and Radical Islam (aka Islamicism or Islamofascism). It's also why the people who get their undies in a bunch over the Pope's honoring the Koran don't seem to get what the Pope or the council are up to. War with Radical Islam is necessary (and Weigel supports it). But dialogue with those in the Islamic world who will listen to reason is just as necessary.

A whimsical GOPer sends me the following:

Zippity Doo Dah, Zippity Ay!
My, O, My, what a wonderful day!
GOP Senate, comin’ our way –
Zippity Doo Dah, Zippity Ay!

There’s some blue states in New England!
It’s deep, dark, depression –
May we recommend secession?!

Zippity Doo Dah, Zippity Ay!
The Press is less than customarily gay -
Watch Jenning’s face turning sickly green-gray!
Zippity Doo Da, Zippity Ay!

Oh, the Anchors sure are draggin’ –
Despite all your bias,
Victory you can’t deny us!

Zippity Doo Day, Zippity Ay!
(Excuse my exhuberance at left-wing dismay-)
Conservative judges, headed our way!
Zippity Doo Day, Zippity Ay!

Oh, in France I’m sure they’re moaning:
“Sacre bleu! Those cowboys!”
Well, prepare to watch us NOW, boys!

Zippity Doo Day, Zippity Ay!
My, the Predators are hungry today!
Courtesy of the Bush CIA –
Blowin’ them nasty Ragheads away!

Teror-masters start to panic –
“CNN misled us!
Will the GOP will behead us…?”

Zippity Doo Dah, Zippity Aye!
My, oh, my, what a wonderful day!
Partyin’ with friends from the NRA –
Zippity Doo Dah, Zippity Aye!

There’s a jump in the stock market:
It’s the truth! It’s actual!
And when they cut your tax you’ll..

Sing Zippity-Doo-Dah! Zippity Ay…!”

What's a political victory without a celebration? But Rush is right. Don't gloat: get to work. I'm encouraged to see Lott is putting partial birth abortion on the front burner. I want the Democratic party to have to clearly and plainly say, "Yes. We do think sucking the brains out of a baby's skull at birth and dismembering babies is a good thing and we will fight to the death for it." The utter debasement of the proabortion crowd has to be exposed to daylight. The whole thing is shrouded in euphemism.

More on the Religion of Peace

The message from powerful figures in the Islamic world is still "The Jews did it. Bin Laden had nothing to do with it. And wasn't it a glorious victory for Islam!" It reminds me of those apologists for the Holocaust who say "It never happened and besides, the Jews deserved it."

Why Do I Have the Feeling This Show will Make You Stupider than You Were Before You Saw it?

"Here was the new vision of the Heavens that Galileo tried to present, a vision the church was desperate to suppress." Or: "Galileo, who gave his daughter to the church, was brought before the inquisition."

For a rather less sensational treatment of Galileo, go here. Was the Church wrong in its treatment of Galileo? Yes. Was it the repressive obscurantist monstrosity evoked in the ads for the show? No.

Nova's ad stands in the grand tradition of American Know-Nothingism in evoking the "terrors of the Inquisition" for a post-Protestant audience that no longer believes in Christianity, but still cherishes old Protestant fears of what sinister hooded Italian monks are probably up to in those dark dungeons of theirs.

And, of course, this free anti-catholic agitprop is funded by your tax dollars.

An argument against athletic scholarships

Read to the last sentence.

Looks like the ossuary ain't St. James of Jerusalem

Headline calls it a "fake", which is somewhat misleading since we do not know who added the "brother of Jesus" bit nor why nor when. As somebody has noted, this is a bit like having a box labeled "Tom, son of Dick, brother of Harry". The names were not uncommon. Whoever added the inscription might never have heard of Jesus and there could be a whole 'nother story behind the inscription. Indeed, given the common faith of the early Church that Mary was perpetually a virgin, it's unlikely that a Christian would have faked such an inscription.

So the ossuary becomes an historical curiosity and a (ahem) "grave" disappointment for Not Roman.org. I'm sure we'll be hearing about the "secrets of the James ossuary" on Art Bell for many years to come.

Why I'm not as eager as some to assume the absolute worst about the Vatican's caution with the Dallas Norms

I live in Washington State, right over the mountains from Wenatchee. I remember when this witch hunt happened. I know people who knew some of the victims of this nasty business. Due process is there for a reason and there is good reason for Christians to be wary of letting Caesar do whatever he likes "for the children".

That's not to say, of course, that the status quo ante should be maintained. But it is to say that Rome's caution is, to me, very sensible. I disagree with Rod that "clericalism has won." I think we are still in the early stages of working things out. However, my thoughts are still not very formed so: More cogitations later. I'm still playing catchup with work after The Great Computer Struggle of 2002.

Canonist Ed Peters on the Latest Draft of the Norms

Me, I'm still cogitating on it all. So no comments yet.

The Master Political Strategist Speaks

"Tonight was a good night for Democrats" Terry McAuliffe, DNC Chairman on CNN Larry King 11/05/02

I nominate McAuliffe to DNC-Chair-for-Life.

Justin Katz on the Necessary Paradigm Shift

Democrats have been overcome. Now the question is "Will conservatives overcome country clubbers and Lidless Eyes in their midst to do the Right Thing?"

Interesting WaPo piece

Favorite "Republicans as Snidely Whiplash" moment: "The GOP on Tuesday ousted a triple-amputee Vietnam veteran in Georgia and an incumbent appointed to fill her husband's seat in Missouri, while ending the comeback attempt of former Vice President Walter Mondale in Minnesota."

And in addition to grinding the faces of disabled veterans, widows and venerable statesmen, they strangled puppies in their secret pre-voting rituals.

Also telling, the unimaginative and timid Trent Lott's remarks.

Exhibit A: "Senate Republican leader Trent Lott, who will soon resume his post as majority leader, told CBS's "The Early Show" that the results exceeded his expectations."

In the words of Yoda: "That is why you fail."

Exhibit B: "It will feel good to be on offense here," [Lott] said.

Memo to the Senator: Usually the way to success is to be on offense whether you are in the majority or not. That's why Clinton walked all over you.

Another technoid question

A kind reader sent me a zip file of Front Page express (thanks for taking the trouble!). Two questions: Does this work with XP? Isn't it illegal to use a copy of FPxpress? Or is it freeware?

The dawning and dreadful horror of the situation occurs to a member of the chattering classes

Merciful heaven! He's not dumb!

If you haven't done so lately, go read Dale Price

The guy is a precious natural resource.

A Lawyer from Texas writes:

Regarding George W. Bush's intelligence, here's an e-mail I sent a friend in June:

Last night Bob Jordan showed up at the post-Bar None gathering. Bob was in Bar None (the Dallas Bar's annual "follies" type show I have been in for years) a few years back and is someone I know. Bob is the current ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and was back in town from Riyadh for a few weeks recently, and he's a good guy. I asked Bob whether he imagined, in his wildest dreams, that his job would turn out to be this intense when he was appointed. He said no, and jokingly added that his comment to the President was "Hey: I *thought* you were my friend!" I.e., before September 11 being the ambassador in Riyadh wasn't exactly a hot spot; now it's, shall we say, more interesting and important than anticipated.

I asked him how he was coming on his Arabic, and he said he'd taken a few lessons, but unfortunately was too busy to get fluent yet.

Finally, I asked him for a small favor. I said "Bob, I correspond with a number of people on the Internet who clearly believe our current President is a complete dimwit who is entirely in the pocket of the oil companies. What's your take on that?"

He replied that he has known President Bush for over 11 years and represented him as a lawyer, that George W. Bush was one of the sharpest minds he knew, that he consistently asked penetrating, intelligent questions, and was in complete control of the country. He said he "was in Condi Rice's office the other day," and President Bush called up and was more in command of all the facets of the situation than she was -- and she knew everything that was going on. He said Bush is a very quick study and has a flexible and perceptive intelligence. And that it is a mistake to think that he is in the pocket of the oil business, as he is doing what *he* believes is best for the country. He also said to me, "you know I wouldn't be saying this if it wasn't the case."

[Yes, I *know* that Bob could just be being a good little soldier and lying through his teeth. Many will believe that, of course, and my sayso won't carry any weight there. I understand that. In my opinion, Bob was being sincere.]

I said that President Bush's big problem is that he's just not very good at extemporaneous speaking. Bob acknowledged that, and said that that was due to him not really getting a good foundation for that in junior high school in Midland, Texas.

I said to Bob that even Clinton's worst detractors --- myself included -- never thought or said he was stupid

Anyway, I don't expect this to change anyone's mind really. But I know Bob, and he knows President Bush. And, although I may not agree with everything the President does, I am now convinced (a) that he's not an idiot and (b) that he is not a tool.

Oh, yeah: I gather that Riyadh isn't the funnest place to live in the world, either...

I've mentioned before that the chattering classes who dominate the media quite naturally tend to equate "verbal intelligence" with Intelligence. Bush lacks verbal intelligence. But there are lots of other kinds of intelligence and Bush has it in spades. Provincial media types will therefore always tend to underestimate him. That's good news.

A reader writes:

The best news I heard all night watching Fox News was that in Missouri, the exit polls showed that abortion was the 2nd most important issue that caused people to vote (behind the economy), and of those who said abortion was the most important issue 80%(!!) voted for Jim Talent and life! So Jim Talent owes his entire win to the pro-life support, and he surely better make good on that. I hope exit polls for other states show a similar pattern!

Yep. A prolife position is a winning one for Republicans. A prochoice position is statistically indifferent for Democrats (19% thought it the most important issue). Dumb Republicans still want the issue to go away, but God won't let it. I hope the Republicans get serious this time and actually *do* something about abortion, given such a mandate. It would be nice if they managed to become something other than the Stupid Party. I hope Lott doesn't manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. With Bush in the equation, things could be very different and better this time.

Y'know, I'd like to empathize

but the article seems to me to suffer from the whining self-pity that characterizes so much of the Muslim response to a post-9/11 world. What I'm not seeing here is any acknowledgement whatsoever that radical Islamic violence is applauded by huge numbers in the Islamic world. Everything is the fault of those awful oppressors like Falwell or the US gov't. This sudden and inexplicable religious prejudice on the part of American citizens has nothing whatever to do with any flaws in Islam. As long as Muslims continue to talk this way, they will only get hearings from NY Times editors laboring to ignore certain obvious realities.

I recognize that Islam does not equal "evil" and that there are saintly Muslims. But Muslim culture as a whole tends to foster this extremely unappealing paradigm of overbearing dhimmitization when ascendent and whiny self-pity when outnumbered. I trust it all the less because of it.

The Chesterbelloc of Catholic Blogdom?

I tend to think of myself as the north end of a southbound Pushmeepullyu. Anyway, belated thanks to Rod for the link and belated welcome to all youse NRO folk. Amy: tell Dr. Doolittle it's time for our feeding.

Somebody needs to write the good father and explain to him that there's bit more to this story than merely "thinking Jews should be evangelized"

The rest of EWTN seems to have gotten the picture, since Sungenis' materials are nowhere to be seen there now. I presume padre is just out of the loop. I guess not everybody reads my blog.

Oh well, inspiration to redouble my efforts and conquer the Internet.

A reader writes:

I guess you could call me a native Bostonian, but there are certain things about living here that cause me to hang my head in shame, (e.g., my senior senator is Ted Kennedy and my congressman is Barney Frank). One of those things is also the Boston Globe, which, while bending over backwards lest it offend the sensibilities of adherents to the Religion of Peace (like "Gulf-War vet John Williams" a.k.a. John Muhammad) gleefully takes any opportunity possible to slam the Catholic Church and champion those who do.

A very good and very intelligent friend of mine wrote the Globe with the following rejoinder:

I need to ask you, when you interviewed Daniel Goldhagen at his secret location, and you had access to this quote of his...

''In its Bible the Catholic Church continues to impart to all Catholics that Jews are the children of hell's master.'' ''The Catholic Church still promulgates a doctrine that explicitly holds the Jews, in their desire to remain Jews, to be the greatest obstacle to the well-being of Christians.''

Did you think to ask him exactly where this teaching is found? I have both the bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church and I can't seem to locate the part about the Jews as the children of hell's master. I have read the official documents of Vatican II as well as the teachings of John Paul II and I keep missing the part about the Jews being the greatest obstacle to the well-being of Christians. I'm sure it's all there because I know that an institution as reputable as the Globe wouldn't highlight something that outrageous without subjecting it to a least some scrutiny, so please let me know where that teaching can be found.

PS - and does he really believe that whether a Catholic Cardinal participated in a Nazi rally is really insignificant, or is he afraid that that that kind of sloppy research could be taken as a reflection on his work as a whole?

I think that sums it up nicer than I could do. However, I would also add that the Globe, in its deep concern for the citizens of Israel, must have missed the highest cleric in the Sunni Moslem world calling them the descendents of pigs. I'm sure their spotlight team is investigating.

On to lighter topics, your little knock on our treasured Peter Kreeft's favorite baseball team did not go unnoticed! As you are well aware, Mr. Kreeft, is a brilliant scholar of Catholic thought and a tremendously witty writer. I think he has applied his vast study of Augustine's writings on the redemptive power of suffering and the Church's teaching on purgatory, all of which dovetail quite nicely with being a fan of the Boston Red Sox. I think many Catholics who passed on after Game 6 in 1986 may have found their purgatory considerably shortened by what they had already suffered on earth . . .

FWIW, Goldhagen is probably thinking of John 8:44, a favorite among the "Christianity is intrinsically anti-semitic" crowd. For the full story on what John (a Jew, recall) is really up to in this verse, go to my discussion of it here.

Guys like Goldhagen remind me of the scene in "Independence Day" when the President asks the alien "What do you want us to do?" and the alien replies "Die!" Goldhagen wants Christianity to die. Period. He's not a subtle man.

Yes, Kreeft's genius is no doubt due to wisdom won by being a Sox devotee. In the words of Rabbi Abraham Heschel: "The man who has not suffered: what does he know anyway?"

Oh, and yes, the American press, provincial as ever, continues to see bogeymen of Christian anti-semitism while Islamic fever swamps are passed over in silence. It's much like the nitwits who investigated phantom suspicions that John Muhammed was involved in skinhead militia activity. Liberal bigotries die hard.

Daniel Goldhagen is to history...

what Bob Sungenis is to theology and astrophysics. Fundamentalism is not a religion, it's a personality trait marked by the need to flatten out and grossly simplify whatever is under discussion in the impatient rush to define who wears the black hats and who wears the white hats. Goldhagen is an historical fundamentalist whose research and analysis skills are akin to Sungenis'. You'll never win an argument with him because, like all lunatics, he's lost everything except his reason. He's got an ax to grind and he won't let troublesome historical details or common human experience slow him down. Both believe that the universe revolves around their pet doctrines.

Hey! A Sensible Muslim!

These guys should be encouraged.

By the way...

Toldja Bush ain't dumb.

Forces of Truth, Justice and American Way Prevail

EEEEEEvil vanquished. George W. Bush heralds Great Rosy Dawn. Human race achieves perfection.

Well, the Republicans won big anyway. Now let's see if they'll do anything. They can start by abolishing partial birth abortion and putting sane people in the courts who are not David Souter Mini-Me's. This is where we find out if Republicans are serious or just members of a country club.

Meanwhile, it will provide me with a certain degree of schadenfreude to watch Terry McAuliffe's fate. I hope he clings to office like... well, like Bill Clinton! And I hope the Clintons are forced into a titanic struggle to pry his fried-chicken-greased fingers from the door jambs of his office after a lengthy battle to drag him across the carpet and out the door. I look forward to a demoralized, radicalized, ever more stupid Democratic party sinking further and further behind. I want a Democratic party with the brains of Barbara Streisand, the voice of James Carville, the looks of Bella Abzug, the masterful helmsmanship of Terry McAuliffe, the credibility of Bill Clinton, the warm appeal of Hillary Clinton, and the relevance of Walter Mondale. It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people.

Oh, and you Michiganders: BAP! That's your dope slap for electing Granholm.

All in all, a fine night.

Microsoft is evil

I upgraded to XP and suddenly found that my handy little Front Page Express web authoring tool had vanished. Anybody know where I can find a free or cheap wysiwyg web authoring tool?

(My struggles with my computer explain my silence.)

Fr. Thomas Doyle Weighs in on the Latest Revisions to the Dallas Charter

THE LATEST REVISIONS TO THE "CHARTER AND NORMS"

Thomas Doyle, O.P., J.C.D.

November 5, 2002

1. The results of the special mixed committee of U.S. and Vatican bishops have been released to the public. These revised norms will now be placed before the Body of Bishops at their November meeting for debate and vote. This stage is the latest in the process initiated in June at the bishops' Dallas meeting.

2. The document released is written in ecclesiastical language which will be difficult if not impossible for most people to totally comprehend. It uses canonical terms which are unfamiliar to most people in and outside the church. This is not unusual since most Vatican documents arrive written in such language and are passed through the U.S. Bishops conference on to the public. The churchmen whose lives are caught up in the ecclesiastical administrative world often forget that the vast majority on the outside do not understand the language much less the politics behind it.

3. The revisions are a response to voiced concerns for the due process of law which is a right guaranteed to all by the canonical system. In this case it is noteworthy that lay people and priests expressed serious concern for the lack of due process. However none of these same groups, including (for instance) the National Federation of Priests Councils, the Canon Law Society of America, various diocesan presbyteral senates, the Knights of Columbus and others ever made any public statements either in support of the victims/survivors of Catholic clergy sexual abuse nor did any speak out against the consistent lack of due process in relation to complaints filed by victims over the past several decades.

4. These norms, if approved by the Bishops at their November meeting, will become particular law for the Catholic dioceses in the United States. Particular legislation for the U.S. to combat this extremely serious problem, could have been taken 17 years ago when it was first recommended. At that time the Bishops' Conference publicly stated that each diocese was independent and that the conference had no power to legislate for individual dioceses. It has been obviously disastrous to the church but especially to thousands of victims that the Bishops of this country waited so long to take the action they knew they could have resorted to when they were first clearly warned of the impending disaster many years ago. This being said, the fact that sexual abuse of such proportions had to be disclosed to the public before that degree of pressure prompted the bishops to begin to act, may well be indicative of the mediocre level of commitment to seeing that these norms are consistently fulfilled to the benefit of victims and survivors.

5. What the Norms Say

The norms are an amplification of the canons of the Code which are to be applied in cases of alleged commission of canonical crimes. The Code lays out the steps for a preliminary investigation of a report followed by the possibility of either administrative or judicial procedures if it appears that there is substance to the accusation. This means the following:

a. The bishop is mandated to see that a documented investigation is carried out into any report made to him from any source whether it is anonymous or not

b. The investigation is to be sensitive that reputations are not damaged but it is not a secret investigation.

c. If the bishop believes that the report has the semblance of credibility he then proceeds to the next step which is determining the innocence or guilt of the accused.

d. The bishop may choose to follow an administrative procedure which basically means that he can impose a limited penalty, with the accused having rights to an appeal process. This is a short procedure and does not involve any trial steps.

e. If the case is serious the bishop can hand it over the a tribunal of judges who will hear the case according to canonical procedures.

f. The only way that the penalty of permanent suspension or laicization can be imposed is by way of a judicial trial. The bishop cannot use an administrative procedure to impose such permanent penalties.

g. Either way, administrative or judicial (trial), the accused has a right of appeal that can extend to the Vatican.

The norms also amplify somewhat certain aspects of the regular procedural norms or canons found in the Code.

6. The norms contain several positive improvements:

a. The Preamble states that the penalties can include laicization. It also attempts to give a more detailed explanation or definition of sexual abuse. The problem is that in trying to define sex abuse the document uses a particular ecclesiastical term that is only confusing and open to further subjective interpretation: "Thus, the norm to be considered in assessing an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor is whether conduct or interaction with a minor qualifies as an external, objectively grave violation of the sixth Commandment A canonical offence against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue (c. 1395, §2) need not be a complete act of intercourse. Nor, to be objectively grave, does an act need to involve force, physical contact, or a discernible harmful outcome." This is a bit clearer than before but the reference to the sixth commandment is too vague.

b. Full compliance is mandated.

c. Each diocese must have a person to coordinate pastoral care for victims and each diocese must have a review board. These measures are minimal but at least they are mentioned in the norms. Much more attention should have been given to the pastoral care of the victims. This is a glaring weakness in the overall charter and norms. The attention is drawn to the rights of the accused and the care of victims seems to be almost a passing concern. The Vatican could have signaled a return to some minimal measure of episcopal integrity by mandating that individual bishops extend personal and individual pastoral care to victims.

d. The eighth norm repeats the assurance that clerics who are proven to be offenders, even single offenders, will be removed from ministry.

e. The norms state that a cleric proven to have been an abuser will not be transferred from place to place or country to country. This norms almost seems superfluous but nevertheless is included as a stark reminder of the very actions that have been at the root of the overall problem.

7. Problem Areas

The norms contain several serious problem areas that will cause continued difficulties. These areas have been the subject of public criticism by SNAP, other victims and the press, and rightly so.

a. An overall serious problem is that the process remains totally controlled by the bishops. There is no room for any decisive participation by lay people. The bishops proved themselves incapable of dealing with the problem of sexual abuse for centuries. These norms return total control to them along with glaring loopholes that can possibly allow proven sexual offenders to either return to or continue in ministry. The loopholes allow for the continuation of the pathological secrecy that was so instrumental in destroying the bishops' and credibility. In short, clericalism has prevailed and has the potential of being as destructive through these norms as it was in the previous state.

b. The Review Boards. The Vatican was fearful that the lay review boards would have even an appearance of power. Their (Vatican officials) primary concern was not the of the legal or spiritual welfare victims but the security of hierarchical power. The review boards are only consultative. The norms state that boards must be "at least five persons of outstanding integrity and good judgment in full communion with the Church." By demanding that members be practicing Catholics the norms set up the real possibility that the members can be controlled by the bishop who appointed them and at whose pleasure they serve. Thus the norms have effectively neutralized any possibility that the review boards will be truly effective. Any that are will be so by exception and because the local bishop has the integrity of putting the notion of justice and pastoral sensitivity before the retention of power. There is no reason why members must be Catholics. This is not a doctrinal issue but a matter of criminal actions that are sanctioned in both civil and canon law. Religious adherence has nothing to do with determining the veracity of an offense.

c. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Every case is to be initially referred to the CDF which will determine whether or not it will be processed on the local diocesan level or by the Vatican congregation. This is a most unfortunate restatement of the Vatican document that was issued last year. This means that the Vatican retains to power to control the process, to re-impose the shroud of pathological secrecy on cases and to apply its own procedural laws. Consistent past experiences with persons investigated by this congregation has shown that it has little respect for the rights of the accused. Its processes have been secretive, brutal and shown little evidence of having objective truth as their goal. This norm alone is highly problematic and should strike fear in the hearts of accused and survivors alike. Although U.S. bishops have stated that reservation of cases to the CDF would probably be rare, experience has taught that such assurances mean little if anything. The Vatican has clearly demonstrated its lack of concern for and sensitivity to victims and surviviors. It has also made it quite clear that there is a smoldering hostility towards the U.S. civil law demands for accountability and similar hostility towards the U.S. media. The Vatican appears to believe that the clergy and hierarchy are somehow above civil laws which is clearly not the case. Repeated statements by Vatican officials and other high ranking ecclesiastics makes it quite clear that they are primarily concerned about shoring up their power and not concerned about the massive devastation to victims by clergy abuse.

d. Prescription - The Statute of Limitations. "Prescription" refers to the statute of limitations which for the U.S. is 10 years past majority (18 yrs of age.) The norms re-instate the Statute for all cases but say that in some cases the local bishop can ask that it be waived or dispensed from: "If the case would otherwise be barred by prescription, because sexual abuse of a minor is a grave offense, the bishop/eparch shall apply to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for a derogation from the prescription, while indicating appropriate pastoral reasons."

There are serious problems with this:

1. Canon Law demands that the official record of judicial criminal cases be kept for 10 years after a case has been finished or until the accused dies. The imposition of the Statute leaves the bishops a loophole whereby they can destroy any records of accusations or cases that are outside the statute.

2. The bishop retains control: he can decide subjectively whether or not to ask for a waiver from the Statute. There is no assurance that this provision would be followed with any degree of integrity. The bishops had control in the past and the process was consistently violated to their benefit and to the detriment of the victims. This norms allows for a continuation of such abuse.

e. Reporting Obligations. The revised norm significantly watered down the comparable norm proposed by the bishops: "The diocese/eparchy will comply with all applicable civil laws with respect to the reporting of allegations of sexual abuse of minors to civil authorities and will cooperate in their investigation." The norms says that the civil laws that are applicable" will be complied with which means that this norm would apply only in those States that mandate the clergy as reporters of sexual or other forms of child abuse. In any case, sexual abuse of a person is a felony crime. The norm should have demanded that in all cases of alleged sexual abuse the matter be turned over to the civil law enforcement authorities. This norm reflects the Vatican officials' skewed opinion that bishops not be obliged to report clerics who have engaged in criminal activity. One Vatican official alluded to a violation of the paternal relationship that exists between a priest and his bishop. This paternal relationship however, is no eschews to allow the destruction of souls through clergy sexual abuse.

f. Norm 9. Norm 9 is confusing and contradictory. In spite of the fact that the norms in general implicitly state that Canon Law, leading to an administrative or judicial process be followed, this norm refers to the bishop's power to resolve a case using the administrative procedure. However even then, the bishop cannot impose a permanent suspension nor can he issue a decree of laicization. It is unclear if this norm has anything more than rhetorical purpose.

8. Summary

The revisions are mixed but on balance they appear to be a significant step backward in what many have hoped would be a gradual path toward hierarchical accountability. The process is almost totally clericalized. The lay review boards have no decisive power and the potential exists to completely neutralize them. The tribunal process, if followed, leaves room for the possibility of one lay judge to be appointed to a three judge tribunal to try a case.

The norms show no evidence that survivors were consulted for any meaningful input at any stage of the process. This is a crucial point. The survivors are aware as no other group is of the destructive effects of the traditional manner of handling abuse accusations. Their reflections, observations and critiques have been labeled as "subjective" by defenders of the clerical/hierarchical establishment and status quo. Yet this whole matter is about restoring justice and spiritual well-being to victims and survivors and ensuring that a similar travesty of justice not happen in the present or future. Yet the institutional church has, in spite of token appearances by and consultations with survivors, consistently eliminated them from any meaningful participation in this process.



The norms almost promise that there will be a continuation of the pathological secrecy that has been so instrumental in bring the institution to its knees. It is this secrecy that helps to destroy any hope of returning the U.S. and Vatican episcopacy to any semblance of credibility.

Most important, the norms sidestep consistent, objective and uniform justice for all by leaving open the possibility that clerics who have sexually abused in the past can continue to function and never be brought to justice simply because the offense happened years ago. The accused cleric may well have refrained from successive abuse and may have reformed his life BUT the victims continue to suffer the profound effects of abuse.

Most if not all professions have internal norms for professional conduct and processes whereby members who violate these norms are investigated and either exonerated or punished. Canon Law is not a "separate and above" legal system but a set of internal norms. Criminal behavior must be investigated by civil authorities. Church authorities lack both the professional competence to investigate complex issues such as sexual abuse but even more important, they have shown by past actions that they lack the integrity to carry out such investigations with accuracy and objectivity.

What will happen next? The Vatican and U.S. bishops may think that the approval of these norms at the November US Bishops' meeting with bring closure to this phase of the sexual abuse problem. This is delusional. The process whereby the norms came into being and the norms themselves guarantee that the survivors, their supporters and lay people and concerned clergy in general will continue to demand credible accountability. As long as the issue remains heavily clericalized it will fall prey to the destructive force of clericalism. The bishops still have made no moves to look into their own responsibility for the entire debacle. The repeated apologies have nothing to do with an objective, probing and complete study of why the exercise of episcopal authority has allowed thousands of men and women in our church to have their bodies and souls raped and brutalized by clerics. Until this happens the matter will never be anything but an ever growing cancer in the universal church.

Law is, I think, finally reaching serious contrition

which, of course, poses some problems for American Catholics. Most will, I think, be willing to forgive Law. And most will, I think, mean by this that Law should not face legal consequences. They will, I think, be right to forgive, but mistaken to think that Law should not face Caesar's punishment should Caesar decide to prosecute him for obstruction of justice or some other related crime. Forgiveness is commanded of us as Catholics. Indeed, I believe we are to extend forgiveness absolutely, as our Lord did to his unrepentant murderers. It is up to God to decide whether the forgiveness has been adequately accepted or not. But we are bound to forgive. And in the case of somebody who is making good faith efforts toward repentance (however feebly) we are commanded to rejoice and to hope for them. But forgiveness does not mean removal of appropriate civil penalties. If Law has to face the legal consequences up to and including jail time, I believe he should not be spared, just as I don't believe that forgiveness of sins means you necessarily avoid having to pay back taxes, restore damaged property, or avoid Purgatory.

There are, of course, going to be a number of people who are going to say that Law's words of contrition are a sham, if we was really serious, he would has said all this months ago, a leopard can't change his spots, etc. I can only say that such an attitude is a fundamental rejection of the Christian proclamation that there is such a thing as conversion and the possibility of grace. My attitude is "Live in hope." Yes, it's possible the Cardinal's words are all just talk (Lord knows we've seen enough of it) and that he's still not serious. But we can't know either way till we've seen what he does in future. From where I sit, as somebody who has had to face some rather ugly things about myself in the past, I know that such repentance not usually the work of a moment and that it can indeed take months or even years before a person can come out and say what the Cardinal said. So I'm willing to take his words seriously but hold them lightly. I hope others do the same, hoping for his repentance and rejoicing that he seems to be making some progress, while at the same time not going all sloppy and saying, "Aw, just forget the whole thing." Forgive, but let Caesar do his job, if Caesar has a mind to.

Sandra asks:

Lots of political figures has turned from a pro-life to a pro-abort postion. Can anyone name a contrary example, of a politician going from pro-abort to pro-life? I know of none. Abortionists may have a change of heart, but never politicians.

Ronald Reagan. He signed abortion rights into law while governor of CA. Then he had a change of heart.

This leads to a whole 'nother discussion: namely, that opposition to abortion was almost exclusively a "Catholic thing" till Francis Schaeffer (peace to his ashes) pounded it into American Evangelical heads that it was a Christian thing. It took most of the 70s for that to happen. Suggested reading: Souls, Bodies, Spirits: The Drive to End Abortion Since 1973 by Kerry Jacoby. Herself an Evangelical, Jacoby documents that (partly due to Evangelical antipathy toward Catholics and partly due to a "Bible only" approach to revelation), Evangelicals pretty much ignored Catholic warnings about the evils of abortion in the late 60s and early 70s. It was regarded as one of those "Catholic things" much as artificial contraception still is by most Evangelicals. After all, Scripture nowhere explicitly condemns it. So most Evangelicals just figured Catholic concerns about it were based on that Sacred Tradition of theirs (which, of course, it is). However, Schaeffer and others like him managed to wake Evangelicals up and transform them into a powerful prolife force. For which I am very grateful. Most Evangelicals these days are entirely unaware of this and assume two mistaken notions: first, that "the Bible clearly teaches abortion is sin (it doesn't--apart from Sacred Tradition) and second, that Evangelicals were always staunchly prolife.

Amen and amen

I'm reading Peter Kreeft's Ecumenical Jihad

Very fascinating read. And much more challenging after 9/11. One of my readers was very panicky about this book since he thought it provided damning evidence of Kreeft's involvement in the New Age. Kreeft, you see, claims in chapter six to have had an out of body experience (OBE) in which he spoke with Confucius, Mohammed, and Buddha.

Now anybody who knows Kreeft or his work knows that the likelihood of him become a New Age enthusiast is somewhere up there with the likelihood of the Red Sox winning the penant, but since I'd not read the whole book, I refrained from too much comment. Now, I've seen the chapter in question and can assure my fretful reader that this is typical Kreeftian whimsy. I mean, his "ecstatic experience" is described as taking place while he was surfing! His tongue is planted so firmly in his cheek he can practically lick his ear.

Beware of being a Very Earnest Christian. You'll not get a lot of jokes and nobody will invite you to parties. Fear not, fearful reader. Peter Kreeft did not *really* have an OBE. This is called "fiction" (much like the next chapter, in which the spirits of Luther and Aquinas appear to C.S. Lewis in his study).

Anyway, Ecumenical Jihad: great book. Buy it. Read it. Be challenged by it.

Catholicism Down Under is On the Air!

Why Very Earnest Christians Don't Get Invited To Parties

Very Earnest Scientists sometimes have these outbursts of unconscious hilarity too. I remember watching some TV show on human evolution with a Very Earnest Richard Leakey standing in front of gorgeous 20,000 year old cave painting in France, asking, "Why did they do this. What would make these creatures behave in this way?" I suddenly had the strange sensation that he would ask the same question if he were in the Louvre.

Ideologues are typically heretics. They've taken a couple of human truths and tried to shrink all of human experience to fit just the couple of truths they can appreciate. It can frequently provide hilarity for everybody--except the ideologue.

Not All Islam is Radical Islam

Amy asks a question

Asking "Why?" of grave evil is always going to get you an unsatisfactory answer because evil is fundamentally absurd. That's why Paul calls it a mystery. I think Law et al have been trying to give "reasons" for their actions over the months ("Because the lawyers told me to do it. Because the psychologists said I should." etc.) Such "reasons" are bad reasons because sin is, at bottom, opposed to reason and can therefore never be reconciled with it.

You see the same struggle with people who try to "make sense" of the Holocaust or write books with titles like "Explaining Hitler". There's no explanation because "explaining" mean "giving a rational account for one's actions and there is no rational way to explain deliberate action done in opposition to Him who is Truth.

Dennis Kucinich does his Saruman impression

Another whore for power. Remember when Albert, Prince of Dorkness, Bill Clinton, and Jesse Jackson were all prolife? Every conversion to a prolife position is principled. Every conversion to pro-abortion ideology is a naked grab for power.

Envoy has joined St. Blog's

Pat Madrid offers this sunny assessment:

Some of what's out there on the Catholic blogs I've visited in recent months is pretty good. Some of it is great. But a sizeable amount of what I've seen so far is, frankly, pretentious spewage. Sorry to be so blunt, but that's what it is. Unfortunately, some of the pretentious spewage takes the form of childish and, at times, vitriolic, temper tantrums about the real and perceived faults of others.

Is not! Is not!! IS NOT! Mr. BIG NOSE NEO-CATHOLIC!

Unlike NPR

This blog receives no government funding. It also receives no commercial funding. It's largely a labor of love. However, in addition to love, I also enjoy food, shelter, electricity, and running water. So do my adorable Dickensesque children and my sweet kindly Christian wife (who would gladly prepare a hot meal for you if you were a hungry stranger at our door). Because of this ongoing need for tangibles which require me to give somebody filthy lucre, I have a PayPal button over here
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so that people who think they consistently derive some benefit from this blog can help me support my fambly while I try to do some good work here in cyberspace and elsewhere.

Those who cavil at donating to the blog are encouraged to help me help myself by making me a member of the democratic free market system commended by Pope John Paul II in Centissimus Annus. You can do this by buying my (autographed by the author!!! The perfect Christmas gift!!!!) books and tapes. And if you like the personal touch, and your parish, diocese or conference is looking for a fun and informative speaker about things Catholic, then consider hiring me. The groups I've addressed in (but not limited to) such places as DC, Virginia, Indiana, Washington, Arkansas, Kansas, New Zealand and the far flung Islets of Langerhans will tell you "Hire Shea. He's a blast!" Check out my speaking info here. And don't miss me when I speak in Kalamazoo on December 7! See my calendar for details.

Well, I'm outta here for the weekend. You kids don't put no beans up your noses.

Elections and your Election

Summa Contra Mundum observes: "Remember, we are one senator and one Supreme Court justice away from being able to legislate for the protection of children in the womb. This election is crucial."

As I mentioned yesterday, I think we Catholic laypeople have the bishops we deserve, by and large. Their torpor and timidity in the face of gross abuse of children is, in a mysterious and horrifying way, a reflection of ours as lay Catholics. We approach an election in which American Catholics, eager to live at exactly the same room temperature as the rest of the cooling corpse of the Body Politic, will make their contribution to the lowest voter turnout in 60 years by not showing up--in droves. It is also the election in which Catholics could be the decisive difference between life and death for a lot of children. But in our extreme righteousness, we laypeople would prefer to focus our outrage on idiot bishops and overlook our own indifference.

One frequent excuse for this is "The bishops don't care. Why should I?"

News flash: your dignity (and duty) as a Christian does not come from your bishop. It comes from your baptism. If you are using the cowardice, indifference, stupidity and sin of a bad bishop as your excuse for indulging in your own cowardice, indifference, stupidity and sin, then you are as bad as the bishop you complain about. If you actually have the temerity to point fingers at the bad bishop and complain about his neglect of abused children, while doing nothing to vote pro-life on Tuesday, you are actually worse than he is, because you are pretending to be his moral superior while committing precisely his sin: sitting on your hands and doing nothing to keep children from being abused by abortion.

Vote prolife for sake of the Holy Spirit with whom you were baptized.

Pope says Jews are descendants of apes and pigs

Leading cardinals and bishops agree that Jews are "some loathsome vermin fit only for extermination". Billy Graham weighs in, declaring that Jews routinely drink the blood of Christians. Meanwhile, TBN eagerly ballyhoos its upcoming dramatization of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. A spokesman for the Christian network says, "Don't believe the filthy Jews who, fresh from their cannibalistic preying on our virgin daughters, claim this great historical work is a forgery. It's the truth and we are proud to tell you the real story of the Evil Jew and his hatred for the human race."

Oh! Wait. Wrong world religion. It's Islam that is doing this on a daily basis all over the world. For some reason though, courageous souls prefer to bravely defy Christians who have been dead for centuries rather than real live Muslim anti-semites today.

Meanwhile, in the South, missionaries are reaching out to Democrats

Knock, knock.

"Yes?"

"Howdy, ma'am. My name is Bubba Jo Suggs and I'm running for Congress in this district."

"Oh really? Which party?"

"Oh. Um. The [cough] party."

"I'm sorry. Which party?"

"The De [mumble] Party."

"What?"

"Look! It's the Democratic Party. Okay? Happy now? DEMOCRATIC. And no, I'm not proud of it, but I'm the guy who got stuck with the nomination for this damn campaign! Now will you vote for me or not, or are you going to keep tormenting me?"

"Maybe you need to come in and have a nice cup of tea. I can see this is hard on you. You know, I used to be a Democrat too, till I just couldn't stand it anymore. You can change too."

"I... really? [begins to weep]. Because you know, I've thought about doing it a hundred times. But you have no idea what purely tribal pressures there are to go on being part of the Party, even when the Party no longer stands for any discernible human values at all and is purely about the naked pursuit of power for its own sake."

"Come on in, son. Have some tea and we'll talk about Jesus Christ for a while. There are higher goods than winning an election. Don't make Clinton's Faustian bargain."

Grateful sobs from the weeping candidate as another soul is saved.

Noonan Pegs the Appalling "Memorial" Rally

In the words of Spock, "They don't know what's killing them." I disagreed with Wellstone on most things, but he (like Robert Casey) seems to have been a Dem who actually had some convictions. Now that he's dead, the party is being sucked into the black hole of Clintonian tackiness. There was something so unutterably inhuman about making the memorial a political rally. Something so unforgettably grotesque about the image of our impeached Accused-Rapist-in-Chief laughing it up at the memorial like the sociopath he is.

Not everybody thinks the bishop of Rockville Centre is such a bad guy

Me: I dunno. I live three thousand miles away. But youse guys in the NYC area can hash it out.

"If anyone's found my tank, please give us a bell."

I hate it when this happens.

Zach Frey, a Michigander Opposed to Granholm

offers the pro-life commercial he'd like to see.

Are Saints "New Revelation"?

My latest piece is up at Catholic Exchange.

Hire More PR with Their Salary Money, Cardinal!

"All five of Cardinal Roger M. Mahony's top executives have resigned their posts, church officials said Wednesday, a sign of continuing turmoil in the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese."

This blog gets results!

A week or two ago, I suggested turning Halloween away from its darker manifestations and into a celebration of the saints. Already, the French hierarchy has heard my clarion call!

Tales of the Explained

Courtesy of Bill Cork

This story happened about a month ago in a little town in Newfoundland and even then it sounds like an Alfred Hitchcock tale. It's real.

This guy was on the side of the road hitch hiking on a very dark night and in the middle of a storm. The night was getting darker and the rain harder, and no car went by, the storm was so strong he could hardly see a few feet ahead of him. Suddenly he saw a car coming towards him and stop. The guy, without thinking about, it got in the car and closes the door just to realize there's nobody behind the wheel. The car starts slowly; the guy looks at the road and sees a curve coming his way, scared he starts to pray begging for his life. He hadn't come out of shock, when just before he hits the curve, a hand appears through the window and moves the wheel. The guy, paralyzed in terror, watched how the hand appears every time they are before a curve.

Finally, the guy, gathering strength, gets out of the car and runs to the nearest town. Wet and in shock goes to a bar and asks for two shots of rye and starts telling everybody about the horrible experience he went through. A silence enveloped everybody when they realize the guy was crying and wasn't drunk.

About half an hour later two guys walked in the same cantina and one said to the other. "Look Pete, there's the jerk that got in the car when we were pushing it."

In reparation for flagrant sins against justice

Contributions and kind words for the rectory housekeeper, Rosa Restrepo, who was fired and persecuted by the clergy of St. Ignatius Cathedral, can be sent on her behalf to Julianne Wiley's PayPal account. Folks who want to give should go to PayPal, send the money to Julianne, click where it says "quasi-cash," and put in the message space that it's for Rosa Restrepo. Julianne will see to it that the bucks all get to Rosa. Be sure and specifically designate that your gift is for Rosa.

Dogmatic Materialist Atheism: The Irrational Conviction that Everything Except the Atheist's Own Criticism of Theism is an Accidental Product of Wind and Weather

Law: "For the Good of the Church"

A past sin repented by the Cardinal? Fine. Okay. Great. But what about this?:

"The accusation counters Law's sworn deposition in the Rev. Paul R. Shanley civil case, in which Law reportedly claimed he dealt with only one abuser priest - the Rev. Leonard Chambers - during his tenure as head of the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau.

It's also at odds with Law's answer to a direct question about the abuse, asked by Roderick MacLeish Jr., a lawyer representing Rodney Ford, who was present at the deposition which concluded two weeks ago. Ford's son Gregory, is an alleged victim of Shanley.

``He said he had no recollection whatsoever of any child coming to him complaining about abuse by a priest,'' Ford said, adding the cardinal did remember McHugh."

I can conclude only two things from this: Either Cardinal Law did not prepare for his testimony by going over the files of all the abuse cases so that he'd remember stuff like this or, he's not telling the truth. What other options are there? And if he's not telling the truth still, at this late date, when all the excuses about mistakenly listening experts etc, blah blah are over, then what the use? Charity believeth all things and so I hope this discrepancy in his testimony is due to bad preparation and the ongoing case of shellshock to appears to afflict the Cardinal since January. But it's still pretty depressing to watch. I wonder who they will replace him with, whenever he goes.

David Mills speaks the truth

Scroll down to "Bad Shepherds". This touches on my (still being formulated) philosophy about what we lay Americans should do about bad bishops.

Yes. We laity. No we can't fire them. But there are things we can do, if we are willing to do them.

Somebody complained the other day that if the Pope is not going to remove bishops short of direct personal involvement in sexual sin themselves, and is (obviously) choosing to leave them there when they are grotesquely incompetent boobs like McCormack or Daily (whose testimony is some of the most cringe-making and maddening stuff you could ever read), then this appears to mean that laity are bound to do things like protest, withhold funds, and generally make life hell for a bad bishop until he gets a frickin' clue. This, according to some correspondents, is very inconveniencing and the Pope should simply remove the inconvenience by firing the worst bishops.

This is, I think, part of the problem. Since I think a culture more or less gets the bishops it deserves--particularly a democratic culture like ours. We have bishops for the Age of Clinton because, at the end of the day, most of us care only enough to bitch, not to demand holiness and do something about it, both in our lives and the life of the Church.

I note several things. First, as I've said, the devil's in the details. Not long ago, here in cyberspace, I was hearing rhetoric about the "hosts" and "legions" and "supermajor