Wonder Magazine argues for the re-release of Song of the South
The film is currently banned by the sort of pinheads who think Huck Finn is a racist book and who get offended when people say "niggardly". Someday, the American black community will stop buying the notion they should be ashamed of the immense treasure trove of folk tales its ancestors created. The world is impoverished by a literary fashion that welcomes all fairy stories and beast fables except those made by American blacks.
Tuesday, December 31, 2002
Kathleen Norris breaks free of Mariophobic Response Syndrome...
and welcomes Mary back into a healthy Christian devotional life. Good for her! I'm pleased to see it! Mazeltov! By the way, check out her Cloister Walk (not a perfect book or a perfect theologian, but she's feeling her way toward the Church. I hope she makes it all the way).
and welcomes Mary back into a healthy Christian devotional life. Good for her! I'm pleased to see it! Mazeltov! By the way, check out her Cloister Walk (not a perfect book or a perfect theologian, but she's feeling her way toward the Church. I hope she makes it all the way).
It speaks volumes about the tepidity of the Muslim response to Radical Islam that...
this is newsworthy. It's so unusual for Muslims to condemn bigots and radicals in their midst that when they do, it makes the papers.
this is newsworthy. It's so unusual for Muslims to condemn bigots and radicals in their midst that when they do, it makes the papers.
Brutal Bronze Age Thugs Can't Deal with the Brittleness of their Backward Violent Religion
CAIR is too busy protesting cartoons to address the violence of Muslim co-religionists toward Christians.
CAIR is too busy protesting cartoons to address the violence of Muslim co-religionists toward Christians.
And the Award for the Most Tone Deaf Review of The Two Towers Goes to Paul Levinson
It's a favorable review, which is something. But it's favorable in so many cringe-making ways. It's like a lover who tells his beloved that he thinks her wide hips will make her a suitable breeding vessel to ensure that his stock survives for another generation. It's a compliment, but not one most people want.
It's a favorable review, which is something. But it's favorable in so many cringe-making ways. It's like a lover who tells his beloved that he thinks her wide hips will make her a suitable breeding vessel to ensure that his stock survives for another generation. It's a compliment, but not one most people want.
Why the Church is Not Doomed
Will captures exactly the experience of a convert. Amid so many wonders, the wonder of human sin and evil is not enough by a long shot to keep anybody who has seen the Church from entering Her. It's been a rough year for the Church, but at the end of the day, the evils we've seen have never remotely come close to shaking my faith in any aspect of the revelation Jesus Christ has given us through his Body. It's just confirmed for me that it's wheat and tares till the end of time (which I knew) and that the Church has room for schmucks (so there's room for me!). The only sane response to Christ's gift of Catholic faith is wonder and gratitude--and a renewed determination that sin be cast out, victims healed, and sinners redeemed, starting with ourselves.
Will captures exactly the experience of a convert. Amid so many wonders, the wonder of human sin and evil is not enough by a long shot to keep anybody who has seen the Church from entering Her. It's been a rough year for the Church, but at the end of the day, the evils we've seen have never remotely come close to shaking my faith in any aspect of the revelation Jesus Christ has given us through his Body. It's just confirmed for me that it's wheat and tares till the end of time (which I knew) and that the Church has room for schmucks (so there's room for me!). The only sane response to Christ's gift of Catholic faith is wonder and gratitude--and a renewed determination that sin be cast out, victims healed, and sinners redeemed, starting with ourselves.
A reader writes...
Thanks for your kind words about the articles, but why did you feel fear and trepidation?
As to the rest, I don't think debate will do much good since it's apparent your mind is made up. But I would make a plea for some basic justice in your attitude toward your fellow Evangelicals. You might not realize it, but you just indulged in "my religion's better than yours" polemics there. You did it, not with Catholics, but with Evangelicals "who should know better" rather than us poor papists who don't have the benefit of enlightenment. FWIW, neither Dobson nor Colson (indeed, especially not Colson) have grovelled at any Pontiff's feet. They have made intelligent alliances with people whom they disagree with on some points of theology in order to save the lives of innocent children. That is, they realize the 16th Century is over and the 21st century (featuring dead-baby-eating Chinese artists who claim to be Christian, cloning, abortion, and the overwhelming power of the culture of death) is the real battleground. You can insult them ("convicted felon" is a nice ad hominem that ignores the gospel of grace and redemption Evangelicals like you are supposed to uphold in contrast to the alleged "works based righteousness" of us papists. Remember?) Or you can drag yourself out of the 16th century and face the fact that there is a much bigger gulf between virtually any serious Judeo-Christian theist and the culture of death than there is between Catholics and Protestants.
Neither Colson nor Dobson ignore the differences between Catholics and Evangelicals. They just don't let them paralyze them. At the last Judgment, we know for certain that Jesus will commend those who fought to protect "the least of these". We don't have any assurances that he will say, "Well done! You had nothing to do with those Catholics! So what if a few million babies were killed when it was in your power to help stop it. You remained theologically pure and did not form any political alliances with papists! Ritual impurity from contact with the unclean is what really matters to Me!"
At any rate, Merry Christmas. But do rethink your willingness to get your hands dirty by dealing with us papists. They were, after all, the ones who pretty much started the prolife movment in the US and they held it together until Evangelicals finally figured out, in the late 70s (years after Roe) that abortion was a grave sin. If you don't believe it, check out Souls, Bodies, Spirits by Dr. Kerry Jacoby, an Evangelical who has chronicled the abortion struggle in the US. Evangelicals, burdened by anti-Catholic prejudice, were slow and late to discover what an evil abortion was, treating it as a "Catholic issue". Thank God for Francis Schaeffer (another Evangelical who dirtied his hands by recognizing in the Catholic Church a powerful ally in the struggle to protect innocent human life).
I came to your website with no small amount of fear and trepidation, but I must admit, I enjoyed some of your articles. Very well written & thought provoking. (Ref., especially, to Apollos, Priscilla, Aquila and the Glory of Epocrisy)
We seemed to have a parallel but opposing path of faith: I am an Evangelical who was raised Roman Catholic, but left. No need to get into the reasons, as I am as unwilling to get into the "my religion's better than yours" quagmire as I am the "come home" diatribe. Suffice it to say that I was a Catholic, and am now an Evangelical, longer than you were either, and if there is one thing that I have learned over the years is that the polemics on both sides of this debate are so well worn that anyone with an ounce of brain can soon master them well enough to argue either side convincingly. Bottom like is that I will never embrace Roman Catholicism, and I suspect you'll never go back to being an Evangelical. 'Nuff said.
I have to say that I take far less offense at sincere Roman Catholics, such as yourself, than I do with so-called Evangelical leaders like James Dobson or convicted felon Chuck Colson, who seem more than willing to grovel at the feet of a Pontiff for the sake of the furtherance of their own political agenda. That is a 'dialogue' born out of a lust for political power that I can neither respect nor agree with. No, I believe that there is indeed a fence between our camps, and I for one am glad there is. Good fences can make for good neighbors, if for no other reason than they clearly define undeniable boundaries. We are what we are, and to ignore our differences is to ignore reality.
Anyway, enough rambling here...just wanted to wish you a merry Christmas and best wishes.
Thanks for your kind words about the articles, but why did you feel fear and trepidation?
As to the rest, I don't think debate will do much good since it's apparent your mind is made up. But I would make a plea for some basic justice in your attitude toward your fellow Evangelicals. You might not realize it, but you just indulged in "my religion's better than yours" polemics there. You did it, not with Catholics, but with Evangelicals "who should know better" rather than us poor papists who don't have the benefit of enlightenment. FWIW, neither Dobson nor Colson (indeed, especially not Colson) have grovelled at any Pontiff's feet. They have made intelligent alliances with people whom they disagree with on some points of theology in order to save the lives of innocent children. That is, they realize the 16th Century is over and the 21st century (featuring dead-baby-eating Chinese artists who claim to be Christian, cloning, abortion, and the overwhelming power of the culture of death) is the real battleground. You can insult them ("convicted felon" is a nice ad hominem that ignores the gospel of grace and redemption Evangelicals like you are supposed to uphold in contrast to the alleged "works based righteousness" of us papists. Remember?) Or you can drag yourself out of the 16th century and face the fact that there is a much bigger gulf between virtually any serious Judeo-Christian theist and the culture of death than there is between Catholics and Protestants.
Neither Colson nor Dobson ignore the differences between Catholics and Evangelicals. They just don't let them paralyze them. At the last Judgment, we know for certain that Jesus will commend those who fought to protect "the least of these". We don't have any assurances that he will say, "Well done! You had nothing to do with those Catholics! So what if a few million babies were killed when it was in your power to help stop it. You remained theologically pure and did not form any political alliances with papists! Ritual impurity from contact with the unclean is what really matters to Me!"
At any rate, Merry Christmas. But do rethink your willingness to get your hands dirty by dealing with us papists. They were, after all, the ones who pretty much started the prolife movment in the US and they held it together until Evangelicals finally figured out, in the late 70s (years after Roe) that abortion was a grave sin. If you don't believe it, check out Souls, Bodies, Spirits by Dr. Kerry Jacoby, an Evangelical who has chronicled the abortion struggle in the US. Evangelicals, burdened by anti-Catholic prejudice, were slow and late to discover what an evil abortion was, treating it as a "Catholic issue". Thank God for Francis Schaeffer (another Evangelical who dirtied his hands by recognizing in the Catholic Church a powerful ally in the struggle to protect innocent human life).
AmChurch Inspirational Homilies
A friend of mine was at Sunday Mass at the Cathedral in Seattle. The deacon who gave the homily said something to the effect of, "Well, you were here last Sunday, then back for Christmas. Now you're here again today and you'll be back for New Year's. Why do we keep dragging ourselves here for these services?"
Long pause while parishioners pause to reflect on whether the deacon is undergoing burnout or has always regarded the Mass as such a burdensome annoyance.
"The answer is: we're here for Family and Diversity!"
That may be your answer, deacon. It ain't mine. I'm there to worship and receive the Living God in the Holy Eucharist, to hear his word, and to be equipped to love my neighbor and do my mission in the world. I can get Family and Diversity by taking the wife and kidlets to Pike Place Market. To paraphrase Flannery O'Connor, if the Mass is about Family and Diversity, then the hell with it.
A friend of mine was at Sunday Mass at the Cathedral in Seattle. The deacon who gave the homily said something to the effect of, "Well, you were here last Sunday, then back for Christmas. Now you're here again today and you'll be back for New Year's. Why do we keep dragging ourselves here for these services?"
Long pause while parishioners pause to reflect on whether the deacon is undergoing burnout or has always regarded the Mass as such a burdensome annoyance.
"The answer is: we're here for Family and Diversity!"
That may be your answer, deacon. It ain't mine. I'm there to worship and receive the Living God in the Holy Eucharist, to hear his word, and to be equipped to love my neighbor and do my mission in the world. I can get Family and Diversity by taking the wife and kidlets to Pike Place Market. To paraphrase Flannery O'Connor, if the Mass is about Family and Diversity, then the hell with it.
Monday, December 30, 2002
And now...
Back to my slumber. Coronation wears a guy out. I've got a bit of a bug today and am still on vacation, so I think I'll goof off some more. Judging from the reader stats, "goof off" seem to be the consensus among us all. I'll blog in earnest after the New Year.
Back to my slumber. Coronation wears a guy out. I've got a bit of a bug today and am still on vacation, so I think I'll goof off some more. Judging from the reader stats, "goof off" seem to be the consensus among us all. I'll blog in earnest after the New Year.
A reader writes
Way to go, people!
Hey, I just happened to visit the Student Health Center website at John Carroll University, and I see that they have *removed* the listing of Planned Parenthood as a recommended "Counseling Site". Instead, the JCU website now recommends WomanKind, which is a Pro-Life counseling and assistance center (approved and funded by the diocese).
John Carroll University is a Catholic college, and never should have listed Planned Parenthood in the first place.
Thanks to all! It was the blogs who published the e-mail addresses for the JCU bureaucracy, so it was the members of St. Blog's Parish who made this happen. The blogs were the main source of publicity for this campaign.
Sometimes small victories are the sweetest.
Way to go, people!
Like a dotcom startup
Voice of the Fuddled is urgently marketing itself, yet still not particularly clear on who they are or what they are trying to do. It's an organization ripe for "mission creep." Full of well-intentioned, vague people, driven by a strong engine of Purpose (REFORM!) but with nobody in particular at the wheel and no map for where they want to go. However, they know they need fuel, so they are busy selling geegaws to that end as a number of hands grab for the wheel. I hope they wind up as Catholics, but that's still an open question.
Voice of the Fuddled is urgently marketing itself, yet still not particularly clear on who they are or what they are trying to do. It's an organization ripe for "mission creep." Full of well-intentioned, vague people, driven by a strong engine of Purpose (REFORM!) but with nobody in particular at the wheel and no map for where they want to go. However, they know they need fuel, so they are busy selling geegaws to that end as a number of hands grab for the wheel. I hope they wind up as Catholics, but that's still an open question.
Mark Cameron has an interesting piece on Catholic-Jewish relations
with some interesting observations for that small group of Lidless Eyes still pining for the day when Jews can be shoved back into a ghetto (all with the love of Christ, of course). By the way, did you ever notice how often Christians who love to indulge the sin of anger use a) the image of Christ cleansing the Temple and/or b) the phrase "tough love" to justify their every indulgence? It's as though Jesus did nothing but whip people and overturn tables. Any suggestion that they are, in fact, indulging the sin of anger is righteously slapped down as being "soft" while all appeals to charity are sneered at. Note the pattern the next time you run across an habitually angry Christian. Everybody gets angry sometimes. But people who are habitually angry are especially fond of these passages (oh, and of Matthew 23, another favorite). "Love your enemy" is a passage they don't like as much, or one they interpret in light of Matthew 23 ("I'm calling you a cockroach because I *wuv* you!").
with some interesting observations for that small group of Lidless Eyes still pining for the day when Jews can be shoved back into a ghetto (all with the love of Christ, of course). By the way, did you ever notice how often Christians who love to indulge the sin of anger use a) the image of Christ cleansing the Temple and/or b) the phrase "tough love" to justify their every indulgence? It's as though Jesus did nothing but whip people and overturn tables. Any suggestion that they are, in fact, indulging the sin of anger is righteously slapped down as being "soft" while all appeals to charity are sneered at. Note the pattern the next time you run across an habitually angry Christian. Everybody gets angry sometimes. But people who are habitually angry are especially fond of these passages (oh, and of Matthew 23, another favorite). "Love your enemy" is a passage they don't like as much, or one they interpret in light of Matthew 23 ("I'm calling you a cockroach because I *wuv* you!").
Saturday, December 28, 2002
Knowing Steve Greydanus and His Wife....
I found the anecdote introducing his review of "Catch Me If you Can" a complete surprise and absolutely hilarious.
I found the anecdote introducing his review of "Catch Me If you Can" a complete surprise and absolutely hilarious.
Almost Like Being in Love
Part of your blog author's continuing quest to do as little as possible during the Christmas season.
Part of your blog author's continuing quest to do as little as possible during the Christmas season.
Friday, December 27, 2002
"The cellphones aren't enough and the televisions aren't enough," she said. "It's a little selfish."
What's Italian for "oink"?
What's Italian for "oink"?
I had a wonderful visit!
from David Alexander, the Man in the Black Hat! It's fun to meet members of St. Blog's. David came by around 9:45 AM and hung with the fambly for an hour or two. He brought his cool little Homeland Security-approved-so-you-can-get-it-on-a-plane guitar and played some Christmas carols (including an elegant one that combines two legends about Herod) and then we hopped in the car and I took him on the Nickel Tour of Seattle. Saw Green Lake, Cafe Lulu, Blessed Sacrament (yay!), the Seattle Center (including the Space Needle and the Experience Music Project (without doubt the ugliest and most successful attempt by an architect to imitate seagull poop in existence), and the Waterfront. Also, cruised past Pike Place Market and Pioneer Square, as well as regaling my helpless human sacrifice to the god of Tourism with stories about the WTC riot, the Great Jackson Street Pothole, and the Great Quake of '01. Rounded things up with a brief visit to the Cathedral. David is a swell multi-talented guy and it was a pleasure to finally meet him. He will post his impressions on his blog (he tells me) sometime soon. Thanks for coming by, David! If any of the rest of youse folks come to Seattle, feel free to look me up!
from David Alexander, the Man in the Black Hat! It's fun to meet members of St. Blog's. David came by around 9:45 AM and hung with the fambly for an hour or two. He brought his cool little Homeland Security-approved-so-you-can-get-it-on-a-plane guitar and played some Christmas carols (including an elegant one that combines two legends about Herod) and then we hopped in the car and I took him on the Nickel Tour of Seattle. Saw Green Lake, Cafe Lulu, Blessed Sacrament (yay!), the Seattle Center (including the Space Needle and the Experience Music Project (without doubt the ugliest and most successful attempt by an architect to imitate seagull poop in existence), and the Waterfront. Also, cruised past Pike Place Market and Pioneer Square, as well as regaling my helpless human sacrifice to the god of Tourism with stories about the WTC riot, the Great Jackson Street Pothole, and the Great Quake of '01. Rounded things up with a brief visit to the Cathedral. David is a swell multi-talented guy and it was a pleasure to finally meet him. He will post his impressions on his blog (he tells me) sometime soon. Thanks for coming by, David! If any of the rest of youse folks come to Seattle, feel free to look me up!
Show me a culture that despises virginity and I'll show you a culture that hates children
And, as if to oblige me, St. Mark's in Cleveland, OH (aka Future Church, dedicated to the demolition of Catholic sexual morality as well as other trendinesses) offers the following bulletin announcement for Christmas:
************************************
CHRISTMAS MASSES: 4 pm. Mass is the Children’s Mass. It is awful. This is the mass that most people who go twice a year, go to. IT IS CROWDED! People arrive at 3:15 and the church is full by 3:30. After sitting for 45 minutes, Mass begins and it is LOUD and the kids are off the wall! Try the 6 pm. for a nicer atmosphere and spiritual setting. Most beautiful are 10 pm. and 11 am. on Christmas Day. NO 9 am. Mass this year and no morning mass on Christmas Eve Day.
*************************
You thought I was kidding about the FutureChurch part? Nope. Same addresses:
Jeepers! What a hipster! How can somebody as in tune and spiritual as him bother with a bunch of screaming brats. Put a latte machine in the vestibule!
And, as if to oblige me, St. Mark's in Cleveland, OH (aka Future Church, dedicated to the demolition of Catholic sexual morality as well as other trendinesses) offers the following bulletin announcement for Christmas:
************************************
CHRISTMAS MASSES: 4 pm. Mass is the Children’s Mass. It is awful. This is the mass that most people who go twice a year, go to. IT IS CROWDED! People arrive at 3:15 and the church is full by 3:30. After sitting for 45 minutes, Mass begins and it is LOUD and the kids are off the wall! Try the 6 pm. for a nicer atmosphere and spiritual setting. Most beautiful are 10 pm. and 11 am. on Christmas Day. NO 9 am. Mass this year and no morning mass on Christmas Eve Day.
*************************
You thought I was kidding about the FutureChurch part? Nope. Same addresses:
FutureChurch
15800 Montrose Avenue
Cleveland, Ohio 44111 USA
Phone: 216.228.0869 | Fax: 216.228.4872
E-mail: info@futurechurch.org
St. Mark Church
15800 Montrose Avenue
Cleveland, Ohio 44111
E-mail: doughk@aol.com
And by the way, if you have aol you may want to check out Father Doug's personal profile.
Name: you really wanna ask?
Cleveland, Ohio
Single 6'5", 250
sports, wrestling, cards, golf, piano, sci-fi, theatre, politics
Jeepers! What a hipster! How can somebody as in tune and spiritual as him bother with a bunch of screaming brats. Put a latte machine in the vestibule!
Pork Roasts, Shadow Traditions, and the New Year
A little holiday offering from your goof off blog author.
A little holiday offering from your goof off blog author.
Monday, December 23, 2002
And finally...
The House of Christmas
G.K. Chesterton
There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.
For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.
A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost - how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.
This world is wild as an old wives' tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.
To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.
Merry Christmas, y'all. You've made this a wonderful and adventurous year. I look forward to doing it some more after the holidays! Have a wonderful celebration of the birth of Messiah!
I will, as promised, be pretty scarce this week and most of next. But I might check in now and then, if I have some spare time to beguile. Merry, Merry Christmas!
The House of Christmas
G.K. Chesterton
There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.
For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.
A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost - how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.
This world is wild as an old wives' tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.
To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.
Merry Christmas, y'all. You've made this a wonderful and adventurous year. I look forward to doing it some more after the holidays! Have a wonderful celebration of the birth of Messiah!
I will, as promised, be pretty scarce this week and most of next. But I might check in now and then, if I have some spare time to beguile. Merry, Merry Christmas!
The Ballad of Trent Lott
The poor man fell into a "trap". Very cunning of Strom Thurmond invite him to his birthday to politically immolate himself. The Conspiracy is bigger than we realized.
The poor man fell into a "trap". Very cunning of Strom Thurmond invite him to his birthday to politically immolate himself. The Conspiracy is bigger than we realized.
Applying JEPD Theory to the Lord of the Rings
One standard staple of biblical criticism for the past century has been the theory that the Old Testament isn't composed of "books" that somebody "wrote" but is instead a pastische of "sources" that religio political factions "assembled". If you find yourself thinking "Only an academic--and a German one--could suppose that the foundational literature of Western civilization could be pasted together by a committee and only an academic--and a German one--could suppose that you find out what the text really means by dissolving it in the acid bath of deconstruction to tease out the supposedly original Yahwist (J), Elohist (E), Priestly (P) and Deuteronomic (D) sources", you're right. The theory has run into trouble (since nobody seems to agree on which cut n paste fragments belong to which source and nobody knows why the editors who allegedly stuck all these sources together did what they did. But, as with pure naturalistic theories of evolution, your task is to shut up and bow to your superiors, not ask obvious questions.
In the spirit of redaktion criticism, Bruce Baugh now offers some preliminary theories on the variation in sources used by the makers of the Two Towers. I think he's on to something. Jackson is clearly operating from Rohanian sources for purely political reasons. Truly educated people can see these things right off the bat. It's obvious to any thinking person that the whole "Tolkien Authorship Myth" must go. The Lord of the Rings was not "written" by a so-called "author" named "Tolkien". Rather, it is a final redaction of sources ranging from the Red Book of Westmarch, to Elvish Chronicles, to Gondorian records, to tales of Rohirrim which were only transcribed centuries later. The various pressure groups which preserved these stories all had their own agendas. For instance, the Gondorian records clearly seek to elevate the claims of the Aragorn monarchy over the house of Denethor. So the record has been sanitized. Indeed, many scholars now believe the "Faramir being healed by Aragorn" doublet of the "Frodo being helped by Aragorn" is a sanitized version of the *murder* of Denethor by Aragorn through the administration of poison. "Faramir" never existed and is a corruption of "Boromir", who died under uncertain circumstances in the wilderness. Since the scenes of Aragorn healing "Frodo" also take place in the wilderness, most scholars conclude that "Frodo" is a mythic echo of Boromir, whose quest for Power is like Aragorn's quest for the Throne. Perhaps, Boromir was one of Aragorn's first victims. Of course, the whole "Ring" motif appears in countless folk tales and is to be discounted altogether. The real "War of the Ring" was doubtless some small tribal dispute that was exaggerated by bardic sources, much like the Exodus or the Fall of Troy. Gandalf appears to have been some sort of shamanistic figure, introduced to the Narrative by W (the Westmarch source) out of deference to local Shire cultic practice.
Rohan seems to have been of much help to the establishment of the Aragorn monarchy and so R sources find their way into the final version of the LOTR narrative, but greatly altered so as to give Theoden a subordinate role. Meanwhile, we can only guess at the Sauron and Saruman sources, since they seem to have been destroyed by the victors and give a wholly negative view of these doubtlessly complex, warm, human and many-sided figures. Scholars now know, of course, that the identification of Sauron with "pure evil" is simply wrong. Indeed, many scholars have become quite fond of Sauron and are searching the records with a growing passion and zeal for any lore connected with the making of the One Ring. "It's all nonsense, of course," says Dr. Gol M. Smeagol, "There never was such a Ring. Still... I... should... very much like to have a look at it. Just for scholarly purposes of course."
One standard staple of biblical criticism for the past century has been the theory that the Old Testament isn't composed of "books" that somebody "wrote" but is instead a pastische of "sources" that religio political factions "assembled". If you find yourself thinking "Only an academic--and a German one--could suppose that the foundational literature of Western civilization could be pasted together by a committee and only an academic--and a German one--could suppose that you find out what the text really means by dissolving it in the acid bath of deconstruction to tease out the supposedly original Yahwist (J), Elohist (E), Priestly (P) and Deuteronomic (D) sources", you're right. The theory has run into trouble (since nobody seems to agree on which cut n paste fragments belong to which source and nobody knows why the editors who allegedly stuck all these sources together did what they did. But, as with pure naturalistic theories of evolution, your task is to shut up and bow to your superiors, not ask obvious questions.
In the spirit of redaktion criticism, Bruce Baugh now offers some preliminary theories on the variation in sources used by the makers of the Two Towers. I think he's on to something. Jackson is clearly operating from Rohanian sources for purely political reasons. Truly educated people can see these things right off the bat. It's obvious to any thinking person that the whole "Tolkien Authorship Myth" must go. The Lord of the Rings was not "written" by a so-called "author" named "Tolkien". Rather, it is a final redaction of sources ranging from the Red Book of Westmarch, to Elvish Chronicles, to Gondorian records, to tales of Rohirrim which were only transcribed centuries later. The various pressure groups which preserved these stories all had their own agendas. For instance, the Gondorian records clearly seek to elevate the claims of the Aragorn monarchy over the house of Denethor. So the record has been sanitized. Indeed, many scholars now believe the "Faramir being healed by Aragorn" doublet of the "Frodo being helped by Aragorn" is a sanitized version of the *murder* of Denethor by Aragorn through the administration of poison. "Faramir" never existed and is a corruption of "Boromir", who died under uncertain circumstances in the wilderness. Since the scenes of Aragorn healing "Frodo" also take place in the wilderness, most scholars conclude that "Frodo" is a mythic echo of Boromir, whose quest for Power is like Aragorn's quest for the Throne. Perhaps, Boromir was one of Aragorn's first victims. Of course, the whole "Ring" motif appears in countless folk tales and is to be discounted altogether. The real "War of the Ring" was doubtless some small tribal dispute that was exaggerated by bardic sources, much like the Exodus or the Fall of Troy. Gandalf appears to have been some sort of shamanistic figure, introduced to the Narrative by W (the Westmarch source) out of deference to local Shire cultic practice.
Rohan seems to have been of much help to the establishment of the Aragorn monarchy and so R sources find their way into the final version of the LOTR narrative, but greatly altered so as to give Theoden a subordinate role. Meanwhile, we can only guess at the Sauron and Saruman sources, since they seem to have been destroyed by the victors and give a wholly negative view of these doubtlessly complex, warm, human and many-sided figures. Scholars now know, of course, that the identification of Sauron with "pure evil" is simply wrong. Indeed, many scholars have become quite fond of Sauron and are searching the records with a growing passion and zeal for any lore connected with the making of the One Ring. "It's all nonsense, of course," says Dr. Gol M. Smeagol, "There never was such a Ring. Still... I... should... very much like to have a look at it. Just for scholarly purposes of course."
Hey! I'm coming to New Zealand!
April 25-27, I'll be speaking at a Eucharistic Convention in Auckland.
Now I don't get Down Under too often, so this is a good shot at having me hop the Pond to Australia while I'm there, as well as going to other place in EnZed. If any of my Aussie/Tasmanian/Kiwi readers are interested in having me out to your parish/diocese/conference/Newman Center or whatnot to speak, now's your shot, since it will be remarkably cheaper than lugging me all the way from Seattle. However, if you are interested, we need to get moving on this since logistics are a bit complex and will need to be settle in the next month or so. Lemme know, and I will extend my stay appropriately and talk about any or all of the topics mentioned here.
The fees are flexible and the talks are, I think you will find, fun and informative. If you want to hear from a recently satisfied customer, drop a line to Kurt Lucas at the Diocese of Kalamazoo for a recommendation. I can give other references too, if you want them.
Lookin' forward to the trip!
April 25-27, I'll be speaking at a Eucharistic Convention in Auckland.
Now I don't get Down Under too often, so this is a good shot at having me hop the Pond to Australia while I'm there, as well as going to other place in EnZed. If any of my Aussie/Tasmanian/Kiwi readers are interested in having me out to your parish/diocese/conference/Newman Center or whatnot to speak, now's your shot, since it will be remarkably cheaper than lugging me all the way from Seattle. However, if you are interested, we need to get moving on this since logistics are a bit complex and will need to be settle in the next month or so. Lemme know, and I will extend my stay appropriately and talk about any or all of the topics mentioned here.
The fees are flexible and the talks are, I think you will find, fun and informative. If you want to hear from a recently satisfied customer, drop a line to Kurt Lucas at the Diocese of Kalamazoo for a recommendation. I can give other references too, if you want them.
Lookin' forward to the trip!
Anglicans Continue Their Death March Toward Unitarianism
Someday, when the Dark Ages return, Anglican hordes can go around burning question marks at mass rallies and giving long sermons in which the speaker can't recall what his point was. Imagine a nation of yobs at soccer matches, listening to John Shelby Spong homilies over the loudspeakers and then boiling out into the streets to riot about nothing in particular and you've just about got the picture. My question is to these clerics is: Why don't you just go to work for Microsoft and be done with it? What's the point of your meaningless job if you think this way?
Someday, when the Dark Ages return, Anglican hordes can go around burning question marks at mass rallies and giving long sermons in which the speaker can't recall what his point was. Imagine a nation of yobs at soccer matches, listening to John Shelby Spong homilies over the loudspeakers and then boiling out into the streets to riot about nothing in particular and you've just about got the picture. My question is to these clerics is: Why don't you just go to work for Microsoft and be done with it? What's the point of your meaningless job if you think this way?
Friday, December 20, 2002
I'm outta here for the weekend!
However, you may continue the Coronation Jubilation on through Twelfth Night.
Blogging will be light over the Holiday. There's more important things than cyberspace.
Have a glorious fourth Sunday of Advent!
However, you may continue the Coronation Jubilation on through Twelfth Night.
Blogging will be light over the Holiday. There's more important things than cyberspace.
Have a glorious fourth Sunday of Advent!
A reader writes:
Yep. Barring a judgement from God, it looks like it will happen.
I wonder how well the war on Terror is *really* going. I wonder what God will permit in order to stop us. Osama killed 3000 innocent Americans. We kill a million and a half every year. But we're the good guys. Never question that. It's not possible that the whole world is under judgement, including us. That would imply we are sinful and fallen, an extremely unpopular idea, according to virtually every focus group.
I haven't seen this blogged anywhere, but there's a disturbing trend in the bioethics discussion: Secular scientists are trying to draw a line between human embyos and humanity - claiming that when they do cloning for research they are not doing human experimentation:
From the AP
"Last week the new institute's director, Dr. Irving Weissman, said Stanford's research shouldn't be considered cloning because its goal is to study disease, not create a baby or replacement organs."
You can see where this is heading. A preveious generation saw conception and pregnancy redifined as not beginning in conception but in implantation - thus opening the door for many truly abortive methods of birth control to be labeled as contraceptive. Now they are trying to draw another line that will allow them to experiment on , kill, and manipulate "cells" instead of "embyos". If they succeed, mainstream America - ignorant of the fine distinctions as always - will gladly embrace this research on "cells" to do all these wonder-working cures, and in the next generation will routinely rely on treatments derived from these "cells."
Yep. Barring a judgement from God, it looks like it will happen.
I wonder how well the war on Terror is *really* going. I wonder what God will permit in order to stop us. Osama killed 3000 innocent Americans. We kill a million and a half every year. But we're the good guys. Never question that. It's not possible that the whole world is under judgement, including us. That would imply we are sinful and fallen, an extremely unpopular idea, according to virtually every focus group.
Lott Steps Down. Much Rejoicing
I wonder if Murray is going to resign from anything. I wonder if they will remove sharp objects from her office. I wonder how she got to be Senator. But in the land of opportunity that made Trent Lott Senate Majority Leader, all things are possible for the stupidest among us.
I wonder if Murray is going to resign from anything. I wonder if they will remove sharp objects from her office. I wonder how she got to be Senator. But in the land of opportunity that made Trent Lott Senate Majority Leader, all things are possible for the stupidest among us.
Exhibit A in Your Sovereign Lord's Growing Case for the Glory of Monarchy
We want you all to know that with Our ascension to the throne of Charlemagne, the Congress is dissolved and We do forthwith order that Patty Murray be sent to build roads in Afghanistan.
Senator Murray (who was Our senator until We answered The Call to Kingship) is without doubt the dumbest member of the Senate, and that's saying something.
We want you all to know that with Our ascension to the throne of Charlemagne, the Congress is dissolved and We do forthwith order that Patty Murray be sent to build roads in Afghanistan.
Senator Murray (who was Our senator until We answered The Call to Kingship) is without doubt the dumbest member of the Senate, and that's saying something.
More Stockholm Syndrome
Andrew Bushell manages to recommend as a solution exactly the thinking that caused all the problems: bishops should think of themselves as CEOs, not bishops.
Memo to Andrew: Bishops did that. The problem was, the business they thought the Church was turned out to be Enron.
Thanks be to God he opted out.
Andrew Bushell manages to recommend as a solution exactly the thinking that caused all the problems: bishops should think of themselves as CEOs, not bishops.
Bishops should begin thinking of the church as business and not family.
Memo to Andrew: Bishops did that. The problem was, the business they thought the Church was turned out to be Enron.
Andrew Bushell, a free-lance journalist living in Boston, was a management consultant at McKinsey & Co., and spent 12 years studying to become a priest.
Thanks be to God he opted out.
A Coronation Ode for this Festive Day, Meditating on the theme Sic Transit Gloria Mundi
The tusks that clashed in mighty brawls
of mastodons, are billiard balls.
The sword of Charlemagne the Just
Is ferric oxide, known as rust.
The grizzly bear whose potent hug
Was feared by all, is now a rug.
Great Caesar's bust is on the shelf,
And I don't feel so well myself. - Arthur Guiterman
Other thoughts, poems, and literary contributions to the festivities and jollification as We ascend Our High Throne are welcome in the, how you say?, comments box. Your Emperor feels it is so terribly important to keep in touch with the concerns of his subjects.
By the way, I had a dog named Gloria Mundi once. I taught her to chase city buses. "Sic transit, Gloria Mundi!" I'd shout and she'd be off.
Thank folks! I'm here all week! Try the veal!
The tusks that clashed in mighty brawls
of mastodons, are billiard balls.
The sword of Charlemagne the Just
Is ferric oxide, known as rust.
The grizzly bear whose potent hug
Was feared by all, is now a rug.
Great Caesar's bust is on the shelf,
And I don't feel so well myself. - Arthur Guiterman
Other thoughts, poems, and literary contributions to the festivities and jollification as We ascend Our High Throne are welcome in the, how you say?, comments box. Your Emperor feels it is so terribly important to keep in touch with the concerns of his subjects.
By the way, I had a dog named Gloria Mundi once. I taught her to chase city buses. "Sic transit, Gloria Mundi!" I'd shout and she'd be off.
Thank folks! I'm here all week! Try the veal!
A reader sends along the following:
The following letter to the editor appeared in the Dec. 18 issue of The Long Island Catholic, the newspaper of the Diocese of Rockville Centre:
Editor: As headlines and columns (by Jimmy Breslin in particu-
lar) in Newsday continue to imply that Bishop Murphy was signifi-
cantly involved in the handling of sex abuse allegations against
priests in the Boston Archdiocese, TLIC readers might be inter-
ested to know that in the Boston Globe's book "Betrayal, the
Crisis in the Catholic Church," there is at most only passing and
insignificant reference to Bishop Murphy. And this represents,
according to the Globe, its "full findings of the investigation
into the church sexual abuse scandal" in Boston. Another Msgr.
William F. Murphy, also mentioned several times in that book, is
not the William F. Murphy who is now bishop here in Rockville
Centre.
Mr. Breslin has also implied that Bishop Murphy is culpable in
handling such allegations which were reported in the Rockville
Centre Diocese. I've recently completed a seven-month investiga-
tion into that problem, and can attest that there have been no
allegations of sexual misconduct during Bishop Murphy's watch.
Apropos of William Schroeder's letter (TLIC 12/11/02) regarding
Newsday's biased treatment of this issue, it should be noted that
I sent Newsday a letter similar to this one; but the entire first
paragraph dealing with the Boston Globe's findings, was rejected
for publication, first by the Op-Ed page editor, then by the
publisher, following my personal phone call to him. It seems as
though facts that do not accord with Newsday's agenda vis-a-vis
the Catholic Church simply won't find their way onto Newsday's
pages.
Denis Dillon
District Attorney, Nassau County
Denis Dillon used to be a Democrat, the only county-wide elected Democrat in an overwhelmingly Republican county. (Nassau now has a Democratic administration because the previous Republican administration was so incompetent, which can happen when any party becomes too entrenched.) He also was the only pro-life Democratic politician in the county. He is now a Republican. Some years ago he was either forced out of the party or harassed so much that he decided to switch. The Democrats threw away their only elected official because he was pro-life, a fact that should be considered by any pro-life voter who votes for Democrats.
The last paragraph of his letter is slightly hyperbolic. Newsday did print his second paragraph. Also, in November it printed an Op-Ed column by Philip F. Lawler entitled "Bishops Fail to Take Responsibility" and the other day it printed an excellent column by George Weigel on the situation. (I don't buy Newsday, which has a long history of anti-Catholicism, but I see other people's or libraries' copies from time to time.)
Meanwhile, there's a shortage of mosques in France
However, this is nothing to the absolute and total absence of churches in that sunny land of friendship, Saudi Arabia.
Sooner or later, if we are serious about the War on Terror, the real "regime change" that has to happen will take place in the House of Saud and will involve the radical defunding of Wahoobis.
However, this is nothing to the absolute and total absence of churches in that sunny land of friendship, Saudi Arabia.
Sooner or later, if we are serious about the War on Terror, the real "regime change" that has to happen will take place in the House of Saud and will involve the radical defunding of Wahoobis.
While PBS is docilely forwarding the Jihad
The BBC is dutifully dissing the Blessed Virgin.
The post-Christian Left is in the thrall of demons. There's no explanation for such looniness except that found in Ephesians 6:12.
I wonder how long before the post-Christian Right goes mad too.
Supreme irony alert: the BBC only tempers its swipes at Jesus and the Blessed Virgin when Muslims complain.
The BBC is dutifully dissing the Blessed Virgin.
The post-Christian Left is in the thrall of demons. There's no explanation for such looniness except that found in Ephesians 6:12.
I wonder how long before the post-Christian Right goes mad too.
Supreme irony alert: the BBC only tempers its swipes at Jesus and the Blessed Virgin when Muslims complain.
Even the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem is figuring out the Arafat is a murderous thug who does his people no good
Still had to get swipes in at Israel, but he can be taught.
Still had to get swipes in at Israel, but he can be taught.
Microsoft Error Message Haiku
Somebody sent me these:
Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
The Web site you seek
Cannot be located, but
Countless more exist.
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
Program aborting:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.
Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.
First snow, then silence.
This thousand-dollar screen dies
So beautifully.
With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
"My Novel" not found.
The Tao that is seen
Is not the true Tao-until
You bring fresh toner.
Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.
Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.
Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank
Somebody sent me these:
Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
The Web site you seek
Cannot be located, but
Countless more exist.
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
Program aborting:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.
Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.
First snow, then silence.
This thousand-dollar screen dies
So beautifully.
With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
"My Novel" not found.
The Tao that is seen
Is not the true Tao-until
You bring fresh toner.
Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.
Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.
Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank
Thursday, December 19, 2002
My Coronation Uniform
Black and white photography is so much starker than color. I think it highlights my Majesty more, don't you?
I do hope all you dear little people can come to the festivities.
Black and white photography is so much starker than color. I think it highlights my Majesty more, don't you?
I do hope all you dear little people can come to the festivities.
The War of the Rose (Episode MMMCCCLXVIII)
In the latest entry from the "We Won't Take Yes for an Answer" Department, The Michael Rose Defense League keeps battering away at Fr. Rob Johansen, months after he agreed to draconian demands to curb free speech lest Rose's thin skin be pricked. It's not enough, apparently, that Johansen agreed to muzzle himself. The kicking must continue. All part of that merciful and forebearing True Spirit of Christ thing, no doubt. And all the safer for the courageous members of the MRDL since they know perfectly well that Johansen *can't* reply to them, due to the muzzle. Quelle courage!
I'm beginning to get the distinct impression that Rose just can't cope with criticism. But then I've met the sibling of one of the people he accuses of being gay and heard the hysterical laughter of derision at the charge, so I'm not sold on Rose's methods as a crack investigative reporter. To me, it's looking like "concern for the good of the Church" is morphing into "concern for getting those who criticized my book." I wish the guy would take his lumps for writing a controversial book, move on, and write something else. It's getting old.
In the latest entry from the "We Won't Take Yes for an Answer" Department, The Michael Rose Defense League keeps battering away at Fr. Rob Johansen, months after he agreed to draconian demands to curb free speech lest Rose's thin skin be pricked. It's not enough, apparently, that Johansen agreed to muzzle himself. The kicking must continue. All part of that merciful and forebearing True Spirit of Christ thing, no doubt. And all the safer for the courageous members of the MRDL since they know perfectly well that Johansen *can't* reply to them, due to the muzzle. Quelle courage!
I'm beginning to get the distinct impression that Rose just can't cope with criticism. But then I've met the sibling of one of the people he accuses of being gay and heard the hysterical laughter of derision at the charge, so I'm not sold on Rose's methods as a crack investigative reporter. To me, it's looking like "concern for the good of the Church" is morphing into "concern for getting those who criticized my book." I wish the guy would take his lumps for writing a controversial book, move on, and write something else. It's getting old.
Now here's a worthy cause I think we can all support
Me, for Holy Roman Emperor. Send your notes of adulation, financial contributions and prayers for a long, blessed and fruitful reign to my email account. Please refer all complaints, communist manifestos, Jeffersonian agitprop, and bills to this address.
It is with towering humility that I accept the Will of the People as the Will of God. I shall rule you all in the manner to which I plan to become accustomed. To build a solid relationship with the European community, I am off to ski the Alps with Chuck and Camilla, after which I shall hit the clubs with Madonna and Chelsea. I will deliver the greetings of you, the little people, to Las Ketchup, Sean Penn, and Harold Pinter at Woody Harrelson's next literary salon.
It is with great reluctance that I take up the burden that Destiny has laid upon me. You shall be ever in my thoughts as I race around Europe in Jaguars, taste wine in remote villas, hang around discos with Saudi princes, and experience the wastrel rootless cosmopolitan life of luxury and excess that my high and austere call demands--all for your sake, my dear little people.
Ta!
Me, for Holy Roman Emperor. Send your notes of adulation, financial contributions and prayers for a long, blessed and fruitful reign to my email account. Please refer all complaints, communist manifestos, Jeffersonian agitprop, and bills to this address.
It is with towering humility that I accept the Will of the People as the Will of God. I shall rule you all in the manner to which I plan to become accustomed. To build a solid relationship with the European community, I am off to ski the Alps with Chuck and Camilla, after which I shall hit the clubs with Madonna and Chelsea. I will deliver the greetings of you, the little people, to Las Ketchup, Sean Penn, and Harold Pinter at Woody Harrelson's next literary salon.
It is with great reluctance that I take up the burden that Destiny has laid upon me. You shall be ever in my thoughts as I race around Europe in Jaguars, taste wine in remote villas, hang around discos with Saudi princes, and experience the wastrel rootless cosmopolitan life of luxury and excess that my high and austere call demands--all for your sake, my dear little people.
Ta!
Cyber-Community for People with Absolutely No Life of Their Own
Can you *imagine* trying to have a lengthy chat about this? Much less a Message Board?
Can you *imagine* trying to have a lengthy chat about this? Much less a Message Board?
On the other hand...
I also empathized with Rod Dreher's ambiguity about our own culture, as seen through the eyes of Tolkien. Like I said below in the comments, just because one side is wrong does not mean the other side is on the side of God. On the whole, I'm glad Rome beat Carthage. That doesn't mean Rome did not need Christ. And boy do we need Christ.
I also empathized with Rod Dreher's ambiguity about our own culture, as seen through the eyes of Tolkien. Like I said below in the comments, just because one side is wrong does not mean the other side is on the side of God. On the whole, I'm glad Rome beat Carthage. That doesn't mean Rome did not need Christ. And boy do we need Christ.
A reader over at Lucianne.com has also noticed the peculiar craven affinity the NY Times Left has for the Religion of Peace
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Due to the recent series of events in the Middle East, we would like to take this opportunity to express our best wishes for the soldiers and the nation whom we have so thoroughly supported throughout this crisis. Therefore, we, the undersigned editors and op-ed writers of the New York Times, wish our troops the very best of luck in crushing the foreign infidels and bringing Dar al-Islam to America.
May America sink into the sea, may the eyes of Americans be gouged out and fed to lions, may the very trees and rocks call out horrible and bloody curses in this jihad, may the religion of peace put all Americans to the sword; yea, even their pets and infant children, for they are the pets and children of monkeys and pigs, may all Americans be sodomized in the netherworlds by hungry jinni and have the scalding water poured onto their bellies day and night until they know no rest or comfort, for this is the command of the heavens.
We ask all of this in the name of Allah, the ever-beneficient, ever-merciful, all-forgiving.
ARTHUR SULZBERGER
HOWELL RAINES
PAUL KRUGMAN
MAUREEN DOWD
BOB HERBERT
FRANK RICH
THOMAS FRIEDMAN
NICHOLAS KRISTOF
ANTHONY LEWIS (retired)
It's very near now
My guess: by this time next month we will have troops in Iraq, and likely in Baghdad. Hopefully, by this time in February, we will be doing mop-up operations. God protect our troops (and the civilians of Iraq!)
My guess: by this time next month we will have troops in Iraq, and likely in Baghdad. Hopefully, by this time in February, we will be doing mop-up operations. God protect our troops (and the civilians of Iraq!)
Send the Church to Boot Camp
Catholic Light gets tough. I think the solution will partly involve this. Also it will involve extreme tenderness. God's way always involves herding lions and lambs together. He seems to enjoy the challenge of working to keeps extremes in communion. Plays dangerously, He does.
Catholic Light gets tough. I think the solution will partly involve this. Also it will involve extreme tenderness. God's way always involves herding lions and lambs together. He seems to enjoy the challenge of working to keeps extremes in communion. Plays dangerously, He does.
Last and most important, it is exactly this which explains what is so inexplicable to all the modern critics of the history of Christianity. I mean the monstrous wars about small points of theology, the earthquakes of emotion about a gesture or a word. It was only a matter of an inch; but an inch is everything when you are balancing. The Church could not afford to swerve a hair's breadth on some things if she was to continue her great and daring experiment of the irregular equilibrium. Once let one idea become less powerful and some other idea would become too powerful. It was no flock of sheep the Christian shepherd was leading, but a herd of bulls and tigers, of terrible ideals and devouring doctrines, each one of them strong enough to turn to a false religion and lay waste the world. Remember that the Church went in specifically for dangerous ideas; she was a lion tamer. The idea of birth through a Holy Spirit, of the death of a divine being, of the forgiveness of sins, or the fulfilment of prophecies, are ideas which, any one can see, need but a touch to turn them into something blasphemous or ferocious. The smallest link was let drop by the artificers of the Mediterranean, and the lion of ancestral pessimism burst his chain in the forgotten forests of the north. Of these theological equalisations I have to speak afterwards. Here it is enough to notice that if some small mistake were made in doctrine, huge blunders might be made in human happiness. A sentence phrased wrong about the nature of symbolism would have broken all the best statues in Europe. A slip in the definitions might stop all the dances; might wither all the Christmas trees or break all the Easter eggs. Doctrines had to be defined within strict limits, even in order that man might enjoy general human liberties. The Church had to be careful, if only that the world might be careless. - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Since there's been some confusion...
I have no quarrel was those who call themselves "Traditionalist" Catholic per se. If you call yourself a "Traditionalist" and assent to the basic ideas laid out by Pete Vere here, then that's just ducky with me. If you reject any or all of these ideas, then call yourself what you will, but the reality is you are just as much a dissenter from Holy Church as Rosemary Radford Reuther or Frances Kissling--and with considerably more responsibility since you allegedly take serious Catholic doctrine while they are frankly contemptuous of it.
"Catholic" is not an ethnicity. To be Catholic is to assent to the proposition "I believe all that the Catholic Church teaches and proclaims is revealed by God." "Traditionalists" who do not do this reject the Tradition they claim to uphold.
Now, just to head off the inevitable chorus of, "You check your brain at the Church door" rhetoric, let me reiterate, the Church does not operate on the principle "That which is not forbidden is compulsory." You shall worship the Lord your God with all your mind, among other things. And so there is a wide gray area where the Church proposes things, not for assent, but for contemplation. She asks us to try to think with the Tradition, using it as a light for reflection, not a slide rule for infallible moral calculus that must always produce monolithic lockstep agreement. Witness for instance the wide disagreement among Catholics about war with Iraq (about which I am increasingly ambiguous) and the bishops' own insistence that their prudential judgment is not binding on us. For more info here, see my piece "Catholic "Officialdom" and Theological Ambiguity".
But the mark of dissent is that it rejects, not just prudential judgments, but the teaching which undergirds the judgments (much like Remnant offers undisguised contempt for the teaching of Holy Church in Dignitatis Humanae and Nostra Aetate). Pete Vere has outlined pretty well some teaching which can't be dissented from if we are serious about being Catholic. I thank him and Shawn McElhinny for it.
I have no quarrel was those who call themselves "Traditionalist" Catholic per se. If you call yourself a "Traditionalist" and assent to the basic ideas laid out by Pete Vere here, then that's just ducky with me. If you reject any or all of these ideas, then call yourself what you will, but the reality is you are just as much a dissenter from Holy Church as Rosemary Radford Reuther or Frances Kissling--and with considerably more responsibility since you allegedly take serious Catholic doctrine while they are frankly contemptuous of it.
"Catholic" is not an ethnicity. To be Catholic is to assent to the proposition "I believe all that the Catholic Church teaches and proclaims is revealed by God." "Traditionalists" who do not do this reject the Tradition they claim to uphold.
Now, just to head off the inevitable chorus of, "You check your brain at the Church door" rhetoric, let me reiterate, the Church does not operate on the principle "That which is not forbidden is compulsory." You shall worship the Lord your God with all your mind, among other things. And so there is a wide gray area where the Church proposes things, not for assent, but for contemplation. She asks us to try to think with the Tradition, using it as a light for reflection, not a slide rule for infallible moral calculus that must always produce monolithic lockstep agreement. Witness for instance the wide disagreement among Catholics about war with Iraq (about which I am increasingly ambiguous) and the bishops' own insistence that their prudential judgment is not binding on us. For more info here, see my piece "Catholic "Officialdom" and Theological Ambiguity".
But the mark of dissent is that it rejects, not just prudential judgments, but the teaching which undergirds the judgments (much like Remnant offers undisguised contempt for the teaching of Holy Church in Dignitatis Humanae and Nostra Aetate). Pete Vere has outlined pretty well some teaching which can't be dissented from if we are serious about being Catholic. I thank him and Shawn McElhinny for it.
Wednesday, December 18, 2002
Scarce today. Trying to get a big project done.
Argue amongst yourselves about something religious, political and/or cultural. Be nice.
Argue amongst yourselves about something religious, political and/or cultural. Be nice.
Five Proofs of the Existence of Santa Claus
Not to mention my generous words of affirmation to Greg Popcak despite his total failure as a human being, as well as oddities from the Deranged Genius of Victor Lams and other fun bits.
Not to mention my generous words of affirmation to Greg Popcak despite his total failure as a human being, as well as oddities from the Deranged Genius of Victor Lams and other fun bits.
Rod, perhaps the best compromise would have been...
Guilty, with a suspended sentence. Sort of like the end of Leon Uris' QBVII. A fine or something.
By the way, I still think Keeler is extremely eager to practice human sacrifice in order to save his derriere. Just as he offered accused priests up for human sacrifice to the press a couple of months ago, he also offered Stokes as a human sacrifice when the abuse happened and, most recently, offered Blackwell (and--depending on how popular vigilantism becomes after this--perhaps others) as human sacrifices by refusing to condemn the jury's finding and opting instead to just pose for the cameras. As I noted earlier, the practical result of the trials was about right. I don't think Stokes should go up the river and I don't think it wildly out of keeping with justice that a rapist feel the consequences of his rape. But from the standpoint of jurisprudence, the jury's decision is catastrophic. It sets a clear precedent of defining a class of human beings (priests accused of molestation) as fit targets for murder. The function of a bishop is to say to such acts in the public sphere, "That is false, not because they are priests, but because they are human." Keeler, as is apparently his custom, opted not to be a bishop, but a smiling face for a camera. Despicable. He's kept his skirts nice and clean, but at horrendous cost to the public good and to the good of his priests. God have mercy on him.
Guilty, with a suspended sentence. Sort of like the end of Leon Uris' QBVII. A fine or something.
By the way, I still think Keeler is extremely eager to practice human sacrifice in order to save his derriere. Just as he offered accused priests up for human sacrifice to the press a couple of months ago, he also offered Stokes as a human sacrifice when the abuse happened and, most recently, offered Blackwell (and--depending on how popular vigilantism becomes after this--perhaps others) as human sacrifices by refusing to condemn the jury's finding and opting instead to just pose for the cameras. As I noted earlier, the practical result of the trials was about right. I don't think Stokes should go up the river and I don't think it wildly out of keeping with justice that a rapist feel the consequences of his rape. But from the standpoint of jurisprudence, the jury's decision is catastrophic. It sets a clear precedent of defining a class of human beings (priests accused of molestation) as fit targets for murder. The function of a bishop is to say to such acts in the public sphere, "That is false, not because they are priests, but because they are human." Keeler, as is apparently his custom, opted not to be a bishop, but a smiling face for a camera. Despicable. He's kept his skirts nice and clean, but at horrendous cost to the public good and to the good of his priests. God have mercy on him.
Goody gumdrops! I get to go see the Two Towers today!
Decent Films has some quibbles but basically gives it two thumbs up
Decent Films has some quibbles but basically gives it two thumbs up
For Reactionary Dissenters, the proposition that the perfidious Jews are tunnelling under the house is called "sharing God's love"
Like I say, the message of Reactionary Dissent is "Be afraid. Be very afraid!" No faith, hope or love that I can discern.
The Shadow Tradition lives in the article Cork references: the notion that "if it's old, it's part of apostolic Tradition". Memo to the Lidless Eye crowd: sin, including the sin of hostility to Jews, is old. It's not part of the Tradition.
"Oh, but we wuv Jews! We want to share with them the wuv of Jesus!" Right. That, no doubt, is why you defend Robert Sungenis, enthusiastic quoter of Nazi literature, ignorant expositor of Talmud, and, most egregiously, champion of the proposition that the Holocaust-denying Journal of Historical Review is "highly prestigious and credible". Only a perfidious Jew like Sandra Miesel would doubt the wuv bubbling up from your hearts after that. Hence her inexplicable article about y'all in Crisis. As Ferrara sez of Miesel: "The Neo-Catholic press is at it again. Where even The Wanderer wouldn’t go, Crisis magazine rushes without a thought, quite obviously. Yes, now The Remnant is being accused by Crisis of being, you guessed it, anti-Semitic…the last resort of the unimaginative accuser who has no case." Absolutely! No case at all! Endorsement of apologists for Holocaust-denial? What's anti-semitic about that?
Oh, by the way, Nostra Aetate is not ambiguous, contrary to Ferrara. It's perfectly clear:
and for all you "Social Kingship of Christ" theorists looking for a Caesaropapist state that will shove Jews back in the ghetto, there's this:
Since I've never seen any evidence of love on the part of people like Ferrara and other piners for the One Ring, I am skeptical that their metallic theories for a Catholic Paradise on Earth are trustworthy.
Like I say, the message of Reactionary Dissent is "Be afraid. Be very afraid!" No faith, hope or love that I can discern.
The Shadow Tradition lives in the article Cork references: the notion that "if it's old, it's part of apostolic Tradition". Memo to the Lidless Eye crowd: sin, including the sin of hostility to Jews, is old. It's not part of the Tradition.
"Oh, but we wuv Jews! We want to share with them the wuv of Jesus!" Right. That, no doubt, is why you defend Robert Sungenis, enthusiastic quoter of Nazi literature, ignorant expositor of Talmud, and, most egregiously, champion of the proposition that the Holocaust-denying Journal of Historical Review is "highly prestigious and credible". Only a perfidious Jew like Sandra Miesel would doubt the wuv bubbling up from your hearts after that. Hence her inexplicable article about y'all in Crisis. As Ferrara sez of Miesel: "The Neo-Catholic press is at it again. Where even The Wanderer wouldn’t go, Crisis magazine rushes without a thought, quite obviously. Yes, now The Remnant is being accused by Crisis of being, you guessed it, anti-Semitic…the last resort of the unimaginative accuser who has no case." Absolutely! No case at all! Endorsement of apologists for Holocaust-denial? What's anti-semitic about that?
Oh, by the way, Nostra Aetate is not ambiguous, contrary to Ferrara. It's perfectly clear:
True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ;(13) still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures. All should see to it, then, that in catechetical work or in the preaching of the word of God they do not teach anything that does not conform to the truth of the Gospel and the spirit of Christ.
and for all you "Social Kingship of Christ" theorists looking for a Caesaropapist state that will shove Jews back in the ghetto, there's this:
We cannot truly call on God, the Father of all, if we refuse to treat in a brotherly way any man, created as he is in the image of God. Man's relation to God the Father and his relation to men his brothers are so linked together that Scripture says: "He who does not love does not know God" (1 John 4:8).
No foundation therefore remains for any theory or practice that leads to discrimination between man and man or people and people, so far as their human dignity and the rights flowing from it are concerned.
The Church reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against men or harassment of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion. On the contrary, following in the footsteps of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, this sacred synod ardently implores the Christian faithful to "maintain good fellowship among the nations" (1 Peter 2:12), and, if possible, to live for their part in peace with all men,(14) so that they may truly be sons of the Father who is in heaven.
Since I've never seen any evidence of love on the part of people like Ferrara and other piners for the One Ring, I am skeptical that their metallic theories for a Catholic Paradise on Earth are trustworthy.
Tuesday, December 17, 2002
Well this is weird
I demand an explanation from Amy or Josh Claybourn. What kind of creepy Art Bell occult UFO gene experimentation things are you guys up to in Indiana anyway?
I demand an explanation from Amy or Josh Claybourn. What kind of creepy Art Bell occult UFO gene experimentation things are you guys up to in Indiana anyway?
Is there a copyright lawyer in the house?
I'm one of those rare people who thought Napster had it coming. I don't believe in copying albums you haven't bought, much for the same reason I would resent it if people xeroxed my books and didn't pay me for them. But a question occurred to me today. What about fair use? I have a nice Duke Ellington album I found at the library with a great performance of "Take the A Train" on it (it's "Ellington at Newport" for you afficianados). There are lots of other great tunes on there, but the main one I want is "A Train". So is it an exercise of "fair use" to copy one tune off a double album? Or is it just rationalization for theft? Talk straight to me. I wanna know.
I'm one of those rare people who thought Napster had it coming. I don't believe in copying albums you haven't bought, much for the same reason I would resent it if people xeroxed my books and didn't pay me for them. But a question occurred to me today. What about fair use? I have a nice Duke Ellington album I found at the library with a great performance of "Take the A Train" on it (it's "Ellington at Newport" for you afficianados). There are lots of other great tunes on there, but the main one I want is "A Train". So is it an exercise of "fair use" to copy one tune off a double album? Or is it just rationalization for theft? Talk straight to me. I wanna know.
Peace with Goldberg Achieved
I agree completely. If you substitute "triumph" with the word "battle", I have no quarrel at all. A beautiful harmony now reigns between the Corner and this blog. Let us hold a feast and do the dance of joy.
I agree completely. If you substitute "triumph" with the word "battle", I have no quarrel at all. A beautiful harmony now reigns between the Corner and this blog. Let us hold a feast and do the dance of joy.
Why it's so much easier to take conservatives seriously as moral thinkers
Two words: Trent Lott. When one of their own makes it clear he is a self-serving jackass unfit for high office, conservatives have shown their adherence to principle, by and large, and demanded his ouster. Compare and contrast this with the defense of our highly-credibly-accused former Rapist-in-Chief. My personal "Liberalism is Dead" moment came when I saw NOW and Anita Hill going to bat for Bill Clinton. Surreal.
Two words: Trent Lott. When one of their own makes it clear he is a self-serving jackass unfit for high office, conservatives have shown their adherence to principle, by and large, and demanded his ouster. Compare and contrast this with the defense of our highly-credibly-accused former Rapist-in-Chief. My personal "Liberalism is Dead" moment came when I saw NOW and Anita Hill going to bat for Bill Clinton. Surreal.
That's because, Jonah, The Lord of the Rings is not about the Triumph of Good Over Evil
It's about the redemption of evil by self-sacrificial love. Good does not "triumph" over evil in Tolkien's universe because it is a Catholic universe. As Tolkien himself said, "I am a Roman Catholic. I do not expect history to be anything but a long defeat." Here, in Middle Earth, there is never a "triumph" over evil. There is temporary victory and then the re-emergence of the Shadow. Suffering is not going away, but it can lead to final salvation, not in this world, but in the Land of the Valar beyond this world. In this world, Aragorn will be crowned king and marry the Elven Princess... and they will finally die. Frodo bears the wound of knife, sting, and tooth all his days in Middle Earth. He does not "triumph" over them and cancel them out. But he comes at last to happiness beyond the world.
It's about the redemption of evil by self-sacrificial love. Good does not "triumph" over evil in Tolkien's universe because it is a Catholic universe. As Tolkien himself said, "I am a Roman Catholic. I do not expect history to be anything but a long defeat." Here, in Middle Earth, there is never a "triumph" over evil. There is temporary victory and then the re-emergence of the Shadow. Suffering is not going away, but it can lead to final salvation, not in this world, but in the Land of the Valar beyond this world. In this world, Aragorn will be crowned king and marry the Elven Princess... and they will finally die. Frodo bears the wound of knife, sting, and tooth all his days in Middle Earth. He does not "triumph" over them and cancel them out. But he comes at last to happiness beyond the world.
Having Rod Bennett visit has renewed my appreciation for Wonder Magazine, his delightful magazine
And the good news is: it's about to be resurrected, starting in April or so! Y'all should get the guy to come and speak at your parish. Extremely interesting and fun! Or, if you prefer, go to the Cornerstone Festival in Illinois and hear him speak at the Imaginarium.
And the good news is: it's about to be resurrected, starting in April or so! Y'all should get the guy to come and speak at your parish. Extremely interesting and fun! Or, if you prefer, go to the Cornerstone Festival in Illinois and hear him speak at the Imaginarium.
The problem is exclusively with the hierarchy
They aren't a reflection of a deeply diseased culture at all.
They aren't a reflection of a deeply diseased culture at all.
Brings new meaning to the verses from Canada's national anthem...
O Canada! We stand on guard for thee!
Kathy Shaidle must be so proud. :)
O Canada! We stand on guard for thee!
Kathy Shaidle must be so proud. :)
Stokes mostly found not guilty
The practical results of this trial seem about right to me: the guy doesn't go up the river forever, his abuser has a pain in the hip to remind him that sin is evil. However, this statement troubles me greatly:
Which, being translated, can mean, "It's open season on priests!"
Sorry, but vigilantism is not the answer here. It's hard to blame the guy (I have good friends who are victims of abuse and I know how much it's hurt them). But I would not be much of a friend to say to my friends, "What will really help your soul is for you to take a gun and hunt that bastard down. Don't worry! God will smile on it. He wasn't serious about all that forgiveness BS. Be as murderous and bitter as you like."
The practical results of this trial seem about right to me: the guy doesn't go up the river forever, his abuser has a pain in the hip to remind him that sin is evil. However, this statement troubles me greatly:
"This is a statement not just for me, but for every person who has been abused by anyone," Stokes said as he walked out of the courthouse last night.
Which, being translated, can mean, "It's open season on priests!"
Sorry, but vigilantism is not the answer here. It's hard to blame the guy (I have good friends who are victims of abuse and I know how much it's hurt them). But I would not be much of a friend to say to my friends, "What will really help your soul is for you to take a gun and hunt that bastard down. Don't worry! God will smile on it. He wasn't serious about all that forgiveness BS. Be as murderous and bitter as you like."
Monday, December 16, 2002
Now, I must unbury myself from several days of neglected work
But before I do, let me stick something in this space that seems to have done a fine job of provoking discussion over at Amy's blog. There's been much discussion recently concerning my old contention that the Pope's choice to leave bishops at their posts was always active and never passive. As I've maintained all along, it was a choice, not a refusal to confront the problem. JPII has chosen to not spare bishops the consequences of that they've done since, as I believe, his theology of the cross compels him to believe that the sins of the American Church are going to find healing *through* the cross, not in spite of it. Somebody remarked that this was wrong because the flock suffers in this case. My reply:
The quick and easy reply to this of many in the "Blame the Pope" school of thought is that this needlessly endangers innocent children "for the sake of one man". But I see no evidence that keeping Law in Boston these past six months endangered children. What it really did was a) serve notice to the American episcopacy that the suffering they have inflicted on others is going to be theirs to suffer for quite sometime and b) piss off a large number of laity who have definite ideas about what punishment should look like for a miscreant bishop. No kids were endangered by it.
But it hurt. Yes. And that is sinful why? It's the answer to that question I'm not so sure of. American bishops are not grown in hydroponic tanks in the Vatican basement. They are a product and reflection of American culture. Rome appoints the people that the American Church, in its infinite wisdom, tells them are our Best and Brightest. The frightening thing is, maybe they are.
So from the perspective of Rome, looking at the weird degeneracy of American culture, I can see how the complaint that the suffering we have to endure by soldiering through with the bishops our culture has produced is somehow terrible and unfair would be rather unpersuasive. Law's gone. A couple more will, I suspect, go. But Rome is not going to decapitate and the entire American Church. Ain't gonna happen. And this means that, at some point or other, the American Church (that'd be us) will have to ask itself how our culture came to produce so many of these Sergeant Schulz's and how it was we thought men like Paul Shanley were so cool for so long. The proposition that we poor suffering laity have nothing to do with it becomes more and more unconvincing and the proposition that we have no need to share in the redemptive suffering of the Church strikes me as increasingly untenable.
But before I do, let me stick something in this space that seems to have done a fine job of provoking discussion over at Amy's blog. There's been much discussion recently concerning my old contention that the Pope's choice to leave bishops at their posts was always active and never passive. As I've maintained all along, it was a choice, not a refusal to confront the problem. JPII has chosen to not spare bishops the consequences of that they've done since, as I believe, his theology of the cross compels him to believe that the sins of the American Church are going to find healing *through* the cross, not in spite of it. Somebody remarked that this was wrong because the flock suffers in this case. My reply:
Reflect on this statement: "If he weren't a damned pervert, he'd be my hero." This, as you know, is the assessment of a lawyer for for one of Paul Shanley's victims. And, as you know, it was spoken of Paul Shanley. It's quite true that keeping Law on in Boston was (as anybody with any foresight at all would know) a trial for Boston (and the rest of us) as well as for Law.
Yes? So? Who says the rest of the American Church is supposed to go without a cross? As I mentioned on my blog, I tend to agree with my historian friend's assessment that a democratic culture more or less tends to get the episcopacy it deserves. I've never thought that the Way of the Cross was something for the corrupt clergy alone. Sobornost: each is responsible for all. It's an inevitable part of the gospel and the communion of saints. When the Pope sent these guys back into the muck of American sexual sewage culture of which they are a product and which they have themselves done so much to exacerbate then *of course* the rest of us suffer. The assumption here is that such suffering is sinful. I'm not convinced of that. A culture that can produce a statement like the one I quoted (and let's not kid ourselves, the ideas which helped make Shanley Shanley go on being lionized in American culture), is a culture that needs to do its own self-examination and soul-searching and cross-embracing. Not all of us are stainless saints capable of locating sin entirely outside ourselves.
The quick and easy reply to this of many in the "Blame the Pope" school of thought is that this needlessly endangers innocent children "for the sake of one man". But I see no evidence that keeping Law in Boston these past six months endangered children. What it really did was a) serve notice to the American episcopacy that the suffering they have inflicted on others is going to be theirs to suffer for quite sometime and b) piss off a large number of laity who have definite ideas about what punishment should look like for a miscreant bishop. No kids were endangered by it.
But it hurt. Yes. And that is sinful why? It's the answer to that question I'm not so sure of. American bishops are not grown in hydroponic tanks in the Vatican basement. They are a product and reflection of American culture. Rome appoints the people that the American Church, in its infinite wisdom, tells them are our Best and Brightest. The frightening thing is, maybe they are.
So from the perspective of Rome, looking at the weird degeneracy of American culture, I can see how the complaint that the suffering we have to endure by soldiering through with the bishops our culture has produced is somehow terrible and unfair would be rather unpersuasive. Law's gone. A couple more will, I suspect, go. But Rome is not going to decapitate and the entire American Church. Ain't gonna happen. And this means that, at some point or other, the American Church (that'd be us) will have to ask itself how our culture came to produce so many of these Sergeant Schulz's and how it was we thought men like Paul Shanley were so cool for so long. The proposition that we poor suffering laity have nothing to do with it becomes more and more unconvincing and the proposition that we have no need to share in the redemptive suffering of the Church strikes me as increasingly untenable.
Lidless Eyes Sometimes Peer Through Rifle Scopes
A reader sends the link above and notes, "I notice that Kopp was being lionized in a series of issues of "Catholic Family News" available at its web site as "A Traditionalist's Tale". (Editor's note: Go here, here and here.) Wonder what they'll do now that he has confessed? I hope that Marra and Malvasi are the only co-conspirators. Marra, by the way, is the daughter of William Marra, who was a philosophy professor at Fordham and who became a Traditionalist hero toward the end of his life."
Also on the Lidless Eye front, Sandra Miesel writes me to say, "My CRISIS article got slammed in THE REMNANT for 15 Dec. by Gruner's top gun. I haven't seen the thing yet but I've apparently rattled cages. I iz quietly proud."
The thing that makes the True Catholic Reactionary Dissent crowd so prima facie incredible to me is rather similar to what has always made Calvinism so prima facie difficult for me to believe. Calvinism in its purest forms has always impressed me with it's metallic logical perfection combined with a remarkable inhumanity. The most crushing conversation I ever witnessed with a Calvinist was the time a young seeker (who was waffling between Catholic faith and the persuasive logicality of Calvinism) asked the simple question, "Does God love me?" The Calvinist, after a great deal of puffing and blowing, was utterly powerless to answer that question. He wasn't sure if the Divine Computer has slotted the kid for Reprobation or Election in order to make the Heavenly Software run and so could give no answer. If you are saved then we'll know God loved you. If you aren't, then we'll know he didn't. But we can't know now whether God loves you or not. Catholics, of course, just said, "Hell, yes, God loves you!" They didn't even have to think about that one.
A similar logical perfection and heartlessness afflicts Reactionary Dissent. After you've made all the impeccable logical arguments that show how your arguments for Reactionary Dissent are obviously flawless and watertight, the question that still looms for me is "Then where is the love of God in your life?" One of my Reactionary Dissenting readers said it very clearly in a moment of unintended lucidity the other day: "Believe it or not, I didn't just wake up one day and decide to be 'reactionary'. I envy your faith and trust. Heck, I envy myself of a couple of years ago when I was going to a rather ordinary parish and thought everything was hunky dory. Sometimes I wish I never read Pius IX's syllabus of errors or Pius XI's Mortalium Animos. But what's done is done." or, as he summed it up later, "You must be a lot less cynical than I am."
This speaks volumes. It's like the Judge Pontius Pilate saying, "What is truth?" The proponent of The True Faith confesses that he has no faith or trust and he is a cynic. The emissaries of the Hope of God sees no future for the Church. The apostles of the love of Christ are pretty much a ceaseless fount of bitterness. I've literally never met a *happy* member of the Reactionary Dissent crowd. Attempt to raise such topics as the fruit of the Spirit and you get snorts of derision from such people. Love is a delusion of the 60s always sneered at as "luv". Joy? What's there to be joyful about? The Church has been betrayed by liberals! Peace? Another buzzword of liberalsm. Patience? We've been patient for forty years!, etc. The Pope *still* lives as though he believes the words with which he began his pontificate: "Be not afraid!" No clearer measures of the (at bottom) anti-Christian spirit which animates dissent (whether from the Reactionary or Leftist) is the snort of contempt and derision which greets that expression of Hope in the Lordship of Christ. The message of Dissent is "Be afraid! Be very afraid!"
I can safely say that I have never met one member of the Reactionary Dissent crowd who believed, in anything like a living way, in the reality of faith, hope, and love. At the day to day lived level, Reactionary Dissent has abandoned Christ's demand for faith, hope and charity and replaced it with cynicism, despair, and rage. And it is in the tragic position of now *enjoying* this. Very toxic.
This is, of course, similarly true for members of the liberal dissent crowd in other ways. They generally get rid of the virtue of mercy by saying there's nothing to forgive, just as they get rid of the possibility of peace by claiming there is no conflict. But most of my readers do not feel this temptation as strongly as they feel the temptation to Reactionary Dissent. So I try to scratch (and outrage) where my readers itch.
Hate mail welcome.
A reader sends the link above and notes, "I notice that Kopp was being lionized in a series of issues of "Catholic Family News" available at its web site as "A Traditionalist's Tale". (Editor's note: Go here, here and here.) Wonder what they'll do now that he has confessed? I hope that Marra and Malvasi are the only co-conspirators. Marra, by the way, is the daughter of William Marra, who was a philosophy professor at Fordham and who became a Traditionalist hero toward the end of his life."
Also on the Lidless Eye front, Sandra Miesel writes me to say, "My CRISIS article got slammed in THE REMNANT for 15 Dec. by Gruner's top gun. I haven't seen the thing yet but I've apparently rattled cages. I iz quietly proud."
The thing that makes the True Catholic Reactionary Dissent crowd so prima facie incredible to me is rather similar to what has always made Calvinism so prima facie difficult for me to believe. Calvinism in its purest forms has always impressed me with it's metallic logical perfection combined with a remarkable inhumanity. The most crushing conversation I ever witnessed with a Calvinist was the time a young seeker (who was waffling between Catholic faith and the persuasive logicality of Calvinism) asked the simple question, "Does God love me?" The Calvinist, after a great deal of puffing and blowing, was utterly powerless to answer that question. He wasn't sure if the Divine Computer has slotted the kid for Reprobation or Election in order to make the Heavenly Software run and so could give no answer. If you are saved then we'll know God loved you. If you aren't, then we'll know he didn't. But we can't know now whether God loves you or not. Catholics, of course, just said, "Hell, yes, God loves you!" They didn't even have to think about that one.
A similar logical perfection and heartlessness afflicts Reactionary Dissent. After you've made all the impeccable logical arguments that show how your arguments for Reactionary Dissent are obviously flawless and watertight, the question that still looms for me is "Then where is the love of God in your life?" One of my Reactionary Dissenting readers said it very clearly in a moment of unintended lucidity the other day: "Believe it or not, I didn't just wake up one day and decide to be 'reactionary'. I envy your faith and trust. Heck, I envy myself of a couple of years ago when I was going to a rather ordinary parish and thought everything was hunky dory. Sometimes I wish I never read Pius IX's syllabus of errors or Pius XI's Mortalium Animos. But what's done is done." or, as he summed it up later, "You must be a lot less cynical than I am."
This speaks volumes. It's like the Judge Pontius Pilate saying, "What is truth?" The proponent of The True Faith confesses that he has no faith or trust and he is a cynic. The emissaries of the Hope of God sees no future for the Church. The apostles of the love of Christ are pretty much a ceaseless fount of bitterness. I've literally never met a *happy* member of the Reactionary Dissent crowd. Attempt to raise such topics as the fruit of the Spirit and you get snorts of derision from such people. Love is a delusion of the 60s always sneered at as "luv". Joy? What's there to be joyful about? The Church has been betrayed by liberals! Peace? Another buzzword of liberalsm. Patience? We've been patient for forty years!, etc. The Pope *still* lives as though he believes the words with which he began his pontificate: "Be not afraid!" No clearer measures of the (at bottom) anti-Christian spirit which animates dissent (whether from the Reactionary or Leftist) is the snort of contempt and derision which greets that expression of Hope in the Lordship of Christ. The message of Dissent is "Be afraid! Be very afraid!"
I can safely say that I have never met one member of the Reactionary Dissent crowd who believed, in anything like a living way, in the reality of faith, hope, and love. At the day to day lived level, Reactionary Dissent has abandoned Christ's demand for faith, hope and charity and replaced it with cynicism, despair, and rage. And it is in the tragic position of now *enjoying* this. Very toxic.
This is, of course, similarly true for members of the liberal dissent crowd in other ways. They generally get rid of the virtue of mercy by saying there's nothing to forgive, just as they get rid of the possibility of peace by claiming there is no conflict. But most of my readers do not feel this temptation as strongly as they feel the temptation to Reactionary Dissent. So I try to scratch (and outrage) where my readers itch.
Hate mail welcome.
A reader asks
As far as I know, there's been no retraction. To retract such a statement, the editors and writers of the Post (and the pack journalists who unthinkingly regurgitate and perpetuate such quick and handy phrases as "smoking gun") would have to have to time to think and reflect on the data they have read wrongly and hastily interpreted for the sake of meeting a deadline. This would require more contemplation than your typical journalist has time or patience for.
In brief, don't hold your breath. The prejudice that the Pope must (somehow) be the "unindicted co-conspirator" in abuse and cover-up is a deeply rooted assumption in many sectors of American media culture far in advance of any evidence. Andrew Sullivan was dead certain of it in March 2002, based on nothing other than pure prejudice. Grace builds on nature, but prejudice builds on anything. So a tiny fragment of writing (badly misunderstood) constitutes the long-assumed "smoking gun" and those who are bound and determined to engage in the venerable American pastime of destroying heros will not easily give up the prejudice merely because the evidence is unbelievably flimsy. Nor will pack journalism give up an easy-to-remember slogan. The "smoking gun" will be a fixture of media jargon from here on in. It may pass into temporary disfavor while the Pope lives and it can be easily demonstrated that the NY Post's vaunted "smoking gun" was nothing of the kind. But once he's dead and memories of him fade, it will re-emerge. If Daniel Goldhagen can quote Mit Brennender Sorge and claim it is an anti-semitic text, anybody can do anything--especially in a culture as theologically illiterate and historically forgetful and ignorant as ours.
I am wondering if you know whether or not the NY Post ever printed a retraction to its article charging John Paul II as, essentially, a co-conspirator with Cardinal Law in the scandal cover-up?
This is deeply troubling for me, since I have heard it unhesitatingly quoted as fact on AM radio. It seems that I need to have an Emmaus experience in which Christ enters my heart as it debates back and forth the scandals of the day and calmly reassures me--walking the road with me then nourishing me with the Sacrament.
As far as I know, there's been no retraction. To retract such a statement, the editors and writers of the Post (and the pack journalists who unthinkingly regurgitate and perpetuate such quick and handy phrases as "smoking gun") would have to have to time to think and reflect on the data they have read wrongly and hastily interpreted for the sake of meeting a deadline. This would require more contemplation than your typical journalist has time or patience for.
In brief, don't hold your breath. The prejudice that the Pope must (somehow) be the "unindicted co-conspirator" in abuse and cover-up is a deeply rooted assumption in many sectors of American media culture far in advance of any evidence. Andrew Sullivan was dead certain of it in March 2002, based on nothing other than pure prejudice. Grace builds on nature, but prejudice builds on anything. So a tiny fragment of writing (badly misunderstood) constitutes the long-assumed "smoking gun" and those who are bound and determined to engage in the venerable American pastime of destroying heros will not easily give up the prejudice merely because the evidence is unbelievably flimsy. Nor will pack journalism give up an easy-to-remember slogan. The "smoking gun" will be a fixture of media jargon from here on in. It may pass into temporary disfavor while the Pope lives and it can be easily demonstrated that the NY Post's vaunted "smoking gun" was nothing of the kind. But once he's dead and memories of him fade, it will re-emerge. If Daniel Goldhagen can quote Mit Brennender Sorge and claim it is an anti-semitic text, anybody can do anything--especially in a culture as theologically illiterate and historically forgetful and ignorant as ours.
Interesting piece on War and Moral Reasoning by Philip Blosser
Betcha didn't know there was a Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club, didja?
Betcha didn't know there was a Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club, didja?
Saturday, December 14, 2002
Remember the Flying Monkeys!
And with that I'm outta here till sometime late in the day on Monday. Ciao!
And with that I'm outta here till sometime late in the day on Monday. Ciao!
Friday, December 13, 2002
From the "Toldja So" Department
I've always thought my priest friend's analysis of why JPII leaves these guys to face the music was the most convincing one. Now, in one of those weird ironic moments, I find the Reporter, of all things, offering rather persuasive confirmation that he's right. No doubt that's cuz they are sinister orthodox sycophants of the heirarchy who believe bishops never do wrong and the Pope is always right.
Only the pope can request a cardinal’s resignation, and John Paul II’s personal bias undoubtedly leans against doing so. The pope himself, it should be remembered, has faced calls for resignation, albeit for very different reasons — on the grounds that he is too old and weak to govern. He has consistently spurned those suggestions. “Jesus did not come down off the cross,” he recently said. Hence his inclination would doubtless be that Law should stay put and clean up the mess he’s made. That view is widely held in the Vatican. Seen from Rome, the life of a retired cardinal seems fairly sweet. One enjoys the privileges of high ecclesiastical office with few of the burdens. Staying on the job in the midst of crisis, on the other hand, is a daily ordeal. (Recall that the Vatican never removed Cardinal Michele Giordano of Naples, even when he was facing a criminal trial for loan-sharking in 2000 that could have landed him in jail. Privately, several curial officials opined that resignation was too good for him). Hence keeping Law where he is, which can look from the United States like letting him off the hook, seems instinctively to a certain Roman way of thinking like the most fitting sentence possible.
I've always thought my priest friend's analysis of why JPII leaves these guys to face the music was the most convincing one. Now, in one of those weird ironic moments, I find the Reporter, of all things, offering rather persuasive confirmation that he's right. No doubt that's cuz they are sinister orthodox sycophants of the heirarchy who believe bishops never do wrong and the Pope is always right.
Memo to the Boston Press Corps (and others)
Beware of being right. There is no more spiritually dangerous place in the world than that of Courageous Hero who Has Fought the Good Fight Against Corruption. It leaves you blind to your own capacity for evil. One of the most bittersweet pieces of literature in the world is 1 and 2 Maccabees, which recounts the heroic struggle of genuinely great men against the religious and cultural oppression of Israel wrought by Antiochus Epiphanes and others who sought to crush a small people with a noble heritage.
The haunting thing about the books, if you know Israel's history, is that these heros (and they really are heroic) are also, in part, the people who will form some of the groups most bitterly opposed to Jesus Christ. They were great and good men--and they knew it.
There's a warning here for anybody who has ever felt the (justifiable) flush of victory over wickedness (and few things are as wicked as the abuse of children and protection of their abusers). It's so easy to forget one's own capacity for evil at such times. This explains so much of the Democratic party's fall, I think. They were genuinely right and heroic on many issues that it became fatally easy to see themselves as the Good People vs. the Forces of Evil. It is a temptation that faces the whole human race. I think it faces the US as well in the War on Terror. Nobody can put on the Ring and fail to do evil. And the temptation is there. Just the other day I heard some idiot talk radio conservative eagerly advocating the nuking of Mecca. It's bad when Germans do it to Rotterdam or London. But it's okay if we do it to Mecca because we're Good. Who needs a declaration of war? In war, you do whatever it takes so that Good can have Power. And if you have to sacrifice wimpy Catholic notions of what "good" is, well, who cares what the Church thinks. It's a discredited institution. And anyway, what's so hot about goodness? Power is what gets things done. Give us power and we'll decide what "good" henceforth means.
Beware of being right. There is no more spiritually dangerous place in the world than that of Courageous Hero who Has Fought the Good Fight Against Corruption. It leaves you blind to your own capacity for evil. One of the most bittersweet pieces of literature in the world is 1 and 2 Maccabees, which recounts the heroic struggle of genuinely great men against the religious and cultural oppression of Israel wrought by Antiochus Epiphanes and others who sought to crush a small people with a noble heritage.
The haunting thing about the books, if you know Israel's history, is that these heros (and they really are heroic) are also, in part, the people who will form some of the groups most bitterly opposed to Jesus Christ. They were great and good men--and they knew it.
There's a warning here for anybody who has ever felt the (justifiable) flush of victory over wickedness (and few things are as wicked as the abuse of children and protection of their abusers). It's so easy to forget one's own capacity for evil at such times. This explains so much of the Democratic party's fall, I think. They were genuinely right and heroic on many issues that it became fatally easy to see themselves as the Good People vs. the Forces of Evil. It is a temptation that faces the whole human race. I think it faces the US as well in the War on Terror. Nobody can put on the Ring and fail to do evil. And the temptation is there. Just the other day I heard some idiot talk radio conservative eagerly advocating the nuking of Mecca. It's bad when Germans do it to Rotterdam or London. But it's okay if we do it to Mecca because we're Good. Who needs a declaration of war? In war, you do whatever it takes so that Good can have Power. And if you have to sacrifice wimpy Catholic notions of what "good" is, well, who cares what the Church thinks. It's a discredited institution. And anyway, what's so hot about goodness? Power is what gets things done. Give us power and we'll decide what "good" henceforth means.
Why now?
One of my readers want to know "Why now? Why not back in April?" Others were confidently announcing yesterday that Law was going to be kept in Rome by JPII to avoid subpoenas and other unpleasantness. WaPo says otherwise.
If my priest-friend's analysis is right, this all fits the pattern necessary to grasp JPII's thinking. The problem, pastorally, was that abusers were yanked away from the scene of the crime in the dead of night, thus depriving victims of the chance to face their abusers and vent their wrath (a prelude to forgiveness) and depriving abusers of the necessary experience of seeing the damage they have done (a prelude to serious contrition). JPII has, according to my priest, done precisely the opposite of this un-Christian secular CEO approach by forcing the bishops to remain at their post in the hope (not certainty) that the way of the Cross will bear its hard fruit. This being a prudential judgement, it's been a case of watching to see how things develop, and I think it obvious that the Pope made the right decision in now removing Law. But I also think it very significant that he his now sending Law back to Boston, not shielding him.
My point is what it has always been: we will not understand this Pope if we don't take seriously the reality that he is trying to think with the Tradition (including that hard fact of the Way of the Cross). If we try to apply CEO templates here, we will not understand him.
One of my readers want to know "Why now? Why not back in April?" Others were confidently announcing yesterday that Law was going to be kept in Rome by JPII to avoid subpoenas and other unpleasantness. WaPo says otherwise.
If my priest-friend's analysis is right, this all fits the pattern necessary to grasp JPII's thinking. The problem, pastorally, was that abusers were yanked away from the scene of the crime in the dead of night, thus depriving victims of the chance to face their abusers and vent their wrath (a prelude to forgiveness) and depriving abusers of the necessary experience of seeing the damage they have done (a prelude to serious contrition). JPII has, according to my priest, done precisely the opposite of this un-Christian secular CEO approach by forcing the bishops to remain at their post in the hope (not certainty) that the way of the Cross will bear its hard fruit. This being a prudential judgement, it's been a case of watching to see how things develop, and I think it obvious that the Pope made the right decision in now removing Law. But I also think it very significant that he his now sending Law back to Boston, not shielding him.
My point is what it has always been: we will not understand this Pope if we don't take seriously the reality that he is trying to think with the Tradition (including that hard fact of the Way of the Cross). If we try to apply CEO templates here, we will not understand him.
Pope bashing prediction:
The Amazing Sheavius predicts that we shall soon be hearing this gem of malicious falsehood: "Oh sure, *now* he accepts Law's resignation. He *had* to in order to repair his image now that the "smoking gun" has been discovered."
For those who hate the Pope, no actual evidence is ever necessary. Hatred is a flame that burns without fuel.
The Amazing Sheavius predicts that we shall soon be hearing this gem of malicious falsehood: "Oh sure, *now* he accepts Law's resignation. He *had* to in order to repair his image now that the "smoking gun" has been discovered."
For those who hate the Pope, no actual evidence is ever necessary. Hatred is a flame that burns without fuel.
And so it's done
But not, of course, over. I am dubious Law is the last to have to resign. But it is fitting that it should start there.
I feel relief--and sorrow. May he find redemption through this death. And may our poor wounded Church find healing soon. God be with Bishop Lennon as he takes up the huge and daunting task that lies before him.
But not, of course, over. I am dubious Law is the last to have to resign. But it is fitting that it should start there.
I feel relief--and sorrow. May he find redemption through this death. And may our poor wounded Church find healing soon. God be with Bishop Lennon as he takes up the huge and daunting task that lies before him.
It turns out killing large numbers of the leadership in a very top down organization leaves the stupid drones at the bottom unable to know what to do
My recommendation: kill the other two thirds of the leadership. Then kill the drones.
My recommendation: kill the other two thirds of the leadership. Then kill the drones.
Thursday, December 12, 2002
More on John Carroll U and Planned Parenthood
A reader sez:
So now you know.
A reader sez:
Some people are mistakenly thinking that John Carroll University has removed the Planned Parenthood from its suggested Counseling agencies. I noticed this in the comments section of your blog.
It has not. It is still on there. Scroll down to "Counseling sites". Planned Parenthood is the first one listed.
It is not there as a "link". It is there as a suggested counseling site.
So now you know.
WOW! NOW THIS IS BIG NEWS!
While the rest of St. Blog's busies itself today with the latest speculations about such ephemera as the fate of Cardinal Law and the worst scandal in the history of the American Church, your humble scribe sleuths out the really big stories for the ages.
FLASH! True Identity of Nihil Obstat May Have Accidently Been Revealed!
Writing from his Fortress of Solitude deep in the bowels of the Rocky Mountains and monitoring the activities of each St. Blog's parishioner (particularly their use of punctuation and grammar), Nihil Obstat has long generated a mixture of terror, respect and deep amusement among blogger who just aren't sure (or don't care) where a body is supposed to put its (it's?) apostrophe. A mob armed with torches is currently descending on this fortress with copies of The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed which they intend to set alight and hurl into the pile of candy bar wrappers wreathing his work space. A glorious pyre and a fitting end.
Oh, and in case they've got the wrong guy, they will issue a full apology.
While the rest of St. Blog's busies itself today with the latest speculations about such ephemera as the fate of Cardinal Law and the worst scandal in the history of the American Church, your humble scribe sleuths out the really big stories for the ages.
FLASH! True Identity of Nihil Obstat May Have Accidently Been Revealed!
Writing from his Fortress of Solitude deep in the bowels of the Rocky Mountains and monitoring the activities of each St. Blog's parishioner (particularly their use of punctuation and grammar), Nihil Obstat has long generated a mixture of terror, respect and deep amusement among blogger who just aren't sure (or don't care) where a body is supposed to put its (it's?) apostrophe. A mob armed with torches is currently descending on this fortress with copies of The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed which they intend to set alight and hurl into the pile of candy bar wrappers wreathing his work space. A glorious pyre and a fitting end.
Oh, and in case they've got the wrong guy, they will issue a full apology.
Boy the Nasties are out in force this week!
Stephen Hand lays into Rod Dreher and Amy Welborn in an ill-advised attack. Particularly egregious is the characterization of Amy as not being too astute, which leaves me with the same taste in my mouth as Robert Sungenis lecturing us on his intellectual superiority to Einstein. Amy is one of the sharpest people I know. Fortunately for Hand, she's also one of the best-formed Catholics I know and will probably reply with restraint. Rod, as well, will probably not offer a response as nasty as the provocation.
Memo to TCR News: finding fault with Cdl. Ratzinger's ill-advised remarks is not tantamount to trampling the Blessed Sacrament underfoot. It isn't even heresy. Lighten up.
Stephen Hand lays into Rod Dreher and Amy Welborn in an ill-advised attack. Particularly egregious is the characterization of Amy as not being too astute, which leaves me with the same taste in my mouth as Robert Sungenis lecturing us on his intellectual superiority to Einstein. Amy is one of the sharpest people I know. Fortunately for Hand, she's also one of the best-formed Catholics I know and will probably reply with restraint. Rod, as well, will probably not offer a response as nasty as the provocation.
Memo to TCR News: finding fault with Cdl. Ratzinger's ill-advised remarks is not tantamount to trampling the Blessed Sacrament underfoot. It isn't even heresy. Lighten up.
Minute Particulars has some challenging comments on the response which episcopal ordination demands from us
...even when the person ordained behaves in ways unworthy of the sacrament. Since I'm one of the offending parties here, I feel obliged to highlight the discussion which is, as usual, carefully argued and thoughtful.
...even when the person ordained behaves in ways unworthy of the sacrament. Since I'm one of the offending parties here, I feel obliged to highlight the discussion which is, as usual, carefully argued and thoughtful.
How Independent Catholic Thought Proceeds
When the Church speaks, Independent Catholic Thinkers flatly declare that they are not going to believe something simply because somebody qualified to teach Catholic theology says so. Okay, fine. Study the matter through yourself. I have enough confidence in the truth of Catholic theology that it will stand up even to the rigorous tests applied by Independent Catholic Thinkers.
But for Pete's sake, if you are going to advertise yourself as an Independent Catholic Thinker who does not just settle for believing things on the say-so of Authority, then don't instantly swallow as dogma the notion of "Pope John Paul II: Unindicted Co-Conspirator" simply because a couple of journalists went off half-cocked and misread a document. It looks a great deal like Independent Catholic Thought is simply another name for "credulity about trusted sources that confirm my prejudices."
When the Church speaks, Independent Catholic Thinkers flatly declare that they are not going to believe something simply because somebody qualified to teach Catholic theology says so. Okay, fine. Study the matter through yourself. I have enough confidence in the truth of Catholic theology that it will stand up even to the rigorous tests applied by Independent Catholic Thinkers.
But for Pete's sake, if you are going to advertise yourself as an Independent Catholic Thinker who does not just settle for believing things on the say-so of Authority, then don't instantly swallow as dogma the notion of "Pope John Paul II: Unindicted Co-Conspirator" simply because a couple of journalists went off half-cocked and misread a document. It looks a great deal like Independent Catholic Thought is simply another name for "credulity about trusted sources that confirm my prejudices."
Charles Krauthammer for Senate Majority Leader
The Typically Right On Krauthammer explains clearly why Lott is an imbecile and must go.
The Typically Right On Krauthammer explains clearly why Lott is an imbecile and must go.
Could be more snap judgements but...
A Denver (!?) news channel says Law is going to resign. 'Course, they may have it from Fox, which apparently jumped the gun, judging from Amy's blog.
This is the problem with the news industry. They are so desperate for scoops they can't wait an hour or two to find out if they know what they're talking about. By tomorrow at this time we'll probably know. The world won't end before then (probably).
A Denver (!?) news channel says Law is going to resign. 'Course, they may have it from Fox, which apparently jumped the gun, judging from Amy's blog.
This is the problem with the news industry. They are so desperate for scoops they can't wait an hour or two to find out if they know what they're talking about. By tomorrow at this time we'll probably know. The world won't end before then (probably).
Some folks are sweating that Law will stay in Rome to avoid the heat
If the Pope allows that, I will be very surprised. I think Law's gonna get sent back and still not be allowed to resign. Or, his resignation will be accepted and he'll be sent back. But I seriously doubt he'll just get the leafy retirement glade treatment. We'll see.
If the Pope allows that, I will be very surprised. I think Law's gonna get sent back and still not be allowed to resign. Or, his resignation will be accepted and he'll be sent back. But I seriously doubt he'll just get the leafy retirement glade treatment. We'll see.
Why does Catholic college John Carroll University promote pro-Abortion "Planned Parenthood" on its school website?
An excellent question. Go to this link and you can contact the people in charge at JCU and ask them directly. Remember: academic are generally cowards and you therefore have an excellent chance at getting them to back down from this betrayal of Catholic teaching, just as pressure on SFU yielded results. Unleash the power of the blog!
An excellent question. Go to this link and you can contact the people in charge at JCU and ask them directly. Remember: academic are generally cowards and you therefore have an excellent chance at getting them to back down from this betrayal of Catholic teaching, just as pressure on SFU yielded results. Unleash the power of the blog!
Not everybody who works for Microsoft is a wunderkind
See the brainiac who ripped off Microsoft (his employer) and then boasted about his vast quantities of illegal gain here. (Note, however, that the "girl" link is still empty. Apparently, he has not mastered the James Bond charm.)
See the brainaic go to jail here.
Memo to Self: If you are going to steal millions from an economic colossus known for hardball legal tactics, don't brag about it on the Web. Especially when the economic colossus is filled with people who read the Web.
See the brainiac who ripped off Microsoft (his employer) and then boasted about his vast quantities of illegal gain here. (Note, however, that the "girl" link is still empty. Apparently, he has not mastered the James Bond charm.)
See the brainaic go to jail here.
Memo to Self: If you are going to steal millions from an economic colossus known for hardball legal tactics, don't brag about it on the Web. Especially when the economic colossus is filled with people who read the Web.
Kinda like I thought
Pete Vere concurs with my wife (and me) that this whole "smoking gun" with Law cast as Nuremburg defendant ("Mein Fuehrer, I vas yust following orders") is pretty much a non-starter in the "JPII is the Evil Force behind Priestly Abuse" Scoop Sweepstakes. I think the Post badly misread the document in the hope they had a Pulitzer in hand and in the rush to make a deadline. I don't think this, by itself, is evidence of a "press conspiracy". Rather, it is evidence that people jump the gun when they are really really really hoping for a scoop. I hope the NY Post will issue a retraction of its patently false claim (a claim flatly disproven by the evidence they themselves present) that "Law was just following orders from his boss - Pope John Paul II - when he sent suspected pedophile priests back to work in parishes with kids". In fact, the document shows exactly the opposite: that JPII approved the defrocking of an abuser, not "sending him back to work in parishes". If the Post doesn't retract, then there begins to be a case for deliberate distortion of the news in order to attack JPII. Till then, it's just a case of a reporter and editorial staff making a snap judgment based on documents they did not clearly understand. It happens. Don't have too much of a cow over it. Reporters make mistakes sometimes.
Pete Vere concurs with my wife (and me) that this whole "smoking gun" with Law cast as Nuremburg defendant ("Mein Fuehrer, I vas yust following orders") is pretty much a non-starter in the "JPII is the Evil Force behind Priestly Abuse" Scoop Sweepstakes. I think the Post badly misread the document in the hope they had a Pulitzer in hand and in the rush to make a deadline. I don't think this, by itself, is evidence of a "press conspiracy". Rather, it is evidence that people jump the gun when they are really really really hoping for a scoop. I hope the NY Post will issue a retraction of its patently false claim (a claim flatly disproven by the evidence they themselves present) that "Law was just following orders from his boss - Pope John Paul II - when he sent suspected pedophile priests back to work in parishes with kids". In fact, the document shows exactly the opposite: that JPII approved the defrocking of an abuser, not "sending him back to work in parishes". If the Post doesn't retract, then there begins to be a case for deliberate distortion of the news in order to attack JPII. Till then, it's just a case of a reporter and editorial staff making a snap judgment based on documents they did not clearly understand. It happens. Don't have too much of a cow over it. Reporters make mistakes sometimes.
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
Sorry I'm so scarce
I've had Rod Bennett, author of Four Witnesses: The Early Church in Her Own Words and editor of the soon to be reborn Wonder Magazine, out to visit from Georgia and he'll be here till tomorrow morning. Lovely man, bursting with ideas and fun to gab with. But between him, choir concerts, flat tires, and Advent hurly burly, blogging gets short shrift. I'll be back with something for this holy Sparkle Season soon.
I've had Rod Bennett, author of Four Witnesses: The Early Church in Her Own Words and editor of the soon to be reborn Wonder Magazine, out to visit from Georgia and he'll be here till tomorrow morning. Lovely man, bursting with ideas and fun to gab with. But between him, choir concerts, flat tires, and Advent hurly burly, blogging gets short shrift. I'll be back with something for this holy Sparkle Season soon.
From the "Must. Get. Scoop!" Department of Snap Judgments
This piece is simply baffling to me. On the one hand, we are told that the Pope is conspiring to keep molesting priests in office. The proof? A document in which the Pope is agreeing to "defrocking" a priest. Huh?
My wife looked at it and thinks the "clause" the Pope is referring to is not about "how to keep this guy a priest" but rather is about whether or not he should be sent away from the area after he is defrocked. Hard to say. There's only a couple of lines quoted, surrounded by a lot of extremely confident statements by a reporter eager for a scoop.
I get the sense the reporter is hoping she's found the Scoop of the Century and is eager to go to press on the basis of some rather sketchy textual evidence. I'd want to see something more than a couple of interpolated lines before rendering any judgment at all. I'm particularly unimpressed with the Nuremburgish "just following orders" line when the entire import of the Pope's words is not at all about giving Law "orders" but is rather (apparently) referring him to some point in canon law about *his own* discretionary capacity as the local ordinary. There does not appear to be nearly as much There there as the reporter seems to have hastily assumed.
Hey! Pete Vere! What do you make of this?
This piece is simply baffling to me. On the one hand, we are told that the Pope is conspiring to keep molesting priests in office. The proof? A document in which the Pope is agreeing to "defrocking" a priest. Huh?
My wife looked at it and thinks the "clause" the Pope is referring to is not about "how to keep this guy a priest" but rather is about whether or not he should be sent away from the area after he is defrocked. Hard to say. There's only a couple of lines quoted, surrounded by a lot of extremely confident statements by a reporter eager for a scoop.
I get the sense the reporter is hoping she's found the Scoop of the Century and is eager to go to press on the basis of some rather sketchy textual evidence. I'd want to see something more than a couple of interpolated lines before rendering any judgment at all. I'm particularly unimpressed with the Nuremburgish "just following orders" line when the entire import of the Pope's words is not at all about giving Law "orders" but is rather (apparently) referring him to some point in canon law about *his own* discretionary capacity as the local ordinary. There does not appear to be nearly as much There there as the reporter seems to have hastily assumed.
Hey! Pete Vere! What do you make of this?
Check out the Catechism of the Catholic Church Internet Study Group
It's a web-based program for the systematic reading, study, and online discussion of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
It's a web-based program for the systematic reading, study, and online discussion of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
So hard to please everybody
To some of the more obsessed people who comment over on Amy's blog, I'm a sycophantic apologist for the hierarchy. Yet, to RC, I am simultaneously among the ranters and ravers who call daily for Law's resignation. I've made no particular secret of the fact that I think the Holy Father is leaving the American episcopacy to face the music and clean up its messes (hence I am an evil apologist for the Evil Pope, according to some). But I've also made no secret of the fact that I think this is a calculated gamble which is not guaranteed to work and which, in the case, of Cardinal Law, looks rather like it's not working. So, yeah, I think Cardinal Law should go and I hope he does. However, I sincerely doubt that blogging this opinion constitutes either ranting or raving, nor do I think the Vatican is monitoring my blog, eager to get my opinion before they make their next move. So I also sincerely doubt Rome is feeling any pressure capable of making them "buckle" from this quarter. Think of me as Statler or Waldorf from the Muppet Show. My peanut gallery remarks do not a juggernaut of political pressure make.
To some of the more obsessed people who comment over on Amy's blog, I'm a sycophantic apologist for the hierarchy. Yet, to RC, I am simultaneously among the ranters and ravers who call daily for Law's resignation. I've made no particular secret of the fact that I think the Holy Father is leaving the American episcopacy to face the music and clean up its messes (hence I am an evil apologist for the Evil Pope, according to some). But I've also made no secret of the fact that I think this is a calculated gamble which is not guaranteed to work and which, in the case, of Cardinal Law, looks rather like it's not working. So, yeah, I think Cardinal Law should go and I hope he does. However, I sincerely doubt that blogging this opinion constitutes either ranting or raving, nor do I think the Vatican is monitoring my blog, eager to get my opinion before they make their next move. So I also sincerely doubt Rome is feeling any pressure capable of making them "buckle" from this quarter. Think of me as Statler or Waldorf from the Muppet Show. My peanut gallery remarks do not a juggernaut of political pressure make.
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
Say it once, it's (maybe) a slip of the tongue (though only one an idiot would make)
Say it twice and you go to the Long Home of Imploded Political Careers and get replaced by somebody who is not the dead weight you are. Say good night, Trent.
Say it twice and you go to the Long Home of Imploded Political Careers and get replaced by somebody who is not the dead weight you are. Say good night, Trent.
We are all members of the Body of George
There's nothing like conservative American Christianity for combining blasphemy and tastelessness. This ranks right down there with Clinton's announcement of the Dawn of a New Covenant. The difference is, of course, that Clinton himself appropriated this blasphemous identification of himself with Jesus while this is just a typically tacky expression of fandom by a deluded fan of W.
There's nothing like conservative American Christianity for combining blasphemy and tastelessness. This ranks right down there with Clinton's announcement of the Dawn of a New Covenant. The difference is, of course, that Clinton himself appropriated this blasphemous identification of himself with Jesus while this is just a typically tacky expression of fandom by a deluded fan of W.
Victor Lams is a deranged genius
Scroll down for some terrific posters that capture the true spirit of Planned Parenthood.
Scroll down for some terrific posters that capture the true spirit of Planned Parenthood.
James Preece captures the Planned Barrenhood Zeitgeist of the Holidays
Cleverly named blog. I wonder where he got the idea?
Cleverly named blog. I wonder where he got the idea?
Catechumen seeks advice
Don't have much experience with folks from a Hindu background and so am not sure what might scratch where they itch. Peter Kreeft's Fundamentals of the Faith might be of help. Anybody else have any recommendations?
I'm a catechumen eagerly seeking baptism, but my parents (HIndus, who emigrated from India in the 70s) are strongly opposed. (It might be useful to know that I'm a 20 year old undergrad.)
My father, who is loving and amazingly dedicated, is extremely concerned and feels personal rejection at the fact that I would choose Christianity instead of following the tradition of his parents and grandparents, etc. I want to communicate to him that my choice is *not* a rejection, but this will be a difficult task! He is having problems with his own father, and the last thing he needs is for his son to convert to a religion he doesn't understand. I really fear that the way things are now, my baptism could seriously damage our family.
My mother is much more open to the idea personally, but she is very concerned about my father's feelings and emotional state, and also about whether I will make a decision I will later regret. In other words, she's being protective.
But I have hope! My mother has asked me about what she could read, so I wanted to ask your readers for suggestions. She has a bible, and some good books on basic doctrine. Are there any works readers can suggest that are warm, open, profound? Works that don't deal with doctrines/dogmas, or technicalities, but works that evoke the beauties of Christian prayer, or Our Lord's Sacrifice, or Sin/Redemption, or how not only non-intellectuals believe in Sacramentalism? I would especially love books that demonstrate to her that Catholicism is not exclusionary or bigoted, but rather open and warm. And of course I don't want anything that might in any way alienate a Hindu mother who is trying to understand what her son is thinking! I hope the best way to my father will be through my mother. Any help is greatly greatly appreciated. And pray for me!
PS: Books/tapes are great, but the less expensive the better. College student = no cash.
Don't have much experience with folks from a Hindu background and so am not sure what might scratch where they itch. Peter Kreeft's Fundamentals of the Faith might be of help. Anybody else have any recommendations?
Few things are harder than being in some foreign land in wartime
Take some time to support our wonderful troops by visiting the Department of Defense web page and signing a brief message thanking the men and women of the U.S. Military for defending our freedom. The compiled list of names will be sent to our soldiers at the end of the month. So far, only about 1.3 million people have signed up -- what a shame. It literally only takes about 10 seconds to add your name to the list. Please Pass it along - national military appreciation month!
Take some time to support our wonderful troops by visiting the Department of Defense web page and signing a brief message thanking the men and women of the U.S. Military for defending our freedom. The compiled list of names will be sent to our soldiers at the end of the month. So far, only about 1.3 million people have signed up -- what a shame. It literally only takes about 10 seconds to add your name to the list. Please Pass it along - national military appreciation month!
The Bishops Continue Showing Rome that Together, With-It and Hip Americans Don't Need Rome's Fusty Advice on Making Catholic Universities Catholic
If the past year has shown us anything, it's that the American ecclesiat is quite able to manage it's own affairs and doesn't need anybody lecturing it on "fidelity to apostolic teaching" thankyouverymuch.
Just in case you are one of those troublesome "orthodox dissenters" (people who dissent from dissent and protest protestors), you might want to follow the same pattern established on this here site previously and unleash the power of the blog. After all, we've seen it gets results.
If the past year has shown us anything, it's that the American ecclesiat is quite able to manage it's own affairs and doesn't need anybody lecturing it on "fidelity to apostolic teaching" thankyouverymuch.
Just in case you are one of those troublesome "orthodox dissenters" (people who dissent from dissent and protest protestors), you might want to follow the same pattern established on this here site previously and unleash the power of the blog. After all, we've seen it gets results.
From the culture clash department
Sandra Meisel (who seem to have access to all sorts of arcana) sez: "Here's a heads-up: EWTN will be interviewing Peter Jackson and some cast members on their World Over Live section on this Friday Dec 13th at 10PM Pacfic time. This should be odd, on several levels." EWTN streams, for all you webheads.
Sandra Meisel (who seem to have access to all sorts of arcana) sez: "Here's a heads-up: EWTN will be interviewing Peter Jackson and some cast members on their World Over Live section on this Friday Dec 13th at 10PM Pacfic time. This should be odd, on several levels." EWTN streams, for all you webheads.
And the award for Clearest Telegraph Message of Bias in a Reviewer goes to...
The Spectator! Any reviewer who can open his review of Daniel Goldhagen's over-the-top hatchet job "A Moral Reckoning" with "This is one of the most devastating but, at the same time, restrained and balanced indictments, among the many that have appeared, of the conduct of the Roman Catholic Church in the face of the Holocaust" has already made extremely clear that he has not interest in reality. "Restrained and balanced"! Feh!
The Spectator! Any reviewer who can open his review of Daniel Goldhagen's over-the-top hatchet job "A Moral Reckoning" with "This is one of the most devastating but, at the same time, restrained and balanced indictments, among the many that have appeared, of the conduct of the Roman Catholic Church in the face of the Holocaust" has already made extremely clear that he has not interest in reality. "Restrained and balanced"! Feh!
Pope seeks nations to be more welcoming of aliens, widows and orphans
Conservatives outraged by bizarre unbiblical leftist notions
Conservatives outraged by bizarre unbiblical leftist notions
Monday, December 09, 2002
The Planned Parenthood Slogan Contest
People have been asking me if I'm going to judge the slogans submitted.
Oh nonononono! There's a much better place to send your slogans, so by all means do! Send them to the Planned Parenthood poster contest! Flood them with your ideas! They deserve to hear from us.
The artistically inclined should feel free to make their contributions too. Wickedly satirical tends to pack a greater punch than gruesome.
Knock 'em dead.
People have been asking me if I'm going to judge the slogans submitted.
Oh nonononono! There's a much better place to send your slogans, so by all means do! Send them to the Planned Parenthood poster contest! Flood them with your ideas! They deserve to hear from us.
The artistically inclined should feel free to make their contributions too. Wickedly satirical tends to pack a greater punch than gruesome.
Knock 'em dead.
It's like having the planets align--a once in a lifetime occurrence!
Andrew Sullivan, Jesse Jackson, Amy Welborn, David Frum, Al Sharpton and I all agree about one thing: Trent Lott is an idiot. I will not grieve to see him go. Maybe they can make him Cardinal Archbishop of Boston!
Andrew Sullivan, Jesse Jackson, Amy Welborn, David Frum, Al Sharpton and I all agree about one thing: Trent Lott is an idiot. I will not grieve to see him go. Maybe they can make him Cardinal Archbishop of Boston!
Blog Power gets Results
A reader writes:
A reader writes:
I don't know if any of your readers let you know about a response to your request (via reader) to send emails concerning the planned parenthood stuff on USF's site. I received this back in reply to the email I sent. It is kind of mushy in wording, but at least the material has been removed. Hopefully when students contact them directly then won't refer them to banned parenthood and its ilk. The following is the email received:
I have received your comments regarding the Student Health Education Program website. We will take your concerns under advisement as we review the site content. In the meantime, while we make a decision regarding the information provided on the pregnancy section of the website, we have eliminated all website links and are asking our students to contact us directly with inquiries.
Sincerely,
Margaret M. Higgins, Ph.D.
Vice President for University Life
Chief Student Affairs Officer
University of San Francisco
A reader writes
I tend to be suspicious of the bona fides of stories like this in the Fundy press. I suppose the bell curve applies to priests as much as anybody, and that there could be a priest who could go through years of formation and still somehow believe Catholics are forbidden to read the Bible, or must "earn the possibility of staying close to the altar" or all the various other Fundy canards repeated above, but I frankly doubt it. Either this guy is an utter moron who learned *nothing* about what Catholics really believe or (more likely) he's an Alberto Rivera clone and a put on. It's stretch credulity to the breaking point for me that we are looking at errors in the intellect here. I think this guy's a liar, feeding lies perhaps about his credentials as an ex-priest and certainly about what Catholics believe to a gullible anti-Catholic readership that doesn't know any better and delights in these sorts of "conversion stories". Call it "Surprised by Lies" and that' pretty much nailed it. As to what you should do, I suppose writing him is not a bad idea, but I think you are dealing with a corrupt will, not with a badly formed intellect. If the will is bent on remaining corrupt, our Lord's advice is still best: Do not cast your pearls before swine. But write him to find out. He might just be a well-meaning idiot who has totally misunderstood everything about the Faith. In which case it is a work of mercy to instruct the ignorant.
I was surfing, when I read this account of a Czech priest , George Kucera, who left the priesthood for greener pastures of Fundamentalism. I suppose there is a number of ways to read it. One, is with anger, because it is full of false and fatuous statements like:
I liked to serve in the church, to smell the incense with the candles, to hear the marvelous organ music, and to earn the possibility of staying close to the altar where the priest "sacrificed Jesus hidden in the bread and the wine". ...
Many doubts sprang up when I studied the history of Catholic dogmas and the theology of Thomas Acquinas which is totally constructed on the pagan philosophy of Aristotle. I committed three "errors" according to Catholic teaching: I began to read the Bible, used my head to think about all statements and situations in the Church of Rome, and thus became disobedient to my superiors. ...
As many other priests, I acted with presumption and superiority as one of the real "possessors" of Truth. "Away from me Protestant!" they say in Prague even today. The people of my homeland are proud for burning Jan Hus alive some 600 years ago. [NB: As someone who has lived in the Czech Republic for a number of years, let me just say that this is emphatically wrong. Most Czech Catholics I know hope that Hus will eventually be rehabilitated] ...
The way I read it, mainly, is this way. Here is a man, it seems to me, who was poorly formed as a Catholic priest, who harbors a lot of resentments towards his ecclesiastical superiors and authority in general, and probably was quite lonely and exhausted as a priest in a foreign country. I think the fundamentalists who co-opted him exploited all of these things, and now continue exploit him by parading him about like an anti-papist pachyderm. I know that sounds sarchastic; it does appear that all involved in the Bearan Ministry are mostly well intentioned. Nevertheless, it seems to me that there is a bit of pride working here - let me quote George again:
God still has a 'remnant' of His people, who represent real heritage of the divine project of unconditional and irresistible calling for the eternal Salvation, prepared before the beginning of the world. I didn't get this reality immediately, during my studies. Today, I know that I am not alone.
I wish I could do something for George - I am actually tempted to write him, but I am afraid I would end up on the receiving end of a barrage of correspondence hoping to correct the error of my ways. I'm not sure that I'm prepared for that. I will pray for him. Still, I'm wondering if there is anything else I should do. Any thoughts?
I tend to be suspicious of the bona fides of stories like this in the Fundy press. I suppose the bell curve applies to priests as much as anybody, and that there could be a priest who could go through years of formation and still somehow believe Catholics are forbidden to read the Bible, or must "earn the possibility of staying close to the altar" or all the various other Fundy canards repeated above, but I frankly doubt it. Either this guy is an utter moron who learned *nothing* about what Catholics really believe or (more likely) he's an Alberto Rivera clone and a put on. It's stretch credulity to the breaking point for me that we are looking at errors in the intellect here. I think this guy's a liar, feeding lies perhaps about his credentials as an ex-priest and certainly about what Catholics believe to a gullible anti-Catholic readership that doesn't know any better and delights in these sorts of "conversion stories". Call it "Surprised by Lies" and that' pretty much nailed it. As to what you should do, I suppose writing him is not a bad idea, but I think you are dealing with a corrupt will, not with a badly formed intellect. If the will is bent on remaining corrupt, our Lord's advice is still best: Do not cast your pearls before swine. But write him to find out. He might just be a well-meaning idiot who has totally misunderstood everything about the Faith. In which case it is a work of mercy to instruct the ignorant.
The Lidless Eye Turns its Pitiless Gaze This Way
Springing to the defense of such worthy causes as geocentrism, the defeat of Einstein, and, of course, the boosting of those who promote important ideas like Holocaust denial and a non-rotational earth, the Daily Catholic continues to be a worthy of demonstration of why Reactionary Dissent is an island of irrelevance in an ocean of suffering humanity. Someday movements like this will constitute a footnote in some history of religious movements in the early 21st Century, along with Seventh Seed in the Spirit Peculiar Baptists.
Springing to the defense of such worthy causes as geocentrism, the defeat of Einstein, and, of course, the boosting of those who promote important ideas like Holocaust denial and a non-rotational earth, the Daily Catholic continues to be a worthy of demonstration of why Reactionary Dissent is an island of irrelevance in an ocean of suffering humanity. Someday movements like this will constitute a footnote in some history of religious movements in the early 21st Century, along with Seventh Seed in the Spirit Peculiar Baptists.
Sheesh! I leave town and Law goes to Rome
Personally, I hope he's there to say, "I surrender. Life is hell. I've screwed up too badly to repair it. Let somebody else with a little credibility take over." But I'm not at all confident that will happen. The Pope seems quite willing to let life be hell for these guys. We'll see.
Personally, I hope he's there to say, "I surrender. Life is hell. I've screwed up too badly to repair it. Let somebody else with a little credibility take over." But I'm not at all confident that will happen. The Pope seems quite willing to let life be hell for these guys. We'll see.
Kalamazoo was great!
A terrific diocese! The class was fun, the people were great, and the food was scrumptious. I even got to meet the bishop, who celebrated Mass and hung around to hear the first part of the class, to my surprise (no pressure!) I also survived the flight home despite mechanical problems they discovered when we were about to land which left us circling Seattle till they could figure out what to do. It was an extra specially good feeling to have terra firma under my feet. I flew United. Don't fly airlines that are about to go bankrupt. :)
A terrific diocese! The class was fun, the people were great, and the food was scrumptious. I even got to meet the bishop, who celebrated Mass and hung around to hear the first part of the class, to my surprise (no pressure!) I also survived the flight home despite mechanical problems they discovered when we were about to land which left us circling Seattle till they could figure out what to do. It was an extra specially good feeling to have terra firma under my feet. I flew United. Don't fly airlines that are about to go bankrupt. :)
Thursday, December 05, 2002
K-A-L-A-M-A-Z-O-O What a diocese! A real pipperoo!
I'm outta here early this week so's I can make the haj to Kalamazoo and yak about Making Senses Out of Scripture. Hope to see all you Michiganders and other Midwest types there this Saturday. You can laugh at my chattering teeth and make up derisive names for me like "Temperate Boy". See ya Monday! You kids don't put no beans up your noses!
I'm outta here early this week so's I can make the haj to Kalamazoo and yak about Making Senses Out of Scripture. Hope to see all you Michiganders and other Midwest types there this Saturday. You can laugh at my chattering teeth and make up derisive names for me like "Temperate Boy". See ya Monday! You kids don't put no beans up your noses!
NEW TAPE MAY MEAN AL GORE IS ALIVE
Intelligence Analysts Studying Chilling 'Today Show' Appearance
A videotape purporting to show former Vice President Al Gore appearing on NBC's "Today Show" with Katie Couric to promote a new book is the strongest evidence to date that Mr. Gore may be alive, intelligence sources said today.
While the former Democratic standard bearer had been virtually invisible since the 2000 election, leading many to believe that he had disappeared for good, the "Today Show" tape offered chilling proof that he may in fact be alive and could be threatening to run for President again.
U.S. intelligence analysts were said to be closely examining the tape to determine if the person sitting on Ms. Couric's couch is in fact Mr. Gore, but were withholding a final verdict until further analysis could be performed.
"The person on the tape could very well be Al Gore," said a source familiar with the videotape. "On the other hand, it could also be a full-sized wooden puppet painted to resemble Al Gore."
The source said that the process of authenticating the tape was made more difficult by the fact that it is "almost impossible" to tell the difference between Mr. Gore and a full-sized wooden puppet, the chief difference being that a wooden puppet is "slightly more animated."
Intelligence analysts are comparing the "Today Show" tape to tapes of Mr. Gore's 2000 debates to determine if in fact Mr. Gore is alive, as some Democratic strategists fear he may be.
"What's tricky about this is that after looking at the tapes of the debates, it's not clear that Al Gore was alive back in 2000, either," the source said.
UPDATE: I did not write this. Somebody sent it in an email and I posted it. There was no attribution, but you might check Scrappleface or the Onion and see if it came from there. I'm not as funny as whoever wrote this. Sorry for the confusion!
Intelligence Analysts Studying Chilling 'Today Show' Appearance
A videotape purporting to show former Vice President Al Gore appearing on NBC's "Today Show" with Katie Couric to promote a new book is the strongest evidence to date that Mr. Gore may be alive, intelligence sources said today.
While the former Democratic standard bearer had been virtually invisible since the 2000 election, leading many to believe that he had disappeared for good, the "Today Show" tape offered chilling proof that he may in fact be alive and could be threatening to run for President again.
U.S. intelligence analysts were said to be closely examining the tape to determine if the person sitting on Ms. Couric's couch is in fact Mr. Gore, but were withholding a final verdict until further analysis could be performed.
"The person on the tape could very well be Al Gore," said a source familiar with the videotape. "On the other hand, it could also be a full-sized wooden puppet painted to resemble Al Gore."
The source said that the process of authenticating the tape was made more difficult by the fact that it is "almost impossible" to tell the difference between Mr. Gore and a full-sized wooden puppet, the chief difference being that a wooden puppet is "slightly more animated."
Intelligence analysts are comparing the "Today Show" tape to tapes of Mr. Gore's 2000 debates to determine if in fact Mr. Gore is alive, as some Democratic strategists fear he may be.
"What's tricky about this is that after looking at the tapes of the debates, it's not clear that Al Gore was alive back in 2000, either," the source said.
UPDATE: I did not write this. Somebody sent it in an email and I posted it. There was no attribution, but you might check Scrappleface or the Onion and see if it came from there. I'm not as funny as whoever wrote this. Sorry for the confusion!
A sentiment to go with "Choice on Earth"
While we are bowdlerizing Christian phrases, how about "Red and yellow, black and white/they are worthless in our sight./PP kills the little children of the world!"
While we are bowdlerizing Christian phrases, how about "Red and yellow, black and white/they are worthless in our sight./PP kills the little children of the world!"
Not a State Church, but Still a Product of our Culture
Had an interesting talk with a friend last night. He's a historian (Eastern Europe, 20th century) and tends to take the long view of things as a result. Sensible guy. He offered his opinion that democratic cultures tend to get the expression of Church that they deserve. A country as screwed up about sex as we are has produced a clergy and episcopacy that is deeply screwed up about sex. He noted that the Polish Church (an area of some expertise for him) couldn't afford such problems (because the commies would use it as a pretense for oppression) and tended to police its own very well. This pattern still continues in Poland. The archbishop of Krakow recently got the axe rather swiftly. (Sorry, don't know the details.) He noted that it looks rather peculiar to the rest of the world that the US is simultaneously the mass exporter of sexual depravity to the world and yet also the first to scream about sexual depravity in its clergy, a judgment I suspect future historians will also note with amusement, much as they now chuckle over Victorian hypocrisy. It's sort of like the bizarre spectacle of partial birth abortion supporters fretting about "The Children" in Bill Clinton ads. Looks weird and sick because it is.
And all this apostate Puritan sexual weirdness (which is 99.9% the proud creation of we laypeople) finds its way (like radioactive waste in the water table) into every cranny of the culture, including the clergy and the episcopacy. Now, just as it's way too convenient for the clergy to point fingers at the media and say "Blame the bias!" so it is way too convenient for us laypeople who participate so eagerly in the culture of weird sick apostate Puritan bizarreness to say "This is exclusively a problem with the hierarchy". Oh, the stories I could tell of idiot Catholic laity and their numbskull attitudes to the common sense (let alone divine revelation) when it comes to sex. We are, after all, talking about a population which has an *identical* abortion rate (and pro-abortion voting rate) to the population at large. It's a population that tut-tuts/salivates over JonBenet Ramsey photos along with the rest of the people in the checkout line and buys teen slut Cristina Aguilera CDs in quantities indistinguishable from the general population. Indeed, that fine sample of Catholic womanhood mirrors the Wisdom of Lay American Catholic Culture much as Madonna did. And it is this culture which produces the men who go to seminary, who work their way through the bureaucracy, who lecture the Dinosaur in Rome on how advanced Americans are, and who insist on their right to a "voice" in determining just which ideal candidates the Holy Father will have to choose from for the next episcopal appointment.
For that is the way things work, of course. The Pope does not put a quarter in the papal telescope, peer across the Atlantic into the rectory of Fr. Saintly Lovesthepoor of St. Holy Orthodox Martyr parish in Bugtussle, OK and say, "Hey! That's the guy I want for the bishop of Palm Beach!" Rather, relying on the basic Catholic principle of subsidiarity, the Holy Father says, "Let the people closest to things discern among themselves who would be the best candidate." In our infinite and superior wisdom, we Americans then propose to the Holy Father the Great Lights that our keen and spiritual culture produces and says, "These are the candidates. We have spoken! Trust us!" And the Holy Father, working with what we've given him (what other choice does he have?), appoints (be afraid, be very afraid) the people we think are the best, according to the information we give him.
Other cultures don't seem to have as much trouble coming up with worthier men for the episcopacy. But our culture has the created the USCCB as a sort of machine for weeding out people who really care about teaching and living the Tradition. This, we have called a triumph ofdemocracy collegiality, but really it's a triumph of bureaucracy. And the bureaucracy exists, in great part, to preserve and protect the culture of clever rejection of Catholic teaching. And the clever rejection of Catholic teaching exists, in large measure, to preserve and protect our obsession with sexual license. And, like all people with obsessions, we deflect attention from the fact that we are majorly screwed up by righteously condemning Those People Over There and assuring ourselves that we aren't as bad as *that*!
After the conversation with my friend, I came away hearing my remote descendants laughing at all us righteous laypeople with a mixture of pity, disgust and contempt. Most disquieting. I'd better get back to laying the blame exclusively at the feet of bishops. It'll make me feel better.
Had an interesting talk with a friend last night. He's a historian (Eastern Europe, 20th century) and tends to take the long view of things as a result. Sensible guy. He offered his opinion that democratic cultures tend to get the expression of Church that they deserve. A country as screwed up about sex as we are has produced a clergy and episcopacy that is deeply screwed up about sex. He noted that the Polish Church (an area of some expertise for him) couldn't afford such problems (because the commies would use it as a pretense for oppression) and tended to police its own very well. This pattern still continues in Poland. The archbishop of Krakow recently got the axe rather swiftly. (Sorry, don't know the details.) He noted that it looks rather peculiar to the rest of the world that the US is simultaneously the mass exporter of sexual depravity to the world and yet also the first to scream about sexual depravity in its clergy, a judgment I suspect future historians will also note with amusement, much as they now chuckle over Victorian hypocrisy. It's sort of like the bizarre spectacle of partial birth abortion supporters fretting about "The Children" in Bill Clinton ads. Looks weird and sick because it is.
And all this apostate Puritan sexual weirdness (which is 99.9% the proud creation of we laypeople) finds its way (like radioactive waste in the water table) into every cranny of the culture, including the clergy and the episcopacy. Now, just as it's way too convenient for the clergy to point fingers at the media and say "Blame the bias!" so it is way too convenient for us laypeople who participate so eagerly in the culture of weird sick apostate Puritan bizarreness to say "This is exclusively a problem with the hierarchy". Oh, the stories I could tell of idiot Catholic laity and their numbskull attitudes to the common sense (let alone divine revelation) when it comes to sex. We are, after all, talking about a population which has an *identical* abortion rate (and pro-abortion voting rate) to the population at large. It's a population that tut-tuts/salivates over JonBenet Ramsey photos along with the rest of the people in the checkout line and buys teen slut Cristina Aguilera CDs in quantities indistinguishable from the general population. Indeed, that fine sample of Catholic womanhood mirrors the Wisdom of Lay American Catholic Culture much as Madonna did. And it is this culture which produces the men who go to seminary, who work their way through the bureaucracy, who lecture the Dinosaur in Rome on how advanced Americans are, and who insist on their right to a "voice" in determining just which ideal candidates the Holy Father will have to choose from for the next episcopal appointment.
For that is the way things work, of course. The Pope does not put a quarter in the papal telescope, peer across the Atlantic into the rectory of Fr. Saintly Lovesthepoor of St. Holy Orthodox Martyr parish in Bugtussle, OK and say, "Hey! That's the guy I want for the bishop of Palm Beach!" Rather, relying on the basic Catholic principle of subsidiarity, the Holy Father says, "Let the people closest to things discern among themselves who would be the best candidate." In our infinite and superior wisdom, we Americans then propose to the Holy Father the Great Lights that our keen and spiritual culture produces and says, "These are the candidates. We have spoken! Trust us!" And the Holy Father, working with what we've given him (what other choice does he have?), appoints (be afraid, be very afraid) the people we think are the best, according to the information we give him.
Other cultures don't seem to have as much trouble coming up with worthier men for the episcopacy. But our culture has the created the USCCB as a sort of machine for weeding out people who really care about teaching and living the Tradition. This, we have called a triumph of
After the conversation with my friend, I came away hearing my remote descendants laughing at all us righteous laypeople with a mixture of pity, disgust and contempt. Most disquieting. I'd better get back to laying the blame exclusively at the feet of bishops. It'll make me feel better.
You guys are on the same wavelength!
On reader sends along today's reading as a comment on Current Events:
... while another reader finds this little tidbit from a sermon by the Anglican divine John Keble:
Keble is, of course, writing for a state Church, which ours is not. But the parallel is still striking.
On reader sends along today's reading as a comment on Current Events:
Every one then who hears these words of Mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; [25] and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. [26]And every one who hears these words of Mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand; [27] and the rain fell, and the floods came, and winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it
... while another reader finds this little tidbit from a sermon by the Anglican divine John Keble:
"[H]as He forgotten to be angry with impiety and practical atheism? Either this must be affirmed, or men must own, (what is clear at once to plain unsophisticated readers,) that this first overt act, which began the downfall of the Jewish nation, stands on record, with its fatal consequences, for a perpetual warning to all nations, as well as to all individual Christians, who, having accepted God for their King, allow themselves to be weary of subjection to Him, and think they should be happier if they were freer, and more like the rest of the world."
Keble is, of course, writing for a state Church, which ours is not. But the parallel is still striking.
Christ is Still King, You Know
If he can reclaim Magadan and the gulag, Boston's redemption is to be hoped for. Now is not the time for despair. Despair is cowardice. Soldier on. "It is a man's entire duty to fight and pray." - Gen. Stonewall Jackson
If he can reclaim Magadan and the gulag, Boston's redemption is to be hoped for. Now is not the time for despair. Despair is cowardice. Soldier on. "It is a man's entire duty to fight and pray." - Gen. Stonewall Jackson
Unleash the Power of the Blog!
A reader writes:
The great thing about academics is that they are typically spineless cowards who really do respond to sufficient pressure. However you, gentle reader, must supply that pressure.
A reader writes:
After seeing on your blog the link to USF and how they use webspace to advertise for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers, I decided to act. First, I e-mailed the link to all the good Jebbies I know, and they started mailing it out to other good Jebbies they knew, and word started to pass. Several of them contacted USF and started objecting. Then, I went over to Free Republic and posted the link here--www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/800614/posts-- and requested people to e-mail to the Bishop of San Fran, the California Province, and the President of USF. I think a lot of people e-mailed in to these people, and I already got a reply from the president of USF. They are starting to feel the heat. We can get this link removed from the site if we keep up the pressure. Here are the e-mail addresses for the Bishop, the Province, and the President respectively:
Most Rev. William J. Levada mersont@sfarchdiocese.org
California Province Jesuits calprovsj@calprov.org
Stephen A. Privett S.J. privett@usfca.edu
Could you please post these e-mail addresses on your blog, inform people of the e-mail campaign and ask them to join in?
My screen name at Free Republic = pseudo-justin
P.S. Let's try to get all of St. Blog's involved in the campaign. It is worth it...
The great thing about academics is that they are typically spineless cowards who really do respond to sufficient pressure. However you, gentle reader, must supply that pressure.
A reader has some rather pointed questions for the inept Cardinal Archbishop of Boston
I summarize them as follows:
1. Father Stockholm Syndrome has had this style of ministry consistently for a quarter century; why is it suddenly a big issue?
2. After banning lay groups from using property they paid for, is it really wise to now ban priests from meeting?
3. Where is this going to stop? Are you next going to put the archdiocese under interdict and forbid them from gathering for Mass?
4. Why would you take this action without at least talking to Fr Syndrome? We don't know why you did this, whether it is punitive, directed at Fr. Syndrome, or the parish or the hundred priests...
5. You just antagonized a hundred priests who wanted to meet--without explanation. You abruptly cancelled their meeting. Now they either scramble for a new venue or have to reschedule. Do you have any idea what you've done?
Good questions all. For myself, I have no idea if Fr. Syndrome was told privately by Law why the meeting was cancelled. But there was certainly no public explanation.
It's sort of like watching Leo X's inept and ham-fisted dealings with Martin Luther. Question 1 particularly highlights the problem now facing any future attempts at reform. A new bishop (Cardinal Law: hint! hint! ) would be able to credibly put the brakes on the lemming-like rush to exacerbate exactly the sexual license and heresy which got Boston where it is. But the current bishop is in a very hard position for being taken seriously when he develops a sudden interest in doing things he should have done 20 years ago.
Update: A reader sez: "Hi, Mark. I think your reader and the AP reporter may be misreading the Cardinal's order.
The dissenting Fr. Walter Cuenin's parish, known jocularly as "WallyWorld", has been a frequent site of official events for many years, most notably for the visit of Mother Teresa.
The Cardinal's order bans official archdiocesan events from lending their prestige to WallyWorld. Of course he should have done this 20 years ago, and it seems a ridiculously weak move now. Anyway, it's not clear that the order forbids individual priests from meeting and discussing anything."
I summarize them as follows:
1. Father Stockholm Syndrome has had this style of ministry consistently for a quarter century; why is it suddenly a big issue?
2. After banning lay groups from using property they paid for, is it really wise to now ban priests from meeting?
3. Where is this going to stop? Are you next going to put the archdiocese under interdict and forbid them from gathering for Mass?
4. Why would you take this action without at least talking to Fr Syndrome? We don't know why you did this, whether it is punitive, directed at Fr. Syndrome, or the parish or the hundred priests...
5. You just antagonized a hundred priests who wanted to meet--without explanation. You abruptly cancelled their meeting. Now they either scramble for a new venue or have to reschedule. Do you have any idea what you've done?
Good questions all. For myself, I have no idea if Fr. Syndrome was told privately by Law why the meeting was cancelled. But there was certainly no public explanation.
It's sort of like watching Leo X's inept and ham-fisted dealings with Martin Luther. Question 1 particularly highlights the problem now facing any future attempts at reform. A new bishop (Cardinal Law: hint! hint! ) would be able to credibly put the brakes on the lemming-like rush to exacerbate exactly the sexual license and heresy which got Boston where it is. But the current bishop is in a very hard position for being taken seriously when he develops a sudden interest in doing things he should have done 20 years ago.
Update: A reader sez: "Hi, Mark. I think your reader and the AP reporter may be misreading the Cardinal's order.
The dissenting Fr. Walter Cuenin's parish, known jocularly as "WallyWorld", has been a frequent site of official events for many years, most notably for the visit of Mother Teresa.
The Cardinal's order bans official archdiocesan events from lending their prestige to WallyWorld. Of course he should have done this 20 years ago, and it seems a ridiculously weak move now. Anyway, it's not clear that the order forbids individual priests from meeting and discussing anything."
Spiritual AIDS and How it Works
A bishop like Cardinal L (L for, uh, Leukocyte. Yeah, that's it! That's the ticket! Leukocyte) is supposed to, among other things see to it that pathogens in the Body of Christ can't multiply and cause infections, disease and death. However, due to a severe infection of AIDS brought on by his moral idiocy of the highest order, he can no longer do that job since nobody takes him seriously and yet he is still there, in office, supposedly teaching, governing and sanctifying. The reason he is so ineffective now is because he did not seriously oppose a culture of sexual license and dissent in his archdiocese for 20 long years but instead greased the wheels of institutional machinery while that culture raped the children of the flock and he protected the rapists.
Now come the victims of Stockholm Syndrome. These are people who have been raped--spiritually and/or physically--by advocates of the culture of sexual license and dissent, yet whose only catechesis came from the people who raped and victimized them. So, knowing nothing else, they parrot the only twaddle they know and demand even *more* of a culture of sexual license and dissent. Indeed, so strongly are they imprinted on their victimizers that a lawyer for one of the victims once said of Paul Shanley, "If he weren't a damned pervert, he'd be my hero." With moral and spiritual compasses thus so much more well-attuned than that of Cardinal L, they think they are being progressive when in fact they are being fools. Cardinal L, compromised moral idiot though he is, can at least see this, and so tries to stop them from hurrying forward with the demolition of Catholic teaching which their pastor advocates. However, he does it in such a ham-fisted way, that he alienates still more people. Even people who know that Pastor Stockholm Syndrome at Our Lady of Perpetual License and Dissent is very bad news indeed.
At which point, a parasitic infection called a "journalist" steps in to helpfully cast the whole conflict in the white hat/black hat terms so beloved by American media. The Stockholm Syndrome parish is "vibrant" and the idiot pastor is "outspoken" while, of course, the bishop is an authoritarian ogre whose only conceivable rationale for his acts is the raw exercise of power. Catholic teaching is thus further delegitimated and the victims of Stockholm Syndrome continue their lemming-like rush toward repeating the tragedies of the past by urging still more Paul Shanleys to find their voice and overthrow the "oppressive" doctrines of chastity.
Nice job, Cardinal L!
A bishop like Cardinal L (L for, uh, Leukocyte. Yeah, that's it! That's the ticket! Leukocyte) is supposed to, among other things see to it that pathogens in the Body of Christ can't multiply and cause infections, disease and death. However, due to a severe infection of AIDS brought on by his moral idiocy of the highest order, he can no longer do that job since nobody takes him seriously and yet he is still there, in office, supposedly teaching, governing and sanctifying. The reason he is so ineffective now is because he did not seriously oppose a culture of sexual license and dissent in his archdiocese for 20 long years but instead greased the wheels of institutional machinery while that culture raped the children of the flock and he protected the rapists.
Now come the victims of Stockholm Syndrome. These are people who have been raped--spiritually and/or physically--by advocates of the culture of sexual license and dissent, yet whose only catechesis came from the people who raped and victimized them. So, knowing nothing else, they parrot the only twaddle they know and demand even *more* of a culture of sexual license and dissent. Indeed, so strongly are they imprinted on their victimizers that a lawyer for one of the victims once said of Paul Shanley, "If he weren't a damned pervert, he'd be my hero." With moral and spiritual compasses thus so much more well-attuned than that of Cardinal L, they think they are being progressive when in fact they are being fools. Cardinal L, compromised moral idiot though he is, can at least see this, and so tries to stop them from hurrying forward with the demolition of Catholic teaching which their pastor advocates. However, he does it in such a ham-fisted way, that he alienates still more people. Even people who know that Pastor Stockholm Syndrome at Our Lady of Perpetual License and Dissent is very bad news indeed.
At which point, a parasitic infection called a "journalist" steps in to helpfully cast the whole conflict in the white hat/black hat terms so beloved by American media. The Stockholm Syndrome parish is "vibrant" and the idiot pastor is "outspoken" while, of course, the bishop is an authoritarian ogre whose only conceivable rationale for his acts is the raw exercise of power. Catholic teaching is thus further delegitimated and the victims of Stockholm Syndrome continue their lemming-like rush toward repeating the tragedies of the past by urging still more Paul Shanleys to find their voice and overthrow the "oppressive" doctrines of chastity.
Nice job, Cardinal L!
Do a good thing and make a year end donation to Mercy Corps
93 cents out of every dollar goes to actual poor people, not bureaucrats. One of the most efficiently run relief agencies there is. I recommend them highly!
93 cents out of every dollar goes to actual poor people, not bureaucrats. One of the most efficiently run relief agencies there is. I recommend them highly!
More reader PP slogans (I've created a monster!)
There's no tomb like a womb!
Working to eradicate four-letter words: mama, papa, life, womb, kids
No Children On Board--Ever!
There's no tomb like a womb!
Working to eradicate four-letter words: mama, papa, life, womb, kids
No Children On Board--Ever!
A reader complains below about my characterization of Ratzinger's remarks as a whine
As I mentioned on Amy's blog, I think the Cardinal's comments boil down to a truth told in the service of untruth. There is not, as far as it goes, a word he said that is false. As I noted below, it is quite true that the secular media hates the Church. It's what he didn't say that screams to be said: the secular media (which does indeed hate the Church) has been handed a huge sword by bad bishops who have betrayed the flock and by apologists who don't seem quite able to admit that. Yes, it is a relatively minor fact that the the media loves to attack the Church. It is a much more important fact that the Church's bishops are, in many cases, eminently worthy of attack. The great Catholic both/and. Ratzinger's remarks seem calculated to suggest (not "say", but suggest) that the main problem is a hostile media, not a corrupt episcopacy. The question is not the percentage of perv priests. It never was. There will be pervs till the end of time. The question is an episcopacy that has to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing something about them and taking responsibility for its actions. Without the Assyrian media, that never would have happened. The best thing Israel can do when God sends Assyrians in judgment is to receive the harsh strokes God deals with a contrite heart. Yes, the Assyrians are not thereby transformed into a saintly people. But that's not the issue. God can deal with the Assyrians in his own way once he's done using them. Israel's business is to take the point of the judgment and repent.
As I mentioned on Amy's blog, I think the Cardinal's comments boil down to a truth told in the service of untruth. There is not, as far as it goes, a word he said that is false. As I noted below, it is quite true that the secular media hates the Church. It's what he didn't say that screams to be said: the secular media (which does indeed hate the Church) has been handed a huge sword by bad bishops who have betrayed the flock and by apologists who don't seem quite able to admit that. Yes, it is a relatively minor fact that the the media loves to attack the Church. It is a much more important fact that the Church's bishops are, in many cases, eminently worthy of attack. The great Catholic both/and. Ratzinger's remarks seem calculated to suggest (not "say", but suggest) that the main problem is a hostile media, not a corrupt episcopacy. The question is not the percentage of perv priests. It never was. There will be pervs till the end of time. The question is an episcopacy that has to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing something about them and taking responsibility for its actions. Without the Assyrian media, that never would have happened. The best thing Israel can do when God sends Assyrians in judgment is to receive the harsh strokes God deals with a contrite heart. Yes, the Assyrians are not thereby transformed into a saintly people. But that's not the issue. God can deal with the Assyrians in his own way once he's done using them. Israel's business is to take the point of the judgment and repent.
Wednesday, December 04, 2002
Over at HMS blog we had a little Planned Parenthood ad contest
I contributed a few slogans. Now they're starting to pour in:
Bringing eugenics into the 21st century
Depopulating the world one person at a time.
Life without consequences
Keeping minorities minorities
Reach out and abort someone
Betcha can't kill just one
Giving breath to the culture of death
If you have any additions, well, that's why God gave us comments boxes!
I contributed a few slogans. Now they're starting to pour in:
Bringing eugenics into the 21st century
Depopulating the world one person at a time.
Life without consequences
Keeping minorities minorities
Reach out and abort someone
Betcha can't kill just one
Giving breath to the culture of death
If you have any additions, well, that's why God gave us comments boxes!
Having blogged what I did below about Cdl Ratzinger's remarks...
I want to hasten to add that the other side of the coin is, "Just because the press hates the Church is no sign that the problem is overblown." Case in point: the illustrious career of the impenitent Rev. Robert V. Meffan , who seduced young girls and who still believes his sexual relationships with teenage girls were ''beautiful, spiritual'' experiences intended to bring young people closer to God. The good reverend was, naturally, warmly commended by Cardinal Law (who knew all about this shit) as late as 1996 with the words: "''Without doubt over these years of generous care, the lives and hearts of many people have been touched by your sharing of the Lord's Spirit. We are truly grateful.'' He was also shuffled around for years and years after Bp. D'Arcy (who seems to have been the only sensible person in the Boston hierarchy) urged Law to ditch the guy. When he spouts his impenitent drivel, Cardinal Ratzinger would be better employed asking why Law has not begun excommunication proceedings against Meffan than by whining about the mean media.
I want to hasten to add that the other side of the coin is, "Just because the press hates the Church is no sign that the problem is overblown." Case in point: the illustrious career of the impenitent Rev. Robert V. Meffan , who seduced young girls and who still believes his sexual relationships with teenage girls were ''beautiful, spiritual'' experiences intended to bring young people closer to God. The good reverend was, naturally, warmly commended by Cardinal Law (who knew all about this shit) as late as 1996 with the words: "''Without doubt over these years of generous care, the lives and hearts of many people have been touched by your sharing of the Lord's Spirit. We are truly grateful.'' He was also shuffled around for years and years after Bp. D'Arcy (who seems to have been the only sensible person in the Boston hierarchy) urged Law to ditch the guy. When he spouts his impenitent drivel, Cardinal Ratzinger would be better employed asking why Law has not begun excommunication proceedings against Meffan than by whining about the mean media.
Bp. Loverde on the Haley Fracas
I can buy this, though it still doesn't explain why the Archdiocese gave the betrayed husband the shaft when he needed their help.
I can buy this, though it still doesn't explain why the Archdiocese gave the betrayed husband the shaft when he needed their help.
It never happened and besides they deserved it! The Jews were behind it and bin Laden was a genius for pulling it off!
Incoherent ravings from our friends in the House of Saud. Once Iraq and Iran are settled, I sincerely hope we will see a regime change with the main engine of Wahoobi Islam: Saudi Arabia. These people are the enemy.
Incoherent ravings from our friends in the House of Saud. Once Iraq and Iran are settled, I sincerely hope we will see a regime change with the main engine of Wahoobi Islam: Saudi Arabia. These people are the enemy.
A word to a Snowbound Nation:
Nyah nyah nyah! I live in temperate and beautiful Washington. Many scholars now believe that Seattle was the location of biblical Eden. That's all your misfortune and none of my own.
Nyah nyah nyah! I live in temperate and beautiful Washington. Many scholars now believe that Seattle was the location of biblical Eden. That's all your misfortune and none of my own.
Taking the Pulse of the Lidless Eye
(How's that for a disgusting image?)
A reader writes:
I s'pose. The question, of course, hinges on whether the "Shoot abortionists" numbers have gone up or down.
(How's that for a disgusting image?)
A reader writes:
Seattle Catholic readers are asked if it is morally justifiable for a civilian to shoot an abortionist. Thirteen percent say yes, 10 percent that it depends on the circumstances. But 77 percent say no. Progress?
I s'pose. The question, of course, hinges on whether the "Shoot abortionists" numbers have gone up or down.
A reader writes from Arlington
This is that thing Americans hate the most: a moral contest in which there is no clear good guy. Fr. Haley is, b
I've decided not to opine on this situation anymore-- share your concern. As whenever kids fight, it takes two and there's mud on everyone and sin everywhere. However, I will pass along a few facts -- they tend to get muddied in the media:
Fr. Haley addressed three particular situations -- one involving a priest w/a wife and mother of four. Evidently, he wasn't telling the bishop anything the parish didn't already know. The two were pretty open and public. However, it occurred when Loverde was newly installed and dealing w/ mutiny among priest who felt oppressed under Keating and were trying to flex their wings. What got Loverde into mega hot water and in the news was the husband was trying to get custody of the kids and the diocese would not admit an affair was going on -- based on the confidentiality of the priest-bishop relationship. Without a word form the diocese affirming his assertion, the husband lost custody to the wife by default and she took the four kids to Atlanta where they have since had their own child.
There was the matter of an embezzling priest -- he was assigned to my parish of which Dornan is also a member. The official line was that 130K was taken six years ago -- now it's coming out that it's closer to a million from at least two parishes due to shabby bookkeeping (Loverde tightened that up. Before him, the priests pretty much had control of the purse strings and no accountability.) and kickbacks on construction projects (we've now got to dig out the foundation of the school and redo some basement rooms -- half the school is below grade -- due to shabby construction that has resulted in water and mold damage. It's a royal mess).
The third was the priest went to Loverde over the porn that the other priest openly discussed. Loverde said you have no proof -- Haley provided the proof by breaking into the other guy's computer. Loverde disciplined him for theft and invasion of privacy.
Evidently, the lid was on pretty tight in this diocese prior to Loverde and Haley saw an opportunity to bring some things that were bugging him out into the open. Did he go about it in the right way? Probably not. Taking proof to the bishop and the media simultaneously not too swift. But, as we have seen, the right way doesn't seem to work when you are dealing with an organization veiled in secrecy and interested only in the status quo. But, two wrongs don't make a right and makes for a royal mess.
Hope that clears up some confusion. The sad part is the number of folks in the pews who look at this and have distanced themselves from God in the process of distancing themselves from the corruption. I wish the bishops would take the time to contemplate the damage they do to the folks hanging on the margins, struggling to live the Gospel in light of the mixed message and fuzzy focus they receive these days, as they do to the politicians and significant donors. We are making the job too easy for the evangelicals in northern Virginia and all some clergy can do is either say 'good riddance, they weren't true Catholics anyway' or wring their hands 'what are we to do'. Bleech!
This is that thing Americans hate the most: a moral contest in which there is no clear good guy. Fr. Haley is, b