Biblical literalism strikes again

The left, especially its atheist component, has eagerly picked up a story about a statement made last month by Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia, in which he very colorfully dismissed some scientific theories on the grounds that they are inconsistent with a literal reading of the Bible:

“All that stuff I was taught about evolution, embryology, the Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell,” Broun said in videotaped remarks to the Liberty Baptist Church Sportsman’s Banquet in Hartwell, Ga. “And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior.”
Broun, a medical doctor who sits on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, said there are “a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth.”

My observations:

1. Dr. Broun (he's an M.D., so he's got a good mind) may be proven right on all counts someday. I don't think it's likely, but it's possible. Science is like that. I've always been charmed by the story told about Richard Feynman's physics students at Cal Tech explaining their post-lecture euphoria to a visitor: "It's great! Everything we knew last week is wrong!" 
2. In the face of assertions like these, a genuinely scientific attitude should always lead us to patiently say, "All right, show me your evidence, and then show me how you reasoned from it soundly to the conclusion you drew." Often, when politely challenged like that, people with poor evidence or faulty reasoning will fold their cards immediately.
3. Despite the chance of eventual scientific vindication, Rep. Broun needs to be more realistic about the effect such remarks will have right now. Most people who regard themselves as educated and scientifically-minded will not only dismiss these views out of hand, but from that moment on, will dismiss everything else he says. If you're a politician, that's a stupid thing to do to yourself.
4. As a Catholic, I'm proud that my Church built the university system from which modern science sprang, and has consistently taken the view that all Truth is one; that is, genuine truths understood by Faith will always be consistent with genuine truths understood by science. (Yes, yes, there's the Galileo case. That's a dispute for another post).
5. Biblical literalism like that propounded by Rep. Broun and his Liberty Baptist Church congregation is always going to lead to defeats for the Faith, and to increased hostility to Christianity in the general population.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

News item:

Mexico finds 50 skulls in sacred temple

Ah, those peaceful and charming Native Americans, the Aztecs. So cruelly mistreated by their Spanish conquerors.

Turns out that after decapitating their sacrificial victims, the Aztecs drove a wooden stake through the skulls so they could be displayed on a rack.

And what was one scholar's reaction to this news?

“It provides rather novel information on the use and reuse of skulls for ritual events at the Templo Mayor,” [University of Florida archaeologist Susan] Gillespie said in an email. ... “It ultimately gives us a better understanding of how the Aztecs used the human body in various ways in their ritual practices."

Remarkably similar, I'd say, to the way that those human-skin lampshades give us a better understanding of how National Socialism used the human body between 1933 and 1945:

Bestially.

One brave woman

Way down in Egypt land...

Now that the maker of the "Innocence of Muslims" film has been identified as a Coptic Christian, I'd say the Copts remaining in Egypt are in for a very rough time at the hands of faithful adherents of the Religion of Peace.

Aborted This Way

Over the years, gay-rights groups have successfully convinced quite a few people that they are "born this way." That is, their same-sex attraction is genetically determined, and therefore morally unassailable. But they've also routinely allied themselves with the pro-abortion groups that regard an unborn child as its mother's absolute property, to be disposed of at will.

Now, with the imminent prospect of prenatal testing to reveal whether children in the womb have the "gay gene," the table is set for a really delicious example of the way that evil always ends up contradicting itself.

Consider this situation, which can only be a few years away:

Through such testing, an expectant mother finds out that the child she is bearing will be genetically inclined to same-sex attraction. But she doesn't want to bring such a child into the world, for reasons that seem good to her. Does her "right to choose," which the Sexual Left insists is absolute, allow her to abort that probably-gay child?

"Wait!" her gay-rights friend will cry. "There's nothing wrong with same-sex attraction. You can't do that! It's immoral."

"And who are you to say?" replies the mother. "Besides, it doesn't matter. If I want to abort my child for any reason, I have the right to do it. Anyway, that's what you said last year, when I was carrying that Down-syndrome child that I ended up aborting."

"Okay, then!" says the gay-rights friend. "Morality aside, it ought to be illegal to abort for that reason. You're discriminating against a gay person. It makes no difference that they're not born yet."

"Just try to make it illegal, buster," says the mother. "I don't want to carry a gay kid to term. You can't make me."

And at this point, both shout "I'll see you in court!"

In the long, vile multi-course dinner that the muddle of modern evils has been, this is one dish I'm really looking forward to.

I'll have mine with mustard, please.

Another grimly teachable moment

A relative of one of the victims in last week's "Black Knight" mass killing was quoted this way in a New York Times story that ran in my local paper, the San Jose Mercury News: "I hope this evil act ... doesn't shake people's faith in God." Me, too — and there's no reason why it should.

People whose faith can't withstand an encounter with serious evil are forgetting one very important thing that Catholic kids used to know by heart: that God did not create evil.

We did.

Here's the story in a nutshell.

1. God made a good universe.
2. He then plopped our First Parents down in it, in a very special part of the Earth that he had prepared to be perfect for our race: Eden. 
3. He needed to know if He could trust us.
4. To find out, He gave us a simple test.
5. We flunked.
6. But He didn't just wipe us out; He gave humanity the rest of the world to live in, to order and arrange according to our own rebellious lights, which we've proceeded to do with great gusto.
7. Friday morning's horror was just the latest prominent installment of our age-long story of failure, of our propensity for evil.
8. Naturally, we turn on God and blame Him for our mess.

I don't care if someone thinks that the Eden thing didn't happen in a literal sense. Something like it happened.

The Dark Knight shooter is our guy. We made him, through the culture that we've allowed to stray far, far from its Christian roots. He's the newest model of Modern Man to roll off the assembly line, in which we're again trying to work the bugs out of the modern maxim, "It doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you're sincere."

Did it matter what James Holmes believed about taking out his frustrations with work and life on a crowd of people who never did him any harm?

It certainly mattered to all those poor folks in the theater.

Served us right

This program is from RealCatholicTV.com

Michael Voris' special report on Thursday's Supreme Court decision mentions a very telling and true sentiment from Chief Justice John Roberts' concurring opinion, which I hadn't heard elsewhere so far:

It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.

As Voris and many others have pointed out, approximately 54% of Catholics voted in 2008 to put Barack Obama into the White House, despite his dedication to the legalized murder that is abortion on demand. That's got to change this November, or when our generation of Catholics gets to our own Particular Judgements, we're gonna have a lotta splainin' to do.

In the wake of today's Supreme Court decision...

Live Large, Spend Small

That's a slogan I found in a recent newspaper ad (yes, I still read newspapers, on paper). It was for a retirement community, but it seems to me that it also describes what should be a major attraction of the Christian life.

We know that our real home is Heaven, and that the point of life here is to lay up treasures there, not on Earth. So we can stay calm if the earthly treasure-hunt isn't going all that well. And if it is going well, we know to keep the modest amount we need for ourselves and our families, and give the rest to those who have less.

To the World, that doesn't make sense. Kick, bite, scratch, win at all costs, it says. Here's something new and shiny! Don't you want it? You can have it now! New low price! (one soul).

Live large. Spend small. Be a Christian.

"The so-called Defense of Marriage Act"

That's how President Obama is reported to have referred to the Defense of Marriage Act while greeting gay-rights groups at the White House reception to celebrate LGBT Pride Month.

I don't know how the battle lines could be more definitively drawn. The President has made it very clear that he wants "marriage" to take on a new meaning that is radically opposed to the Catholic Church's teachings -- and to the common understanding of marriage that prevailed until quite recently. We in the Catholic Church, here and now, are the last line of defense of one of the pillars of civilization. As usual.

This must be our hour.

One of the Charterhouse monks

Blessed Thomas Johnson (d. 1537), English Carthusian martyr. A priest and member of the London Charterhouse, he was imprisoned with several fellow Carthusians for opposing the claim of Henry VIII to be supreme head of the Church in England. He and his companions were chained up in Newgate prison and left to die of thirst and starvation.

With leadership like theirs...

The Leadership Council of Women Religious has been much in the news lately, being engaged in bitter resistance against even the hint of significant oversight of their sandbox. Apparently, the Vatican finally noticed that the "leaders" who populate the LCWR have undone two centuries of progress in building up women's religious orders in this country. The LCWR simply cannot understand how anyone could be so rude as to require an accounting of their stewardship.

Now, in my experience, leaders in other areas of life -- business, for example -- who fail so utterly in their duties; who trash the company "brand;" who abandon the company's main purpose (in this case, the saving of souls) in favor of their own pet projects; and who preside over the desertion of thousands of their employees and are unable to attract replacements; such "leaders" would find themselves abruptly frog-marched to the door by burly and unsmiling security guards. Only in the Church -- and in academia -- is failure so long condoned, it seems.

And yet this league of nincompoops (unfortunately, the more euphonious phrase "confederation of dunces" was already taken) dares to whine as it is finally called to account, after fifty years of mayhem.

Lots of Catholics of my age have stories to tell about what once was. When I graduated from my parish grammar school in 1964, almost every class was taught by a nun, every classroom had at least 45 students, and the convent across the street was overflowing with teaching nuns. Then the "Spirit of Vatican II" folks started having their way. The nuns' new leaders told them, in effect, that all that old emphasis on passing on the faith, on piety and morality, was obsolete. What mattered now was working for social justice and their own personal fulfillment.

Slowly at first, but with gathering speed, the convent went from overcrowded, to empty, to demolished.

A Catholic hero from Vietnam

St. John Hoan (d. 1861): Vietnamese priest beheaded during the anti-Catholic persecutions in that country (some things never change, do they?). Canonized in 1988 by Pope John Paul II.

I confess to feeling a little resentful on his behalf. After all, there was never any doubt that Hoan was killed for his Faith, yet the Church still took more than a century to canonize him. For that matter, consider poor Thomas More: four hundred years elapsed before he was finally declared a saint. But I know that neither of these men feel any part of my resentment. They are both beyond such pettiness, and even four hundred years seems nothing more than a passing moment. All, they would say, in good time. God's time.

So many Mores

Robert Bolt was right when he inserted the character of The Common Man into his play A Man for All Seasons -- the steadfastness of a Thomas More is too seldom repeated among ordinary people, so men of his caliber are left to face the music alone, or in the company of just a few brave men like themselves (e.g., St. John Fisher). Plenty of ordinary people are not just dodging personal danger by passively going along, they're often even helping to play the music. In the drama, The Common Man plays many small roles that point this up: More's slightly dishonest steward, a boatman who refuses to row More home, a juryman who delivers the "guilty" verdict when told to,  the headsman who kills him.

And yet... and yet... I've been leafing through The Encyclopedia of Saints, published by OSV. It's astounding, really, the steady parade of martyrs that appear there among the canonized and the beatified; just as astounding as the sheer number of them is that most of them were not famous, or greatly talented, or noted scholars. They were very ordinary men and women and children in one way; but in the way that counts, they chose to be very unCommon indeed.

Here's one at random:

John Kinsako, Blessed (d. 1626) Japanese martyr who was a silk weaver and a Franciscan tertiary. He was baptized just before being crucified at Nagasaki with companions. Feast day: February 6.

A Tale of Two Democrats

From MercatorNet.org comes this zinger called "How to be a Catholic Democrat," which concisely contrasts two very different ways to do just that -- exemplified by Nancy Pelosi and our present Ambassador to the Vatican, former Boston mayor Ray Flynn. Who got it right? One guess.

Thomas More, and all of us

Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons is one of the 20th century's great dramas, but if you've only seen the movie -- splendid as it was -- you really owe it to yourself to read the original play (or see it, of course, if you're lucky enough to have a production nearby). That's because the play included a very important character who was left out of the movie screenplay: us. The Common Man. The Little Guy who never sticks his neck out. 

I'll write at tiresome length about this at some later time, but for now, here's a snippet of dialog. The Jailer character is one of The Common Man's personae in the play, and he has just genially declined to undertake even a small personal risk to give the imprisoned Sir Thomas More five more minutes with his family.

JAILER (Reasonably)  You understand my position, sir, there's nothing I can do; I'm a plain, simple man and just want to keep out of trouble.

MORE  (Cries out passionately)  Oh, Sweet Jesus! These plain, simple men!

Fair warning

Islamic Scholar: We Hope to ‘Raise the Banner of the Caliphate Over the Vatican’

As Mr. Al-Yaziji explains so clearly, this lust for conquering the West has nothing to do with resentment over the Crusades. It comes straight from the mouth of the Prophet, from the very founding of Islam.

Religious freedom? Oh, never mind.

The State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights doesn't include the usual sections on religious freedom this year. Just refer to last year's report, says State.

So glad to know there's nothing new to be concerned about. For example, that summons for all 1,000 remaining Christians to leave the Syrian city of al-Qusayr within a few days, delivered from the minarets of the city the other day -- you see, that's not really a problem, because most of the Christians had already left al-Qusayr in early spring, when they were attacked by multiple Islamist factions. So, it's old hat, water under the bridge, old news.

Besides, they're only Christians.

H/t Catholic Culture.

You can read the State Department's report here.

St. Ann's Army

Long ago, I complained that the Catholic Church doesn't educate its congregations at the parish level about the reasons for its positions on abortion, euthanasia, and embryonic stem cell research. The author of Causa Nostrae Laetitiae was kind enough to comment, and what she said has made me think about a solution.

... pro-life speech is as prohibited in many a Catholic Church as it is in public schools. I had to sneak around the parking lot during election 2004 to inform Catholics on the presidential candidates' widely divergent positions on abortion. My pastor has banned pro-life groups and has a collection of JFK autographed photos on his office wall. He appears to be a loyal Democrat.

... This is NOT to suggest that the battle is lost, or not worth waging, for our love for Christ impels us to speak His truth, regardless of the cost. However, Satan has a large percentage of the Church and the government in his control, and it's a punishing battle, to be sure.

This is stunning, isn't it? That a man educated in the Church's doctrine at its great expense, and then given charge of a parish, would decide for himself that he doesn't like one of its doctrines, and take it on himself not only to stop teaching that doctrine himself, but also forbid anyone else to teach it? And, as the second paragraph implies, his bishop is at best unaware, and at worst complicit?

A Catholic moment from Jane Austen

One of the genuine advances the Web has brought us is the availability of lots of good writing that we'd otherwise find it difficult to gain access to, or even to know about.
Jane Austen's hardly an obscure writer, but I had never heard of her satirical History of England. I downloaded the text from Memoware to my old Palm smartphone and read it at lunch recently. I haven't studied her religious views, but I found this snippet about Henry VIII charming just on its own, regardless of its original tone.

The Crimes and Cruelties of this Prince were too numerous to be mentioned ... and nothing can be said in his vindication, but that his abolishing Religious Houses and leaving them to the ruinous depredations of time has been of infinite use to the landscape of England in general, which probably was a principle motive for his doing it, since otherwise, why should a Man who was of no Religion himself be at so much trouble to abolish one which had for ages been established in the Kingdom.

Delicious.