The weedy direction of the Arab Spring

Good news for all those folks (Al Gore and Joe Biden, for example) who were so ecstatic about the so-called Arab Spring: move to Tunisia and you'll soon be able to have four wives! For feminists, unfortunately, there's no word yet on how many husbands a woman will be able to have. Since the party rising to dominance in Tunisia has declared that Sharia will be the basis for Tunisian law in future, I'm guessing that the latter number will be 1 -- or more accurately, perhaps, one quarter.

The other First Amendment

Now that we've been treated to the news that a Tennessee school district (Tennessee, for cryin' out loud!) has cautioned public-school coaches and teachers not to bow their heads to join in student-led prayer, it's time to re-read Amendment 1 of the U.S. Constitution. All of it, this time.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Now, everyone refers to the first part part as "The Establishment Clause." They read to the first comma, and stop. Case closed. Chalk up another victory for removing Christianity from the public square.

But just beyond that comma is a very important counterbalance: "... or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

It's that balancing phrase that no one seems to remember these days. And we Christians ignore it at our peril.

I think our Founders understood very well that the sense of the first phrase could eventually be used to banish the practice of religion from the public square, although the danger must have seemed remote in that time of strong Christian consensus. But that consensus is no more, and many now seem to think that all religion is dangerous and suspect. It's a setup for repression.

So it's time for us to rename that clause, as a first step in reclaiming its central message. Can we please start referring to it as the "Free Exercise" clause?

And then exercise the freedom it recognizes, in public?

The Culture of Death gives the envelope another nudge

It's good to see the USCCB pushing back against the efforts of the Obama administration to force Catholic entities to pay for contraception and sterilization in their health insurance benefits. It's even better to see that our parish's bulletin contained the bishop's flyer about this issue.

Rather than cave in to this latest Progressive pressure -- if it succeeds, which it could well do -- Catholic employers should drop health insurance coverage out of their compensation packages. Give their employees the same money as was being paid for their insurance premiums (yes, I know it'll amount to less in total, because it'll be taxed), and have them secure their own insurance.

Some will argue that this will reduce the ability of Catholic organizations to compete with secular ones in attracting good job candidates. My question to them would be: exactly what constitutes a "good" candidate for a Catholic entity's jobs? One who has a nice shiny degree from Stanford or Harvard, for instance, but rejects most, if not all, of the Church's teachings?

More on Fr. Pavone

The always-cogent Phil Lawler has provided a good analysis of what's presently known about the dust-up between Fr. Pavone of Priests for Life and his bishop.

Fr. Pavone and Bishop Zurek

Today came the news of the suspension of Fr. Frank Pavone, of Priests for Life. Bishop Zurek of Amarillo, the diocese in which until recently PFL kept its offices under the aegis of a different bishop who was supportive, suspended him from his pro-life operations, with allusions to unspecified financial concerns, and recalled him to Amarillo. It's too early to tell what's going on here, but Fr. Pavone's response certainly is eloquent, obedient, yet resolute. We'll see.

The wrong side of WHAT history?

Via CNS comes this tidbit that should be of interest to Catholics:

Thirteen U.S. senators who oppose the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) participated in a video for the pro-homosexual “It Gets Better” project, in which they encourage lesbian and gay youth to persevere and be optimistic about the future. In discussing the release of the video on Wednesday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said, “DOMA, folks, is on the wrong side of history.”

Would that be the history in which every society has defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman? The history in which homosexual behavior has almost never been encouraged, let alone honored with the mantle of marriage? The history of two thousand years of consistent teaching of the Catholic Church on homosexual behavior? In case you were actually wondering about that, the answers to those questions is No. The history they have in mind is the recent history they have themselves concocted, the history in which every shred of sexual restraint with which societies have shielded themselves must go, because it's -- well -- so old-fashioned.

The senators featured in the video are: Al Franken (D-Minn.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Mark Udall, (D-Colo.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.)

Please, all you Catholics who have cozied up to Democratic politicians because of their support for your favorite "social justice" issues, remember all those D's. No R's, only D's. And for fellow Californian Catholics, remember that, please, the next time Dianne Feinstein comes up for re-election.

A note for non-Catholics:

The Catholic Church does NOT teach that people with homosexual inclinations are worthless human beings who ought to kill themselves. It teaches that such people should do the same thing as everyone else who is tempted toward some evil (that is, all of us): just don't do it.

In contrast with this humane recognition of a transcendent worth in all human beings that's independent of their behavior, the suicides that are deplored in the Senators' video are just what's to be expected from a secular culture that ties people's entire identities to their sexuality. To these Senators and the millions who support them, gays aren't really people; they're labelled counters in a political game of power.

Just what you'd expect from the party whose leader doesn't want his daughters to be "punished" with an unexpected child who interferes with their plans.

Too bad the other guys aren't listening

Catholic Culture : Latest Headlines : Christian groups agree on ethical standards for proselytism

The agreement categorically condemns violence, “including the violation or destruction of places of worship, sacred symbols, or texts.”

That's all well and good, but unfortunately the signatories to this statement do not include those who are most often doing exactly that: Muslims and Hindus.

Not to mention that any statement that the World Council of Churches will agree to can't possibly be good for the spread of Christianity.

So what's the fuss about gay marriage?

Well-put here, from the Heritage Foundation:

Rather than a natural institution designed to bring the two sexes together around the mutual task of forming homes and raising the next generation of children, marriage has become in some locales a list of temporary bargains between adults that is meant to secure interests and benefits. The result is a less child-centered, duty-based, and future-focused institution. Redefining marriage continues a trend away from policies that focus social resources on children and long-term civil society.

The empty Catholic classroom

Whatever the defects of pre-Vatican-II Catholic schools, they were clear about one thing: they were Catholic. They existed because the Church wisely insisted that it was vital for children to be taught the Faith every day, along with reading and arithmetic and the other common subjects. Central to the program was the proposition that there was a distinctively Catholic way of looking at everything, that the Faith informed every part of life.

Math? We heard about the beauty of the order that God had placed in the universe, which math could reveal. Reading? Our textbooks were peppered with little examples of Catholics being Catholic. Geography? We read about the experiences of a family of Catholic missionary teachers in China in the early 1930's. Catholic parents were instructed that it was part of their duty to send their children to Catholic schools unless serious reasons prevented it, because the Catholic viewpoint was different from that of the culture around them.

And Catholic schools couldn't be built fast enough to meet the demand in my little suburban area near Los Angeles. My elementary school classrooms never had fewer than 45 students in them, some years as many as 55. Yet many Catholic kids had to be turned away because no more could be squeezed in.

Fast-forward forty years, and St. Mary's School in Fullerton had to be closed due to low enrollment. In most urban areas, Catholic schools are disappearing fast. Why? Though there have been many intertwined causes, the most important, in my opinion, is that they gradually lost almost everything distinctively Catholic about the education they offered.

If Catholic schools had continued to emphasize the most important thing, the Faith, they would have retained their unique value in parents' eyes. Instead, they gave up on their "brand", accepted the secular model, and touted their better test scores. More and more students in Catholic schools were non-Catholic, so pressure grew to downplay the religious content of each day, relegating the Faith to its own "Religion" class. But now that well-funded charter schools are catching up on that measure, Catholic schools appear to have little left to offer. As indeed they do.

Carrying the Faith forward to the next generation will always be a winning proposition for Catholic schools. But live by the test score, die by the test score.

Obedience

Obedience can be based on fear or upon love; fear of penalties for disobedience, or such great love that we can hardly conceive of being disloyal by disobeying. Most human obedience is a mix. Clearly though, God wants the latter.

East of Eden

"Why do bad things happen to good people?"

That question has gotten asked a lot in the past couple of decades. James Dobson wrote a book by that name, and when I was attending a Presbyterian church, before my return to Rome, it was often the topic of sermons. But I have to say I'm puzzled that Christians would even seriously pose the question. Here's why.

When God created the human race, He gave Adam and Eve a really terrific place to live: Eden. In fact, it wasn't just terrific; it was perfect for us.

But note that after Adam and Eve have their confrontation with God, they're banished from Eden. There was apparently a lot of Earth that wasn't Edenic at all. Good, of course, since God had created it; but not the perfect garden that our first parents had been given. I suspect that if things had turned out differently, God was going to invite Adam and Eve and their children (us) to spread the perfect order of Eden throughout the entire planet, in an immense act of what J.R.R. Tolkien referred to as "sub-creation." 

But the Fall short-circuited that plan. Adam and Eve betrayed God's trust in them, expressed in His single request, and instead grabbed for the Knowledge of Good and Evil that the forbidden fruit would bring them. Once they made their decision, I believe, they changed immediately and radically. They no longer "fit" in Eden.

At that point, God's choices included (1) just wipe out the human race and try again, (2) pat A&E on the head and say, "now, now, Daddy's going to give you another turn", and (3) send A&E out into the world whose management they had coveted more than their love for Him. The first would have been just but unmerciful. The second would have violated their dignity as human beings, able to choose and be held to the consequences of their choices. Only the third held out hope for a redemption of the human race; free will would be honored, and a long job of bringing the human will back into line with God's could begin.

So A&E would have to go into the outer world, still unshaped to the Edenic model, and live the best way they could devise with their new fancy Knowledge. And every day of our lives, we all experience just how great that turned out.

Murder, cruelty, war. Deception, slavery, death. And all the thousand ills that flesh is heir to.

So why do bad things happen to good people? Because this is the world we have crafted. It's not The Garden, that exquisitely ordered Creation that God, in His infinite wisdom, fashioned in one corner of the good but still raw Earth. It's the world that we children of Adam and Eve have fashioned after our own lights, using that nifty Knowledge of Good and Evil that we, their kids, still just can't pass up.

 

 

 

 

Become a bishop. Know everything immediately!

It seems that the bishop of Osaka, Japan, has weighed in about nuclear power. All nuclear power.

"The issue about the direction we are taking, to build other nuclear power plants, is an important question,” said Auxiliary Bishop Michael Goro Matsuura of Osaka. “Together with the Justice and Peace Commission of the Japanese Bishops, which I headed up until last year, we have raised awareness to fight the construction of new nuclear power plants in Japan and globally. I believe that this serious incident should be a lesson for Japan and for the entire planet, and will be an incentive to abandon these projects. We call on the solidarity of Christians worldwide to support this campaign.

This is a classic example of the tendency of today's bishops to spend time delivering opinions on subjects in which they have good intentions but no competence whatsoever.

Nuclear powerplants depend upon very sophisticated technology, which it takes years of study to master (much like theology -- hmmmm). Only a person with such training is truly qualified to judge how safe really-up-to-date nuclear plants are. And only once we're confident of the risks can we judge whether the benefits outweigh them.

I'm sure Bishop Matsuura is a good man. But in this, he has no more competence to judge for himself -- let alone "call on the solidarity of Christians worldwide" -- than the average informed lay person.

And I would have to ask the bishop to explain what his flock are supposed to do if he gets his way? What source of electrical power, available now and as cheaply as nuclear-generated power, are his flock supposed to use instead?

Or are they supposed to sit obediently in the cold and dark, meditating on the Peace and Justice which they will then enjoy?

Maryknoll madness

Only two years after it became impossible to ignore his defiance of Church doctrine, the Maryknolls have finally gotten around to dismissing Fr. Roy Bourgeois, a strident and persistent advocate of women's ordination to the Catholic priesthood.

Oh, wait. Apparently two years isn't enough time to be fully pastoral. They're only warning him of possible dismissal and laicization.

Faithful Catholics know this for what it is: justice delayed and delayed and delayed, open defiance going unpunished. And justice delayed, they say, is justice denied.

Non-Catholics, I suppose, are surprised at the fuss, since women are ordained all the time in Protestant denominations. The fuss, my friends, is that Catholic teaching, for good and sufficient reasons, states that only men may be ordained. It's part of the "brand", if you will.

And we view employees who bash our brand the same way that a Ford dealership would view salesmen who openly sell Chevys out the back door.

Hubbard to Cuomo: Heading for Hell? Need a lift?

Bishop Howard Hubbard of Albany, New York, has announced that a provision of Canon Law won't be enforced by the bishops of his state. That would be Canon 915, of course, which states that those "obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion."

The person who will benefit from this episode of clerical nullification is the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, who is both a supporter of abortion like his father, Mario, and also living with his girlfriend.

Bishop Hubbard says:

there are norms for all Catholics about receiving Communion and we have to be sensitive pastorally to every person in their own particular situation.

He goes on to say:

and when it comes to judging worthiness for Communion, we do not comment on either public figures or private figures. That’s something between the communicant and his pastor personally. It’s not something we comment on.

All right, step by step.

First, both conditions of the severity of the act are met. Both the fornication and the complicity in the vast murder operation represented by legalized abortion are "manifest" (since both are widely reported in the popular press), and both are publicly defended by Mr. Cuomo, contrary to the teachings of the Church.

Second, they're certainly "grave." I hope there wouldn't be too much disagreement here among Catholics.

Third, though I suppose opinions might differ on how to interpret "obstinately persevering" (e.g., how many times do you have to ignore warnings before you become obstinate? And how long can you draw out your defiance before you can be said to be persevering?), Mr. Cuomo's track record amply shows that he's been at these things for years.

Before anyone tries to avoid conflict by leaving it all up to Mr. Cuomo's conscience, we should take careful note the language of Canon 915. It doesn't say that those who do what Mr. Cuomo's doing shouldn't come up for Communion, but if they really really want to, and they feel that it's right, it's up to them. It says that they are "not to be admitted" to Communion.

And by whom can they be admitted or not admitted? The bishop, represented by the priest.

Bishop Hubbard says we must be "sensitive pastorally" to each person's situation. Fine. Could the laity then please have an explanation of the pastoral conditions to which he is being sensitive? Does Mr. Cuomo get his feelings hurt easily? Would it harm his self-esteem? Would some elderly relative be shocked into apoplexy if little Andy were publicly disciplined by a Bishop? What? Why does he get a pass?

I can hear some people already dragging out the tattered (and wrong) "judge not lest ye be judged" excuse. I'm not condemning him to Hell. That's up to God. But I am judging his public actions and his bishop's public pronouncements against the established moral and legal standards of our Church.

I would like to see Mr. Cuomo repudiate his previous pro-abortion stance, and at least get his live-in girlfriend to live out until the Church allows him (a divorced man) to marry again.

Because until Bishop Hubbard, and all the other bishops, begin denying him Holy Communion, the terrible words of 1 Corinthians 11:27 will hang over him:

Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord.

So who is being careful and "pastoral" of the soul of such a man as Mr. Cuomo? Not the one who willingly gives him the Holy Eucharist and abets the destruction of his soul, that's for sure.

The Philippines: their present, our future

It seems that Planned Parenthood and its death-culture companion organizations are trying to push legislation through in the Philippines that would not only legalize contraception, but make it illegal to speak or write against the law, protest it, or otherwise oppose it, once it has passed. There's a week-long series going on at RealCatholicTV, and as usual, Michael Voris is direct and to the point:



As Planned Parenthood's own representatives have noted, once contraception and its mindset gets established in a culture, the number of abortions starts to rise, too. Abortions which PP is in the business of providing, and getting rich on. Great marketing, that!

If this works in the Philippines, look for efforts in the U.S. in the not-too-distant future to legislate penalties for opposing any "right" established directly by the Constitution, or found there by the Supreme Court.

Including abortion.

Hate speech, you know, to speak against anyone's established "rights"!

From the dramatic to the bland

Through Catholic Culture's very handy e-mail newsletter on the Liturgical Year, I learned that February 16th used to be the feast of St. Juliana, "a Christian virgin of Cumae, Italy, martyred for the faith when she refused to marry a Roman prefect." That's the kind of commemoration that a Catholic could find inspiring.

However, in the new calendar adopted after Vatican II, February 16th is now merely the Wednesday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time. Dull, bland, and boring. And what duller term could one have found for the daily struggle of Good and Evil than "Ordinary Time"?

With 2,000 years of Catholic heroes and heroines to choose from, why would any day not be used to call to mind a saint to encourage the faithful?

Nine months

Since it's the firmly established doctrine of the Catholic faith that human life begins at conception, why shouldn't the Church begin officially reckoning the age of Catholics as being the number of years since birth, plus nine months?

I know, it would make us look weird. But we aren't called to conform ourselves to this world's customs. We're called to be conformed to Christ, and if, in certain times and places, that makes us look weird, so be it.

The Philadelphia Horror

Perhaps you've seen the anemic local news coverage of the case of Dr. Kermit Gosnell and his Women's Medical Society clinic in west Philadelphia, and thought, oh well, just another badly-run abortion mill.

But this one's different.

For an intelligent and detailed summary, go to MercatorNet. There you'll also find a link to a PDF of the full Grand Jury report, which I highly recommend reading, if you have a strong stomach. A very strong stomach. And lots of your favorite means of mood-improvement ready to hand, because you are going to need it.

Especially if you're Catholic, because part of the story involves the suspension of abortion clinic inspections by "Catholic" pro-choice former governor Tom Ridge. I wonder how many "pastoral" contacts Gov. Ridge had from his various bishops on the subject of his support for abortion?

The President on abortion

Here's President Obama's statement marking the 38th anniversary of Roe (my comments in bold):

Today marks the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that protects women’s health and reproductive freedom, and affirms a fundamental principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters. [Never mind that the government employees at your local public school will be happy to help your teen daughter find a way to get an abortion without your knowledge, let alone consent. But of course, that's not really intruding on "private family matters"].

I am committed to protecting this constitutional right. [Yep, it's in there among the "penumbras" and "emanations." Really. You just gotta look hard.] I also remain committed to policies, initiatives, and programs that help prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant women and mothers, encourage healthy relationships, and promote adoption. organization [Note that he didn't mention efforts that would actually try to dissuade women from choosing to abort. That might help make abortion rare, which wouldn't be good for a certain big campaign-contributor organization that makes millions by providing abortions.]

And on this anniversary, I hope that we will recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights, the same freedoms, and the same opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams. [In other words, the freedom to have sex just as irresponsibly as the crudest and most degenerate men. What a triumph for women that is! And you can fulfill your dreams just like men, too! You too can get right back on track to the Big Education that leads to the Big Career that leads to the Big Lifestyle -- and to the shattering Big Emptiness that comes at the end.]

Oh, but I forgot. The President's SO good on the social justice stuff! That trumps everything.

Walk for Life West Coast

Participated in the Walk for Life West Coast today. One darned big crowd! It took an hour for the tail of the parade to leave Justin Herman Plaza.

I saw only a handful of counter-demonstrators. The Sisters of Perpetual Whatever-It-Is had a couple of representatives, and there was a guy with a big sign reading "Pope John Paul II / Patron Saint of Pedophiles". Pretty pitiful.

I think they're getting discouraged. It's tough to have another team come into your house and bring in bigger crowds than you do!

Missing the point

According to a local print-only newspaper, the Daily Post, Planned Parenthood is looking at leasing a new location in on El Camino Real in nearby Redwood City. Nothing too unusual in that, although PP seems to be closing more facilities than it's opening these days.

The thing that caught my attention was this reported reaction of a neighbor:

John Thomas, a resident who lives on nearby Selby Lane, said it's an inappropriate location for a clinic. Thomas said he fears the clinic will draw protesters with signs depicting aborted fetuses in an area where children walk to school.

... I'm not comfortable seeing that," Thomas told the Post. "I don't see how how anybody could be comfortable."

In other words, it's OK with Mr. Thomas that abortions might be done in his neighborhood. He just doesn't want to see any pictures of abortion around, to shock the kids (that is, the ones who didn't get aborted themselves), or make him uncomfortable.

I live in one very weird place.

Bishop Finn: ‘Abortion too monumental a disgrace to neglect’

The Catholic Key Blog: Bishop Finn: ‘Abortion too monumental a disgrace to neglect’

Would that every diocese -- including my own of San Jose, California -- had as forthright a defender of life as Bishop Finn.

War and Remembrance: one thing right

A few posts ago, I complained bitterly about the casual anti-Catholic attitude which Herman Wouk seemed to support through some of his characters in his novel War and Remembrance. However, these words he gives to one of his protagonists, Aaron Jastrow, are right on the money:

The lesson was writ plain by Thucydides centuries before Christ was born. Democracy satisfies best the human thirst for freedom; yet, being undisciplined, turbulent, and luxury-seeking, it falls time and again to austere single-minded despotism.

In the World War II setting of War and Remembrance, obviously the "single minded despotism" was Nazism, and secondarily Soviet Communism and Japanese militarism.

Now, it's radical Islam. We were very very lucky to escape those other single-minded despotisms. We're sixty years further down the decline of our culture; I wonder if we'll be lucky -- or blessed -- again.

A witty riposte to Apple from the Manhattan Declaration

UPDATE:

When I later viewed this video at YouTube, I was appalled at the nasty comments from the LGBTQ etc. side -- and the number of them -- and so I did what I swore I'd never do: I posted a YouTube comment myself. Don't know if it will be "accepted" by the powers that be, so here it is:

The LGBTQ etc. "community" wants only one thing: to suppress ANY form of objection, no matter how measured, to their lifestyle choices. Their agitation against the MD app demonstrates that very well. And since when is it "hateful" to call someone else's behavior immoral? Gandhi did it; MLK did it; the antiwar movement did it; and so did the gay movement. Did these all therefore "hate" their opponents? Should their "hateful" opinions have been silenced, too?

Gay activists know that if they can effectively intimidate and control the iPhone App Store, they can censor what iPhone users can see -- and that population is a pretty large and influential one.

We ignore this fight at our peril.

Right on target

Michael Voris continues to impress as someone who can speak truthfully and clearly about the Church, at a time when so many are still mumbling platitudes...

Sauce for the goose...

Loved this little video about the woman whom I hope it will soon be proper to refer to as "former Senator but still the abortion industry's BFF, Barbara Boxer".


Call Me Senator from RightChange on Vimeo.

Thanks, Dagger John!

Nearly four years ago, I wrote about "Dagger John" Hughes, the first Irish-born Archbishop of New York, a man who never allowed a public slight against the Church to go publicly unchallenged. I ended with this:

So, Dagger John, pray for us, and ask Our Lord to send us another one like you. Really, really soon.

Looks like that may be exactly what happened.

Don't know much about mo-ral-i-ty...

While looking for the results and questions on the Pew report on religious knowledge among Americans (the one that's been the news so much recently), I came across another of their reports, The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey from 2007.

In it, Question 10b asks, "When it comes to questions of right and wrong, which of the following do you look to most for guidance?"

For Catholics, the results were:

Practical experience and common sense: 57%
Religious teachings and beliefs: 22%
Scientific information: 10%
Philosophy and reason: 7%
Don't know / refused: 5%

So, let's see. The disintegration of the power of our Church to save souls by influencing morality has progressed to the point where less than one-quarter of self-identified "Catholics" turn to the teachings of the Church when confronted with a moral problem.

The average for believers of all faiths was 29%.

And, of course, the salvation of souls is the main reason the Church exists, right? What? Oh, yeah, I forgot. The "spirit of Vatican II" changed all that old-fashioned stuff. We're here to promote "social justice." Drop enough boxers in the "Undie Sunday" box and you're gonna be just fine with God.

Now I feel so much better.

UPDATE:

I forgot to mention that the same survey reports 48% of Catholics responded that abortion should be "legal in all cases" or "legal in most cases."

Yes, I know, it's Pew, and they have an agenda. Still, that ANY Catholics believe that the annual destruction of a million American children in the womb should be completely legal gives testimony to the failure of the Church in our country to give effective witness to its people about the chief moral issue of our time.

Check

I've been researching the teaching of history and civics to potential new citizens, and came upon this from the website of Hopelink Adult Education:

Practice dictation with your students. They will be required to write one or more dictated sentences. The writing does not have to be perfect but must demonstrate that the applicant has a comprehensible amount of writing skills.

A "comprehensible amount of writing skills?" Sheesh. Better test the copywriting staff at Hopelink first. The immigrants are probably already writing better than this -- after all, they've actually studied English.

Here we go again -- maybe

I've been reading A Popular History of the Catholic Church, by Philip Hughes. It's from 1949, when Catholics were still proud (and popularly, if sometimes grudgingly, expected to be proud) of their Church. This passage, about Julian the Apostate's brief attempt to restore paganism to the Roman Empire in the 300's, stood out:

Christians he persecuted, and this not by any frontal attack, but sinuously, by cutting them off from all the culture of the time, forbidding them to teach or be taught, by harassing them with vexatious regulations, and by conniving at the inevitable recrudescence of ancient Pagan hatreds.

Parts of Julian's program are just what is being carried out right now in our own culture, are they not?

How gay marriage hurts heterosexual marriage

The Purple Heart is a military decoration of venerable age in our still-young republic. It signifies that the wearer has been wounded in the service of his country.
Imagine, if you will, that you are a soldier who has received this decoration, and you are proud to wear it.
One day, a judge decides that it's unfairly discriminatory to award this medal only to those who were actually wounded, and decrees that it must henceforth be distributed to every person who has ever served in a branch of the armed forces, even to those who were discharged dishonorably.
Might you not feel that the distinction awarded to you for your sacrifice was now devalued?
Now imagine that the people react to this judicial decision by formally reconfirming the Purple Heart in its traditional purpose, not once but twice. On both occasions, judges declare this expression of the will of the people unconstitutional.
The next time somebody asks you "How could gay marriage possibly harm heterosexual marriage?" it might help to ask them if they've heard of the Purple Heart.

Casual anti-Pius-XII sneers in everyday life

I'm starting to keep track when I encounter little fragments of casual disdain for the supposed silence of Pope Pius XII during World War II. This pair of quotations are from Herman Wouk's novel War and Remembrance:

The archbishop didn't know all the Pope knew. The Pope had his reasons to remain silent, mainly the protection of Church property and influence in German-held lands; also, the old Christian dogma that the Jews must suffer down through history, to prove that they had guessed wrong on Christ, and must one day acknowledge him. ...
"Europe is a Christian continent, isn't it? Well, what's going on? Where's the Pope? Mind you, there's one Catholic priest right here in Marseilles who's a saint, a one-man underground. ..."

Wouk gives both of these lines to sophisticated characters, insiders in Italy and Vichy France, whom we are meant to regard as experts. No rebuttal is offered at the time these statements are made, nor is a more sympathetic view of Pope Pius conveyed anywhere else in this widely-read novel.
Of course, Wouk was writing in the mid-1970's, when Rolf Hochhuth's play The Deputy was recent and still riding high as the intellectual's default "understanding" of the subject of Pius' wartime conduct.
And yes, it's "only" a work of fiction. But does that really mean that in creating an imaginary narrative, an author has no responsibility to find out the truth, and tell it? Or at least to avoid character assassination?

Progressivism and the Catholic Church

Well, that's a subject line that would merit book-length treatment. But today, for now, just this:

Why is it that several generations of American Catholic clergy and laity have concluded that the big-government solutions of the Progressive Movement are just dandy expressions of Catholic moral teaching?

Looking back through history, it seems to me that the Church generally has had endless trouble when governments were huge and powerful. First there were the persecutions led by pagan Roman emperors. Then, when the emperors turned Christian, there were the repeated interferences in favor of heresy (e.g., Arianism and the Iconoclastic movement), followed by heavy-handed persecution of heresy (e.g., of Monophysitism in the Eastern Empire, a bone-headed move that helped soften up Christian unity for the first waves of Muslim conquest).

In the West, as the power of regional governments grew, starting in the 9th century, we had the Holy Roman Emperors demanding to appoint their own bishops, and generally interfering with the Church governance. As the national governments of France and England grew in power and stability, they too sought to control the selection of the Church's leadership -- finally including the Papacy itself. The Tudor dynasty in England ended the turmoil of the Wars of the Roses and re-established the kingdom, only to have Henry VIII squander his father's legacy, plunder the Church's property to refill his coffers, then tear his country's Church away from Rome in his mania for siring a male heir.

When the "divine right of kings" gave way to the democratic revolutions of the 1700's and 1800's, the Church suffered again -- once again at the hands of all-powerful states which had undergone a change of masters but not a change in their lust to control every important feature of private life.

And then in the 20th century there came those twins of totalitarianism, Communism and Fascism, and their rich uncle Progressivism. These three huge-government movements have all sought to tame the Church to their purposes, and to persecute it when it dared to be uncooperative.

And now we're into the second year of the Presidency of Barack Obama, and of the overwhelming legislative ascendancy of the radical wing of the Democratic Party. Their hostility to core moral teachings of the Church, soft-pedaled during the campaign, is now clear.

And yet so many Catholics still babble about the importance of promoting "social justice" through bigger and bigger government, through the permanent triumph of the Progressivist cause.

If we Catholics really want to promote "social justice", perhaps we should work on making ourselves extraordinary examples of charity and virtue. When we arrive at our own particular judgments before God, I don't think he's likely to ask us how diligently we voted for socialist programs, so that the poor could be helped through the forcible taking of money from other people. Instead, I think He'll ask: "What did you give, freely and humbly, because your heart was illuminated by My grace?"

Why I am a Catholic, episode 4,932

Because we don't put up stupid clueless billboards like this one:

h/t Failblog

The Tridentine Mass gets a boost

I'm really enjoying RealCatholicTV.com these days. This is their latest, about the irrational opposition still being met from bishops and many lay persons to the Tridentine Mass.

Getting our attention

Christianity, not just Catholicism, has been plagued with a sometimes-effeminate expression of the Gospel -- one that emphasizes forgiveness and complacency, and de-emphasizes anything that smacks of the difficult or demanding.

Men, however, are stirred by sterner demands. I wish that at the end of every good, orthodox homily, we could hear these words, from the conclusion of Jack Aubrey's commission from the Admiralty which he reads to the crew of HMS Surprise at the beginning of Master and Commander:

Hereof nor you nor any of you may fail as you will answer the contrary at your peril.

The child speaks -- and eloquently

Though I've been reading pro-life books, periodicals, and blogs for quite some time, I had never yet encountered this poem by G. K. Chesterton, until I was browsing through a little anthology of his writings on the family that I picked up almost by accident at a used book sale. Which is surprising, since it's a moving and aesthetically appealing rebuttal to the pro-choice arguments that "I don't want to bring a child into this terrible world" and "Think of the abusive / impoverished / etc. conditions this child will be brought up in. He's better off dead."

And it's all the more effective because you only gradually understand, as you read, that the speaker is a child in the womb.

By the Babe Unborn
G. K. Chesterton

If trees were tall and grasses short,
As in some crazy tale,
If here and there a sea were blue
Beyond the breaking pale,

If a fixed fire hung in the air
To warm me one day through,
If deep green hair grew on great hills,
I know what I should do.

In dark I lie: dreaming that there
Are great eyes cold or kind,
And twisted streets and silent doors,
And living men behind.

Let storm-clouds come: better an hour,
And leave to weep and fight,
Than all the ages I have ruled
The empires of the night.

I think that if they gave me leave
Within the world to stand,
I would be good through all the day
I spent in fairyland.

They should not hear a word from me
Of selfishness or scorn,
If only I could find the door,
If only I were born.

"Let them have their cards back!"

One never knows, really, how accurate stories like this one are, but the retort from the Bishop's father is priceless:

In a diocesan magazine column, Bishop Victor Galeone of St. Augustine recounts that a social worker threatened to take away the family’s benefit cards during the Great Depression if his mother-- an Italian immigrant with a third-grade education-- did not abort her fourth child. The future bishop’s father responded, “Let them have their cards back! The Lord will provide.”

Learning how to argue for the unborn

This video is from the Life Training Institute. I've just become aware of the site via Jill Stanek's blog, but if you're looking for guidance about how to defend unborn children effectively through discussion with pro-choice people, this looks like a great place to spend some time.

Today at St. Thomas

Sung by the St. Ann Choir at St. Thomas Aquinas today:

Lassus, Domine, labia mea aperies
Palestrina, Domine, quando veneris

In contrast to all the other my other earlier posts listing the Choir's selections, I'm now reporting from behind the scenes: I joined the Choir this week! It's a challenge, I have to say, since it's been many years since I've sung Renaissance music and I'm not as familiar with its harmonic patterns as I once was; and I can tell that reading Gregorian Chant is going to take plenty of getting used to. But this first outing was mighty nice, nonetheless.

Quare via impiorum prosperatur?

In the L.A. Archdiocese's newspaper The Tidings appears this column by Nancy Pelosi's bishop, George Niederauer, finally pointing out that, contrary to Ms. Pelosi's assertions on national television, Catholics are actually not free to shield their moral defiance of the Church's teachings behind a bogus claim of "freedom of conscience".

Yet her defiance and her complicity in the grave evil of abortion on demand have been going on for years, and we seem to be no closer to the day when her bishop will say: "Nancy, on peril of your immortal soul, change your ways before it's too late."

h/t the redoubtable Karen Hall.

Update: I've removed the link to Karen's wonderful blog Some Have Hats, since it doesn't appear to be available anymore. Makes me sad.

The Tebow ads

Personally, I was disappointed with the Tim Tebow ads aired during the SuperBowl yesterday. Since their intended anti-abortion message had already become so public, I was dismayed that all we heard from Pam Tebow during the ads themselves was a curious circumlocution about how she "almost lost" her son. Not a whisper of the "A word", or of the dramatic story of the choice for life that she made for her son.

Yes, if you went to Focus on the Family's website and listened to the entire 7-minute video interview with the Tebows, right at the end came some very clear, strong statements, and the direct plea "please don't kill your baby".

But how many of those who watched the ads dug that far to hear that message?

And it was such a simple, straightforward story: they told me to abort my baby because I took some drugs that might have caused severe birth defects. I didn't. Instead of a burden, I -- and the nation -- got an exceptional quarterback and a fine person. That story, told simply and shortly, had the power to change anyone's heart, regardless of their faith or lack of it.

A great opportunity was missed.

And now that an "opinion" ad has been allowed to air during the SuperBowl, look for the pro-abortion lobby to submit their own ads in abundance next year.

Gloria.tv -- Dialogues of the Carmelites

I had often heard of this opera by the 20th-century French composer François Poulenc, but had never seen a performance. This video, from the Catholic-oriented video site Gloria.tv, gives you the final eight minutes of a splendid production. Absolutely gripping. Overwhelming, really.

The person who posted this clip has given an excellent summary of the historical facts on which the opera is based in the comments section beneath the video (where you'll also find a comment of mine, praising it).

Today at St. Thomas

Sung by the St. Ann Choir at today's 'Gregorian' Mass at St. Thomas Aquinas:

Heinrich Isaac, Amen dico vobis
Orlandus Lassus, Eripe me
Isaac, Misereris omnium

Texts can be found here.

Just gotta love this... ya know?

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

She might have had a gun

Some random woman, reportedly "deranged", shoved Pope Benedict to the floor of St. Peter's tonight just before Mass. The Pope was unhurt, thank God. But she might have had a gun, and then the Enemy would have landed another haymaker on this Christmas Eve, added to the Senate passage of abortion-funding "health care" legislation.

Let's be thankful for Pope Benedict while we have him. Media vita in morte sumus.

Gotta hand it to ya, Catholics for Obama!

If 54% of my fellow Catholics hadn't voted for Barack Obama, maybe ornaments like this wouldn't be hanging from this year's White House Christmas -- oops, "Holiday" tree.

h/t SHH.

A rather slanted magazine rack

I visited our parish's offices a couple of weeks ago for a meeting, and the staff magazine rack caught my eye. Quite a few publications that tend to be full of dissent from Catholic doctrine: Sojourners, Commonweal, NCR. Some lukewarm ones like U. S. Catholic.

Fortunately also the Knights of Columbus' Columbia mag -- I'm guessing it's there because the Knights are making sure it's there.

But nothing else of substance on the orthodox side: no First Things, no Our Sunday Visitor, no Touchstone.

ClimateGate

The smoking gun of climate change flummery-- if the emails are authenticated.

Send more like this one!

Bishop Tobin: Pro-Abortion Catholic Pols Should Worry About Their Souls, Not Job
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Bishop Thomas Tobin of Rhode Island, who has been involved in an exchange on abortion and communion with pro-abortion Congressman Patrick Kennedy, gave an interview this week to Fox News' Bill O'Reilly. On the program, he said pro-abortion Catholic politicians need to be more worried about their souls than their jobs. "The most important commitment we can make is our faith, because that defines our relationship with God. Nothing is more important than that. And if your job, your profession, your vocation gets in the way of that, you have to quit your job and save your soul," Tobin said. Tobin also said on the show that his 2007 decision to ask Kennedy to voluntarily stop receiving communion because of his pro-abortion stance was not a "punishment." "Every Catholic has certain obligations, it means something to say you are a Catholic. No one is forced to be a Catholic," he said. "If you choose freely to be a Catholic it means you do certain things, and you believe certain things, and I think all I'm trying to say to Congressman Kennedy and others who might be involved, say: if you're a Catholic, live up to your faith. Understand what the Church teaches, accept those teachings, and live that faith. If the church, not just the Catholic Church, but the religious community - if we don't bring these values, this spiritual vision to these discussions, who else will do that?"

Oh, good.

Sometime in the next few days, I hope to write a bit about the goings-on described in this article. As soon as I get my teeth to stop gnashing.

A Pope on the rights of Indians, 1537

The anti-Catholic propaganda of Protestantism, which has now morphed into the anti-Catholic propaganda of militant secularism, has long maintained that the Catholic Church did nothing to fight for the natural rights of the native inhabitants of the New World, and actually abetted their cruel treatment at the hands of Spanish and Portuguese explorers.

Well, OK, let's start at the top; let's start with the Pope. What did Pope Paul III write in 1537, just 18 years after Cortez landed in Mexico, and only eight years after Pizarro invaded Peru? "Nice going, guys, those heathens sure deserved to be exploited to the hilt for your enrichment?"

Not exactly.

From the encyclical Sublimus Dei:

... notwithstanding whatever may have been or may be said to the contrary, the said Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the faith of Jesus Christ; and that they may and should, freely and legitimately, enjoy their liberty and the possession of their property; nor should they be in any way enslaved; should the contrary happen, it shall be null and have no effect.

Read the whole thing (it's short) here.

Obama economic advisor Robert Reich does us all a favor:

I will actually give you a speech made up entirely almost at the spur of the moment of what a candidate for president would say if that candidate did not care about becoming president. In other words, this is what the truth is and a candidate will never say, but what candidates should say if we were in a kind of democracy where citizens were honored.

...

I'm so glad to see you, and I would like to be president. Let me tell you a few things on healthcare. Look, we are we have the only healthcare system in the world that is designed to avoid sick people. That's true.

...

And by the way, we are going to have to, if you are very old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It's too expensive. So we're going to let you die.


Catholics who voted for Obama should ponder Mr. Reich's words. Is this what you wanted? If not, what are you doing about it? Remember, Reich isn't some unknown kook or talk show host; he's a former governor and Secretary of Labor, and Obama picked him as an advisor.

Listen to the complete audio of this 2007 speech at Berkeley here.

"Is there no virtue among us?"

I believe our Church took a terribly wrong turn when, beginning after Vatican II, it de-emphasized the cultivation of individual virtue (as an expression of the love of Christ) and threw all its attention upon cultivation of the Corporal Works of Mercy (i.e., feeding the hungry, relieving poverty), but in a very peculiar way -- by cultivating the power of the government to coerce from unwilling donors the counterfeit of Christian charity via taxation and redistribution -- that is, socialist solutions to societal problems.

So I guess I'm agreeing with James Madison, who said in 1788:

Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks -- no form of government -- can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea...

Had the Church concentrated on its immemorial task, bringing individuals to a love of Christ which would express itself in sacrificial love of neighbor, we would have a much healthier nation now, and ironically, the conditions of social justice which are so often prayed for would be far closer to realization -- through the virtue of sacred Charity in millions of ordinary people.

"Streets" smarts

Lately, we've been enjoying reruns of the early '70's TV series The Streets of San Francisco, and something from a recently-aired show seemed worth noting.

In this episode, a young woman called Barbara (played by Kitty Winn, of The Exorcist and The Panic in Needle Park fame) chooses to have her out-of-wedlock baby at a home for unwed mothers, against the wishes of her hyper-feminist mother, who wants her to get an abortion. But it turns out that the home is in cahoots with a doctor who lost his license for doing abortions back in the '50's, and who has a nice scam going. When one of these mothers is ready to deliver, the doc over-anesthetizes her and then tells her, when she awakes, that the baby was stillborn. He then sells the baby on the illegal-adoption market.

Barbara doesn't buy that story, though, and goes hunting for the child. In the final confrontation scene, her mother tells her she isn't being reasonable. She rounds on her mother and says:

What's your idea of "reasonable", Mother? Pill in the morning? Sex at night? Abortion at the end of a careless month? That's not my idea of "reason". I know what it is to have life inside of me -- growing, through me. You never taught me that. You never taught me that life and love are the same. You didn't want me to have my baby. Nobody does. Nobody.

This episode aired in 1973, shortly after Roe v. Wade. You probably couldn't get such an intelligent and forthright challenge to abortion on the air today, but back then, the issue was still new and raw enough, maybe, to allow for a wider range of expression.

ObamaCare vs. ChristCare

Quite apart from the issue of providing abortion funding either by specific inclusion or by a lack of well-defined exclusion (as has been proposed and repeatedly rejected by House Democrats), there is the larger question of whether the Catholic Church should be cheering this enormous extension of government control over the lives of Americans, funded by the coercive power of taxation. I don't think it should.

Our Church is about saving souls, first and foremost. Yes, our cooperation in that process will naturally lead us to care for the material needs of the poor and unfortunate. But it profits us nothing to provide that care through government, since that simply forces someone else to pay for it. Forcing someone else to give their money is not a virtue. Only if that care is enabled through our own direct, intentional, sacrificial giving, does it form a part of the change of heart that our Savior is asking of us.

If it's common now to refer to the president's proposals as ObamaCare, I would say that we Catholics should be focusing on ChristCare: an organized voluntary taking up of other people's healthcare burdens through the voluntary, sacrificial giving of ordinary Catholics.

What else went wrong

At a local book sale recently I picked up a book with the intriguing title The Catholic Heritage, by one Lawrence S. Cunningham. I'm always interested in learning more about the contributions that Catholics have made over the span of the Church's history. Given the book's title, it seemed reasonable to expect that I might find out some new things along that line.

I stopped reading at the following:

It is no longer possible to think of Catholic theology; there are a number of theologies which work within the larger tradition which we call the "Catholic tradition".

And what are some of those "theologies"? Liberation theology. Feminist theology, including the execrable work of Mary Daly.

It's not so much that I think Mr. Cunningham was wrong when he was writing back in 1983. The big problem is that he was probably right. And that's another thing that went wrong after Vatican II: knowledge of and respect for the theological heritage of the Church took a back seat to the feelings of us Boomers, who were by then thoroughly accustomed to having our demands for "relevance" and "meaningfulness" catered to.

It was the beginning of a Church of teenagers, not a Church of adults. Maybe -- just maybe -- the generation of young Catholics we see today is actually willing to grow up, at an age when my generation was not.

The "mass" I left behind me

The recent nauseating "Mass" depicted in this video is a perfect example of what drove me away from attendance at Sunday Mass back in the 1970's. The irony is that the "reformers" thought that this kind of thing was going to be the key to keeping my generation in the Church. Think again, guys. And, another thing: ask God to forgive you for dragging His Church down into this relativistic, self-indulgent, politicized, ugly muck.

"The melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" claims another fine old church

Catholic Culture noted the closing of 170-year-old St. John the Baptist church in Schenectady, NY, by the Diocese of Albany, which is boldly spreading the Faith by closing 33 parishes in the next three years. Bishop Howard Hubbard has presided over the collapse of Catholicism in his diocese since 1977, closing 36 parishes previously.

With considerable irony, the date of SJB's closing was June 24, the feast of -- as the lone commenter (a priest) pointed out on the Albany Business Review's story -- you guessed it, St. John the Baptist.

The parish still has a forlorn little website up. You can see the stained glass windows here. The altar had long ago undergone the mandatory wreckovation, though most of the basic architecture was still to be seen. Behind the altar is a huge wooden carving depicting St. John (I guess) being engulfed by a tidal wave on the Jordan or possibly consumed by a large carnivorous plant. The last worship schedule listed a single Sunday Mass, a "folk Mass" at 10:00 AM.

"Folk Mass"?? When did "aggiornamento" get defined as "keeping the Church tied to the pop culture of 1964"?

At least it won't be torn down. It's going to become the new performing home of Schenectady Light Opera. Maybe they'll treat St. John better than the diocese did.

Some things don't change

It seems to me that, in a sense, the Cross of Calvary was no anomaly, no betrayal of Christ unique to its place in time, or the people who actually took part in it. The Cross is always what happens to Jesus, to the Word Made Flesh, whenever He appears in this world we chose in place of the one He made; either in His full form in Jesus of Nazareth, the Second Person of the Trinity; or in His partial form, in His followers who, now and then, trust Him with their lives. Jesus could have dropped in anytime in human history and our charming species would have done Him in just the same.

More than that: if God's plan of salvation had been different, and Jesus had re-entered time every year somewhere on January 1, every generation would still have found a reason and a way to get Him to someplace like Calvary by 11:59PM on December 31. And probably much sooner: it was a quick five days from Palm Sunday to Good Friday, after all.

Progress without Pause

From an article by Gilbert Meilaender in the February 2009 First Things:

"What does it profit a man," Kierkegaard writes, "if he goes further and further and it must be said of him: he never stops going further; when it must also be said of him: was there nothing that made him pause?"

Meilaender is writing in the context of recent reports of a successful human cloning in, of course, California. It used to be that a sensible fear of science overreaching itself was a staple of the common culture, expressed in the standard "mad scientist" character. Now, it seems, scientists who are inclined to indulge their lust for experimentation without moral boundaries are permanently excused from any scrutiny, as long as they clothe their work in the mantle of a search for knowledge.

Could the "reform of the reform" finally be starting?

This article from the CatholicCulture.org website mentions unconfirmed reports (unconfirmed by the Vatican, that is) that there may finally be some progress toward the much-needed "reform of the reform" in Catholic liturgy, to convey more of a sense of the sacred. Ideas that have been suggested by the Congregation for Divine Worship include (gasp!) an end to the practice of receiving communion in the hand, and (double gasp!) a return to the celebration of the Mass ad orientem. That is, with the priest facing God and leading us to Him, not facing us to tell us what terrific people we are.

It can't come too soon.

Missions? Really?

Yesterday, most of the homily time at St. Thomas Aquinas was taken up by an appeal on behalf of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur -- specifically their missions program in third world countries. Our priest called it the best mission-oriented message he had heard.

Yet I noticed something that left me very uneasy. The nun who spoke described quite a few charitable efforts going on at Notre Dame missions: teaching their African students to raise their own food, for example, so they wouldn't have to sit through their classes hungry.

Laudable, yes. But I kept waiting for any mention of the main thing that I thought missions were supposed to be for: bringing the Catholic Faith to those who don't have it. I waited. And I waited. And then the speech was over.

I have no doubt the Notre Dame sisters do many charitable things in foreign countries. But really, how is this different from what many secular groups do, like the Peace Corps? And frankly, often do better?

Why don't they want to emphasize -- or even mention -- the one thing that Catholic religious orders have always been proudest to do -- tell the world about Christ and His Church?

A teachable moment

After the recent Beer Summit, the White House published this photo of the three men leaving the Rose Garden. Pretty unremarkable at first glance. But then you notice something...

Self-described victim of racial profiling Henry Gates, who walks with a cane, is being helped down the steps by the supposedly racist officer who arrested him. President Obama, in the meantime, strides ahead, appearing unconcerned now that most of the political advantage to be gained from Mr. Gates' arrest has been harvested.

On to health care! And when all the political advantage has been wrung out of that "emergency", it'll be on to something else. But you'll have to depend on someone else to show you some actual kindness.

Quite a "teachable moment", indeed.

Logan's Run: the starting line

Frank McCourt

Frank McCourt, the novelist, just recently passed away. I understand he was a very warm and charming individual in person, and people tell me they've really enjoyed his books. But I have to say that I wish he hadn't dropped so many snarky comments about the Church in the course of his celebrity. Our enemies will be quoting him for years.

Why can't people who leave the Church just let it alone?

Conscience clause, c. 1535

Re-reading R. W. Chambers' classic biography of Thomas More, I was struck by this quotation from Judge Rastell's contemporary notes on Parliamentary debate over the infamous Act of Succession, which required all subjects of Henry VIII to swear an oath acknowledging him as Supreme Head of the Church in England:

Note diligently here that the bill was earnestly withstood, and could not be suffered to pass, unless the rigour of it were qualified with this word maliciously; and so not every speaking against the Supremacy to be treason, but only maliciously speaking. And so for more plain declaration thereof, the word maliciously was twice put into the Act.

And yet afterwards, in putting the Act in execution against Bishop Fisher, Sir Thomas More, the Carthusians, and others, the word maliciously, plainly expressed in the Act, was adjudged by the King's Commissioners, before whom they were arraigned, to be void. [emphasis added]

If anyone is inclined to accept the current assurances emanating from Washington that this or that new legislation compelling doctors and pharmacists to collaborate in providing abortions will be equipped with a "robust conscience clause" excusing those who decline on moral (for our purposes, Catholic) grounds -- well, just be aware that that particular joke is almost five hundred years old. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

Let a hero's work be noted!

In a post about the assault-with-a-deadly-weapon attack on a pro-life demonstrator in Chico, California, the estimable Suzy B blog said this:

Considering that Mr. Cantfield [the demonstrator] was simply showing pictures of what abortionist George Tiller did day after day, how can anyone be angered? Tiller was portrayed as a hero for women; why not show his “heroic” actions?

Why not, indeed?

Here we go again...

While reading the entry on "English Confessors and Martyrs (1534-1729)" at the online Catholic Encyclopedia, I came across this:

The tyranny they had to withstand was, as a rule, not the sudden violence of a tyrant, but the continuous oppression of laws sanctioned by the people in Parliament, passed on the specious plea of political and national necessity, and operating for centuries with an almost irresistible force which the law acquires when acting for generations in conservative and law-abiding counties.


It seems to me that this is the type of oppression against Catholics that we can expect sometime in the next decade or two in our own country. The persecution won't come with the "sudden violence of a tyrant" -- there'll be no big roundups or concentration camps (needlessly bad PR, after all) -- but with the same kind of "continuous oppression" of laws piled upon laws that slowly strangled the Catholic faith in England.

And not only there. How did the Catholic populations of the Near East and North Africa dwindle away after the Islamic conquest of the 600's and 700's A.D.? Yes, sometimes by slaughter and direct coercion, especially at first. But Islamic rulers quickly found a far more cost-effective method: impose second-class citizenship, special legal burdens and a tax on being something other than Muslim; then just let that work on human nature over time. In every generation, after all, there are bound to be lukewarm Christians. Some of them will give up and "move on", taking up the favored religion for the creature comforts it brings.

And we Americans are, despite the fashionable defiance of authority we often put on when it's safe, are basically a "conservative and law-abiding" society. As laws change, we grumble, but we usually end up complying.

So look out for the gradual pressure that will be brought to bear on our Catholic teachings during this and later administrations. Not, to be sure, on Catholic positions that can be made to bend to leftist aims, such as government aid for the poor (which, strangely, never manages to reduce the number of the poor) and "immigration reform". But on the real "life" issues -- abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, cloning, and others -- there will be decreasing toleration of Church teachings. And on other teachings as well -- gay marriage, for instance, where we can soon expect a soft censorship on preaching and catechesis based on severe, yet vague and malleable, "hate speech" laws.

Add to this legal pressure from outside the pressure of the Kmiecs, McBriens, Chittisters et al., who from inside the Church will be only too happy to side with the government against authentic Catholic teaching. They held the Church's Magisterium in slight regard already; but since January 20, 2009, they have also gained a powerful external White House ally with filibuster-proof majorities in Congress. They will help bring on the oppression of faithful Catholics, and provide pseudo-Catholic cover on CNN for the secularists whenever there are complaints. And it will all be done under "the specious plea of political and national necessity".

So, faithful Catholics, I'd say: brush up your bio for the Catholic Encyclopedia's future entry on "American Confessors and Martyrs (2009-present)". If our entry names half the number of names that the English one does, we'll have done well.

Wisdom from a box top

Someone just told me about the epiphany he experienced in his Christian life when, looking idly down at the top of a Cheerios box while getting breakfast, his attention was suddenly seized by these simple words:

Must be present to win.

It seems to me that that is the simple thing that God asks of us: be present to Me. Pray, and when you do, trust Me enough not to dwell on the past or worry about what might happen tomorrow. Just be here with Me now.

It's baaaaack...

This banner first went up above the main entrance to St. Thomas Aquinas back in the middle of last year. There was a bit of argument about it when it was proposed by our three-church parish's Human Concerns Committee; I was among those who objected that putting up a banner about torture exclusively would send a message that this was the main moral issue for the Catholic Church right now (and send an unmistakable political message in an election year in which waterboarding was already a live campaign issue for one party). After the one month of visibility that this banner was said to be limited to, I suggested that we should follow up with a series of similar banners on other and more important moral issues: "abortion is wrong", "embryonic stem cell research is wrong", "euthanasia is wrong", and so forth.

One response I received from someone associated with the HCC (I won't name the person because the email was private communication) was "... if the issue were to be "euthanasia", "embryonic cell research" or even "death penalty", it would be so controversial that the parish may never come to a consensus to declare one way or another."

This spoke volumes to me about the degree to which 60's-style dissidence has soaked into Catholic life here in Palo Alto. Catechesis and apologetics have apparently been so poor for so long that simply stating the Church's longstanding, unequivocal positions about euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research would be hopelessly controversial. The Church regards both these acts as intrinsically evil, and thus never permissible. (The morality of the death penalty remains a prudential judgment about which Catholics may disagree and still remain faithful sons and daughters of the Church; the other two are not prudential judgments, but settled doctrine which command our obedience).

The banner first went up, as I said, back in the middle of last year -- June, I think, so it had to be taken down each time there was a wedding at STA, brides being understandably sensitive about having the torture issue shoved in their faces on their special day. At month's end the banner went away, and I pretty much let the incident slide into the past.

And then, walking down Waverley Street toward the church on Corpus Christi last Sunday, I looked up and there it was again -- this time hung crookedly across one of windows as you see above, secured to two big screw eyes driven into the 108-year-old redwood siding.

I'll keep you posted on developments.

Unfathomable on so many levels

From CWN:

Commenting on the early years of the clerical abuse scandal, retired Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee writes in his forthcoming memoir, “We all considered sexual abuse of minors as a moral evil, but had no understanding of its criminal nature.” The archbishop says he instead “accepted naively the common view that it was not necessary to worry about the effects on the youngsters: either they would not remember or they would ‘grow out of it.’”

Had no understanding of its criminal nature? Out of any 1,000 American men at the time, how many would not know that child sexual abuse was a crime? And "the common view"?? On what planet was that view "common"?

I don't like a lot of what SNAP does, but the following comment is right on target:

Peter Isely, Midwest director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, commented, “It's beyond belief. He's either lying or he's so self-deceived that he's inventing fanciful stories.”

My question is: how did such a licentious, deluded priest ever make it into the episcopate?

It's perhaps no surprise that another story on this perverted man discloses this not-exactly-bombshell:

In an interview with The New York Times, retired Archbishop Rembert Weakland admitted relationships with several men while he served as Archbishop of Milwaukee and questioned Catholic teaching on the immorality of homosexual acts.

Sick of "Social Justice"

I've officially had my fill of the slobbering love affair so many Catholics have carried on with "social justice" over the past decades. Especially since this has usually been expressed in a cozying up to socialism as its best implementation.

Outside St. Thomas last Sunday there was a table where we were invited to write letters urging the Federal government to be sure to continue spending large amounts of money to "help the poor".

Now, if more of the money we're already spending was going for programs that actually succeeded in teaching people how to get out of poverty, that would be worth saving. But I can remember when today's enormous social programs got their start in Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty". What great social changes we were promised back then! All those hundreds of billions spent, only to have poverty grow greater in scope, amid a deepening degradation in the culture in which the poor occupy the lowest and most vulnerable layer.

I may have missed something in catechism class, but why is it in the interest of the Catholic church for alms given voluntarily as an expression of personal charity to be replaced with welfare checks funded by state coercion (via taxation)? Especially when that means more and more power being concentrated in the hands of a central government?

Full and active participation, 1954-style

Every now and then I pick up the shirt-pocket-size My Sunday Missal by Fr. Stedman, ca. 1954, that I grew up with, and re-read some part at random. Here's something that might interest anyone who thinks the pre-Vatican II church expected the faithful just to sit dumbly in their pews. Of even more interest is the way that that contemporary shibboleth, "full and active participation", was thought of back then.

How to "participate actively"

You "will be filled with this [true Christian] spirit only in proportion" as you "actively participate" in the Mass, says Pope Pius X. How do you actively participate? As a lay person you actively participate: first, by offering the Divine Victim to the Eternal Father in union with the priest, your official representative; second, by offering yourself to the Eternal Father in union with the Divine Victim. To be a co-offerer with the priest, you must have a sacrificial will, so as to make this twofold oblation of Christ and yourself. ... the Mass is not the private prayer of the priest at the altar, but the collective prayer of all present both in the pews as well as at the altar.

No tambourine, no bass guitar, no hand-holding, no clapping, no liturgical dance. Just quiet, total interior union with the sacrifice of the Mass.

Good thing we dumped all that claptrap in the sixties, huh?

Anger management

Back in February, I alluded to a conversation I had with a St. Ann Choir member after a Mass at St. Thomas, and promised to blog about it. Time to make good on that.

The conversation came after most of the choir had figured out that I was The Dover Beachcomber who had been blogging so enthusiastically about the choir's work at STA. The comment that struck me was something like "I was surprised it was you, because I didn't know there was so much anger in you." Or something close to that. They weren't criticizing, just noting. Anyway, the key thing was that the anger that underlay some of my posts had made an impression.

Going back over my blogging history, I had to admit that this person was right. I certainly have sounded angry at times, occasionally very angry. And that got me to thinking about why that was so.

My wife supplied a suggestion that I think is right on the money. She said that she had read that anger isn't a primary emotion, i.e., it's not what happens first. Before anger, there is usually a sense of hurt, and anger is a response to the hurt.

Thinking about that, I realized that my sense of personal hurt over what has happened to the Catholic Church in my lifetime is indeed enormous. At the very moment its old solidity and confidence might have saved the whole world -- and me -- much grief and sin, those things vanished into a welter of self-doubt, blandness, and timidity. And that change didn't just happen; it was pushed, and continues to be pushed even today, by Catholics who chose their own judgment, and the judgment of secular society, over the teaching authority of the Church, and over what Chesterton calls "the democracy of the dead" (i.e., the accumulated wisdom of the men and women who came before us).

That, I realize, is where the hurt comes from. I could do a better job of resisting the reaction of anger, I suppose. But on the other hand, perhaps sometimes it has its uses.

One more thing...

If some are wondering why I chose to include the "Catholic Left" specifically in the title of that post below containing the Andrew Klavan video, it's because I've heard "Oh, that's not in keeping with the spirit of Vatican II" one time too many. One time too many to ignore the unspoken tag line: "And so, shut up."

Andrew Klavan explains the [Catholic] Left

H/T Little Miss Attila via American Digest