Habemus Papam!

It's Pope Benedict XVI, f/k/a Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger!

I couldn't be happier! This man is a towering intellect, one of the greatest theologians of our time... and I've got a book of his he signed for me!

This was definitely one of the most exciting events of my life... a coworker & friend had the webcam up (I couldn't pull it up for some reason), and called me to tell me that it looked white, but there were no bells. We went to another friend's office, who has a small tv with a cable hookup. The smoke kept coming, and it was definitely white, but the lack of bells confused things. Then, Brian Williams (I had them keep in on NBC because of Weigel) pointed out that it was a couple minutes to the top of the hour, at which point the bells normally toll. That passed, though, with nothing, until the bells at four after, at which point things got very excited, not just in St. Peter's square (did you see the people streaming in?), but in our office too, as more folks joined us.

That it was only the fourth ballot indicated to me that it had to be Ratzinger, something beyond my wildest expectations, whatever the media was saying in the last week. I told that to my coworkers (it's a good thing it was him!), and I told a couple to make sure that they knew the first names, in light of the formula for announcing the new pope (see below). Then Cardinal Estevez came out and greeted us in multiple languages and began the latin formula...

Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum... [I announce to you a great joy...]

Habemus Papam! [We have a pope!]

Eminentissimum ac reverendissimum Dominum Josephum...

Yes! It's Ratzinger!

Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem Ratzinger...

Yes!!!

qui sibi nomen imposuit Benedictum XVI.

No surprise... a number of people have said that if Ratzinger was elected, he might take Benedict as his papal name, alluding perhaps (as Weigel said) to Ratzinger's esteem for Benedictine monasticism and its role in Western civilization, and then more importantly, the relationship between Benedictines and the liturgy... as others have said, we'll almost definitely see the continued flourishing of the liturgical movement as it has developed in the last decade or so.

Of course, we are already hearing the requisit references to Benedict as "God's rottweiler," etc. I'm sure we'll hear "Panzerpope" too. But those who actually know Benedict's thought know much better. Last Friday, UPI religion reporter Uwe Siemon-Netto quoted a Protestant theologian, who said regarding Ratzinger, "He is arguably the Catholic Church's finest theologian, in addition to being a very humble and deeply religious man." And again, those who have read his theological works know that.

Benedict was one of the chief theologians who worked on Vatican II's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, which itself is providential... Karol Wojtyla -- as bishop of Krakow -- was instrumental with Gaudium et spes (the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World), and his successor was crucial to the other constitution on the Church.

Also in contradiction to the ideologues, Benedict is a warm, humble person, not a doctrinaire, harsh figure as some would make him out to be. And you saw this in his brief remarks to the crowd:

Dear brothers and sisters, after the great Pope John Paul II, the cardinals have elected me - a simple, humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord.

The fact that the Lord can work and act even with insufficient means consoles me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers.

In the joy of the risen Lord, trusting in his permanent help, we go forward. The Lord will help us and Mary his very holy mother stands by us.

Done, Pope Benedict.

Incidently, the Ratzinger Fan Club's website is down, due to traffic.

Termini is no more

Most people who have ever been to Rome are acquainted with Stazione Termini, the main bus, train, and metro station in Rome.

Apparently (per one of the letters of Fr. Peter Mitchell mentioned below) the mayor of Rome announced last week that Termini is going to be renamed Stazione Giovanni Paolo II.

Cool.

Letters from a young priest in Rome

Dr. Liz Mitchell and I graduated from Steubenville the same year and both went to Rome for our graduate work (sadly, she chose Santa Croce and not the Angelicum, but no one's perfect). Her big brother has made the news lately, at least in some parts of the blogosphere.

He, Fr. Peter Mitchell, is a priest from the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska who is now in Rome for his graduate work as well. During the days before and after John Paul II's death, he sent emails detailing the events and his experiences to friends and family in the US. One of them, in which he tells of the day of the procession of John Paul's body from the Apostolic Palace to St. Peter's, ended up being posted by talk-show host Hugh Hewitt on his blog.

Now, Godspy has posted all of Fr. Mitchell's letters. They are well worth a read.

“There are too many contrary instances of popes the Holy Spirit would obviously not have picked.”

You know who said that? Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, answering a question on Bavarian television in 1997 about if the Holy Spirit picks the pope.

Here's what he said prior to the above statement:

“I would not say so, in the sense that the Holy Spirit picks out the pope. ... I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us. Thus the Spirit’s role should be understood in a much more elastic sense, not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined.”

(From this John Allen article; HT: Godspy.)

Catholic Carnival XXVI

is up here.

The Sinister Mission of John Paul II

Brought to you by your friendly Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, whose ideology is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, whose vanguard is the Revolutionary Communist Party, and whose leader is Chairman Avakian.

Ah yes, Chairman Avakain... who doesn't recall his stirring oratory of July 16th, 2002? Is it not etched -- nay, burned -- into the very fabric of our being? Do not our hearts beat with zeal at the recollection of his memorable words?

"I love a good comedy"

That's the title of this post by Thomas of Endlessly Rocking, in which he offers his thoughts on the first episode of NBC's miniseries Revelations. His opening paragraph concludes with the following:

Bill Pullman did the Dour Regretful Skeptic. [Oh how I longed for the charisma and range that made his Independence Day performance one for the ages.]

Some people know how to write.

Saint Basil Coffee

The April 10th issue of Our Sunday Visitor profiles a family who have started "a business that helps Columbian coffee farmers fight poverty by selling fair-trade coffee."

The business is Saint Basil Coffee.

I knew it.


Which Incredibles Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Maybe now we'll get the revised translation

As many of those more familiar with the philosophy of Karol Wojtyla/JPII know, his definitive philosophical work is Osoba y czyn, translated literally in english as Person and Act. As is also known, the title of the published english translation of the work is The Acting Person, a title which subtly but nonetheless really changes the sense of the goal of the work. This is indicative of other problems with the translation, problems which George Weigel details in a footnote on pp. 174-175 of the first edition of Witness to Hope.

In short, the translator -- Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka -- apparently deemphasized the Thomistic dimension of the work and overemphasized the phenomenological dimension; that is, she crossed that (admittedly gray) line between translator and editor to such an extent that, as Weigel puts it, "the reader is, on occasion, not really in contact with Wojtyla's own thought."

As he goes on to detail, an revised english translation which corrects these deficiencies was made years ago, but it has yet to be published. One can only hope that the death of the Holy Father gives some impetus to moving that publishing process along.

Parenthetically, what's with the translation problems with JPII's work? Beside Person and Act, a number of people have pointed out that the single-volume version of The Theology of the Body has a number of edits not found in the original (and official) english translations of the Wednesday audiences. What's the deal?

Rome Diary

Fr. Richard Neuhaus is blogging from Rome. Well, he doesn't call it that, but that's basically what it is.

His first (and at this point only) entry is from the 11th. He'll be there at least through the conclave.

Hillary: an awful politician

An interesting article at Redstate, in which Jay Cost argues that Hillary is not a political genius, but in fact is a political dunce. In short, his argument is that great politicians maneuver without it being noticed; in Hillary's case, there's not a maneuver that goes unnoticed.

Check it out.

Catholic Carnival XXV is up

Here.

And if you've missed out on any from the past, you can find them all linked here.

Thanks to Jay for organizing these carnivals!

Celibacy: Doctrine of Demons

It's pretty common to hear fundamentalist Christians prove [sic] from Scripture that priestly is a doctrine of demons, referring to 1 Tim 4:1-3. But when you hear it from the stature of Pastor Paul McCain, LCMS... well, it's just disappointing.

First, the Catholic Church does not forbid marriage. I'm Catholic. I'm married. Whoops.

"Oh" -- you object -- "but that's obviously not what Pastor Paul is saying; everyone knows that the Catholic Church forbids marriage for priests."

True, priestly celibacy is the discipline for Latin-rite Catholics. But that's beside the point, because St. Paul says that the doctrine of demons is to forbid marriage, period, no qualifiers. And the Catholic Church doesn't do that.

Second -- and more importantly -- St. Paul is referring to the already-present gnostic tendency among early Christians, a tendency (which became a full-blown heresy in the 2nd century) to see all matter as bad and only spirit as good. (And the sacramental nature of the Church pretty well indicates that it ain't gnostic.) I don't know of any Pauline scholar who doesn't argue that Paul is thinking of gnostics here, but that doesn't matter -- it's good enough for Pastor Paul to misapply for his own purposes.

I could care less whether or not Pastor McCain is being nice or not... I'm more disappointed that he reads Scripture with such a strong anti-papist bias, and as a result misunderstands the real meaning of the text.

Worse yet, the broader context is that he thinks celibacy is what accounts for priestly sex abuse of children. How he explains sex abuse by married clergy among Protestant communities is indeed a puzzle.

A few things from Being

A while back I mentioned the blog of a cielino, Stephen Sanchez, Being! or Nothingness. He's got a few things I want to highlight...

First, he links a new blog, la nouvelle théologie, by David Jones. For those of you who, like me, are interested in ressourcement theology, this looks like a promising blog.

Second, Stephen recalls one of his favorite JPII quotes and it is a doozy; I'd like to quote it as well:

"It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal."

Beautiful!

Finally, last week Stephen posted the transcript of one of Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete's appearances on CNN, talking about JPII. Here's my favorite part:

ALBACETE: Let me tell you, the last time that I saw him, we talked after this -- about this. I told him that I had agreed to come on CNN, that I said you know, they're all preparing for your death and almost everything is ready. And they have invited me to come and say things and so I have accepted because I'll say nice things about you. But I feel a bit guilty. He said, "No." He said, "What I am surprised is, how do they know that I will die first."

ZAHN: The pope said that to you?

ALBACETE: Yes. And I said, "Do you know something that I don't know?" He said, "No, I was just wondering." And I said, "Well, let's put it this way, if I die first, you go on CNN and say nice things about me."

ZAHN: So what you're saying tonight...

ALBACETE: That was our last conversation.

ZAHN: Really? And so you feel you have the pope...

ALBACETE: I am now fulfilling what I promised him.

I love that!

Really... read B!oN.

The Consistency of the Church and JPII

Here's a terrific post on the positions of the Church which the Holy Father proposed to powerfully over his 26 year pontificate:

RE the Corner: The [Not] Paradoxical Pope

I agree with Ramesh and Jonah on the Corner regarding the Pope's positions that defy simple right/left categorization. I think that it is a mistake to dub the Pope paradoxical, however. It is the parties that have the paradoxes. The Pope's positions are all in sympathy with one another. Why oppose totally unregulated free markets? Because they degrade human beings. Why oppose communist domination? Because it degrades human beings. The Pope's positions moderate the worst passions of both parties. The current challenges for modern civilization (and the church) which are so well described in the Derbyshire piece mentioned below, may be all the more challenging in that left and right are both more aligned against the church teaching than in these previous battles (where perhaps one party would adopt the church's position). Consider stem cell research on human embryos. If the principle of human dignity is to be upheld (and applied to embryos as the church would have it) then embryonic stem cell research should not only be unfunded--it should be illegal. Neither party has the political stomach for that, which suggests that the political center of the brave new world debates is much further away from the church's teaching than on say, social safety nets or abortion. On biotech--and many related issues--it appears that neither party genuinely wants to stand with the church. None of that changes the fundamentally un-paradoxical nature of the Pope's teaching.

(Hat tip: Jonah.)

That's what ad limina visits are for

Bill Cork links to the advice of the Nat'l Catholic Reporter's suggestion to the next pope: listen to your fellow bishops more. Bill aptly replies, so I'm just going to quote his post in full:

Tom Roberts has advice for the pope: have a year of "listening sessions." He wants him to travel wearing a black suit, celebrate no masses, do nothing but listen to bishops. I guess Mr. Roberts doesn't know about something called "ad limina visits."


In Mr. Roberts' model, the pope should be a facilitator and a manager, not a teacher or a pastor or a priest.

Well said, Bill.

The impact upon me

In light my recent calls urging those who disagreed with JPII's teachings to recognize that these are the Church's teachings and try to prayfully consider them, I thought it would be good to briefly ennumerate those issues upon with JPII and the Church have impacted my views.

As those who either know me personally or read this blog know, I'm politically pretty conservative (yes, really!), and despite the hopes of one of my aunt's, I have been so since, well, elementary school (she thought I'd 'grow up' in college). However, my reversion and the reading it prompted forced me to reexamine some of my strongly-held views. For instance....

I used to be a strong advocate of the death penalty, but no more. Of course, I continue to believe that the death penalty is not wrong per se, but I see no reason why it needs to be used as much as it is in our country. With our prisons, there is little danger of criminals posing a threat to others, and hence there is no need to execute them. I think that my previous belief was dependent on a sense of justice which was inadequate in two ways: first, mistaking justice for vengence; and second, thinking that the punishment had to fit the crime in an overly-literal sense (we don't kidnap the children of kidnappers, do we?).

Another example: I used to be an advocate of completely doing away with a government-funded welfare system, but now I recognize that we have a duty not just as individuals but as a society to take care of the less-fortunate, and while this should happen at as local a level as possible (the principle of subsidiarity), and with as much private organization involvement as possible (churches, civic groups, etc.), there will always be people who fall through the cracks, and we need need to care for them. Hence, I do believe that there needs to be a social safety net of at least a minimal level.

Relatedly, I'm much less of an individualist; understanding the Church's teaching on human nature has led me to realize that I am intrinsically ordered to relationships with other people, and that these relationships are not merely "add-ons". I think that "rugged individualism" can have a proper understanding, but more often than not it has an improper understanding, which leads us to focus too much on ourselves ("my rights!") and not enough on others (my duties).

Another example: I'm not the laissez-faire capitalist I used to be. I've come to recognize that the free market system requires some government controls to ensure that human dignity is always respected. While I still hold many of the concrete policy views I used to, they have a new intellectual foundation which is more adequate to human dignity.

So, for those of you who wonder, JPII and the Church he led in Jesus' name have impacted my views on controverted issues of our time.

This is a first

I've been banned from a blog, and my previous comments have been deleted.

The blog in question is Lutheran Pastor Paul McCain's cyberbrethren.

As far as I know, I've never been rude or disrespectful in commenting there, but I guess my disagreements with him wore out my welcome.

Bummer.

Update: a depressing number of LCMSers don't know how to talk with Catholics without reminding us of how heretical and/or asinine we are. Fortunately, there are still some who can do so (like Daniel). Now, I'm well aware that there are plenty of Catholics out there who return the favor. But you know what? I ain't one of 'em.

Better update: Good news!

Pastor Paul replied to an email, and said that it wasn't personal, he's just going to a no-comment blog, b/c he didn't have time to reply to the many serious comments being made.

Johannes Paulus PP. II, Magnus.

History: let's make it up!

Of late the old, tired canards about how it's too bad JPII wasn't more like John XXIII and how he reversed or suppressed parts of the Council have been flying. Saturday, for instance, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune said the following in its editorial on the passing of the holy father:But a man raised under the tyranny of Nazi and Soviet invaders did not liberalize the church. Indeed, he insisted on bishops who were theological clones of himself. Orthodoxy was compelled, and the generous spirit of John XXIII snuffed out.I replied with a letter to the editor, which was published as follows on Tuesday:

Contrary to the opinion of the April 2 editorial on Pope John Paul II, he was certainly just as generous as Pope John XXIII. Those with their own agendas have developed views of both popes which simply do not accord with reality, and this is certainly exemplified in this instance.

Like his later successor, John believed strongly in the traditional teachings of the church; I challenge anyone to offer an example of him disagreeing with the views John Paul would hold on any of the contentious moral issues of our day.

Then, I come across some of Andrew Sullivan's thoughts on JPII. In one post, he writes,

I'm surprised that hard data on the damage the late Pope did to the Catholic church has not been readily available in the mainstream media. But here are some interesting statistics. Since 1975, the number of priestly ordinations in the U.S. declined from 771 a year to 533 last year. (In 2000, the number hit a low of 442.) When you adjust for population growth, in 1975, 771 newly ordained priests faced a Catholic population of 49 million; today, 533 emerge for a total of 64 million Catholics. Essentially, per Catholic, we saw a 50 percent drop in vocations under this Pope. No wonder that in 1975, 702 parishes had no priest; and today, over 3,000 are without a pastor. That's quite an indictment. Globally, the picture is a little brighter, but still not encouraging. The number of parishes without priests went from 23 percent of all parishes in 1975 to 25 percent in 2000. In the U.S., weekly church attendance has slowly but innexorably declined to well below 50 percent of all Catholics. The decline in religious orders has been particularly steep: down by over 30 percent. And all this understates the crisis facing the American church, because almost half the current priesthood is over 60 - and their replacements are in shorter and shorter supply. This is the legacy of John Paul II: a church that may soon have no-one to run it. John Paul the Great? Puhlease.

So the vocations shortage and the decline in mass attendance is the pope's fault, simply because it happened while he was pope? Come on. As I tire of telling those who blame the late 60's mass exodus from the priesthood on Vatican II, correlation and causation are not the same thing. (I wonder how Sullivan would avoid making that conclusion, considering his love for his erroneous image of the Council.) If Andrew were serious about making his point, he'd offer data indicating that the decline in vocations and mass attendance was due to JPII and his ideas. But he doesn't, and he can't, because there is no such data.

We get more of the same in this The New Republic article by Sullivan (free registration required).

Wojtyla leveraged this new stardom to reassert a far older idea of the papacy--as the central, unaccountable force in the Church. The Second Vatican Council had opened authority up, placing the hierarchy on a more equal footing with the lay faithful in understanding the tenets of faith. It had also led to all sorts of chaotic improvisation and confusion. Wojtyla shut this process down--the good alongside the bad. He didn't reverse the Council (it was beyond his will or power). But he ignored and suppressed it in critical areas. National churches were given little leeway. Dissent within the Church was forbidden. The Pope silenced even debate of issues that were not of fundamental doctrinal importance, such as the prudential, managerial questions of whether priests could marry or whether women could become priests. These, he asserted, were eternal arrangements that were beyond discussion, even if maintaining them had led to a crisis in the Church's very existence in some countries.

Where to begin? First, the papacy is the highest authority in the Church, as it always has been. Is the pope accountable? Absolutely: to the Church's Founder, Jesus Christ. But that's not what Sullivan means, of course. And we see that in his reference to how Vatican II placed "the hierarchy on a more equal footing with the lay faithful in understanding the tenets of faith." Umm.... citation, Andrew? Which of the Council's sixteen documents indicate this, Mr. Sullivan? Once more, we have unproven, undocumented, vague references to the Council, which those who have actually studied the Council and its texts know do not exist. And of course, we get reference to JPII's ignoring and suppressing of the Council. Come on. Anyone who knows anything about Karol Wojtyla knows that he was a thorough supporter of the Council, knows that he initiated a series of diocesan synods in Krakow to implement the Council, and knows that he wrote a book (Sources of Renewal) explaining the Council for those who were studying the documents. But Sullivan seeks to document this alleged suppression:

1. National churches were given little leeway.

Interesting... as this piece and his blog entries indicate, Sullivan's (professed) major beef with JPII is the clergy sex abuse scandals; he complains that the Pope failed to intervene in the Church in the U.S. Hmm... so is it too little leeway, or too much, Andrew?

2. Dissent in the Church was forbidden.

Yes -- horror of horrors -- JPII required that members of the Catholic Church accept the teachings of the Catholic Church. Unbelieveable, isn't it?

3. The Pope silenced even debate of issues that were not of fundamental doctrinal importance, such as the prudential, managerial questions of whether priests could marry or whether women could become priests.

First, debate on the issue of clerical celibacy has not been quashed... plenty of people discuss it, without threat of retribution. Second, Mr. Sullivan should know that celibacy and priestesses are apples and oranges: the former is a practice (and a venerable one which serves an excellent purpose), while the latter is a doctrine. Now, the Church has long taught that it cannot ordain women, but the persistence of some has shaken the faith of many Catholics. So it was only right that JPII in his role has chief shepherd and pastor bring an end to a discussion which was metaphysically-certain to be fruitless.

Then we get this:

This man so hostile to intellectual debate was, paradoxically, an intellectual, although an idiosyncratic one. His faith was a strange mixture of esoteric phenomenological reflections and medieval attachments to various saints, miracles, and practices.

Can someone explain the meaning of "esoteric phenomenological reflections" to me? I have no idea what that means. I know what phenomenology is, and I know how JPII employed it, but did his faith consist of "esoteric phenomenological reflections"? Unless Sullivan has redefined these terms, the answer is "no".

Later, we read,

On matters of human sexuality and the "culture of life," he moved Catholic teaching away from prudential balance to eternal absolutes--that life is equally sacred, whether it is a nanosecond after conception or decades into a persistent vegetative state. The distinctions made by Catholics in the past--between, say, a naturally aborted embryo and a third-trimester baby, or between "ordinary" and "extraordinary" means for maintaining life--were downplayed.

First off, JPII's teaching on sexuality and life issues is nothing but an elaboration of previous magisterial teaching; there has been no less prudential balance with him. And what exactly is wrong with actually believing in the dignity of every human life, regardless of age or condition? Although he doesn't intend it, the implication of Mr. Sullivan's criticism is that some human beings don't have dignity, and that's a very, very dangerous road to go down.

Second, the Church has never said that a miscarried embryonic human and a third-trimester embryonic human are essentially different; Andrew's reference is to a phantom.

Finally, JPII continued to affirm the distinction between ordinary and extraordinary means of life-support; Mr. Sullivan simply does not understand that food and water are not life-support.

There are certainly grounds for criticizing JPII on certain matters, but those matters do not pertain to phantoms from the past, conceived in the fertile imaginations of those who somehow cannot accept that the teachings of John Paul II are not his private misguided opinions but are the teachings of the Church founded by Jesus Christ: One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic.

Rome's population has more than doubled

"The city center cannot take the arrival of any more faithful," said Guido Bertolaso, head of crowd control for the funeral. "Anyone arriving tonight or tomorrow will have no possibility of following the funeral at St. Peter's."

New arrivals, coming in on planes, trains and buses from around the world, were urged to make their way to a special reception area in the suburbs of Rome.

The city normally has a population of 3 million but around 4 million visitors have flowed in since John Paul's death on Saturday, according to Rome police chief Achille Serra.

"The number of people is staggering and is growing constantly," he told Reuters. "This is unprecedented."

From this AP story.

Oops

I made the mistake of reading other JPII-related posts a "Just a Bump in the Beltway". In the comments of this one, a number of issues were brought up, which elicited this response from yours truly:

Actually, Rodger, the two days of prayer for peace in Assisi were well-publicized, as were Catholic-Jewish relations and Catholic-Muslim dialogues. Interfaith dialogue was probably more active than during any other papacy in history.

Liberation theology was problematic because it rather uncritically assimilated problematic dimensions of Marxism.

A formal Notification was issued pertaining to one of Jacques Dupuis' books. It reads in part, "The present Notification is not meant as a judgment on the author’s subjective thought, but rather as a statement of the Church’s teaching on certain aspects of the above-mentioned doctrinal truths, and as a refutation of erroneous or harmful opinions, which, prescinding from the author’s intentions, could be derived from reading the ambiguous statements and insufficient explanations found in certain sections of the text." I don't see that as blacklisting, for what it's worth.

Melanie is also right that married men were allowed to become priests until the 11th century (you could never marry after ordination). However, these men were expected to *be forever continent*, i.e. never have sex with their wives again. This expectation remained (even though it was not always followed) until the Church finally decided that it was too difficult to ask it of a man, and henceforth celibacy was required. (Cf. the New Catholic Encyclopedia entry, "Celibacy, History of" as well as Cochini, "The Apostolic Origins of Priestly Celibacy," a text encouraged by Cardinals Danielou and de Lubac, themselves never regarded as arch-conservatives.)

Women have never been priests in Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. I expect to seem women ordained in the Catholic Church around the same time that actual remarriage is allowed and when it is affirmed by the Church that Mary had other children besides Jesus.

I debated posting it there, but decided to do so in the end. I don't plan on arguing with people... my comment is pretty matter-of-fact.

In this post, Melanie does have some nice things to say about JPII, but then opines,

As a theologian (and he was that) his theology of the human body took the Church back to the 12th century, overturned most of what science has learned about the human person, in biology and psychology, and returned it to a "natural law" tradition that never met the Enlightenment or modernity.

In fact, JPII's theology of the body leans heavily on his phenomenological philosophy and is considerably different from a natural law approach to theological or philosophical anthropology. And then there's the fact that the natural law tradition has most definitely met the Enlightenment and modernity, and both the Macintyre and the Grisez/Finnis schools of natural law demonstrate. But I didn't bother posting on this... one contrarian post at a liberal website per month, I say.

Inscrutible

Melanie of Just a Bump in the Beltway is a fairly new Catholic (converting a few years ago) who tends towards the liberal side of the faith in general; when it comes to politics, she's all the way to the left. While I strongly disagree with her on political matters, I generally find her religious views to be plausible, even if I might disagree.

Sadly, even that is changing. In this post, she writes about JPII that

he has been guilty of driving the progressives out and encouraging a neo-orthodox, simplistic faith that appeals to the third world where the other choices are militant, infantilized Islam or Christian pentacostalism.

One of the things that ought to be appealing about Catholicism to first world professionals is its tradition of intellectual inquiry. Sadly, that side of the Church has been in eclipse since the pontificate of Paul VI.

Very little of this makes sense or accords with reality.

"guilty of driving the progressives out"

Exactly how did he do this? By boldly proclaiming the timeless truths of our faith? By refusing to correspond the Catholic faith to liberal orthodoxy? I suspect that most of the progressives who left the church had done so in mind & heart long before.

"encouraging a neo-orthodox, simplistic faith that appeals to the third world"

One can only chuckle at something like this. First, it seems that liberals today are compelled to attach "neo-" to anything which they dislike or dispise. Second, exactly how is "neo-orthodoxy" different from "orthodoxy," and why is either anything but a good, true, and beautiful thing? Third, anyone who thinks that Catholic theology today is simplistic is woefully unaware of modern orthodox scholarship. Pick up Communio, The Thomist, or the new english-language edition of Nova et Vetera and try to tell me that theology encouraged by JPII is simplistic. This is probably the most disappointing of Melanie's statements.

Finally and relatedly, we have reference to a phantom eclipse of intellectual inquiry.

Again, I'd point to those journals, or the work of Alasdair Macintyre (in philosophy), Avery Dulles, David Schindler, Matthew Levering, and (yes) Joseph Ratzinger. Or the writings of JPII himself. (Dr. Philip Blosser -- himself a convert -- has amassed an impressive list of notable converts to Catholicism, including those who have converted since the papacy of Paul VI, [of which there are more than a few]).

Melanie seems to be echoing the sentiments of those Catholics who are complaining because the Church hasn't "modified" (i.e. radically altered) her teachings so as to accord with the magisterium of secular liberalism's orthodoxy.

Their disappointment will continue.

Stop judging the Church by your standards and spend a few months in prayer to see if maybe its your thinking that needs to change.

Catholic Carnival XXIV is up!

Read it here.

Personal Reflections

I reverted to Catholicism in the fall of 1994, and Pope John Paul II had an immediate effect on my newly-kindled faith. His writings and more importantly his witness were and remained an inspiration and source of wisdom to me... like so many others, I think his canonization will not be far off, nor will the attachment of "the Great" to his name be far away.

The first time I got to see him in person was in November of 1996, when I journeyed from Gaming, Austria to Rome with the rest of that semester's FUS Gaming students. We were present at the Wednesday audience (held inside the Paul VI audience hall because of the weather), and John Paul's appearance was electrifying. Our group (about 100 students) immediately began chanting "John Paul II, we love you, John Paul II, we love you!" over and over. When the time came for the Holy Father to greet the pilgrims in each of the major languages, the monsignor for the english-speaking pilgrims welcomed "the students and staff from Franciscan University of Steubenville." We immediately stood up and began the chant again; at one point, the monsignor tried to continue on to the next group, but we didn't let him... we continued to chant/yell, until the Holy Father gestured to us.

Then, the Holy Father himself welcomed the pilgrims in each of the major languages. In english, he said, "I would like to welcome the english-speaking pilgrims who have come to the city of Peter and Paul" (or something to that effect), and then -- in what was an obvious ad-lib -- he looked up from the text and added, "especially the students from Steubenville." I still get chills thinking about it! Of course, we immediately stood up and just cheered (we were to overcome to yell something intelligible). That was one of the most exciting moments in my life.

Fast-forward one year to the late fall of 1997. I'm now living and studying in Rome at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum). I've had the chance to see the Holy Father on numerous occasions of course (Wednesday audiences and Sunday Angeluses). But then...

Early in December each year, the pope has a mass for all the university students in Rome. So I got a ticket from the Ange's office, and got to St. Peter's early enough to get an aisle seat. At the beginning of mass, the Holy Father processed in from the back, and passed within about four feet of me! I was very excited. However...

After the Mass, John Paul came down the aisle, zig-zagging from side to side, shaking people's hands. And when he zigged, I was there! I got to shake his hand, and look into his warm-yet-steely blue eyes! I think I was on a high for about four hours! I made a bunch of (expensive) phone calls back to the States to tell people about it.

December of 1999, though, was the pinnacle. My wife and I were married that summer, and we knew about the papal blessing for newly-weds (first year of marriage). So on December 15th, 1999, at the end of the Wednesday audience, my wife and I got to meet John Paul II personally, and shake his hand. I told him that we were graduates of Steubenville (he nodded approvingly), and asked for his blessing, which he gave us by the sign of the cross and a hearty "God bless you!" That moment is, of course, immortalized on what we call our "Pope Wall" in our living room, due to the number of pictures we have of JPII (and will of future popes as well).

I truly believe that I and we have been blessed to have this man as our pontiff for 26 wonderful years, and I am eternally grateful for the opportunities -- no matter how quick -- I had to meet him personally.

John Paul II has returned to the house of the Father... rest in peace.

Two Million.

That's how many people Roman officials are expecting for John Paul II's funeral mass later this week.

Two million.


I'll have some more personal comments on him in the next day or so.

His Final Moments...

His last moments were described early today by Father Jarek Cielecki, director of Vatican Service News, a Catholic TV channel. "The Holy Father died looking towards the window as he prayed, and that shows that in some way he was conscious," Cielecki said.

"A short while before dying, the Pope raised his right hand in a clear, although simply hinted at, gesture of blessing, as if he became aware of the crowd of faithful present in St Peter's Square, who in those moments were following the reciting of the Rosary," he added.

"Just after the prayer ended, the Pope made a huge effort and pronounced the word 'Amen'. A moment later, he died."

(From this story.)

(A bit more on his final word here.)

"This evening or this night, Christ opens the door to the pope."

That quote by Angelo Comastri, the pope's vicar general for Vatican City, from this AP story beautifully encapsulates what this night or tomorrow will bring.

I need say nothing else.

It ain't the farmers

Why do we move our clocks back an hour at the beginning of every April? Good question... John Miller thinks it's a bad idea.

How Liberalism Failed Terri Schiavo

That's the title of this powerful article by ethicist Eric Cohen of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Check it out.

A great diocesan paper editorial

The newspaper for the Diocese of Columbus, Ohio (my wife's home diocese) has an excellent editorial on Terri Schiavo's passing. I highly recommend you read it.

(Hat tip: TS O'Rama)

Sadly

there are plenty of Catholics who simply do not understand the Church's position on end-of-life issues. I myself am the first to admit that I do not have a complete and thorough grasp of all the nuances. But I do know a few things, or at least a few things more than the author of this Commonweal editorial seems to know.

The editorial makes at least two major errors. First, it consistently refers to nutrition and hydration through a tube as extraordinary means, without ever really explaining why they are extraordinary. In one place it reads, "By any moral measure, fifteen years in PVS is an "extraordinary"--even heroic--burden for someone to bear." Okay, that's fine, but it has absolutely no bearing on the issue of food & water as extraordinary. How is that not obvious?

Second, it says, "advances in technology that needlessly prolong dying can be a threat to human dignity." Absolutely. But Terri wasn't dying! There is a big difference between dying and PVS!

It disappoints me that this editorial can't even make these basic distinctions in discussing an issue of such great import.

Alas.

NYTimes editorial

The Times has an editorial dedicated to Terri Schiavo. In one spot, it refers to the "vicious court fight for control of her body". Control of her body? Her body? Do you see what's between the lines here? They weren't fighting for her, just for her body... as if there is a difference. The Times' editors give further evidence of a erroneously dualist anthropology at work within the secular worldview, an anthropology which understands the body not as an inherent good, as good in itself, but as an instrumental good, as a good merely to be used. These error has all sorts of bad implications, as most bad ideas do. For more, read Robert P. George's "A Clash of Orthodoxies".

Then near the end, the editorial reads, "Some people hold religious convictions so heartfelt that they could not bow to public opinion or the courts and accept the fact that Ms. Schiavo should be allowed to die."

Let me see... how about this: Some people hold religious convictions so heartfelt that they could not bow to public opinion or the courts and accept the fact that slavery is legal.

Or this: Some people hold religious convictions so heartfelt that they could not bow to public opinion or the courts and accept the fact that women cannot vote.

Or this: Some people hold religious convictions so heartfelt that they could not bow to public opinion or the courts and accept the fact that not all human beings have rights.

As well-meaning as this editorial is, it betrays serious, substantial, and consequential errors in thought.

"Elites" aren't

Hugh Hewitt has a great post on what he calls "religiousrightitis": the recent tendency rage against the religious right (whoever they are... can people please define their terms?). Along the way he comments on today's column from Tina Brown, specifically the following excerpt therein:

The current mania for any story with a religious angle is just the latest index of the post-election angst in executive suites about the terror of being out of touch with suburban mega-churches and other manifestations of the supposed Real America. God forbid, so to speak, that anyone should stand up and suggest that Mozart might be as worthwhile as NASCAR, or that it might be as important for the soul to read Philip Roth as the hokey bromides of 'The Purpose Driven Life.'

Hugh retorts:

Tina's suggestion that those praying people head straight from church to the NASCAR race and never have heard of Mozart tells us that she hasn't been inside a church in a long long time, and her suggestion that Philip Roth is way to earthly happiness and eternal salvation, well, that's one for the ages: "The Philip Roth-Driven Life." (Perhaps some music and worship pastors might send Ms. Brown their liturgies/orders of worship from this past weekend to educate her on how Mozart and his colleagues and Christian worship aren't exactly strangers.)

Bingo.

Elsewhere in the column, Brown says that "Elites are supposed to lead, but mainstream media and the conglomerates that own it are the most docile followers of all." Well put, especially the note that elites are supposed to lead. The problem is this: being described (by oneself or others) as an elite does not one make. I don't know if Ms. Brown considers or is considered an elite, but I sure wouldn't follow someone who clearly doesn't have a clue about religious culture or the culture of middle America. Like Hugh, I'm dumbfounded by her implication that religious folk don't know high culture (by the way, isn't her extolling of Mozart judgment-making, and isn't that a no-no?). She must have the worst possible caricature of religous people, and I'm afraid that there's little hope for shining a light into her tiny world anytime soon.

The way to avoid misunderstanding it to teach clearly
and
Encourage your priests

Dom Bettinelli commented Tuesday on the decision of Portland, Maine Bishop Richard Malone to avoid opposing a state bill which he thinks, if passed, might lead to greater support for same sex marriage [sic]. In remarks to a local paper, Bishop Malone said,

I think I read in your paper that 38 percent of all hate crimes were committed against homosexual people. That is just outrageous. That goes against everything that our faith stands for as well. I was afraid that in that climate, my decision here could give the wrong message.

Dom comments,

Rather than surrender, the bishop could have instead made sure to articulate the message that while we don’t condone immorality, we also don’t condone violence against those we say are living immoral lifestyles. By capitulating, the bishop has as much put the stamp of admission on the claims of the author of the op-ed that those who oppose gay rights bills are slack-jawed, rednecks; backward, unsophisticated hatemongers.

I completely agree. There are definitely times when a doctrine is likely to be misunderstood, but the solution to the problem is not to avoid proclaiming it, but to go the extra mile to proclaim it clearly and indicate what it is and is not. I definitely agree with Bishop Malone's desire to avoid fostering hate, but I disagree that that desire is best served by not taking a public stand on a controversial issue.

I bring this up because I've seen it happen all too often... out of an understandable concern for pushing people out of or away from the Church, priests (and sometimes, bishops) avoid the hard issues. What's the solution? Well, primarily I think we need to let them know that we support them when they do teach and preach the truth, even (and most especially) when that truth is countercultural. This doesn't require getting in your priest's face... it just requires, well, first, actually getting to know the guy (invite him over for dinner!) so that you can establish a relationship, and then letting him know that you and other parishioners support him when he teaches hard truths. Many of them need to hear that, guys. Don't just complain when you don't like something... encourage and thank when you do like something.

Social Security Reform

Last night one of the local newscasts ran a story on social security reform, focusing on the remarks of Senator Tim Johnson (D) at a townhall meeting, and the remarks of a couple people who are or will shortly be retired (i.e. no one from Gen X or Y). As one might expect, none of these folks thought there was any need to get serious about reforming social security anytime soon. Why would they? As long as they get theirs, they're apparently happy.

Today, Jon Schaff at South Dakota Politics comments on the coverage the Argus Leader (the local paper) gave to Senator Johnson's remarks and the issue in general, aptly noting,

What’s the AARPs solution? Worry about it later. For all their talk about worrying about leaving debt to future generations, the AARP and Democratic plan for the coming disaster in Social Security (and even worse in Medicare) is to do nothing but pander to senior citizens. That’s leadership for ya. The question is not whether Social Security will cause us to take on debt. The question, it seems to me, is whether we want to take on a relatively small amount of debt now or a huge amount of debt in the future as Social Security goes into insolvency. I vote for the smaller debt today rather than the massive debt tomorrow.

For all the talk from some about "the children," when the rubber meets the road, the focus is on me, mine, and making sure I get it.

Requiescat in Pace

Terri Schiavo died this morning.

Her adulterous husband didn't allow her parents to be at her side in the last hours of her life.

FYI, this wasn't euthanasia... literally & philosophically, euthanasia means "good death," i.e. killing someone painlessly to ease their suffering.

Starvation & dehydration don't exactly constitute painless killing, now do they?

Pray for Terri, her family, and most especially her husband.

The Catholic Carnival

Needless to say, my Lenten absence meant that I wasn't contributing to the Catholic Carnival, but I hope that the ir/regular readers of this blog were doing so.

CC XXIII is up at Living Catholicism, here. And yours truly hopes to (re)start contributing.

Others, and the Question of Dissent and Ahistoricism

First, there are a couple more Catholic blogs I neglected yesterday: Amy Welborn and HMS Blog.

Also, there are a number of blogs (including mine) that straddle the fence between theology and politics. One that leans towards politics (and related issues) but from a distinctly Catholic perspective is that of Professor Stephen Bainbridge, a law professor at UCLA. I read his blog regularly, and recommend it as well.

Prof. Bainbridge reminded me of another blog that I don't frequent, but should: Mirror of Justice. This blog "is dedicated to the develoment of Catholic legal theory," and as you might guess, is populated by lawyers. Bainbridge yesterday pointed to this post by Prof. Rob Vischer, who teaches at St. John's law school. The title of the post is "Skeletons in the Closet," and Vischer wonders about previous church teachings that have been superceded later, and how that impacts on the approach a Catholic scholar takes to issues in our time. By way of examples, he points to 19th century church teachings on freedom of conscience, teaches which seem to have been reversed by Vatican II, as a result of the work of American Jesuit John Courtney Murray. Vischer wonders if the the same thing might be the case with same-sex marriages (sic); he doesn't argue for them, but seems to wonder if there might be a future development a la feedom of conscience. He closes his post with these questions:

My concern here is not so much with the merits of the sexuality arguments [regarding marriage], but with our disposition toward them. As Catholic legal theorists, do we approach them strictly on their substance, or is there a presumption that we accept and defend the Church's position? Is the presumption rebuttable? In other words, are we to function strictly as Apostles, spreading the Church's Good News to the world? Or are we to act as the Old Testament prophets, speaking hard truths to authority, including the Church itself? Or are we to do both, and if so, how?

I'd like to offer a theologian's perspective on these excellent questions.

It seems to me that there is an understandable-yet-problematic presumption in Vischer's argument, that being that there is an opposition between what 19th century popes taught and what Vatican II taught. On the face of it, there certainly does seem to be opposition: Vischer quotes Gregory XVI, who referred to the "absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone," and to Pius IX's 1864 Syllabus of Errors, which condemned the beliefs that "every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true," and that "it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship."

Again, these teachings certainly seem to have been rejected by Vatican II. However, I don't think that this is actually the case. Essentially, I'd argue that what seems to be the meaning of the 19th century teachings is not actually as plain and obvious as one might think, and that the historical context in which those teachings were made are extremely significant in determining the substance of the teaching being given. Without getting into the details here, I think that once one takes the historical context into account, these teachings are not as difficult to reconcile with Vatican II as they initially seem. I wouldn't deny that there has been a development in teaching, but I also think that it is extremely easy to extract Church teaching from its historical circumstances, which results in decided effects on a proper understanding of that teaching. Let me give another example:

Many Catholics (and Christians in general) will read the New Testament and understand the title "Son of God" to be a pretty clearcut reference to Jesus' divinity. But that's not actually the case, because in the Old Testament, there are instances in which the king of Israel and/or Judah, and even the entire nation of Israel, are referrred to as "Son of God," and no one understood that to mean that the king (let alone all the Israelites) were divine. Now, it's true that over time this title as it was applied to Jesus came to be seen in its literal meaning, but Jesus' contemporaries certain would not have understood it that way. But because we too often read Scripture ahistorically and thereby impose our understanding on the sacred texts, we misunderstand (to varying degrees) what is being communicated.

The same applies to Magisterial texts. If we fail to take the historical context into account, we can unknowingly skew the meaning of the text. (Extreme traditionalists fall into this trap on numerous occasions, e.g. with regard to the alleged perpetuity of the Tridentine rite.) And I think that this is often the case when one reads passages like those Vischer cites... just to give a brief example, it seems to me that what Gregory & Pius were condemning was a notion of freedom of conscience, etc. which had at its heart a fundamental indifferentism with regard to religious questions, and this was (and still is) unacceptable to a Catholic worldview. Vatican II, for instance, affirmed that we have a duty to properly form our conscience in accordance with truth, not an ultimate agnosticism.

So when these things are taken into account, one finds that in fact there was no contradiction between Catholic teaching in the 19th and 20th centuries; again, development is apparent, but not opposition.

Finally, to answer Prof. Vischer's final questions, we as Catholic scholars are obliged to recognize that the Magisterium speaks the truth; the principles we are given (apart from how they are historically situated and couched) are in fact timeless. Our call is (in part) to faithfully yet rigorously apply the principles we are given to our own historical circumstances. With regard to the question of same sex marriage, we are faced with a principle, not a historically-contingent (and hence changeable) application thereof.

Happy Easter!

I hope everyone had a blessed Lent and Sacred Triduum... now rejoice in the Easter season.

As I work my way back into blogging, I want to (re)recommend some blogs.

For Catholic blogs, make sure you're reading Disputations, Bill Cork, Insight Scoop, Against the Grain, Jimmy Akin, and Jeff Miller. There are plenty of others I read regularly, but these are some of the best active bloggers.

For political blogs, make sure you're reading The Corner, Hugh Hewitt (definely read him!), Powerline, and Redstate.

More substance sooner than later!

See you on the other side...

of the Easter Triduum.

Conference & Converts

I went to a conference sponsored by Ave Maria University's Grad Program and AMU's Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal. This year's theme was "Aquinas the Augustinian," and... wow. Some high-powered intellects were there, some known, some not so much.

I got to meet Fr. Aidan Nichols, OP, Dr. Tracey Rowland, Dr. David Yeago, and Dr. Bruce Marshall, as well as the directors of the Auqinas Center, Drs. Matthew Levering and Michael Dauphinais. And I also got the pleasure of meeting a fellow blogger, Athanasius.

Shortly before I left for the conference, I found out that philosopher J. Budziszewski converted to Catholicism last year. Then, at the conference I found out that Lutheran theologian Reinhard Hutter (of Duke University) converted at the end of last year, and that (Episcopalian?) theologian R.R. Reno (of Creighton University) also converted recently. Interesting.

Wandering in the Wilderness

In his latest column, Andrew Sullivan praises Hillary Clinton's speech on abortion last week. He begins,

Hillary Rodham Clinton is absolutely right. I've waited quite a few years to be able to write that sentence, but, hey, if you live long enough... I'm referring to her superb speech earlier this week on the politics and morality of abortion. There were two premises to Senator Clinton's argument and they are quite simple: a) the right to legal abortion should remain and b) abortion is always and everywhere a moral tragedy. It seems to me that if we are to reduce abortions to an absolute minimum (and who, exactly, opposes that objective?), then Clinton's formula is the best, practical approach.

My questions are simple: Mr. Sullivan (and Senator Clinton), exactly why is abortion a moral tragedy, and exactly why should abortion be rare? The answer to both is ultimately the same: because abortion is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. But if this is the case, how is the first of Senator Clinton's premises as outlined by Mr. Sullivan in any way defensible? Simple: it isn't.

Mr. Sullivan proceeds to extol the senator's recommendation of contraception as a means to achieve the goal of abortion as "safe, legal, and rare," along the way villifying the Catholic Church's teaching on the matter: "By focussing on contraception, she appeals to all those who oppose abortion but who do not follow the Catholic hierarchy's rigid restrictions on the surest way to prevent them."

The unfortunate fact is, Mr. Sullivan doesn't understand sex. He doesn't understand its purpose or its nature. And his lack of understanding pervades virtually every moral issue which in any way touches upon sexuality.

Someone send him Christopher West's stuff! (This article would be a good place to begin.)

Iraqi Election Roundup

Christopher Blosser has an extensive post which rounds up blog commentary on the Iraqi elections... definitely worth checking out.

Go take a look and sample some of the links.

Happy thoughts

So there was a historical vote in Iraq today.

Not surprisingly, some people are upset about it. No, I'm not talking about al-Zarqawi, I'm talking about the Lunatic Lefties, like this guy at Democratic Underground (probably the hangout for the Lunatic fringe of the left (I've highlighted some of the jucier phrases & comments):

All the media keeps talking about is how happy the Iraqis are, how high turnout was, and how "freedom" has spread to Iraq. I had to turn off CNN because they kept focusing on the so-called "voters" and barely mentioned the resistance movements at all. Where are the freedom fighters today? Are their voices silenced because some American puppets cast a few ballots?

I can't believe the Iraqis are buying into this "democracy" bullshit. They have to know that the Americans don't want them to have power, because they know that Bush is in this for the oil, and now that he finally has it he's not going to let it go. [In a year, when Iraq has a constitution and a permanent government, we'll still hear this mantra.] This election is a charade. The fact is that the Iraqis have suffered during the past two years more than any people on earth at the hands of the American gestapo. Maybe they're afraid and felt they had to vote. [Okay, buddy, that makes a lot of sense] That's the only way I can explain it to myself.

OR--I just thought of this--maybe they're smiling because they're using the Americans own game to defeat them. They're voting in candidates who they know will widen the resistance, take the fight to the streets, and finally drive the occupying forces out of their country. Perhaps they're smiling because--right under the American's noses--they're planting the seeds of a bigger and more effective resistance movement. Wouldn't that be fitting? Use *'s own tools against them?

We can only pray that this is the case. Becuase if it's not--and if the Iraq vote is seen as a success that spread "freedom"--the world is screwed. Bush's inaugural speech left little doubt that he has other countries on his list to spread "freedom" to. They will be his next targets, and the world will burn because of it.

Let's hope the resistance got voted in, or if not, they only increase the fight and take down those who betrayed their country today by voting in this fraud election.

He followed it up with this:

"And as John Nichols in The Nation and Robert Fisk write, this "election" is not going to have the results Bush and his warmongering cronies want it to have."

We can only pray that's true. For the sake of peace, this sham can't be seen as a success, and it can't give * any more ideas.

This people are, well, off their rocker... crazy... loony. But I don't think we'll hear any disavowals from the sane liberals (yes, that's most of them, my conservative friends) because these crazies are constitute a good chunk of the liberal base, and you can't upset them too much.

Hat tip: K-Lo, again.

Time doesn't have a clue

The cover story of the new issue of Time magazine -- on newsstands tomorrow -- is "Evangelicals in America." The story gives a brief synopsis of "The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America." It's an interesting story. There's just one problem (or two, depending on how you count)...

Anyone who knows anything about American Evangelicalism knows that it is a Protestant phenomenon.

But two of Time's 25 "most influential evangelicals in America" are Senator Rick Santorum and Fr. Richard John Neuhaus.

They're Catholic.

How does one of the top newsmagazines in the US make such an egregious error in their cover story?!?!

Hat tip: K-Lo.

You need to define your terms

So this whole SpongeBob/Dobson thing has been a raging topic at liberal blogs of late. As one would expect, terms like "intolerance", "bigotry", and "hate" are found in abundance. (E.g. this and this.) Unfortunately, all too often there is no initial definition of these terms offered as a starting point for the discussion or rant. Now, if the goal is simply to preach to the choir... to rouse the troops for battle... to stoke the flames of one's like-minded fellows, then such definitions are not necessary.

However, if one really wants to offer a serious intellectual argument, then the definition of terms is an absolute must. It's easy to brand people with whom one disagrees as hateful and/or bigoted... it's another thing to explain exactly why and how those "others" are haters and bigots.

In this case, it seems that to posit that "homosexual lifestyles are harmful to the individuals involved as well as the society in which they live" (Assertion) is sufficient to be labeled hateful or bigoted. Now, as I've stated before, there are definitely people out there who hate gays; the thing is, there are very few of them, while there are plenty of people who make the above Assertion and don't hate gays.

So what about the terms? According to Merriam-Webster, hate (as a verb) means

1 : to feel extreme enmity toward <hates his country's enemies>
2 : to have a strong aversion to : find very distasteful <hated to have to meet strangers> <hate hypocrisy>

The fact is, there is no intrinsic link between the Assertion above and these definitions... it is completely possible to view a particular behavior as destructive without hating those who engage in such behavior. In prior conversations, I've found that some liberals simply do not believe that it's possible to "hate the sin and love the sinner"... they so identify the essence of the person with their behavior (in this case, their sexual behavior) that they deny you can separate the two, let alone treat them differently.

What about a bigot? M-W says this:

a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices

Again, it is possible to hold the Assertion above as a bigot, but it is not necessarily so. Like it or not, there are plenty of thoughtful people who have articulated, reasoned explanations for the Assertion. To simply label all who hold the Assertion as bigots is to be uniformed.

If liberals want to preach to the choir, that's fine... I do it plenty myself. But if they want to make separate efforts to actually convince, they'll need to define their terms.

I don't have a title for this

A Catholic Church continues its tradition of burying the remains of young, deceased children.

Planned Parenthood is outraged. The local clinic director responds to this year's burial,

They have taken it upon themselves to make a macabre ritual out of this, inflicting pain on everyone," said clinic director Dr. Warren Hern. "I have women calling me who are very upset over this. These fanatics simply cannot leave other people alone with their most intimate sorrow.

Yes, the children were aborted, but so what?

Tell me, what the hell is wrong with burying these children? The remains would have been thrown in the garbage, for goodness sake! And that is somehow less "macabre" than a burial service?

Numbed, twisted, distorted consciences seem in abundance at Planned Parenthood.

By the way, did you know that since 1973, abortion has killed 46 million people in our country alone, and that each year that many people are killed by abortion around the world? To get an idea of how many people we're talking about, go here.

But don't expect to see any outrage from these Christians, unless its directed at the Catholic Church involved.

Update: Bill Cork offers his thoughts on this (Bill is the creator of the linked graphic, as well). And see this post of Bill's on a pro-life march yesterday.

Data

Oh, continuing the topic of the last post, if you doubt that the system needs reform, read this and this.

A constant leftist mantra is the need to look out for our children. But when it comes to making tough choices that might cost them a favored constituency (AARP) to do what's right for the kids, they pass the buck.

Social Security Reform

My take: if the President said that the system was perfect, we'd be hearing how there is an imminent crisis and Bush is irresponsible in his failure to address it.

In other words, many on the left hate Bush, and reflexively oppose whatever he proposes. If he says it, they're against it.

Why do I say that? Because during his second term, President Clinton referred to the looming Social Security crisis on multiple occasions, but we heard jack from the left then about how he was off his rocker.

What's really going on

Yeah, I've been on a bit of a blogbreak, and it will probably continue for a bit. But I'm interrupting Veritas' mid-winter's hybernation to post some excerpts from a piece at Blackfive by one Lt. Col. Tim Ryan, in Iraq, on the media's distortion of how the war is going:

I just read yet another distorted and grossly exaggerated story from a major news organization about the "failures" in the war in Iraq. Print and video journalists are covering only a small fraction of the events in Iraq and more often than not, the events they cover are only the bad ones. Many of the journalists making public assessments about the progress of the war in Iraq are unqualified to do so, given their training and experience. The inaccurate picture they paint has distorted the world view of the daily realities in Iraq. The result is a further erosion of international public support for the United States' efforts there, and a strengthening of the insurgents' resolve and recruiting efforts while weakening our own. Through their incomplete, uninformed and unbalanced reporting, many members of the media covering the war in Iraq are aiding and abetting the enemy.

Much of the problem is about perspective, putting things in scale and balance. From where I sit in my command post at Camp Fallujah, Iraq, things are not all bad right now. In fact, they are going quite well. We are not under attack by the enemy; on the contrary, we are taking the fight to him daily and have him on the ropes. In the distance, I can hear the repeated impacts of heavy artillery and five hundred-pound bombs hitting their targets in the city. The occasional tank main gun report and the staccato rhythm of a Marine Corps LAV or Army Bradley Fighting Vehicle's 25-millimeter cannon provide the bass line for a symphony of destruction. Right now, as elements from all four services complete the absolute annihilation of the insurgent forces remaining in Fallujah, the area around the former stronghold is more peaceful than it has been for more than a year. The number of attacks in the greater Al Anbar Province is down by at least 70-80% from late October -- before Operation Al Fajar began. The enemy in this area is completely defeated, but not completely gone. Final eradication of the pockets of insurgents will take some time, as it always does, but the fact remains that the central geographic stronghold of the insurgents is now under friendly control. That sounds a lot like success to me. Given all of this, why don't the papers lead with "Coalition Crushes Remaining Pockets of Insurgents" or "Enemy Forces Resort to Suicide Bombings of Civilians"? This would paint a far more accurate picture of the enemy's predicament over here. Instead, headlines focus almost exclusively on our hardships.

The scene is repeated all too often: an attack takes place in Baghdad and the morning sounds are punctuated by a large explosion and a rising cloud of smoke. Sirens wail in the distance and photographers dash to the scene a few miles away. Within the hour, stern-faced reporters confidently stare into the camera while standing on the balcony of their tenth-floor Baghdad hotel room, their back to the city and a distant smoke plume rising behind them. More mayhem in Gotham City they intone, and just in time for the morning news. There is a transparent reason why the majority of car bombings and other major events take place before noon Baghdad-time; any later and the event would miss the start of the morning news cycle on the U.S. east coast. These terrorists aren't stupid; they know just what to do to scare the masses and when to do it. An important key to their plan is manipulation of the news media. But, at least the reporters in Iraq are gathering information and filing their stories, regardless of whether or the stories are in perspective. Much worse are the "talking heads" who sit in studios or offices back home and pontificate about how badly things are going when they never have been to Iraq and only occasionally leave Manhattan.

Hat tip to Hindrocket at Powerline, who opines,

On the whole, I think Col. Ryan is too kind to the American press. I think that the press's undermining of our war effort is, in many instances, deliberate. It appears to me that many, if not most, American reporters, editors and news executives want to make it impossible for America ever to fight a war. To further this goal, I think they use their reporting to undermine our effort in Iraq. The idea is that if we are defeated in Iraq, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for us to fight another war anywhere for a generation. Is this assessment too harsh? I don't think so.

Talk to you soon.

More Details

Okay, here are a few more details regarding my successful completion of the doctorate...

My dissertation is entitled, "The Sinfulness of the Justified in Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue in the United States of America". I sought to examine the Lutheran & Catholic scholarship on the issue of justification in general and concupiscence in particular to see if and how we might resolve our differences on the question of the simul justus et peccator (at the same time just and sinner); that is, can the sinful tendencies (concupiscence) which remain after baptism be described as sin (as Lutherans do) or not (the Catholic position)?

In order to complete my task, I examined virtually every piece of scholarship produced by American Lutherans and Catholics on these issues, and synthesized them according to argument. I then analyzed and critiqued each category of argument in order to find which was most likely to resolve the differences, and I then developed and elaborated the argument "most likely to succeed".

In the end, I argued that throughout the Catholic tradition, mortal sin is the only proper sense of sin, but that the term "sin" is applied in other instances in analogous sense (venial and original). I argued that an analogous sense of sin may also be applied to concupiscence, and hence that there was sufficient "room" in our dogmatic tradition to call concupiscence in the justified "sin". I also argued that we not only can do so, but should do so, for ecumenical reasons but also because it would help to heal that rift between dogmatic theology and spirituality which folks like Hans Urs von Balthasar have decried for so long.

So, that's the argument of my dissertation. It was approved for defense by my moderator (Rev. Fred Bliss, SM) and the censor/second-reader (Rev. Charles Morerod, OP). At the defense, I had 20 minutes to explain my dissertation & its arguments, and then addressed questions from my moderator (20 min.), from the censor (20 min.), and from others (that ended up being about 15 min.).

The panel (moderator, censor, and vice-dean) then left the room to consult, and after a few minutes, returned to inform me and the (naturally captive) audience that I was awarded the doctorate in sacred theology (the infamous acronym of STD, the canonical equivalent of a PhD).

I found out two days later that I received 19/20 on the dissertation, and 30/30 on the defense, scores which naturally pleased me. However (if that's the right word), the dissertation score is multiplied by just over 3, giving me (on a scale of 1-100) a score of 96.3. Because 97.5 is necessary to received summa cum laude, I received magna cum laude instead. But hey... a week before the defense, I was telling people that I didn't care if I got any honors... I just wanted to get through the defense! Of course, I would have loved to receive summa, but I'm very happy to receive the scores I did.

So there you have it -- how I achieved the title of Dr. Chris Burgwald. It took me three years in Rome and seven years overall, but I got that STD!

Finito!

I'm (obviously) pleased to inform the readers of this blog that onTuesday night (Rome time) I successfully defended my doctoral dissertation and in so doing earned Doctorate in Sacred Theology.

More later, but needless to say, your prayers were much appreciated.

Prayers welcome

Well, it's nearly upon me: my doctoral defense will take place next Tuesday, December 7th at 5:00 PM at the Angelicum in Rome (that's 10:00 AM Central time, and I'll let the rest of you figure it out from there for your own time zone).

Preparation for the defense accounts for the sparse posting and commenting of late (I plan to reply to some of the comments in the last post), as I'm sure you can imagine. I hope to blog more frequently after the New Year, but I will let you know how things go in Rome.

So, any prayers you can offer for safe travel for us and a successful defense are -- needless to say -- most welcome.

Talk to you all soon.

Freshmen

The folks at The Village Gate want to help America "move past its adolescence" (meaning, of course, those "adolescents" who reelected the President, i.e. narrow-minded judgmental bigots like myself).

I propose that we help help the left move past its college freshmenness. You know how college freshman can be... they take a philosophy 101 or liberal arts core class, and suddenly they know what's best, how to solve the world's problems, and how their elders are backward thinkers.

This behavioral status has been manifested of late in the diatribes by various left-leaning folk against the Red State Morons (as they would have it).

Justice, Rights, and the Culture War

In the aftermath of the election, I've been reading a number of liberal blogs -- Christian and secular -- to see how things are going. I've mentioned some of what I've seen previously, in other posts. Here I want to begin a discussion about another complaint I see being made: oppression.

If you read blogs (political ones in particular), you will have seen that the "moral values" issue was the major topic of discussion for most of the past week, in light of the fact that some 22% of voters pegged that as their number one issue in voting, and some 80% of them went for Bush. Quite a few bloggers (here, predominantly on the left) connected that with the same-sex marriage issue. The argument goes like this: Bush (or rather, Rove) made sure that constitutional amendments on marriage were on the ballots in a number of states (eleven, to be precise), betting that this culture war issue would result in a huge turnout of evangelical Christians, who would also vote for Bush; and he was right.

Now, although this argument was very popular late last week, many bloggers and pundits didn't accept it, including yours truly... to me, "moral values" refers first to the life issues, than to other things. A number of commentators made similar arguments, and over the last four or five days, the previous argument has waned in popularity.

Nonetheless, a number of liberals still think that Bush won this election thanks -- essentially -- to all the homophobes in the red states who have empowered the President to continue to deny them basic civil rights, i.e. the right to marry their same-sex partners. Bush et al -- the assertions go -- are oppressing gays & lesbians; they are denying them their civil right to marry; they are unjustly discriminating against them.

Here's the thing: it's easy to assert that one's rights are being denied. But in the face of opposition -- and especially when your position constitutes a radical departure from the past -- you also need to demonstrate that you actually possess the right that's allegedly being denied.

Let me put it another way. I think those who cry "discrimination!" when the government refuses to marry them have an insufficient understanding of justice. Justice is (classically) defined as giving someone what they are due. But the very point of the same-sex marriage controversy lies in the last four words: "what they are due". Is it due to someone that they may marry someone of the same sex? If so, what is the rational argument in defense of that claim? Thus far, I have never seen these questions addressed. I see plenty of people (gay & straight) saying that it's unjust to disallow gay marriages, but I've yet to see a rational demonstration of the right to marry someone of the same sex.

I'm sure that proponents of same sex marriage are mystified and dumbfounded by this line of argument. After all, why can't gays & lesbians marry? Their right to marry is, well, self-evident, and the only reason people like me can't see that is because we either hate, fear, or don't understand gays & lesbians.

I'm sorry, but that won't cut it.

There is a rational basis for every right we possess, and hence there is a rational argument which can be made to set forth any particular right, in every case.

Again, I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of justice at work here. To help illustrate this, I'd like to quote from the document, "Family, Marriage and 'De facto' Unions" issued in 2000 by the Pontifical Council for the Family:

(10) Equality before the law must respect the principle of justice which means treating equals equally, and what is different differently: i.e., to give each one his due in justice.This principle of justice would be violated if de facto unions were given a juridical treatment similar or equivalent to the family based on marriage. If the family based on marriage and de facto unions are neither similar nor equivalent in their duties, functions and services in society, then they cannot be similar or equivalent in their juridical status.

The pretext used for exerting pressure to recognize de facto unions (i.e., their “non-discrimination”) implies a real discrimination against the family based on marriage because it would be considered on a level similar to any other form of cohabitation, regardless of whether there is a commitment to reciprocal fidelity and the begetting and up-bringing of children or not. The orientation of some political communities today of discriminating against marriage by attributing an institutional status to de facto unions that is similar, or even equivalent to marriage and the family, is a serious sign of the contemporary breakdown in the social moral conscience, of “weak thought” with regard to the common good, when it is not a real and proper ideological imposition exerted by influential pressure groups.

Now, the Council is referring here to de facto unions in general and not to same-sex unions in particular, but the point is the same: justice involves treating equals equally, and unequals unequally, and same-sex unions and marriages between man and woman simply are not equals. Why? Because the former are not ordered to the procreation and education of children, while the latter are, even if the couple doesn't have any children.

If same sex unions are going to be equated with marriages between a man and a woman, someone must at least attempt to argue that there is a right to marry someone of the same sex. I haven't seen that yet.

Now, before I get flamed, I want to make something perfectly clear: I don't hate or fear gays and lesbians. Yes, I do know homosexuals. This has nothing to do with denying anybody their rights, but is all about recognizing the natural order of marriage and the family. If you want to disagree with me, fine. But don't do so by merely accusing me of bigotry and discrimination; instead, make your case. Show me how marriage is open to same sex unions. And when you do so, know that my first question will be this: if it's unjust to deny marriage to gays and lesbians, why isn't it unjust to deny marriage to more than two people? So make sure that your argument takes that into account.

Again, this isn't about hatred or fear. It's about recognizing how we are created and what the natural order of the family is meant to be. In other words, it's how we are all meant to find fulfillment and true, lasting happiness.

More on the justice thing to come.