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Tuesday, April 29, 2003
Toldja.... Sean Hannity is a tribal Catholic. He is ridiculously ignorant of his faith (not unlike Andrew Sullivan) but, like a true tribal Catholic, goes on clinging to the Church, even though he doesn't know what it teaches and frequently (like Sullivan) either actively rejects Catholic teaching when it suits him or saying ridiculous things about the Faith because he just doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. Conservative Catholics are going to *have* to get over the notion that the mere fact somebody is both Catholic and politically conservative automatically means that they can't be heretical. The fact is Hannity isn't all that bright. I'm glad he sticks to the Faith like a good Irish boy and I wish him well. But I think you have to be cracked to look to him for catechesis. He has a certain fund of good solid common sense that I respect. He has the soul of an "average guy", which I revere. But he also has the curious notion that sitting in front of a camera confers on him the charism of the magisterium. Big mistake. Methinks He Doth Protest Too Much Hitchens indulges in Muggeridge bashing to follow up on his recent swipes at Evelyn Waugh. Hitchens is like salsa, really good on some things, terrible on others. When he's writing on the war or some piece of sludge like Bill Clinton, his venomous rectitude in the face of immorality is, like his hero Orwell, bracing. When he's laboring to justify his atheism, he frequently makes a fool of himself. I mention the review, however, because it combines three people I respect: Hitchens, Muggeridge, and Greg Wolfe, who lives out here in Seattle and teaches at Seattle Pacific University. Wednesday in New Zealand I'm at John Jensen's office at the Uni, waiting for he and Susan to return with the car. The talk last night to the Youth Group went well and I slept in the Jensen's freezing cold house under a *heap* of blankets and quilts. Saw the Southern Cross last night, as well as Alpha Centauri! It was a beautiful chill Autumn night, but this morning it was more like a morning in late summer. Simply lovely. John has my life scheduled out in 15 minute segments and seems to enjoy panicking and urging me to hurry up. I enjoy asking, "What's the hurry?" and filling him with panic. Susan trudges gamely behind. :) Drove up from Pukekohe (amid rolling NZ farmland that looks very Shire-like) to Auckland where we offloaded books and tapes for a talk this afternoon. As it happened, only a handful of people showed up--all students--so we just sat around and gabbed. Very different from last night where the crowd was close to 100 and everybody was excited and boistrous. Last night I gave my testimony and we had Q and A till they finally had to call a halt cuz it was going to late and too many people wanted to gab. I've seen the tallest tower in the Southern hemisphere: the Sky Tower. It looks like a big syringe in the sky. Look it up on the web and you'll see what it looks like. From here, we speed home, ingest organic materials rapidly, and then speed off for Hamilton away south. They tell me we should get a big crowd. I hope so. I've had a blast talking to people and am frankly falling in love with Kiwis. What a lovely people. Plus, it's fun to tell jokes about Aussies to them. :) Tomorrow, it's on to Matamata and the tour of Hobbiton, wherein I fulfill my solemn vow to retrieve dirt for Matthew! I hope all's well back at home. I'm enjoying myself, but the wanderlust is beginning to give way to homesickness. I look forward to Friday and all my beloveds in arm's reach again. Monday, April 28, 2003
More Scandalous than Its Teaching on Contraception, Abortion, Divorce, Closed Communion, and the Male-Only Priesthood.... is the Church's teaching on Mercy. The natural, fallen, human reaction is summed up in "You expect me to forgive *him* after what he's done? And when he doesn't show a hint of remorse?!" To which our Lord replies, "Yes." and attaches the warning that if we do not forgive we shall not be forgiven. Note that he does not append to that any hint that we are off the hook if the offending party does not repent. Our forgiveness is to be unconditional. It's his task to condemn, not ours. That is, hands down, the most offensive Catholic teaching in the world. It's also the most liberating, for those who will obey it. Tuesday Morning, N Zed The conference ended Sunday, so yesterday was play day. We all piled into cars and drove over to the west side of the Island (where, I was informed, "Westies" live. These strange creatures allegedly dress all in black and have their own subculture which decent Aucklanders look askance at.) We took up temporary residence in a "bach" (pronounced "batch") and used it as home base to explore the beach at Karekare ("carey carey, emphasis on the first CARey). Any of you who saw "The Piano" will know the beach because that's where they shot part of the film. Lovely, huge flat expanse of sand with surf stretching all the way to Australia. I splashed along in the warmish Tasman Sea and just let the sea breeze blow through my soul for a while. Very healing. Something in the soul says, "You should come back here. Or else go on to the heaven it all points to." Stumped back through palms, purple flowers, Norfolk pines, Scotch broom, and myriad strange birds to the bach to find that our den mother had made us a lovely salad lunch. Munched for a time and told amusing stories to each other, then took another walk down to a nearby waterfall in a gorgeous secluded glade. Have I mentioned life is good? Thanks be to God. Eventually, we made our way back to Auckland, safely navigating the traffic of an entire nation of people who all drive on the wrong side of the road. Had dinner that evening and then went off to Mass and a listening session sponsored by the Eucharistic Convention organizers, who are trying to see the numbers increase and the people better served. All in all, a swell day. Now, to breakfast, and then to a friend's house in Pukekohe, followed by various speaking gigs around the North Island. I'll write again when I can. Sunday, April 27, 2003
The Latest from Auckland Sorry I've been scarce. The conference took up the whole weekend and since I'm a day ahead of everybody in the US, it meant I couldn't post from your Friday till today, which is Sunday there but Monday here. (This, by the way, is why the world can't come to an end: it's already tomorrow someplace else.) The conference was lovely. The great thing about doing Catholic Eucharistic conferences is that when you aren't speaking, you are on retreat. I don't normally get to have the leisure of Holy Hours and so forth. But at the conference, there was little to do but practice holy leisure. So I happily did, needing the rest. I'm bad at estimating crowd sizes ("1... 2... 3... many") but the reaction of the people was very good. Lots of good feedback and some healthy criticism too. There's a good American Catholic musician here named Donna Lee. She's from San Diego and has a very powerful story. This conference was the 10th and the organizers very fittingly were given a nice recognition for the work from the Holy Father. They deserved it. They are doing a great service to the Church in New Zealand as they give Kiwis a chance to simply stop, come into the Presence of the Eucharist, and adore. They also serve who only stand and wait. Now that the conference is over, today is play day. In a bit, we're all being herded by our den mother, Nancye Price, off to the beach. Oh! Nancye is here! Gotta run! More later! The grueling suffering continues! Thursday, April 24, 2003
Catching up on Santorum I'm writing from a hotel computer on one of those time card things, so I don't have time to surf much. Plus, as a cosmopolitan globe-trotting international type guy, I'm naturally far above the petty concerns of, 'ow you say, American politics. However, I gather Rick Santorum appears to have observed that if the Supreme Court declares anti-sodomy laws unconstitutional then there's no particular reason why every law against every sexual perversion is not also unconstitutional. This has generated a firestorm, from what I can gather. Yet, in logic, why is he not right? It reminds me of the people who shouted down abortion opponents thirty years ago who warned that this would lead to euthanasia. I have a friend who thinks that within our lifetime we will see a return to the games of the Colosseum. I suspect he's right. If the only criteria for morality is "consent" then there's no reason, ultimately, we will be able to legislate against, not only any form of sexual perversion, but against anything two people wish to do, including fight to the death for sufficient monetary gain. Think "Survivor: For Keeps". We are a *very* sick culture. En Zed: Die Two Heer in En Zed, paypul tahk strainjly. Theh most nitable hebit is to sweetch valls arand so thet A's become short E's and short E's become long E's. Also, short I's git tuhned unto U's, such as in fush and chups. Ahem. Yesterday was Adjust the Circadian Rhythm Day. Spent lounging about and eating things. Had an interview with the reporter from NZ Catholic, the local diocesan newspaper. We talked about everything from soup to nuts and eventually the conversation turned toward the war(s). I made the mistake of referring to the Afghanistan War as a "good little war" and felt the room temperature drop suddenly. Apparently the culture in New Zealand is sort of San Franciscan about war ("what is it good for? Absolutely nuthin!"). So I may have confirmed all the worst Cowboy American Suspicions for at least one reporter in NZ. Oh well, just doing my best to foster international relations with the Anglosphere. In other news, I took a long walk around the hotel environs with a friend I met here last time. His name is Bill Moore, an Okie expatriate and convert (from Baptist roots) with a very sweet Chinese wife who is about as cross-cultural as you can get. We yakked about the Church in NZ and the French blowing up Greenpeace ships in Auckland Harbor and whatnot. He's an amputee (left arm) who now has a devil of a time getting through airport security what with the big menacing metal hook that could be used to hijack planes and fly them into skyscrapers for the glory of Holy Mother Church (if there were any foaming Bronze Age Catholic fanatics). That was a side of 9/11's aftermath I'd never thought of before. We went to dinner last night with the people who are putting on the Eucharistic Convention. A very diverse bunch: Yanks, Brits, Kiwis and even a priest and nun from something called the Beatitude Community in France. It's some sort of new religious community JPII is apparently quite enthused over that combines both religious and lay people living a vowed life appropriate to their station in life. It was started by Protestants who learned more and more about monastic life and patterned their rule more and more after Catholic models until they finally said, "You know what we're missing? The Eucharist!" They eventually applied to become Catholic en masse and were given permission to do so. Now the Beatitude Communities are starting to flourish all over the world. Sounds good to me! Dinner was swell. Seafood in restaurant near the harbor. I couldn't convince anybody to bungie jump off the Sky Tower (Tallest Tower in the Southern Hemisphere) and so chose to refrain myself lest I make others feel inferior. It's just the kind of guy I am. Came back to the hotel late and did the forward flop on to the bed. Got a call this AM from a friend in Pukekohe who gave me the full itinerary for next week (busy). It's breakfast time here while you East Coasters are just heading home for dinner. That's it for now. More later. Wednesday, April 23, 2003
It will be really fascinating... to see how the "America: Messiah Nation" folks, who pulled out the stops to bash JPII as a moral dwarf and promised oceans of gratitude from Iraqis will deal with the situation that appears to be rapidly developing. It's been, what?, three weeks since the statue came down in Baghdad? And already, the Shiites are starting to act like, well, Shiites and calling for their liberators to get lost. While we look for those WMDs, the main rhetorical trope we've been returning to as Americans is "Grateful Iraqis put the naysayers to shame!" What happens when the grateful Iraqis dry up and are replaced by people whose religious convictions overpower gratitude with loathing for us? Will Americans be able to cope with that? I don't have any answers myself. But then I don't need to. I never pretended the war was a war of liberation and didn't expect eternal thanks. I mostly expect that taking the lid of tyranny off a culture like Iraq's will allow something like the toxins we saw in the former Yugoslavia to escape. I will not be stunned to find an Islamic fundamentalist regime freely and democratically voted in. Then the fun will begin. I hope I'm wrong. Then again, maybe I'm wrong Got an email from a reader who's spent some time in New Hampshire. Reader tells me that Bp. McCormack appears, to those close to him, to be going through a rather wrenching period of repentance. I ask myself: If Peter were alive today, would I be so loud and insistent in demanding he step down? After all, it could well be argued that he committed a sin that dwarfs McCormack's. If McCormack is repentant, might there be something to say for *wanting* a humiliated and chastened bishop? It would appear, given Our Lord's example with Peter, that there indeed might be. So I'm rethinking my post of the other day, lest I find myself in the rather awkward position of explaining to our Lord that his mercy offends me. I don't know yet what my mind is on this matter, but I thought I'd throw the subject out for discussion. Josh Claybourn Confirms His Coolness Josh writes a rave review of Nickel Creek, a terrific trio of young acoustic whiz kids who you should get to know. Here's a link to their first album, ingeniously titled "Nickel Creek". Josh makes a point that's long troubled me as well. Music, like so many other things in the arts, used to be an expression that grew up among peoples from the heart. So much music now is simply a soulless product, manufactured (as so much culture is manufactured) by soulless technicians who stick pretty faces on the label. The pretty faces very often couldn't create music themselves to save their souls. It's lovely to hear these incredibly gifted young musicians play their hearts out, rather than the artificial technological twaddle that is pressed down on us by the Manufacturers of Culture. Check this out! A reader tells me that she and a friend have started a site dedicated to reviewing Sci-Fi and fantasy novels from both a Christian and literary perspective. Orson Scott Card has observed (and he's dead right, in my opinion), that science fiction and fantasy are the primary arenas in our culture for exploring religious questions. It's curious really, since so many of the founders, particularly of science fiction, were such dedicated and dogmatic atheists. Discuss, class. Greetings from New Zealand! Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, I'm writing you from the bacon-scented environs of a fashionable hotel in Auckland, New Zealand. You may be asking yourself, "Mark!" (well, except you wouldn't say, "Mark!" if your name is something else. But you get the idea.) Anyway, you may be asking yourself, "[Insert your name here]! Why is he awake? He said he was going to be taking a loooong sleep! More inconsistencies and disinformation from that Master of Sophistry, no doubt!" Allow me to explain: something wonderful happened to me last night on the plane. I slept! I was on one of those colossal 747-400s. Imagine a suburban multiplex theatre with wing stuck on the sides and you pretty much get the idea. Anyway, it being a Tuesday and the US being at war with Bronze Age thugs known to commit mass murder with flying cinemaplexes and, well, the plane was lightly loaded with us human freight. So I had a whole row of seats to myself. So I settled in with my laptop and plugged away on the Mary book for a while, then, when the batteries in the laptop and my brain wore down, I decided to get something to put me to sleep. Quantas was kind enough to provide Improving Messages about Deep Vein Thrombosis and this might have done the trick if they'd gone on longer. However, they ran the film marathon instead (Maid in Manhattan, Far from Heaven, Two Weeks Notice, and The Emperor's Club). By the end of Maid in Manhattan (Plot: Is Jennifer Lopez (aka "Jenny from the Block"), High Strung Diva, really going to convince anybody she's a Working Class Hero Babe in touch with the Street? Subplot: Can Ralph Fiennes sound American?), I was starting to experience cognitive dissassociation. So I did a first (for me). I took a sleeping pill and flopped over across the other two empty seats. Through that miracle of modern chemistry, I was saved another Hollywood exposition on the Repressed '50s, something with Sandra Bullock as a Modern Woman in Today's World, and some sort of retread of Dead Poet's Society. I more or less slept through flight, wakened only ocassionally by those Twilight Zone gremlins on the wings that make planes bump and jolt. It was a huge improvement over my last trip in '97, where I slept not a wink and had a keen sense of how Korean war brainwash victims must have felt after days in sensory deprivation chambers. The endless roar of the engines, the endless night outside, the inane movies within, and airline food as your only friend. The horror! The horror! It all comes back to me! Anyhow, I'm settled into the hotel now and will go have breakfast here in a bit. But I thought I'd give you the first bulletin. Auckland is as I remember it: Pleasant early autumn weather rather like autumn in San Francisco (which is about as far north of the equator as I am south of it). When something more eventful than breakfast happens, I'll write again. As far as the flight itself goes, there was nothing much to report, which is how I like it. Any flight you don't remember for the rest of your life is a good one in my book. Tuesday, April 22, 2003
Hello! I must be going! I came to say I cannot stay I muuuuuust be going! "Catholic and Enjoying It!" will today be embarking on "CAEI!: The International Good Will Tour!" Yes, in a few hours I will be leaving for Seattle-Tacoma International Airport where I will catch a flight to Los Angeles and, this evening, embark on my whirlwind tour of glorious New Zealand! If there are any Kiwis reading this blog (and you know who you are!) you can check my calendar for my various speaking gigs while I'm Down Under. In addition to the speaking gigs, I will be hanging with friends in the Auckland area as well as making a pilgrimage to Hobbiton, where I shall procure a plastic bag of genuine dirt for my son, Matthew, a lad of humble yet classy tastes. I will be updating the blog from En Zed (that's hip Kiwi talk) in ensuing days. However, for the next few days, it will be a) punishing air travel (12.5 hours from LA to Auckland) followed by loooooong sleep, and a Eucharistic Convention (with dicey Internet access) this weekend. I will be back on the blog as soon as I can with bulletins from Middle Earth. Till then, have a grand Easter (it's still Easter, you know--every day this week is Easter). I'll be back in the States on May 2 (again followed by looooong sleep). And then my son Peter makes his first communion! By the way, you UK denizens and other English-speaking nations in the British Commonwealth: Don't be coy. Now that you know I am willing to travel to the Dear Old Colonies to speak, you should really think about inviting me to speak at one of your Eucharistic conventions, diocesan thingamabobs, or parish whatsits. I have a roguish American accent that's ever so fetching, plus an adorable twinkle in my eye. Plus, I can even have an actual *subject* to speak about, if you really like. Check out my speaking information to find out what these subjects are and consider flying me to your Glorious Land That Isn't America soon. Yankees: You should invite me to speak too, but you already knew that. Oh, one last thing: the only email I will have access to will be mshea-at-catholicexchange.com Ciao! It's Earth Day Today! Oddly, only one species is celebrating. It's as if that species is... oh, I don't know... naturally superior to the rest of Creation in their ability to care about the fate of the Earth. Like they're made in the image of God or something. All I Can Say is... It was an exquisitely timed hurricane. I don't have a problem with naturalistic explanations for miracles, as long as they are not too tortured or based on a philosophy which is, at bottom, the adamantine will to deny the supernatural at all costs. I have no problems with idea of the supernatural Creator of all sometimes using his miraculous creation (remember: all of nature is a gigantic product of a miracle) in order to get his point across. So if he sent an impressively timed hurricane, I'm fine with that. But when we get to the stupid and tortured attempts to flatly deny the obviously supernatural character of a miracle ("People were so impwessed by Jesus' niceness that they shared their wunches and that is the *twue* meaning of the miwacwe of the woaves and fishes: cawing and shawing") one hears the sound of a barrel bottom being scraped. Just as ardent supernaturalists who fear all naturalistic explanations as creeping modernism need to chill, so the even more fanatical deniers of the supernatural need to loosen up and consider the possibility that the universe doesn't fit into the crabbed 18th century mechanistic categories they settled on in their sophomore year of high school. Sometimes, God may whip up a really nicely timed hurricane, yes. But other times, he really raises the dead, not just wakes up really sound sleepers. An "Atta boy" to All Youse Guys for Helping a New Convert and a Request Sean Roberts of "Swimming the Tiber" writes: St. Blog's was a tremendous aid to me as I came into the Church." He then adds: My brother has expressed interest in coming into the Church. We've been talking about it for several months, but this weekend he said that he was ready to talk to a priest about it, which is the answer to my prayers. I don't know nuthin' 'bout Nashville. In the words of Ben Stein in "Ferris Buehler's Day Off": "Anyone? Anyone?" Monday, April 21, 2003
Nice to See the Fr. Bryce Sibley Shares my Estimation of Dare We Hope as an Interesting Book I've never quite understood the huge problem that others have with it. Just When You Think You've Seen Everything Hutton Gibson, Mel Gibson's sedevacantist, Holocaust-denying father, is what I tend to think of as a "kook." But kookiness is apparently relative, since now he is trying to be the Voice of Reason who brings a wacky Catholic Apologetics International back down to a rotating earth. He tries, here, to talk Bob Sungenis out of his odd fixation on geocentrism and a non-rotational earth. Needless to say, Sungenis remains as right as ever--in his own opinion. I'm not making this up. On the bright side, at least CAI is distancing itself from loony sedevacantists (i.e. people who deny there's been a valid Pope since the death of Pius XII). It's not much, but it's something. Now somebody says the SSPX guys are not going to reunite with the Church Whatever. I don't follow this stuff too closely so I can't tell whether this is the rumor of the original story is the rumor or if they are both rumors or what. Anyhow, I hope the SSPX people come to their senses. A reader writes: Just wondered if you might put this up as a matter for discussion in an objective manner. In the Toronto area the churches are requesting that people receive Communion in the hand and not in the mouth, to avoid infection. Some people feel this is the thin edge of the wedge and that even when the scare if over we shall not be allowed to resume receiving by mouth. They feel the risk of infection is so small that we should resist as long as possible. Others think that receiving in the hand, since it is not done out of disrespect but in obedience to the bishops, is okay for now. What would you do? Me? I'd take communion in the hand and find something else to worry about. Life is too short. And it could be considerably shorter if SARS becomes a pandemic. Stop letting suspicion about every move the bishops make eat up your life like a cancer. The important thing is to receive communion, not whether you receive on the hand or the tongue. Bp. McCormack, Still Vying for "Worst Still Serving Bishop" Prize His Easter Message is a call for his betrayed and wounded flock--oppressed by years of child abuse, lies, coverup, and most recently, by the yanking of a good pastor and his replacement with yet another gay priest with a proclivity for nubile young men--to be reconciled with him. No mention at all of his duties to his flock to step down from the office he has betrayed so egregiously. What can I say? As a Christian, I cannot disagree with the basic message. We *are* to forgive as Christ forgives, without attachment to whether or not the object of our forgiveness is remotely worthy of it and even without attachment to whether our forgiveness is received. Christ not only forgave his murderers, he offered his life without reservation for us while we were still wholly unworthy of it. He offered it, not just for Peter, but for Judas. God commends his own love to us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So, I am compelled to agree that the bishop is right: we should forgive him and, insofar as it lies with us, be reconciled to him for Christ's sake. And so I do forgive him. May God not count his sin against him and may he find the fullness of mercy. But I do not for a moment think that forgiving him means affirming him in his office. Indeed, for his good and the good of those who need a good shepherd, I think it all the more imperative he step down. Cease despising him: Yes. But cease calling for his resignation and for him to give up his grip on an office that he cannot serve and a flock that he only goes on harming? No. That said... I want to add that if we don't find WMDs in Iraq I, for one, will be majorly ticked. Despite what shifting winds of agitprop for the war blew through the national consciousness, the *real* reason for this war was not to liberate Iraqis. That was a happy side effect which was then seized on as a club in order to beat down problematic anti-war moral authorities like JPII ("Obviously, the Pope cares nothing for the suffering of the Iraqi people! Once again, Messiah America will have to shoulder the burden of being the conscience of the world out of the sheer goodness of it's great big heart while conniving European America-despisers like John Paul do nothing!"). That dog doesn't hunt in my book. The Catholic Church has, after all, been suffering along with the Iraqi people, on the ground in Iraq, through ten years of American support for Saddam followed by ten years American neglect. Our extremely sudden growth of a conscience about suffering Iraqis and our nauseating moral posturing vis a vis John Paul's alleged callous neglect was one of the more sickening moments of agitprop during the war. No. The *real* reason we undertook this war is quite simple (and quite honorable in my book): we didn't want a repeat of 9/11 or something worse. I have no problem with that and think the war justified on those grounds. But... if the weapons of mass destruction we were *assured* exist did not, in fact, exist and if it is shown that our government *knew* they did not when we undertook this war, then I think the Bush administration will indeed have waged unjust war and killed a great many innocent Iraqis to no serious purpose of national interest. They will, also, by the way, have lied through their teeth to us and I will never trust them again. To those who will inevitably reply "Would I rather Iraq remain the terror state it was" I can only say that the precedent we will have set by waging an aggressive war without real defensive justification will, in the end, help to foster many more terror states, all of whom will say, as we did, that they have the right to impose regime change on countries weaker than themselves, not because those weaker countries really pose a threat, but just because they can. The shorthand for this is "Might makes right." It is against this pagan ethic that all the truth of God is arrayed. Of course, all this depends on what the WMD search reveals. I still tend to think WMDs will be found. But if not, we pro-war Catholics had better do some serious soul-searching and not fall into the trap David Mills points out of thinking, "We won! So that proves we were right." Charity If there's anything I've been thinking about during Holy Week fairly consistently, it's charity. Partly I've been doing so because of my irritation at others and partly because of my irritation at myself. I've been disturbed to see how often people seem to fall into the habit of assuming the worst of others and how *gleeful* they are at the thought that somebody they oppose might be not just wrong, but bad. Below I griped about those who can't just disagree with the Pope about the war, but who feel the need to speak of him as wicked, stupid, or both. I've noticed the pattern in the past. Does he promulgate new mysteries for the Rosary? It's not because he thinks them helpful to the Church: it's because he's egomaniac like Bill Clinton, burnishing his "legacy." Or below, on the thread about the lack of success in finding WMDs in Iraq so far: Is that because Iraq is the size of California and we've barely started looking? No, it's because Bush is a lying war criminal. Iraqi bishops sucked up to Saddam and heaped praise on the regime. Might that be because they had guns to the heads of their flock from a police state? No, it's because they were scum hankering for power, etc. In all these cases, there are lots of ways of approaching the data we have, but there is something in many people that seems to *want* to assume the absolute worst first and is really rather reluctant to give that up. There is something in us that delights in evil and in thinking the worst of another. That same thing is in me, of course. There are people I find that I *hope* will be as rotten as I think they are so that I can loathe them and not feel bad about it. I can console myself that I'm being "discerning". "Being discerning" is the term Christians employ when they want to pass judgement but cast it in Christianese and look really spiritual. It's like when Christians want to cut loose and mete out vengeance on people they despise. They let fly and then without fail whip out the big Gustave Dore illustrations of Jesus and the moneychangers, along with a torrent of bullshit about "tough love." So what am I getting at? Dunno really. It's not like I've licked this problem in my own life. But it helps to talk about it and hold it up to the light for examination. It's mostly that I'm displeased with the *posture*, for want of a better word, that I take and that I see many others take toward people they find "inconvenient." I'm beginning to think that the first thing we should check is this posture, this attitude (before the other person has ever opened his mouth or done anything) which determines the *way* in which see whatever data they will feed us. Charity demands that we presume the best of another unless they've given us really good reason to doubt them. Yes, we must be wise as serpents. Yes, it would be stupid to trust Bill Clinton, Saddam or some other proven liar. But in cases where really don't know the facts, charity demands that we give the benefit of the doubt to decent people, not instantly declare them egoists, sycophants of tyrants, or war criminals. Such charity is demanded closer to home too. Very few of us will have to decide the fate of the Pope or the President. But depending on whether we cultivate or reject charity, we may find that we decide the fate of our families and friends and destine ourselves and others to live in domestic tranquillity or in suburban hellholes of quiet desperation. Loving the Church in a Time of Scandal Amy Welborn and I wrote most of this (with various clipping and polishing from CE people). If you want to have our collective brainwaves on how to carry on in light of the Situation, this is pretty much the place to get it. Sunday, April 20, 2003
Well! Another hopeful sign for Easter! A bunch of SSPX people appear to be on the verge of reunion with the Church. I hope this one pans out. National Organization of Whores Wants to Make Sure Baby Killing Remains Smothered in Euphemism Laci Petersen's baby had the misfortune to be unborn when his mother was murdered, so NOW is leaping into the fray to make sure that no homicide charge is made for the death of the little one. There was only one murder, according to them. The other murder was really just a particularly vigorous act of support for the Democratic Party. Relapsed Catholic Calls a Moratorium Kathy Shaidle wants everybody to stop quoting Chesterton, Lewis, Belloc et al, so they can stand up on their own two feet and prove they can write all by their own selves. In the words of Chesterton, Lewis, Sayers, Belloc, Merton, and Nouwen, I reply, "No, thank you." I write my blog because I like to talk about things I love. One of the things I love is great writers like Chesterton, Lewis and Sayers. If I have to choose between what I love and getting everybody to think I'm a Great Writer (which I'm not), I'll just stick with the stuff I love. To paraphrase Lewis, if you try to be original, the chances are you won't be. If you try to tell the truth and don't worry about being original, you often find you are original by accident. So if you decide to go with the moratorium, lemme know how it goes, but I won't be with you. For myself, I love stealing the good ideas of my fave writers. They make me look smart. Indeed, the great thing about being Catholic is that you can plagiarize and call it "being faithful to the Tradition". Why would any writer in his five wits opt out of a deal like that? Remember as you read this... that this is being written by the same sort of people who were screaming "Quagmire!" four days into the war. Another Sort of Icon of the Resurrection God still confounds the demon and rescues his sheep. By the way, I think they should give Jessie Lynch the Congressional Medal of Honor. This sounds like a pretty good book on the Resurrection Scott Hahn has spoken well of N.T. Wright. Maybe I'll check it out. Easter Carol Spring bursts today, For Christ is ris'n and all the earth's at play. Flash forth, thou Sun, The rain is over and gone, its work is done. Winter is past, Sweet Spring is come at last, is come at last. Bud, Fig and Vine, Bud, Olive, fat with fruit and oil! and wine Break forth this morn In roses, thou but yesterday a Thorn. Uplift thy head O pure white Lily through the winter dead. Beside your dams Leap and rejoice, you merry-making Lambs. All Herds and Flocks Rejoice, all beasts of thickets and of rocks. Sing, creatures, sing, Angels and Men and Birds and everything. - Christina Rossetti Saturday, April 19, 2003
Happily, however: Christ is Risen! 
He is Risen Indeed! Happy Easter! "Catholic and Enjoying It!" is back on the air! If Christ Has Not Been Raised.... Then Christianity is meaningless and we should all find something else to do with our time. Hooray! Thanks! Now Get Lost! For Americans bewildered by the mercurial ingratitude: This might be a good time to contemplate the lesson of Palm Sunday and Good Friday. For our fallen race, it's never a very great distance from "Hosanna!" to "Crucify!" I've learned that myself this year, watching a great Pope become the object of contempt by pro-war Catholics who can't merely disagree with him, but feel the overwhelming need to heap scorn on him and call him a sycophant of tyrants. God grant good Pope John Paul the reward that fickle men deny him in their spiritual poverty. For some Catholics, the real motto is "We have no king but Caesar!" |
