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Friday, June 30, 2006
Hmmm. I see I've ticked off some readers I respect Thomas Tucker, for instance, writes: Now, Mark- it is one thing to delete posts and ban commentors who persistently beat this drum advocating torture, and I can understand your getting tired of it. It is another thing to run this poll as some kind of litmus test so you can then decide who to delete comments from. I have never, that I can remember, commented on this issue before on your blog and have pretty much studiously avoided it. Until you ran this poll. And my comment, since it wasn't "b," has earned the dismissal of my later comments even though I was simply pointing out that no, I disagree with your writing and it is not such a simple black-and-white issue as you would have it. I never, in raising this point, advocated "slaughter of prisoners" and never have. The poll was not intended as a litmus test, though I can see how it came off that way. It was an effort by a rather depressed blogger to remind himself that most of his readers are not morally insane. It was done in the hope that the loonies who have been making excuses for grave evil would, if it was presented in really stark terms, renounce that evil, perhaps by the force of shame. I can't think of starker terms than "Is murder evil, yes or no?" So when (to my astonishment) one of the Torture Excusers actually tried to make the case that murder is not evil sometimes, I used his words in the hope that he and his fellow Torture Excusers would back down. Perhaps it was ill-advised to put the stark choice in the form of a poll for precisely the reason you point out. Likewise, it may have been ill-advised to delete the chattery posts that threatened to fill up the combox at the poll. It certainly never occurred to me that any but the small group of Torture Apologists would be offended by the poll (and I frankly don't care if I hurt their feelings). I certainly didn't do the poll to discover who they are. I already know. They've been making the same weary excuses for intrinsic evil for months. I suppose I just hoped that I could shame them into shutting up and cheer myself up that theirs is not really the dominant attitude out there. Anyway, my apologies to those who felt litmus-tested. It was not my intent. I'm just mortally sick of listening to apologetics for instrinsically grave sin and I'm puzzling through what to do about it. Bear with me. Niall Mor could use our prayers He writes: Mark, I'm pleased to hear that your mother is recovering. Sadly for me, my mother Cecilia ("Cele") passed away early yesterday morning (6/29/06) due to cancer. She died at home, and my sister-in-law and a wonderful nurse's aide (Blessings on her!) reported that Mom's passing was very peaceful, without pain or struggle. The whole family was able to keep vigil with her and care for her as death approached. She received The Annointing of the Sick and a general absolution despite the fact that she had been somewhat estranged from the Church for many years. My family and I would appreciate prayers from you and your readers this week. You can drop him a line at his blog. May God grant her eternal rest, and may He give peace and consolation to you and yours, Niall, through Christ our Lord. To my millions of Lithuanian readers: Rejoice! The Da Vinci Deception, having previously been translated into both Canadian and Spanish, is now available in Lithuanian! God Bless the Lakota Sioux! A people who have experienced genocide should be a people who loathe abortion. God bless the Lakota Sioux for connecting dots that so many Jews and African-Americans have yet to connect. Results of my Quick Poll As I expected, the overwhelming number of respondents answered "b" to my poll. Some who answered "a" could not resist the temptation to try to make excuses for it. These ranged from claims that I was "mischaracterizing" the perfectly plain English of the passage I was quoting, to attempts to say that I was somehow indicting devil's advocates or literary figures like Uncle Screwtape to complaints that it was "inquisitorial" or the Worst. Poll. Ever. My favorites were the various attempts to claim there is some vague third way between "Murder is evil" and "Murder is okay." There isn't. When it comes to murder, it really is just a or b. Life really is that simple sometimes. To my complainers, I reply thusly: tough. I mischaracterized nothing. My reader was openly and nakedly advocating the proposition that sometimes it's okay to "slaughter prisoners" (his words). I try to keep the comboxes open to a legitimate diversity of opinion. I generally shoot to have that range of opinion be within the range of legitimate diversity for Catholics, though I am also cognizant of the need to respect and engage opinions outside the Catholic fold (from atheists, Protestants, believers from other religious traditions, etc.) There's a place for engaging those outside the Catholic communnion who are critical of Catholic thinking, so as to persuade them of the truth of the Faith. But when it comes to attacks on the Faith from *within* the Catholic communion, I tend to think they should be given no quarter, lest people get the notion that dissent from the Church's teaching is a legitimate expression of Catholic Faith. So, for instance, I don't allow my comboxes to be a forum for Catholics for a Free Choice, or Catholic gay marriage advocates to persistently push their agenda. I don't allow my comboxes to be a forum for dissenters to spew sedevacantism or contempt for the Eucharist, or rejection of the Church's definitive teaching. Which leads to the troubled conscience I'm having about the forum I've provided my realpolitik Torture Excusers. The simple fact is I'm becoming troubled by the amount of space that apologies for naked evil are coming to occupy in my comboxes. I regard the proposition "It's okay to slaughter prisoners" with exactly the same contempt and disgust as the proposition "It's okay to suck out a baby's brains." I think allowing such ideas to go unchallenged is wrong and I think it's wrong for me to provide a forum for such ideas, lest anyone get the idea that they are, in any way, compatible with Catholic teaching or part of the Church's "rich diversity". They are not. Murder is murder, even if you give it a bullshit name like "reciprocity" or whine that it's inquisitorial to call it by its proper name. So: to my point. I'm asking my torture excusers (you know who you are) to no longer post excuses for torture and murder. If you do, I will delete them. Gresham's law applies to comboxes and think your evil prattle drives out a lot of good people while attracting more who feel safe to utter more excuses for evil. If you ignore my request, I will delete your posts and, if you insist on it, ban you. The culture in the comboxes is becoming too toxic. I would not have Catholics here advocating abortion, gay marriage and brothels as a legitimate Catholic lifestyle. So it's silly for me to let advocates of murder, torture, and impalement go on talking as though this is somehow part of the Catholic Church's legitimate menu of moral options. Be silent on these issues or be gone. Your choice. Stories like this... ...tend to make dust and nonsense of the notion (often espoused in comboxes) that there's nothing wrong with the Church that a return to high Tridentine Palestrina Masses wouldn't fix. Once again, please understand that I'm not saying "We all need to have charismatic Masses." I'm perfectly happy at our regular Mass and I think there are often problems at charismatic Masses. I think there are reasons to be concerned whenever somebody says, "The reason I'm at Mass is because so and so is Pastor" or "I like this style of worship". The Mass is the Mass is the Mass and we should be there for the Eucharist, not for aesthetics that agree with us or personalities that entertain us. That said, I also recognize that if the Church is to respond adequately to the people she serves, we have to know what people are seeking and why. Those who snort at the hordes who are leaving the Church in Latin America and say, "Good riddance! Who needs a bunch of Pentecostals!" are, not to put to fine a point on it, betraying the Church's mission of evangelization and seeking to make the Church a sort of Liturgical Club. This Congregationalist mentality is just another form of Protestantism in the long run. The people described in this article are seeking something and their desire is not simply contemptible and dismissable. Is it partly disordered. Of course. So are your desires. So are everybody's. So the Church must either prudently begin to assess what the need is (warts and all) and respond to it. But for the Church to, as some members of Fortress Combox Utopia Catholica suggest, just sneer and continue to hemhorrage is not an option that her missionary mandate allows her to take. If we *really* believe the Catholic faith is God's answer to the deepest needs of the human heart, then we must live that. If you just think the Church is a club for people who share our taste in high Masses, there's a nice safe little combox for you to hide in, where you can complain to your fellow Congregationalists about people who don't fit your mold. The Church in Africa is Booming The gospel continues to spread despite the best efforts of us Catholics. ;) Whaddaya know? An Actual Vatican Crackdown! At least, according to this piece, which says that if you kill embryos, you're excommunicated. I'm skeptical about some of this, since if it is taken at face value, it would appear the Church is excommunicating a couple million members, which I find unlikely. Applying the "Dock 50 IQ points whenever the MSM discusses religion" rule, I think I'll wait and see if there's anything to this story. My bet is that the target is not "women" but Catholics in the scientific community who are killing embryos. Fascinating Changes Over at the Raving Atheist blog A number of his readers are panicking and assuming he's become a theist. Why? Because he's trying to become a more virtuous person. He hasn't, so far as I can tell, advocated a single theistic idea. He's simply said that, out of respect for some of the prolifers he knows, he will not malign Jesus or Christianity any more. He's also said he's going to try to swear off mockery and sarcasm. For this, his atheist readers are reviling him (read the comments, but put on fire retardant clothes first). The thing that's striking about all this is how thin and reedy the "You can be atheist and still be a moral person" rhetoric sounds in the face of this gust of pure hot, irrational hatred from the comboxers. The guy simply makes a couple of moral resolutions to try to be a better and more considerate human being, and Apostles of Rational Humanism in the comboxes give vent to a volcano of adolescent puerile profanity in response. No, not all atheists are like this. But virtually all atheists (especially these maniacs) love to trot out that trope about "morals without God" in their own defense, yet never seem to note that this undercurrent of corrosive irrational hatred is often just below the surface of "hard" atheism. To the detached observer, it does look very much like RA's audience recognizes a link between an attempt to live a more moral life and theism. That's why they accuse RA of becoming a believer, despite the fact that he has simply been attempting to live out natural virtues that would have been no mystery to Aristotle. If you can be a good person and an atheist, why would they make this connection so automatically? And even more, why would they reflexively *hate* the attempt at virtue (an attempt made, so far as I can see, without any recourse to God)? This brings us to the next point: which is that hard atheism is *essentially* negative. Some atheists (like A Philosopher in my comboxes) appear to live happy lives and not feel the need to kill God 24/7 with streams of profane blasphemy. They cordially disbelieve, but they are not filled with hatred and paranoid rage that someone somewhere might (horrors!) tend toward belief. Perhaps the apotheosis of this curious hatred of faith, hope and love is found in this comment. It reminds me inexorably of Lewis' ghosts in The Great Divorce who visit Heaven and spend their utmost energies trying to evangelize souls in glory on the superiority of Hell: This curious wish to describe Hell turned out, however, to be only the mildest form of a desire very common among the Ghosts – the desire to extend Hell, to bring it bodily, if they could, into Heaven. There were tub-thumping Ghosts who in thin, bat-like voices urged the blessed spirits to shake off their fetters, to escape from their imprisonment in happiness, to tear down the mountains with their hands, to seize Heaven ‘for their own good’: Hell offered her co-operation. This curiously evangelistic and militant denial of life--the very air Hell breathes--is on peculiar display in the reaction to RA's recent turn toward... well, what? Theism? No. Just civility so far as I can tell: a whack at prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude. Yet even these pagan virtues, accessible to any atheist, are too much for RA's readers. Because they have a *whiff* of something that *might* lead to theism about them, they are summarily condemned. And yet these people go on with a straight face insisting that their atheism has no effect on their moral beliefs. Now there is always the reality of eupocrisy. Atheists who rush to condemn any attempt at the cardinal virtues may (and probably do) live better lives than their own combox rhetoric. But there is also the reality that ideas have consequences. They *may* wind up believing their own rhetoric and deliberately suppressing in themselves any attempts at mere morality, lest it lead too close to He Who Must Not Be. RA may, for all I know, be wrestling with a turn toward theism. If so, more power to him. But I don't know this and neither do his atheist readers. All they know is that his love of life and his honorable regard for those who seek to protect it has about it the "aroma of Christ", which to them is the fragrance of death. (2 Corinthians 2:16-17). And for that, they've turned on him with shocking speed. I'm keeping RA in my prayers. I don't know that he himself knows where he's going. But I do know he will need friends and support and prayer for the journey. Meanwhile, the anti-war Left also ignores Just War teaching Result: a growing incapacity to tell the difference between criticizing the justice of the war and hating the troops. Wishing troops dead, harassing their families and persecuting their children is just evil. It's got nothing to do with a principled critique of the justice of the war. It's got nothing to do with caring for Iraqis or Americans in harm's way. It's just indulgence of the sins of pride and anger. For those who were praying for Jim Baen I thought I should let you know that he passed away. May God grant him rest in peace through our Lord Jesus. Another way funny piece on the Left's Vapors over Something Called "Blogofascism" This, like the snark, the boojum, and Imminent Theocracy is one of those things the Left has to evoke in lieu of seriously thinking. I'm lovin' this Dr. Mabuse Another fisk of the Victorian Lady Novelist Disguised as an Episcopal Cleric. Way funny. Thursday, June 29, 2006
Quick Poll A guy writes on my combox (why me, O Lord?): The slaughtering of prisoners is something that we've mostly grown out of, largely by application of professional charity, solidarity, and reciprocity. This does not mean that the old rules were necessarily evil, nor is a temporary return to sections of older rules due to enemy default of agreements evil under all circumstances. The bold text means, for speakers of English, that sometimes it's just fine to slaughter prisoners. How many of my readers think: a) Writing justifications for slaughtering prisoners is not evil. b) Writing justifications for slaughtering prisoners is evil. I vote b. How do you vote? Just a or b. No long-winded attempts to explain why you are voting a. Just a or b. Update: to make the choice clearer and remove all ambiguity for my perpetually puzzled cadre of moral hair-splitters, I have replaced a) with a simpler question suggested by a reader. If you have answered and feel you want to change your answer, go ahead. But just keep it a or b. I will post after I've seen a larger sample of results on this post. Tom Fitzpatrick of Recta Ratio writes Greetings Fellow St. Bloggers! So now you know! Once Again, Disputations is the Soul of Level-Headed, Puckish Common Sense A nice little charter of freedom for everybody who does not happen to belong to a subculture that thinks its object of interest is The Most Important Thing in the World. The Church loves subcultures, clubs, private associations and people with a mutual interest in hobby horses. It also (Romans 14) encourages the members of those subcultures to remember that it is not their place to judge those who do not share their enthusiasms. I'm just sayin'. Postmodern Christianity is Starting to Breed Murderers Annie Lamott, self-styled Christian of the postmodern variety, murders a man and then praises her own courage in elegant prose. Apparently she doesn't realize that intrinsically evil acts are only justifiable in the interest of the state, not in the interest of individual autonomy and comfort. Just another foot soldier in the army of future persecutors of the Church and its primitive and backward stand for human life. "Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God." (John 16:2) Piskies Pause to Pay Fealty to Dogmatic Atheistic Materialism Watching the recent evolution of the ECUSA has given a whole new meaning to the term "hopeful monster". Howard Dean Trying to Sound Religious is Like Nixon Trying to Disco Kathy Shaidle does the autopsy on Dean's recent attempts to make the Evil Party look a little less like they hold Christians in obvious and utter contempt. Michael Novak Channels Dick McBrien Can't see a big problem with Jesus being married to Mary Magdalene. As a theologian, Novak is a good economist. People are shocked--Shocked!--at the suggestion that Con Bigwigs love "24" because it makes torture look good As per usual, Sydney hypes my point into something I never said: So because someone says that conservatives have an insatiable blood lust for torture, that proves you right? Um no. Didn't say nothing about "insatiable blood lust". Also didn't say anything about "millions of conservatives". I was talking about the opinion makers and people at the top. But seriously, you *don't* think there is a desire among Adminstration supporters to excuse Administration policy and soften the ground for the Administration's stated desire to "go to the dark side" and the CIA use of torture? Of course there is! Do you seriously think Bush supporters (including Rush "Abu Ghraib was just hazing" Limbaugh) *don't* want to try to put the best face possible on the Bushies' approval of and encouragement of torture? How naive can you get? So, when Planned Parenthood has a fundraiser and they all watch "Cider House Rules", do you seriously think that this choice of entertainment is purely coincidental? Come on! Voice of the Fuddled Completes Operation Mission Creep by calling for Woman Priests Started as a confused reaction to the Scandal. Quickly got co-opted by the Usual Suspects with the Usual Agendas. Classic victims of Stockholm Syndrome. Moral: it's not enough to Protest. You have to know what you are *for* too. VOTF was started by people utterly clueless about what the Church is and what the gospel teaches. They knew what they opposed. They had no idea what they wanted. It's a sure fire way to end in disaster. Jeremy Lott on Generation S.L.U.T. The depravity of our culture shocks even the depraved. Weird currents and eddies of conscience and desire for hipness ensue. I think again of the genuinely happy and chaste kids I saw swing dancing at my Matthew's homeschool graduation a week or two ago. Thanks be to God! Defensive Reactions and the Skill of Thinking Dear Friend What strikes me about letters like this is the sheer "pre-recorded" quality of them. In their own way it's as unconscious as a knee jerk. It's like a button was punched and the irrelevant Bible verses and catch-phrases just poured out without the slightest movement of the grey matter. It never occurs to this guy that I might have given thought to the scriptural warnings about "doctrines of men". It never dawns on him that he is not the first person to have uttered all this boilerplate. It never occurs to him to wonder "How *do* we know what books go in the Bible?" It's like the letter isn't written to me at all (because he takes zero interest in what I have to say). In fact, it's like the letter is really written to re-assure himself. Stuff like this really impresses upon me the reality that thinking is a *skill* and not all people have mastered that skill. Some just get as far as parroting comforting catch phrases and bits of wisdom they picked up from here and there. It's like Forrest Gump replying to every difficulty with "Stupid is as stupid does" whether it makes sense or not. It gives him comfort and helps him surmount challenges that threaten to rock his world. I'm skeptical as to whether it's even sinful, because you have to be able to think in order to sin. This letter seems to me to be more in the order of a primal emotional and defensive reaction like you'd get from a child. I mean that seriously and not as an insult. Very curious. Adversus Haereses So the other day Ben Douglass from Sungenis' CAI helpfully jumps into some thread by recommending the highly practical and reality-based suggestion of having the state burn books on behalf of the Church. I mentioned that I was grateful to see CAI on record as favoring book burning and moved on. Of course, cranks are never capable of seeing that they are cranks, so Ben naturally wrote me back with this long, point-missing screed: It seems that in your rush to snap off a jab at CAI, you did not realize that by impugning the authority of an early modern Pope you were also impugning the authority of an even weightier author. Ben, I don't know how to put this delicately so I will just say it: you are a crank who lives in a world of diagrams and Catholic fascist dreams, not people. Your original note said this: Free speech for those who speak truth, suppression by the civil authority for those who advocate murder. That's the Catholic way. As is typical for people who live in a world of diagrams and Catholic fascist dreams instead of people, you don't seem to notice that "suppression" by civil authorities can and has taken some pretty sinful forms. You refuse to notice that Dignitatis Humanae has been promulgated. You also refuse to notice that the Index of Forbidden books is gone, that there is no state in existence that will carry out your dream of book-burning on behalf of the Church, and that you are essentially living in a dream world that does not exist. Get over it. Your appeal to Acts is irrelevant. This was a spontaneous pious act, not an act of the state. There are books and records I got rid of when I became a believer. But the notion that the modern secular state should be entrusted with the power to determine what may and may not be thought and spoken is crazy beyond words. Similarly, the notion (implicitly advanced by you) that there are basically two magisteria (and therefore two Churches), pre- and post-Vatican II is, not to put too fine a point on it, heretical. So: You want harsh? I'll give you harsh: Repent of your lying falsehood which suggests that the wisdom of Vatican II (at which you openly sneer) contradicted the Scriptures. Till I receive a full recanting of this wicked suggestion and an apology for planting these ungodly and impious thoughts in the minds of the faithful I hold you vehemently suspect of heresy and forbid you to post in my comboxes. Just following your advice, dude. Reader Glenn Cooper writes from Maryland: I had the pleasure of meeting and socializing this past Saturday evening with a gent named Ron Miller. He's running against Steny Hoyer, the #2 Democrat in the House of Representatives, and staunch pro-abort. Mr. Miller is very well-spoken, staunchly prolife, and he's black -- a huge thing, at least when considering that 45% of the constituency in this district is African American. I don't really think I do. Probably your best bet is to Google my archives for "supernature" or "vacuum" or "can't not worship". Sorry I'm not more help! A reader writes: Please check out Mommy Life. Urgent adoption need - Chinese baby with Down syndrome. Apparently the funding for the adoption is taken care of by a private donor (i.e. minimal, if any, expenses ...) Could be legit, though the "all expenses paid by private donor" thing raises flags. Let the buyer beware. I hate being right all the time Con bigwigs get together to enthuse over ticking bomb scenarios and other unlikely hypotheticals that soften the masses up to their growing enthusiasm for intrinsically evil acts. To explain why the show is so popular among conservatives, actor Greg Itzen -- who plays President Logan -- suggests that the Republican admiration may be because "the show depicts the need for torture". Meanwhile, a reader writes: I was reading through Edward Gibbon's "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" and I came across the following passages in Chapter 17(at bottom of this email), talking about the increased usage of torture, first on the plebians, later on the citizens of the Empire. History doesn't repeat itself. But it does rhyme. - Mark Twain Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Chris Johnson Continues Chronicling the Piskie Meltdown TEC is coming apart faster than expected. The "Resolveds" roll on majestically. "We can't compromise with evil. All we can do is become evil. Or not. The choice is ours." Bravo! To quote the Prophet Chesterton: "Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils. They differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable." The best description of religion I know is "The ultimate concern of a human person". For the NY Times editorial board, Politics is more important than life. It's their religion. A reader writes: Is Behold Your Mother more theologically oriented or more practically/devotionally oriented? Last things first, thanks for the word of encouragement. My goal is to try to think with the Church about the war as about everything else, so it's good to hear, particularly since the people who agree that our nation's embrace of torture is wicked tend to not say so while the Torture Apologists work overtime in my comboxes. It's always easier to write in disagreement than in agreement. It feels so boring to say. "Yup." Regarding the Mary book, the answer is "Yes". That is, I've written what might be called a "one stop shopping book" on Mary that looks at both the theology as well as the devotional aspects of our relationship with her. It's basically the book I wish somebody had written when I was coming into the Church. So it deals with everything from "Where Catholics Get This Stuff about Mary" (since it appears to so many Catholics that Marian doctrine and devotion is spun from thin air) to "What Catholics Must Believe About Mary" (the doctrinal stuff) to "What Catholics May Believe About Mary" (primarily devotional stuff, with a particular focus on the Rosary). The more I studied, the more persuaded I became that the attempt to minimize Mary's place in the Tradition and in the life of the believer is a profoundly mistaken thing. God willing, I will finally get the book published and you will be able to see what I mean. She's everywhere in the Tradition and in the life of the believer--whether we realize it or not and whether we like it or not. Sooner or later, every Christian is going to have to face the fact that the words "Behold your mother" are addressed to him or her and that this places us in a profound and intimate relationship with her, by the will of Christ himself. Please pray that my book gets published! ECUSA Cleric Offers to Sell you the Brooklyn Bridge That Anglicans (Episcopalians) are able to abide with a spectrum of thought and practice seems to draw the ire of others. For those to whom life must be either/or, up or down, a decision not to choose either of those alternatives as definitive is infuriating. But a decision not to choose for one extreme or the other is not being wishy-washy; it is choosing an alternate stance that concedes we all still have much to learn. This is printed in the same paper that just a day or two ago had a column by a useful Catholic idiot who had internalized the *real* message of the allegedly inclusive Gen Con: "After such a long time, you get tired of being blackmailed by a splinter group," the Rev. Jacqueline Means said after another historic and contentious annual convention. The "splinter group" in question is the rest of the Anglican communion and the of the apostolic churches throughout the world, whom the ECUSA cast out as vile sinners against the good news that homosexuality is the source and summit of all that is noble, good, and beautiful. I repeat my offer to any Episcopalians in the Seattle area who have had enough. Drop me a line and I will point you to a good RCIA and act as your sponsor into full communion with the Catholic Church. I can't promise you no Dan Carpenters. I can promise you that the Dan Carpenters in the Church will not launch a successful revolution. The funniest humor is unconscious humor For instance, meet Elizabeth Kaeton, a Victorian Lady Novelist masquerading as an Episcopal cleric. She returns from the recent General Convention, in which the whole Anglican world (what she thinks of as a "splinter") politely asked her and her band of fellow revolutionaries to exercise restraint and show just a little consideration to the hearts and minds of, like, the rest of the Christian world. Her marvelously clueless response: "What does 'exercise restraint' mean?" She then goes on to a hilarious meditation comparing the ECUSA's recent murder at the hands of her friends to freeing a whale. It's a perfectly uproarious (and deliciously unconscious) farrago of New Age bathos, blissfully inconsiderate arrogance, and soppy self-pity. By the way, the Victorian Lady Novelist description is not my own. Here's Dr. Mabuse having more fun as this gloriously narcissistic heroine of the penny dreadfuls synchronizes her ovulation with the cast of "The View" and "Steel Magnolias". As the Pro-Choice Left Puzzles about the Wide Perception that it is Chock-Full of Anti-Christian Bigots Who Will Brook Absolutely No Dissent... Evangelicals who refuse to carry abortion pills in Olympia, WA take the Usual Sort of Crap from people who can't rest until the abortion regime is forced down the throats of every last human being on earth. This is not about "freedom of choice". This is about forcing people to act against their consciences so that pro-aborts don't have drive a couple of extra miles to kill their kids. Jeremy Lott on Hypocrisy as the Compliment that Vice Pays to Virtue Or, just because you are a hypocrite does not mean that what you assert is false or what you praise is bad. Barna on the House Church Phenom A perfectly predictable phenomenon when spiritual community is primarily seen as "like-minded folk getting together to support each other in their similarities". It's shooting fish in a barrel, when writing for conservative Catholics, to point out the dangers inherent in the house church model. The tendency toward little fiefdoms. The danger of half-baked theology. The shallowness. The lack of Eucharist as the center of worship. And since conservative Catholics are so prone to recite all this to themselves and then congratulate themselves, I think I will not preach to the choir. Instead, I will say that Catholics tempted to pooh-pooh it all too quickly should reflect on the fact that there's nothing particularly apostolic, traditional, or biblical in the average parish's welcome of strangers. The praise of the ancient pagans was not "See how these Christians ignore one another." But not a few Catholics, when confronted with the warmth of Evangelical congregations, try to bluff their way out of the lousy contrast by trying to pretend our chilly and alienating congregations are somehow meritorious and Evangelicals are just a bunch of fluffy feel good happy clappies. Catholics: take your medicine. Instead of our pretending it's somehow saintly to have congregations where nobody knows your name for years after you arrive, let's try considering the possibility of outdoing Evangelicals in welcoming and finding a place for the stranger in our midst. Love and joy and a sense of apostolic mission are not fluffy or happy clappy. They are integral parts of the gospel. This does not mean we need house churches to replace parishes. The center of our worship is the Eucharist, not Mutual Affirmation in our Okayness. But that does not mean community is a bad thing. In addition to the Mass, creating small groups devoted to various good and apostolic works is a perfectly lovely way to help build up the body of Christ. Places where people can find what they are looking for in house churches should be Catholic places. Because they will look for them whether we Catholics purse our lips disapprovingly or not. And if they are not Catholic places, they will go anyway and learn junk theology (often from anti-Catholics with a bullying lust to dominate others in their own personal fiefdoms). Bottom line: despite the insistence of many grumpy Faithful Conservative Catholics to the contrary, joy and truth are not opposites. Being joyful is not a sign of shallowness and stupidity. Being angry and isolated and perpetually wary of "happy clappiness" is not a sign that you are Truly Faithful. It could just mean that you are bitter and closed to joy. So don't be *too* quick to dismiss the good job Evangelicals do at welcoming the stranger. It could be we have something to learn from them. The Shape of Things to Come "Multifaith Coalition Targets O'Malley". The charge: religious discrimination against gays. It's not enough to tolerate homosexual behavior. You. MUST. Approve. Or punishment will become ever more severe. Apostate Protestant mainliners lend a hand to the new Know Nothings and apostles of Americanism. Does anybody know about RSS? I put up what I think is an RSS link on the left rail (right above the Alaska cruise graphic). Is that what people are looking for? If not can you tell me how to put up a real RSS feed? People keep asking for one and I'm a techno-moron. Many thanks! To all who gave to the CAEI quarterly fund drive! Summer is, in more ways than one, a particularly dry time so we Sheas deeply appreciate it! Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Prayers appreciated for my book on Mary We may finally be seeing some progress in that department. Prayers to Jesus and Our Lady appreciated. More news when I have it! Good Afternoon! It's Day 7 of the Quarterly Catholic and Enjoying It! Pledge Week Supporting yer emphatically lower middle class scribe as he tries to do his apostolic thang is a good work. So make this pledge week go out with a real bang! Of course, you can still buy my books and tapes too. And if you'd rather not do the PayPal thang, feel free to email me and ask for my snailmail address. I'll happily take a check instead. Also, gobs of satisfied customers will happily tell you how much fun they've had and how much they learned when I came to speak at their parish/conference. You can be a satisfied customer too by having me come speak for you! Many thanks to y'all for your generous hearts. We Sheas deeply appreciate it! Good Dreams With the new Superman flick coming out, the fun thing is watching the way in which various folk in our culture, both Christian and non-Christian, approach the obvious Christian parallels in this and other stories. One thing that strikes me is how often a secular film gets praised for drawing from Jewish and Christian roots, while religious films get damned for drawing from those same roots. If you ransack a religious tradition for its symbolism, you are a masterful, allusive and profound storyteller. If you *believe* the things symbolized in that tradition, you are a flat-footed Neanderthal with an Agenda. This suggests to me that our culture hungers for Reality, but simply cannot handle too much of it. Our eyes can bear to look at images of Christ, but not to stare into the full Radiance of He Himself. I think Jesus accomodates himself to this pagan weakness. I think this because he did it in my own life when I was a pagan. I learned to love him through things that reminded me of him, long before I knew anything about him. Rod Bennett has a similar story here. Myth is a two-way street. Yes, there are some Catholics who are apostatizing and slowly reducing Christ to a "mere" myth, just one evocative human story among many. But there are also many pagans who discover the precious drops of spilled religion that is mythology and follow the trail back to the Eucharistic chalice and the Christ in whom Myth became Fact. Tolkien said as much to a skeptical C.S. Lewis, thereby becoming the human instrument by which the Holy Spirit made a Christian out of Lewis. He summarizes his argument with Lewis in the following poem: Mythopoeia Now hear this Somebody calling himself "Suspicious" anonymously commented on the Bai MacFarlane thread and claimed his homepage was Sacred Heart something or other. The people who run that site wrote and said, "We didn't post that. Please remove it". I have done so--as well as banning Suspicious from my site for making it appear that these people shared his views when they emphatically do not. If anybody else wants to try faking their identity and implicating innocent people in their smears of others, please know that I will delete and ban you forever too. Gotta love her Montana Mom battle terrorists by computer. Has been involved in catching a number of Bronze Age thugs. God bless her. She stands in the grand tradition of self-motivated American public-spiritedness. Prayers appreciated for my Mom! Her blood pressure is really low (80/50) and they're taking her to the hospital. My wife is with her and I'm with the kids. She's 80. Thanks! Update: Now she seems to be fine (once they got her to the hospital). We're mystified, but happy. Thanks for your prayers. Punishment for Nurse Who Defended Schiavo Free speech for all! (Booo!) Free speech for nobody (Booooo!) Free speech for some, tiny American flags for others! (Yay!) Bishop Robert Carlson, Currently Reconstructing the Diocese of Saginaw after it was Severely Mauled by its Last Bishop, is the Bee's Knees Exhibit A and Exhibit B. The Amazing Power of Andrew Sullivan's Childlike Narcissism My children all hit that age (before five) where failure to comprehend something was always due to the "stupid" object they did not understand, never due to their lack of knowledge or maturity. Happily they outgrew that when they turned five or so. When it comes to sacramental marriage, Sullivan is still at that age. If he doesn't understand how a marriage can be null due to defect of form, that's because sacramental marriage is stupid and the Catholic Church is full of doodyheads who won't capitulate to his notions about marriage, not because Andrew Sullivan doesn't know WTF he's talking about. And ain't nobody telling Andy any different! Oh, and Bush is a drunk, too. This, from the man who complains that people hit, er, below the belt when they note that he has one Non-Negotiable in his journalism before which all other considerations must give way. Wonder if he's read Ponnuru's book yet? This is one of those non-informational stories about Medjugorge It follows Doonesbury's Roland Hedley-Burton model of storytelling, where they note that "Some people believe it, others don't" and then give you the "remains to be seen. Life goes on" fade out ("Whether or not the Blessed Virgin Mary is truly appearing at Medjugorge remains to be seen. Meanwhile, life goes on.") that leaves you knowing no more than before you read it. I do note Pope Benedict's skepticism, however. As it Whizzes Past, It Has a Few Words for the Dominican "New Cosmologists": "Stop talking to rocks! Listen to the Loooooooooooooord!" The heavens declare the glory of God. Boy Who Cried Wolf Syndrome on Full Display For years and years, the Left has cried "Wolf", screaming about "racism", "sexism" and "oppression" every time some whiner got his or her undies in a twist about something. And people have cringed for most of my life, terrified of violating PC codes. But this sort of guilt manipulation has an expiration date. And when it comes, the pendulum starts to swing the other way, as canny political manipulators begin to play on people's anger over the manipulation and use it for their own agendas (just as the guilt manipulators did). Result: a column like this, which rightly points out the leftist guilt manipulation and then uses it to argue, in essence, that we are undermining the battle against Radical Islamic Evil By criticizing American torture. The Administration shills in the media seem to be out in force this week, doing their best to persuade us that if you aren't for torture, you aren't for America. Nope, only moralizing, holier-than-thou prisses oppose healthy, sensible, practical American torture of our enemies. I suppose soon we're going to hear terms like "reciprocity" invoked. That sounds so much cooler and faux-military-technical than "Keeping up with the Radical Islamic Joneses" or "Seizing the One Ring". Harry Potter Must Die! ... and rise again. The entire logic of the story demands it of this heavily Christological figure. I mean, the woman has said in interviews that she doesn't discuss her Christian faith publicly much because she doesn't want to give away the end of the story. This is why Lifesite News is so clueless with their anti-Harry campaigns. |
