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Wednesday, April 20, 2005
A fitting note on which to resume my hiatus Send B-16 a note of greeting and well-wishing at benedictxvi@vatican.va I'm outta here (and thank to the Library of Congress, I'm History) till probably sometime this summer. Continued prayers appreciated that I write well about about Our Lady and not say anything stupid. Glory to God in the Highest! Praised be Jesus Christ Vivat Papa Ratzi! And Mazel tov! Salon Hosts Synchronized Primal Scream Usual Suspects say Usual Stuff. Victor Morton kindly summarizes the posts into Twelve Barbaric Yawps of Rage and Threats: Top 12 Stupid and/or Outright False Statements in This Forum. Not ranked in any order, as they all deserve to be No. 1: Most of this boils down to stamping tiny feet in impotent rage. Quite a bit of it is outright lies ("Nazi!"), and a teensy bit of it (namely, Frances Quisling from Catholics for Fetal Crucifixion) actually set out the hoped-for practical agenda. "Women" Respond Correctly to Brain Chip Stimuli from Vatican Orbital Mind Control Lasers in Geosynchronous Orbit Above North America Former Cardinal Ratzinger notes "Correct Response" on Vatican Thought Police Database, grants stay of execution for Ave Maria nun and female students who were vehemently suspected of "thinking". Asks, "Who is that Simpson fellow, Smithers? I like the cut of his jib!" Dan Darling Reflects on Some of the Loonier Attempts to Analyze This Pope When somebody calls Benedict a "neocon" you may be sure that you are talking to a complete and total ignoramus. Oh, and a memo to Howard Dean: If you are wondering why the Dems have not been able to connect with "the religious vote", you might contemplate the spectacle of the Daily Kos dubbing the new Pope "Ratf***er". Oddly, even non-Catholics discern in such epithets a worldview that is hard to take seriously when it grins its wolfish grin and assures us that it shares "basic religious values". "Women" Ecstatic Over Further Oppression and Exclusion  There are, you see, Women and "women". Women read Maureen Dowd, vote for Patty Murray, and speak to us through the Vagina Monologues. They are Oppressed and Excluded from the Kingdom of God by the election of Pope Benedict. It's a black day for all Women. But the creatures pictured above are only "women". The expression on their faces is due to false consciousness, stupidity, and brainwashing. Pay no attention to them. They don't count. All women count, not all "women". "The Cafeteria is Closed" I like the sound of that. You know, one of the funny things about the media hysteria about Benedict is the faux fear that "sincere believers" from other traditions are going to somehow feel deeply threatened if the Pope, like, you know, believes that the Catholic faith is, you know, like, true. In reality, one of the things that serious Protestants (like serious Jews and serious Muslims) *respect* is the fact that Benedict actually believes there are truths which are revealed by God and not simply the product of whoever happens to have won the raffle for Power in the great historical process of warfare between race, class and gender. The one and only alternative to Truth is Might Makes Right. Indeed, even the Dalai Lama had to educate our Chattering Classes on this a while back, when he pointed out to Indifferentists of the NY Times and NPR variety that no, as a matter of fact, Buddhists and Christians are not really saying the same thing. I wanted to cheer. And amazingly, I did not feel my Catholic faith imperiled by somebody's (wrong) assertion that it is false. The great misunderstood reality of our time is that dogma is the *opposite* of ideology. Dogma simply states what is so about God and the relationship of the human person to him. It's the only real *protection* we have have against ideology. That is a shock, I think, to people on both the right and the left in the Church, who, I suspect, have not really distinguished the two and who often deeply believe that dogma is simply another form of ideology. It's not. Dogma exists to protect the truth about the human person. That is why John Paul taught that each man and woman is the road the Church must walk (not vice versa). For the Church, man is the only creature God has willed for its own sake. But for ideology, the human person is the means to an end. Sheesh! All of a sudden CAEI is a respectable joint. Pardon me while I spit on my hands and slick my hair down. Yahoo and the Guardian both seem to think I know something worth knowing. I will strive to maintain that illusion for as long as possible. I have sinned against one of the Valar of the Blogosphere I discover through Kathy Shaidle that Jeff Jarvis (of whom I am still wholly ignorant) is actually a The Jeff Jarvis. For some reason, he's taken umbrage at my post of yesterday, describing our chat on MSNBC. I'm not clear why. I thought he gave the basic "Some people love B16. Others are wetting themselves" picture and didn't fault his noting of that spectrum of reaction. However, I noted that there seemed to me to be rather a bias in describing people who were happy as "triumphal" while basically reporting Andrew Sullivan's hysteria about The Imminent Papal Murder of Freedom as a self-evident proposition. I said on the air that Sullivan could not be more wrong in his evaluation of this Pope as a radical discontinuity. I don't dispute that this spectrum of reaction exists and I didn't dispute Jarvis' noting of it. I merely dispute that Jarvis' reportage was, 'ow you say?, "fair and balanced". And truth to tell, I find his attempt to patch up the descriptor "triumphalist" with a dash of "not that there's anything wrong with that" to be... less than convincing. My contribution to the Papal Slogan Search "John Paul II, We love you" was simple and direct. I think this Pope needs a more hip postmodern, and pop cultural referent slogan. I vote for "You're XVI, you're beautiful, and you're mine" Speaking of Tom He writes me:
The PS was unnecessarily cruel, but we are clement and shall over look it. As to the rest, I pretty much agree. It's been awhile since I've seen this much ignorant prattle spouted about the Pope, and that's saying something. This picture of Benedict as a reactionary who is just about to reinstitute the auto-de-fe is so cartoonish it's just hilarious. Within 24 hours the narrative is settled in the media and now all that's left is to keep repeating the same inane phrases over and over: Nazi, hardliner, crackdown, rigidly orthodox, etc. If these people were English 101 they would get a D for cliched writing. And when they discover that Ratz is nothing like the cartoon they have been promulgating, what odds will you give me that it will occur to any of them to ask if their initial pontifications about him had been utterly ignorant? I'd avoid that bet too. Anyway, check out the always refreshing Disputations blog. A bit more on Tom Kreitzberg's Counsel Most of the whooptidoo over Benedict's election has been, from what I've seen, good healthy happiness. The grumpy description of all joy as "triumphalism" is, for the most part, just sour grapes from the usual suspects. That said, it is also the case that there *is* an unseemly tendency at times (both on the right and the left) to hope that if "our guy" gets in then heads will roll, etc. It's a tendency that infects anybody that mistakes the Faith for an ideology (of which, more later). The Faith is not an ideology. The Faith is the way in which God saves souls from eternal damnation and to eternal happiness. Because of this, it is, as Tom says, great wickedness to *hope* that somebody will reject the Faith and leave the Church. The "Don't let the door hit you on the butt on the way out" attitude of some who have been celebrating Benedict's election is, therefore, deeply foreign to Benedict's own attitude. The paradox here is that (because sin makes us stupid) we are already seeing the mystery of evil playing out in the oddest ways. From Novus Ordo Watch to Andrew Sullivan, we are seeing the strange spectacle of people who are so sure that Benedict will kick them out that they are revving up to kick themselves out. And so, Novus Ordo Watch declares "They have a Pope" while neglecting to note that in calling the Church "they" they are effectively cutting themselves off from the Church. The thing to note about all such critics of the Church is how little they believe their own rhetoric. For they don't ever really *leave* the Church. They don't wipe the dust from their feet and begin the constructive work of joyfully bringing to the world the True Gospel of the True Catholic Church of which they are the Remnant. Instead, they spend all their time hanging around the old, allegedly false Church, throwing rocks at the windows and spray painting graffiti. They can't let it go, and at the same time they constantly repudiate it. And now Andrew Sullivan is beginning the same tragic process. Apart from Grace (who has His own designs), Sullivan is giving every indication of doing the same "I'm agonizing over this. See ya!" game he played with the Bushies last year when *they* refused to endorse the Pole Star of his Universe. And yet this is precisely *not* what God or Benedict or Holy Church want. It remains a basic fact of the faith that "God desires all men to be saved" as St. Paul says. Yet, in the mystery of evil, we refuse the offer of life. But those of us who are serious about the faith must remember that it is our task to always continue holding out the word of life, not to say, "Ah, the hell with you!" to those who reject it. I know must of my readers know this. But it's important to be reminded. I hope both the Novus Ordo Watch and the Andrew Sullivan wings of the Church will not cut themselves off from the Church further and will be reconciled to the Body of Christ. That doesn't mean I won't rebuke and ridicule falsehood when they speak it, but it does mean that it is the falsehood that is to be rejected, not them. The Most Awesomely Cool Letter I've Gotten This Year Ya gotta understand: I'm a big history buff, so this means as much to me as having a louse named after him meant for Gary Larson.
There are few badges of honor I wear more proudly than the enmity of these people People who were, mind you, just days ago urging us to study the "Jewish facial features" of John Paul the Great's mother and warning us of the insidious infiltration of Jew blood into the papacy. What do these dolts suppose is our salvation and the medicine of immortality besides the blood of the Jew who is Christ Jesus our God? May my every reception of the Eucharist fill me more and more with that precious Jewish blood. Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Two final bits of advice for today (particularly for people like me who are delighted by the election of Benedict XVI) First: Listen to Dale. Second: Listen to Tom Kreitzberg. Rinse. Repeat. Pretty decent reflection of what I actually said in the WaPo today So I'm happy. (Though I would like to remind the media that it's "Catholic and *Enjoying* It!"). A Special Toast! To the magnificently successful Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club!  Today was your very special, server-frying day! Mazeltov! That was interesting Just got back from Redmond, WA and the studios of MSNBC. Turns out Ron Reagan is a warm, affable guy. They put me, Kathy Shaidle, and a guy named Jeff Jarvis on after somebody named Paul (Wilkes? Wilke?). Mr. Reagan cited some poll results which basically demonstrate that Americans don't know what the hell they want when it comes to the Faith. 60 some odd percent "don't want the Church to change" followed by various majorities of other polls who want the Church to ordain women, bless artificial contraception, and do all the usual pelvic things the New York Times craves. I sat there thinking, "Polls show Americans to be Adamant, Traditional and Utterly Dizzy". Mr. W. led off with one of those "Ratzinger is a total disaster--and may I remind you that I am extremely devout!" sorts of media jabber that always crack me up. It had that John Kerry sort of devoutness, the sort born of a weird need to remind the audience that, despite all appearances to the contrary, the speaker is Catholic. That struck me. Fr. Neuhaus, say, or Weigel or Helen Alvare don't feel the need to pepper their views with reminders to the viewer that, as a matter of fact, they are Catholic. But Mr. Wilke(?) had to make the point at least three times in his short tenure on the air. It filled me with the same sort of confidence in his bona fides you would feel when the sound system comes on and the pilot declares that there is nothing wrong with the plane and nobody should panic. After that, Jeff Jarvis came on to give the Polarization Report from the Blogosphere. It turns out that those who are happy about Ratzinger's election are "triumphalists" while those who are wetting themselves and losing control of basic bodily functions due to panic are freedom-loving custodians of the flickering flame of all that is good and decent in this world. In particular, Jarvis quoted Andrew Sullivan's magnificent shriek of hysteria with its absurd claim that this is some sort of radical discontinuity from the legacy of John Paul and the Council. My response was that Sullivan simply could not be more wrong. This is one of the few people in the world who really is capable of actually carrying on the work of both John Paul and the Council. I also suggested that we should wait until the pontificate of Benedict XVI was more than six hours old to either declare the coming of the Millennium or the End of the World as We Know it. Personally, I think that those who are elated *and* those who are having hysterics are probably in for some surprises. I also think that, once people get to know the guy, they will be pleasantly surprised. Kathy Shaidle, as possessor of the pair of XX chromosomes in the group, was anointed to speak on behalf of all Womankind, but failed her entire sex by not much caring whether women are ordained or not. She also gleefully declared that Benedict is hated by all the right people, so she was pleased as punch with his election. I very much enjoyed sharing our brief counter-insurgency together. :) FWIW, I will be on MSNBC again tomorrow at 6:30 AM Pacific. Don't miss it if you can! Just one post to say... Never was I happier to be wrong! Long live Pope Benedict XVI! Update: When it rains, it pours. I will be on MSNBC Connections Coast to Coast this afternoon at about 2:15 PM Pacific time to discuss the blogospheric reaction to the election of Benedict XVI. This should be interesting. Friday, April 08, 2005
Four Last Things No. Not *those* Four Last Things. *These* four last things. 1. Pope John Paul's Last Will and Testament 2. Cardinal Ratzinger's terrific funeral sermon for Pope John Paul II. 3. One friend's experience of the funeral (which I missed since I was busy burning up with fever and trying to sleep): I managed to stay up to watch the funeral. I am sure I will be pretty groggy all day, but it was magnificent. In case you could not, I wanted to pass on how it went. 4. And finally, I return to my hiatus. This was a week dedicated to loving and honoring our Holy Father Pope St. John Paul the Great (Santo Subito!). Now that he is properly mourned, celebrated, buried and in Heaven, my proper task is to return to the work of my book. I don't know from nothing about handicapping papal elections, so to continue blogging would largely be a waste of valuable time. The main difference between me and the MSM is that I know that I don't know from nothing, while the talking hairdos from Action McNews will have to fill valuable airtime with their ignorant babble and not tell you that they know nothing either. I am currently working on chapter 10 of Behold Your Mother: An Evangelical Catholic Discovers the Blessed Virgin Mary. Please pray for me that I finish soon, that I tell the truth clearly, and that I not say anything stupid. John Paul, you did more than anybody else in the last 300 years to show that a heart devoted to Mary is a heart devoted to Jesus Christ. Pray for me that I can carry the ball a few inches further toward the goal "that they may be one"! Mama Mary: Totus Tuus. Big Huge Imbroglio about Cdl. Law Being at the Funeral over at Amy's I think this basically illustrates three things. First, the good news about the Catholic Church is: it's like a big family. Second, the bad news about the Catholic Church is: it's like a big family. We've seen these sorts of "What's *he* doing here?" stuff at our own family funerals. Third, this (to me, at any rate) illustrates the scandalous nature of JPII's teaching on mercy. For some reason, Conservative Catholics very often have the idea that the gospel should be more merciless and punishing than Caesar. For myself, I simply cannot invest myself in the lust to lynch Law for doing his bit in the ceremonies and answering a couple questions on the tube. The gospel of Kicking Ass and Taking Names is nowhere more clearly on display than here. Me: I'm content that he's gone from his position in Boston. He can't do any more harm. And frankly, it's Caesar's job, not Christ's, to put him in the slammer. Caesar (that is, us laity) declined to do so. Complaints should be directed to Caesar. Given the things Christ has forgiven me, I think it an exercise in fruitless bitterness to throttle Law and demand "Pay me what you owe me." Resentfulness that the Church of Christ is too merciful is a trait that may come back to bite us on the butt later. The Great American Teenage Church Releases its List of Demands Basic message: "We are Aging and Plump Suburban Baby Boomers! It's all about ME ME ME!!!" Dom Bettinelli provides a cheery fisk. Now that the funeral is over... A post 9/11 world breathes a sigh of relief, but remains jittery. I doubt I was the only person praying that some Tom Clancy horror scenario did not unfold at the Vatican today. Say, an airliner crashing into St. Peter's and not only decapitating the world's governments but annihilating the college of cardinals and throwing the governance of the Church into a cocked hat to boot. I contemplated suggesting prayer against such a thing, but, since the MSM are watching this blog this week, I didn't want to feed any goofy rumor mill ("Bloggers report Vatican terror possibility!"). Instead, I just prayed under the assumption that anybody with two brain cells to rub together probably also recognized that this would be a plum opportunity for a strike against the West from our Foaming Bronze Age friends. As it happens, I think that the way things have turned out is a very promising sign. Because this would have been ideal opportunity for Islamist nuts to take out a great many "Jews and Crusaders" as well as strike at the very heart of the Infidel. But they didn't, which suggests they couldn't. Which suggests we are making serious progress in destroying the Radical Islamist Crazy infrastructure. That's the problem with a war of this nature. You can never really know you're winning because the only testimony to victory is silence and peace. It was very peaceful on September 10, 2001. But still, it's a hopeful sign. The Invaluable Disputations continues to educate the media "There are two kinds of people in the world: the kind who realize they are dogmatists; and blockheads." Read the whole thing. Dogma: Learn what it is. Love it. Live it. Dogma doesn't bite. Dogma is our friend. Santo Subito! Sounds about right to me. The sensus fidelium (sense of the faithful) is making a good call here. I think the Church has to wait five years to open canonization proceedings (and trust me, the enemies of this Pope will labor overtime to annihilate his legacy). But I think he will be canonized within a decade. It will be fun to watch his foes stamp their tiny feet in impotent rage. The "I Hate the Pope" Narrative You Won't Often Hear Most of the MSM will be, once the proprieties have been observed, dominated by the Amanpour/Mathews/Sullivan Axis of Stupid as they stamp the dirt down on the Pope's grave and then proceed with the desperate (and doomed) project of getting the next Pope to be a watery Episcopalian. To that end, we'll read a lot of sob-sister stories from the "Make Abortion and Sodomy Sacraments" crowd, like this. What you won't see as much of is the fact that JPII (and the next Pope) will have a small but loud contingent of Reactionary Whack Job enemies out there too. Exhibit A: Novus Ordo Watch, going out of its way to demonstrate that, for Reactionary Catholic Whack Jobs "Hate the Jews" is the 11th Commandment and John Paul is accursed for standing staunchly against their Whack Jobbery. The headline is telling enough: This might explain it: Ah yes! JPII was infected with Jew blood! And as Catholic Tradition plainly teaches, that automatically causes depravity. But even more telling is the source of the story: something called "Jewwatch.com", which, when it is not urging us to study "the Jewish facial characteristics of the Pope's mother" informs us that its mission is "Keeping a Close Watch on Jewish Communities & Organizations Worldwide". Oh, and despite the huge interest in proving the Holocaust never happened and the Jews are engaging in Mind Control, Infiltrating the Press, and running numerous Global Conspiracies, they are not a hate site. Uh-huh. Thursday, April 07, 2005
"I am deeply saddened to hear of the death of Terri Shiavo." I can read the depth of your sincerity in the misspelling of her name, Bishop Lynch, you miserable disgrace to your office. Hope you had a nice vacation. Thanks for nothing. Remember Comical Ali? He was Saddam's Minister of Braggadocio whose task was to go on TV and deny the obvious with hilarious statements like: "There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!" even as US troops stood behind him and made bunny ears on camera. People could somehow detect he was not an altogether reliable source of information. So what's the difference between him and Christiane Amanpour? Simply this: Amanpour can survey one of the most gigantic crowds in human history, with a mean age significantly lower than her own retouched crow's feet, assembled for a funeral that will be witnessed by 2 billion people across the entire planet who have spent the week pouring out their hearts in emotional tribute to John Paul--and then look into the camera with a straight face while declaring"The real question, of course, is how the Church will keep itself relevant in the centuries to come, or even in the next generation." And we still regard her as a "serious journalist". Help stop Mae Magourik from being starved to death She's not comatose, vegetative, or terminal. But she *is* being murdered by dehydration. Fr. Rob has the story and link for taking action. Back to my pool of drool Please pray for me that I shake this flu. I'm s'posed to be on MSNBC tomorrow afternoon. Evangelical Timothy George on the Impact of JPII "The greatest Pope since the Reformation" and "the most significant Christian leader in the last 100 years". Hard to believe it's been only 45 years since JFK's Catholicism was cause for many Protestants to fear a Romish takeover of the US government. My, how JPII (and Roe v Wade) have reshaped the American political and religious landscape! Rod Dreher Reflects the Common Conservative Catholic Assessment of JPII's pontificate Prophet and Priest: Si. King: No. It's an assessment you won't often hear amid the MSM's ignorant bleats about JPII as a "rigid authoritarian Pope" who "centralized power". In reality, JPII very rarely cracked the whip, to the intense frustration of people who wanted to see him kick a lot of ecclesial butt. The author of Ut Unum Sint had the most Eastern conception of his office in the last millennium. He did not interfere with other bishops much, even when many (including me) would have loved to see him do more. This results in the strange paradox of folks like Rod complaining that the Pope was weak, while folks like Andrew Sullivan charge him with "hanging on to power". Sullivan, of course, is speaking from a huge agenda: 80% of the victims of priest abuse were teenage boys. That doesn't help advance us toward the Pole Star of Sullivan's journalism, so he has to pour on extra rage at JPII, who he portrays, not merely as trampling on children in his Will to Power, but as a "failure" due to his lust for power. The legacy must be stamped into the ground. Sooner or later, critics of the Pope are going to have to iron out the bugs in that narrative. I think Dreher's critique is more just by far than Sullivan's. The notion of John Paul as Despot and Failure is more than most people are going to buy. The notion that he was a great man who hesitated overmuch to exercise power over his brother bishops seems to me to be much closer to the reality. Please Ask XM to Carry Ave Maria Radio XM is stirring in its torpor and noticing that there are a billion Catholics. Strike while the iron is hot and help Catholic radio reach a huge audience. A very JPII thing to do. Just to drive Andy a little crazier Steve Greydanus notes, down at the "Things that Make You Go "Hmmmmm" thread: It has also been noted (over at JimmyAkin.org) that not only did John Paul II die on the last day of the Divine Mercy novena and the eve of the feast itself, the traditional nine-day / novena mourning period for the pope will end on the third Sunday in Easter -- which this year just happens to be the eve of the feast of St. Stanislaus of Krakow, who was [a] the patron saint of Poland, [b] the pope's predecessor as archbishop of Krakow, and [c] a personal hero of the Pope's -- a recent article claims that the pope "thought of himself as the spiritual reincarnation of St. Stanislaus of Krakow" and even briefly considered taking his name as pope! Again. Interesting. If you are a theist, you can suppose there's some divinity shaping all this--or not. If you are a rigid materialist, you aren't allowed to think that. You are only allowed to think "More Random Chance". That's called "free thought" doncha know. Poor Andy For such a loose and funny guy, he sure does tighten up when theists toss around a few harmless "hmmmmmsss". Apparently, in his zeal to insist that There is No Such Thing as Providence, he missed the line "I'm not one of those types who is ready to declare What That Means. I merely note it as interesting." One of the sad things that a rigid materialist ideology does is take all the poetry out of life. As Chesterton noted: For we must remember that the materialist philosophy (whether true or not) is certainly much more limiting than any religion. In one sense, of course, all intelligent ideas are narrow. They cannot be broader than themselves. A Christian is only restricted in the same sense that an atheist is restricted. He cannot think Christianity false and continue to be a Christian; and the atheist cannot think atheism false and continue to be an atheist. But as it happens, there is a very special sense in which materialism has more restrictions than spiritualism. Mr. McCabe thinks me a slave because I am not allowed to believe in determinism. I think Mr. McCabe a slave because he is not allowed to believe in fairies. But if we examine the two vetoes we shall see that his is really much more of a pure veto than mine. The Christian is quite free to believe that there is a considerable amount of settled order and inevitable development in the universe. But the materialist is not allowed to admit into his spotless machine the slightest speck of spiritualism or miracle. Poor Mr. McCabe is not allowed to retain even the tiniest imp, though it might be hiding in a pimpernel. The Christian admits that the universe is manifold and even miscellaneous, just as a sane man knows that he is complex. The sane man knows that he has a touch of the beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows that he has a touch of the madman. But the materialist's world is quite simple and solid, just as the madman is quite sure he is sane. The materialist is sure that history has been simply and solely a chain of causation, just as the interesting person before mentioned is quite sure that he is simply and solely a chicken. Materialists and madmen never have doubts. I can note all the curious coincidences surrounding the life and death of JPII and a) merely note that it is curious, b) see the Hand of Providence in it (so long as I don't insist everybody agree with me), or c) see only random chance. Andy's rigid materialist ideology only allows option c. There's an odd haste to shut down the human faculty for making connections, which is the root of poetry, philosophy, and theology. For the materialist, only certain kinds of connections can be made. Other modes of thought are Forbidden. Sherry Weddell... of the invaluable St. Catherine of Siena Institute, writes: From my research of the past week (while re-writing a portion of Making Disciples, Equipping Apostles; If you strike him down, he will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. My Mystery Appearance on Hugh Hewitt I'm getting emails and phone calls enthusing over my brilliance and insight when I guested on the Hugh Hewitt show last night. Only one problem: I mostly spent yesterday coughing and sleeping in a pool of my own drool as I burned up with fever. I still feel like death warmed over. I don't know what's going on yet, but I do note that Jimmy Akin did Hugh's show, so I'm thinking people are somehow confusing us. That's kind of weird since we look alike, but don't much sound alike. If I solve the mystery, I'll let you know. In the meantime, all attributions of brilliance should be addressed to Jimmy Akin. Not that I'm not available to do Hugh's show... :) Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Let the hearsay, prophetic utterances, rumors and speculation begin! In regular elections, you don't have to contend with purported prophecy. When George Bush won in 2000, the squabble was purely over numbers and the alleged ideology of the Bush-loving (!) Supreme Court. Nobody warned darkly that the alleged prophecy of St. Thomas Jefferson was being fulfilled in our time and that him who had ears must heed the warning before it was too late! But with papal elections, there's a whole 'nother dimension added due to what I term the "Spirit Daily" aspect of the faith of many Catholics. That is, there are goodly number of Catholics who put, well, more stock than is necessarily healthy in private revelations. Me: I don't know what I think about many of these private revelations. I'm thinking about them as I write my Mary book, because Marian devotion is inextricably bound up with them. The more I ponder them, the harder it is to figure out what to do with them in terms of fitting them into the Deposit of Faith. On the one hand, many of them are obviously legit, it seems to me (and to the Church). On the other hand, there's a dangerous trend (particularly among the Spirit Daily wing of the Church) to give them a kind of quasi-magisterial authority that makes me nervous. As I put it to a friend of mine, Many Protestants think Catholics believe Mary is another God, while many Catholics think Mary is another Pope. The odd thing about private revelation is that the Church in union with Peter (which is, after all, entrusted with the task of binding and loosing, according to our Lord) says "No private revelation is binding" while the private revelations themselves make claims of such desperate importance that it's difficult to treat them as supports to faith and not as urgent commands. Witness, for instance, the whole kafuffle about the consecration of Russia. The fact is, a Pope would be completely within his rights to *never* consecrate Russia. It is for him to bind and loose, according to the Church. Not even the Blessed Virgin can usurp that role, because this task is given by Christ. However, tell that to the apparition crowd. Very clearly, the Blessed Virgin is regarded as "outranking" the Pope and if he doesn't consecrate Russia according to the exacting specifications of the apparition devotee, then he is "disobeying God". I find this kind of thinking dangerous and dubious, because it seems to me to effectively hand the perogatives of the Petrine office over to the Blessed Virgin. I'm skeptical that either she or God intend this. So, I'm not sure what to think. (I've been puzzling about this as I get ready to write the chapter on apparitions for my book.) I'm going to read Benedict Groeschel on private revelation and see what he says. In addition to the Marian dimension of private revelation, there is also the "dubious ancient prophesy" dimension. The prophecies of St. Malachy figure prominently here. Some true believers are all a-tiptoe since we are, according to this dubious prophecy, one Pope away from anti-christ. So if there is some glitch in the election process, there will undoubtedly be a certain sector of Catholic X Files types who discern the Hand of Satan at work and ramp up the hysteria. And, added to this mix is the undocumented but widely reported bit of hearsay from John Paul himself, who "reportedly" said in 2002, "my successor hasn't yet been made a cardinal". The last appointment of cardinals took place in 2003. So if the hearsay is a real quote (which I don't know) the first test of JP's prophetic powers will be if one of those guys is elected Pope. If not, the resourceful minds of Catholic X Files types will have to go to work to explain this. One easy explanation will be that this is further proof the smoke of Satan has entered the sanctuary and placed the Church under the octopus-like control the International Freemason Jewish Conspiracy. Or, one can re-define what John Paul meant by "successor" ("Well, he didn't mean his *immediate* successor.") Or one can suppose that John Paul never said it in the first place. Or one can say that even Michael Jordan misses layups sometimes. At any rate, this sort of prophetic handicapping is not something Americans are used to in their strictly secular elections. I will take it with a large grain of salt, as a general rule. Relics have always creeped me out An observation which means, essentially, nothing about relics and everything about a defect in my nature. I think about that as I watch hordes of people venerating the body of John Paul. Relics are an extremely ancient tradition in Christianity. They are venerated for a very simple reason: in becoming flesh, Jesus Christ hallowed matter and, in particular, the human body. The fact that I find that aesthetically icky basically stems from the fact that I come from a culture that has taught since I was knee high to a grasshopper that the only real obscenity is any reminder that I will not always be part of the Pepsi Generation. I remember listening to a Brazilian musician on A Prairie Home Companion years ago. She was chatting with the audience, setting up their next song, and observed that the piece she was about to sing was about issues which American audiences treat as taboo. The audience tittered, assuming they were about to be treated to some Portuguese celebration of kinky sex and congratulating themselves on their maturity. The singer corrected them. The song wasn't about sex. It was about death. The audience got very quiet. We're Americans. We don't like to talk about death. Tom Kreitzberg of the invaluable Disputations blog (blogroll it today!) observed over on Amy's blog: I think the Church sits between the old taboos, where a dead body signifies only decay and corruption, and the new taboos, where a dead body signifies our own pending decay and corruption. The tortured attempts of the MSM to rationalize Terri Schiavo's murder by dehydration, while complaining that JPII "clung to life" past the point of propriety bear witness to the deep disease, not of the Pope or Terri Schiavo, but ourselves. Conversely, the veneration of the body of John Paul by the throngs in Rome bears witness to the fundamental reality that the body, even in death, is holy. For it was once the palace of a creature made in God's image and redeemed by Jesus Christ and it shall one day be raised in glory and become one who, if you saw him now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. Things that make you go "Hmmmmm...." Rod Dreher of the Dallas Morning News has noted that John Paul managed to go to his Father in the *one* sliver of time which tied together Easter, Fatima and the Divine Mercy Feast. Given the movable nature of the Easter Feast (not to mention the moveable nature of First Saturdays, this is an impressive bit of chance, if chance it was. However, like everything else about this papacy, one does get the whiff of roses and the sense that the veil between chance and Providence is rather thinner than normal. And now, we find that there will be a partial eclipse on the day of his funeral. I'm not one of those types who is ready to declare What That Means. I merely note it as interesting. Till further notice of Deeper Meaning (assuming any are forthcoming) I think it wisest to simply think of it as God flying the flag at half staff. Update: Even weirder, John Paul was *born* during a solar eclipse too. One of my readers writes: Here's an interesting thing I noticed about the upcoming eclipse: It will occur while it is night in Rome and Poland. As night falls on the Supreme Pontiff and his homeland, God has ordained that it will fall on the rest of the world as well. Given his devotion to Our Lady of Fatima (whose great sign was the Miracle of the Sun) and her rescue of him (as he plainly believed) on May 13, 1981 (the anniversary of the first appearance of Mary at Fatima), it's hard not to see Something Significant betokened by all this. Gives you the willies. To have something more than the willies to go on, perhaps it would be a good thing to re-visit the Church's teaching on the message of Fatima. Tuesday, April 05, 2005
The Dying One was Responsive till Death, Praying with Loved Ones Say that about Pope John Paul, and the cockles of everybody's hearts in the media are warmed. Point out that this is the truth about Terri Schiavo as she was being slowly and cruelly murdered by dehydration, and you suddenly find you are a death cult theocrat with a weird sick fetish for life. "He was my Pope, too" A Lutheran journalist writes a lovely appreciation of John Paul. John Paul was enormously attractive to a huge number of Evangelicals. Evangelicals tend to distinguish between Catholics and the Catholic faith. This is good in one sense (since it enables them to recognize that a Catholic sinner is not revelatory of what the Catholic faith is). But it also has a downside in that it too easily enables Evangelicals to account for the sanctity of a Catholic saint as a sort of miraculous fiat of grace from God which has nothing to do with the faith of the saint. The formula "There are some real Christians in the Catholic Church" is too often meant as "There are Catholics who are saved by rejecting what the Church taught and believing what I believe, but in secret or ignorance". This is not possible with John Paul, who was about as clear as he could possibly be that he believed the teaching of the Catholic Church lock, stock, and barrel. Sooner or later that will have to be faced. And when it is, I think we will see some conversions, because it will be evident that this is where John Paul got the electricity to run his prodigiously powerful engine of sanctity. We will also get a small and desperate resurgence of this sort of stuff too. But mainstream Evangelicalism has too much heart and soul (and honesty) to buy such silliness much anymore. It takes more effort than a normal person can muster to seriously propose that John Paul is burning in hell for his failure to sufficiently conform to the diagrams of Calvinist theology. John Paul is living proof of the saying, "In the evening of our lives, we will be judged by love." There is, of course, the danger that goes with this: ie., the possibility that people will react to John Paul the way a poodle reacts when you point at something: by sniffing the finger instead of looking where it is pointing. I can imagine a number of converts becoming Catholic "for John Paul's sake" and then being horrified to discover that the next Pope (not to mention the whole church) is not John Paul. That is to build on sand. The *only* reason a person should believe the Catholic faith is because it is true. If John Paul points you to the truth of the Catholic faith, then believe that truth and enter the Church to worship the Trinity in its common life, worship and teaching. But don't build your life on John Paul. Jesus Christ, not he, is Lord of the Church. And John Paul would be the first one to say that. Back to my book! I'm starting to get a flood of "link mes!". My apologies, but I can't since I'm really only blogging a couple of items and trying to keep the focus on this momentous week and this momentous Pope. Mostly, I'm still writing my Mary book. Don't feel rejected. Or at any rate, don't feel singled out and rejected. Cheer up! I'm rejecting a *lot* of people along with you. Once the blog really resumes, I promise to do all the linking stuff again. "Rich in Mercy" One of the reasons John Paul was so loved and hated is that he made the mercy of God one of the basic themes of his papacy. Fallen humans are creatures who have a tortured relationship with mercy. Some hate it because to ask for it is necessarily to admit that one is wrong. Jesus has sharp words for people in this condition, words that are like the last desperate attempts of a doctor to administer CPR to a patient whose heart has failed: 39: Jesus said, "For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind."(John 9:39-41) Others get as far as recognizing the need of mercy for themselves, but refuse it to others. Non-Christians can often have a notion of "tolerance" as mercy, but usually this mean being tolerant of people who you don't much care about. So secular culture prides itself on its tolerance of Approved Victim Groups and popular causes. But the moment the subject turns to human beings who have done things or associated themselves with The Unspeakable (say, membership in some fascist group, or having been a Nixon White House aide, or commission of some disgusting sex crime) and we suddenly discover that there is no room at all for tolerance. Such people are beyond the pale and Decent People do not associate with them. They shall be to us as Publicans and Tax Collectors! And if one of these Unspeakables becomes a believer, well that's just them "getting religion" so they can look respectable. We won't be fooled! We will *never* forget what they did. Christians know they can't get away with that sort of thing. They often pride themselves on their Truly Biblical understanding of mercy. So when some notorious sinner or Unspeakable becomes a believer they will (to their great credit) welcome that one in. It sets them up for a lot of hostility, of course. But it's still the right thing to do. For our faith tells us that there is no sin Jesus cannot forgive. However, there are still things we don't want to forgive. And we Christians have an escape hatch as well. We call it "righteous anger" or "passion for justice" or "prophetic courage". Another favorite is "tough love". On rare ocassions, we are actually serious. Usually, though, what we mean is, "If so and so doesn't tell me he is sorry for the painful and humiliating thing he did to me, then I don't have to forgive him. I can go on nurse my bitterness and hatred of him, because he didn't repent." The problem with this is that Jesus does not allow this: "And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against any one; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses." Period. End of sentence. The richness of God's mercy is that he extends it to us before it ever occurs to us to ask for it. "God commends his own love to us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Extending mercy is a kind of a death. It's a double death if the person we choose to extend mercy to goes on being a jerk. But it's the only way since if we do not do it, we are only harming ourselves. The person we remain bitter at can go to their grave, often oblivious to us. And from their they can continue to dominate and control us for the rest of our lives. As the man said, refusal to forgive is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Extension of forgiveness is not the same as *acceptance* of forgiveness. It is not a guarantee that the person you forgive will be saved. It is not to say that they should not face real and, if necessary, lawful consequence for their actions. So a rape victim is not bound by their forgiveness to not call the cops. They have a duty to do so, in fact, lest others suffer. But to forgive *is* to hand the victimizer over to God and not cling to the hatred and desire for comeuppance. It's the hardest, and most necessary, task we face. And it was one of the things John Paul insisted on for us, and lived as he reached out, not only to those who were penitent, but even to those who, to this very day, revile him and rejoice in his death. "68.3 'Approve Or Strongly Approve' Release of Barabbas - Morgan Gallup Reveals" Remember: Take off 60 IQ points whenever the MSM talks about John Paul or the Catholic Faith. Only a reporter could think that married priests, approval of abortion and gay marriage, and ordination of women are all pretty much the same moral significance and a new Pope could authorize them all on a whim. Andrew Sullivan finally notices the Pope is dead Well, between fretting about theocrats who are just about to overthrow the American Way of Life and posting links to Dancing White Boys, who can find the time to notice the passing of the most important figure of the 20th Century and the most consequential Pope since the Reformation. Besides, John Paul never budged on the One Thing That Matters Most in Andrew's universe, so the Blogosphere had to wait until its chief professional journalist could get his feelings in order before he could even acknowledge the passing of the Holy Father. Gung-ho homosexuality and narcissism: They go together like peas and carrots. Prophecy Fulfilled The other day, we were saying evening prayers. The reading for April 4 (Divine Mercy Sunday) was Psalm 22, the great prayer of dereliction which Christ prayed from the Cross ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me"). It is one of the eeriest prayers in the Psalter, since the sufferings of the psalmist are so prophetically similar to the sufferings of Jesus: 14: I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax, it is melted within my breast;. But that's not the part we read. Because this is the Easter season, the reading comes from the second half of the psalm which is a prayer of thanksgiving for deliverance and an amazing confession of confidence: 22: I will tell of thy name to my brethren; in the midst of the congregation I will praise thee: It occurred to me that this would be an astonishing piece of hubris for the member of any other puny, politically insignificant little tribe of Iron Age barbarians to have made at the time this was written (c. 1000 BC). And yet, this week, we will see a partial fulfillment of this prophecy as the largest TV event in history brings the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass of Jesus Christ to every nation on earth while the largest assemblage of world leaders in history comes to literally bow down and bend the knee before the God of Israel at the funeral Mass for Pope St. John Paul the Great. No man could have foreseen it. The Lord has done this and it is marvelous in our eyes. Monday, April 04, 2005
Ignore everything the media says about the succession When it comes to papal elections, the media are idiots who think they are covering (and influencing) the New Hampshire primaries. They. Don't. Have. A. Clue. Exhibit A: This breathless story on Cdl. Arinze. It's dumb for so many reasons. First, it is thoroughly Americentric. We American are obsessed with questions of race because of our own tortured history, so we assume the rest of the world would be shocked by an African Pope or a Pope in a black skin. Earth to CNN: Most of the Church is not WASPs. A Pope with a dark skin would be a Pope who looks like most of the Church. But then, most of the Church is grown up enough to not much care what color package the successor of Peter comes in. Only American think stuff like that matters. Second: Arinze, who is telegenic and shows up in the media a lot, is one of those guys that reporters have heard of. So they naturally assume that he's "near the top of the list" since Cardinals must have "Is he telegenic?" as a big question in their minds, like media types do. They don't. Believe it or not, cardinals are actually thinking a great deal about *theology* (among many other things) as they discern this question. Arinze's theology is fine, don't get me wrong. But my point is that the media are in completely different worlds from the College of Cardinals as they jabber, predict and prognosticate. Third: Being media types with the historical memory of fruit flies, what these guys are failing to think about is the last papal election: in which the winner blind-sided all the media experts by being some guy nobody ever heard of. My money is on it being some guy nobody ever heard of again. (I'm crossing my fingers that I'm wrong, since I'd love to see Cdl. Schoenborn become Pope. But I don't think I will be wrong. I think we will probably see some bolt from the blue. And if he's African, I will cheer very loudly, since Africa is cranking out some wonderful guys, including Arinze.) Another media gig For those of you in the Seattle area, it looks like I will be guesting on KCTS (the public TV station) for a sort of round table discussion of the Pope's legacy on Thursday evening, April 7. When I get more details, I'll let you know. One last thing Both cyberspace and TV are unreal and anti-incarnational. Don't spend too much time in them hyper-analyzing the Pope, the succession, etc. Take a walk. Read a book to a child. Plant a tree. Or, if you can, honor the Pope who gave us the theology of the body by making a baby and/or going to Mass and receiving the Eucharist. As he did not tire of pointing out: those are the two most incarnational things a human being can possibly do. Also, check out... Amy Welborn and Fr. Bryce Sibley for information and discussion of John Paul that is 100% McBrien/Kissling/Matthews/Amanpour-free. Fr. Sibley will be featuring reports from a priest and a consecrated laywoman who are in Rome and emailing him. As a general rule, knock off 20 IQ points everytime the MSM opens its mouth about John Paul or the Catholic Faith. Make that 50. Saturday morning, I winced as NPR informed me that St. Peter's was a grim scene as thousands of the Pope "worshipers" awaited news of his condition. Make that 60 points. My blogging will be sporadic. I'm still really working on my book. But when you are living through history and you are Irish, it's hard not to speak. "A great majority of Israelis who were interviewed declared John Paul II their favourite candidate for Chief Rabbi of Israel" Trying to put John Paul in perspective I deliberately refrained from trying to do an insta-analysis ("John Paul II: His Impact in 100 words") on the day of his death. This was for three reasons. First, I was too emotional. I love the man and his death has touched me like the death of my own father. At the same time, like the death of someday-to-be-canonized St. Joseph Fulton, a Dominican who pastored at Blessed Sacrament, my home parish here in Seattle, I've never been more certain that somebody went straight to heaven without the fuss of Purgatory, than I am of John Paul. I offer perfunctory prayers for his soul (has anyone *ever* lived out the counsel of Jesus to befriend the poor and thereby guarantee oneself a welcome from them into heaven more than John Paul has?), but mostly I ask his prayers. Second, I wanted time to pray. John Paul's whole mission was ordered toward pointing us to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I needed time to get a handle on how it was my relationship with the Blessed Trinity has been changed and strengthened because of him. Because if that doesn't happen, then his mission will have been (and I think he would agree) a failure. And that is really where I think I should address my assessment. As Disputations has wisely pointed out, the man was so multi-faceted that trying to sum him up is awfully difficult. Philosopher, poet, actor, peacemaker, politician, theologian. But what stands out for me is that he *believed* in Jesus Christ and, because of that, he believed in the dignity of the human person. Unlike the thinkers whose systems and ideologies cost the 20th Century an ocean of blood, John Paul saw faces, not diagrams. He genuinely and deeply believed that each man and each woman were, in his words, a "unique and unrepeatable manifestation of the human mystery" and that, in encountering them, he was--we are--encountering Jesus Christ himself. Neither Reactionary Dissenters nor Leftist Dissenters ever got this through their skulls. That is because Reactionary Dissenters and Leftist Dissenters are both people who prefer diagrams to faces. Indeed, they prefer them so deeply they are in imminent danger of being utterly blind to faces, because faces with their bumps, scars, oddities, and unpredictable expressions do not conform to nice, tidy diagrams. That is the secret thread that binds together mortal enemies like Catholics for a Free Choice and Novus Ordo Watch in a common loathing of and blindness to the greatness of Pope St. John Paul the Great. Like Pilate and Herod, who became friends in their common cause against Christ as they condemned him to death, people who love diagrams more than faces hate this man for his refusal to support their little systems of order. They have a law, and by that law he must die, for he claims to see Christ the King in the human face. If we prefer diagrams to faces, we can't say we weren't warned. This man, who was raised under the two greatest attempts to conform the human person to diagrams--Nazi Germany and Soviet Communism--took away from it a lesson that is as repugnant to Leftist Population planners as it is to Reactionaries who believe that man was made for the law and salvation is achieved by kicking ass and taking names. It is summed up in Redemptor Hominis: The Council points out this very fact when, speaking of that likeness, it recalls that "man is the only creature on earth that God willed for itself". Man as "willed" by God, as "chosen" by him from eternity and called, destined for grace and glory-this is "each" man, "the most concrete" man, "the most real"; this is man in all the fullness of the mystery in which he has become a sharer in Jesus Christ, the mystery in which each one of the four thousand million human beings living on our planet has become a sharer from the moment he is conceived beneath the heart of his mother. Both Leftist Dissenters and Reactionary Dissenters, loving diagrams more than faces, see human beings as means to ends, not as the only creature on earth that god willed for himself. It matters little what the end is. Whether a "sustainable economy" or The Perfect Tridentine Mass, the point is that persons matter less than the system. And because of this, John Paul was hated. He was hated by Progressives for going to Third World countries and failing to say, "Just enough of me. Way too much of you. Stop having all those babies that God has willed to exist for their own sake." He was likewise hated by Reactionaries--whose primal belief is that the Church (or rather, their idea of the Church) is the way for man--for deriving from the Incarnation the obvious conclusion that "man is the way for the Church": This man is the way for the Church--a way that, in a sense, is the basis of all the other ways that the Church must walk-because man--every man without any exception whatever--has been redeemed by Christ, and because with man--with each man without any exception whatever--Christ is in a way united, even when man is unaware of it: "Christ, who died and was raised up for all, provides man"--each man and every man--"with the light and the strength to measure up to his supreme calling" This is why Pope John Paul had such an enormous love for the Blessed Virgin Mary. Because she points the way to the destiny of redeemed humanity. All the great systems and diagrams which cost the world so much blood in the 20th Century were the fruit of philosophies that took for granted that enmity, competition, pride, strife, chaos and evil--in a word, original sin--were the most fundamental realities in the world. They could not see further than the fact of original sin (even as many of them tried to deny original sin). John Paul II believed in original sin (which is why he never tried to suggest that we could create heaven on earth). But he also believed in something deeper than sin: the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, by which Jesus showed forth how completely he could save the human person from the destruction of sin. And so, John Paul knew the true dignity of our origins and our destiny and, while he acknowledged the mystery of sin, never let sin name any person he met. He knew that though sin corrupts our humanity, it did not constitute our humanity. All this is so radical that it will take the Church centuries to catch up with him. We're still jabbering about "conservative" and "liberal" and listening to the talking heads blather about his supposed hangups about sex (in between commercials with voluptuous babes selling beer and shampoo). But it *is* possible to catch up with him. For he intended that we should. I'll write more later, I think. But I want to ponder things a bit more. From our "Vast Gulf" Dept. "Battle begins for soul of Church", says Drudge. Yes, I know what he means. "Who's gonna win the big Power Struggle and appoint the next Pope?" But that really illustrates most deeply the vast gulf between the world's understanding of the Church and the Church's self-understanding. For if the Faith is *at all* true, then there is no question of any human gaining "control" of the soul of the Church. For the Holy Spirit (that is, God himself, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity for those journalists from Rio Linda) is the Soul of the Church. Always has been. Always will be. In the mystery of Providence and human freedom, a bunch of cardinal will soon be voting on the successor to John Paul II, not on a successor to the Holy Spirit. Justin Raimondo eulogizes the Pope ...and excoriates some of the embarrassing, over-the-top and cringeworthy things said of his sin of trying to be a peacemaker by the Glenn Reynolds/Joe D'Hippolito/Front Page Mag types. Bet you didn't know he was an anti-semite and the head of rogue state supporting terrorism. Oddly, these guys are dead silent about this stuff this week. You'll hear from them again soon though. Sunday, April 03, 2005
It looks like I will be on MSNBC's "Connected Coast to Coast" with Ron Reagan and Monica Crowley April 8 (Friday afternoon) at 2:15 PM Pacific time They found somebody for Monday morning, but they want to re-schedule me for Friday afternoon. Tune in to MSNBC this Friday at two-ish in the afternoon and you may just catch me giving a blogospheric perspective on Pope John Paul's colossal impact on the Church and the world. Pray for me, please. Saturday, April 02, 2005
Well Done Good and Faithful Servant As a Father you were to me. Thank you!  Enter into the Joy, Pope St. John Paul the Great! "'How do I feel?' Samwise cried. 'Well, I don't know how to say it. I feel, I feel' — he waved his arms in the air — 'I feel like spring after winter, and sun on the leaves; and like trumpets and harps and all the songs I have ever heard!' " "All the host laughed and wept, and in the midst of their merriment and tears the clear voice of the minstrel rose like silver and gold, and all men were hushed. And he sang to them, now in the Elven-tongue, now in the speech of the West, until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness." |
