Catholic and Enjoying It! |
|
 Mark Shea's Blog: So That No Thought of Mine, No Matter How Stupid, Should Ever Go Unpublished Again! Tips are deeply appreciated! Yes! I do take Credit Cards!          
 Braggadocio! "I read your website with great appreciation." - Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Editor-in-Chief, First Things This site mentioned on NRO's The Corner ("Brilliant!") The American Prospect The Boston Globe ("A well-run blog") National Catholic Register US News and World Report Vatican Radio Heart, Mind and Strength Radio MyCatholic.com    
Archives
My Site (Mark-Shea.com)Act One: Writing for Hollywood American Chesterton Society Ave Maria Singles Catherine of Siena Institute Catholic Educator's Resource Center Catholic Exchange A Catholic Page for Lovers Crossroads Initiative Decent Films Drudge Report Exceptional Marriages Gilbert Magazine In Nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti Peter Kreeft Mars Hill Review St. Austin Review St. Blog's Prayer Network Star of the Sea: Catholic Resources from Paul Thigpen The View from the Core Dave Armstrong's Cor ad Cor Loquitur Domenico Bettinelli: Very Sensible Guy Elliot Bougis: Fides, Cogitatio, Actio Chris Burgwald's Veritas Cacciaguida: Defending the 12th Century Since the 14th Catholic Light: Not "Lite" Catholic World News - Off the Record Josh Claybourn: In the Agora The Corner Dan Darling's Regnum Crucis: A Pro-War Blogger I Respect Disputations: Dedicated to Arguing Michael Dubruiel's Annunciations: Sanity in Cyberspace Envoy's Blog: A Banana Republic for Catholic Apologists Get Religion: The Smartest Blog on the Web about Religion and Media Heart, Mind and Strength: The Weblog of Exceptional Marriages and Other Fun Stuff Fr. Rob Johansen's Thrownback Christopher Johnson's Midwest Conservative Journal Greg Krehbiel's Crowhill Weblog Victor Lams: St. Blog's Resident Deranged Genius Lilek's Bleat: What a Terrific Writer! White Around the Collar Mere Comments: Touchstone's blog Mommentary: Elinor Dashwood's Sensible Blog Musings of a Catholic Convert David Morrison's Sed Contra Barbara Nicolosi's Church of the Masses James Preece's Catholic and Loving it! (Not to be confused with another site of a similar name) Dale Price's Dyspeptic Mutterings Fr. Todd Reitmeyer: A Son Becomes a Father Relapsed Catholic: Canadian, Like My Mom I. Shawn McElhinney's Rerum Novaraum: Traditionalist *and* In Love with the Church Scrappleface: As Funny as the Onion Secret Agent Man's Dossier The Shrine of the Holy Whapping: Fun Lovin' Catholic Nerds from Notre Dame Oswald Sobrino's Catholic Analysis: Trenchant Observations Southern Appeal: A Rebel Yell and a Southern Exposure Andrew Sullivan: The 800 Pound Gorilla of the Blogosphere Who is Hopelessly Fuddled about Catholicism and Sex Mark Sullivan's Irish Elk Patrick Sweeney's Extreme Catholic Amy Welborn's Open Book Eve Tushnet: Wide Ranging Mind The View from the Core: Pithy Ideas from Lane Core Daniel Vitz: Commited to an Institute etc
|
Friday, December 23, 2005
Eek! I've been memed! The Pawlaks tag me and I'm It: 1. Hot chocolate or apple cider? Hot chocolate. 2. Turkey or Ham? Turkey. 3. Do you get a Fake or Real you cut it yourself Christmas tree? Real, but we don't cut it ourselves. Half the joy of a Christmas tree is the fragrance. 4. Decorations on the outside of your house?Ye! But not much. 5. Snowball fights or sledding? Snow? I have heard of such things in magical far off lands. 6. Do you enjoy going downtown shopping? Like I enjoy root canals. 7. Favorite Christmas song? "Past Three O'Clock". 8. How do you feel about Christmas movies? Love 'em. The more heartwarming, the better. Wonderful Life, Christmas Carol, Christmas Story, We're No Angels. Bring 'em on. 9. When is it too early to start listening to Christmas music? December 23. 11. Carolers, do you or do you not watch and listen to them? I prefer to be them. 12. Go to someone else's house or they come to you? Yes. 13. Do you read the Christmas Story? Yep. 14. What do you do after presents and dinner? Laze. Play games. Doze, drowse, drift. Visit and tell stories. 15. What is your favorite holiday smell? Turkey, pine trees. 16. Ice skating or walking around the mall? Ice skating is a leading cause of drowning in Washington. 17. Do you open a present or presents on Christmas Eve, or wait until Christmas day? One present Christmas Eve, the rest in the morning. 18. Favorite Christmas memory? Too many to name from early childhood to watching my own bambino discover Christmas. I think I love Christmas Eve more than Christmas Day. 19. Favorite Part about winter? Candles! 20. Ever been kissed under mistletoe? Oodles! Oh! The passion! But I've said too much already! Okay, Amy and Jimmy. You're up next! A reader writes:
If memory serves, what I blew off was Sungenis and Co's perennial tendency to describe people he disagrees with as minions of Satan. That's not the same thing as endorsing everything the NAB notes have to say. I'm not terribly keen on the NAB myself and I reject what some of the notes say (for example the note on the Magnificat you mention. I'm highly skeptical that John was still being revised in the fourth century (though I'd want to see proof that the notes claim this). Similarly, I'd like to see the actual notes before I accept or reject the commentary on Matthew. I'm quite prepared to say that the gospels don't record the "actual words of Christ" if by that it is meant that the gospels are not always recording the "ipsissima verbi"--the precise words of Jesus. Jesus, after all, preached in Aramaic, not Greek. So we are already fudging to some degree. Likewise, the gospels are recording things Jesus probably said dozens or even hundreds of times with various small variations and with adaptations to different circumstances. The beatitudes Matthew records are a lot like, but not identical to, the beatutudes Luke records. I think that strengthens rather than weakens the argument that there is a real historical core behind the beatitudes. But, as humans do, they are not recorded as a tape recorder would, but as people would: adapting the basic message to the needs of the audience. I'm not convinced that the NAB says Matthew is "absolutely" not the author of Matthew. If it does, then I disagree. But if it simply means that Matthew is not the guy with the pen in his hand but that the testimony behind Matthew is that of the apostle, then I can accept that since that seems to be obviously the case with John. In conclusion, I don't tend to blow off Sungenis' opinions because of his rad-trad tendencies. I tend to blow off Sungenis' opinion because he tends to be black and white. He is hasty to attribute to malice what can be sufficiently explained by stupidity and he tends to be flat-footed and simplistic in his exegesis of texts (and not just biblical ones). To his credit, he has repudiated the loony sedevacantism now being advocated by Matatics. But there seems to me to be something a trifle lacking in humility in claiming to be smarter than Einstein and Hawking in the matter of their chosen fields. A reader writes I am an anticoagulation pharmacist. I'm sending you this link to the Fall 2005 newletter of the National Alliance for Thrombosis and Thrombophilia. On the fourth page is a story about a young woman who died from blood clots from using a hormonal contraceptive patch for acne. I think it would be good to post to your blog so people could put a face on victims of these drugs. A reader writes: When you get a chance I was curious about exactly where Jesus was born. This morning I was listening to Sacred Heart radio and heard a broadcast from a cave where Jesus was born, jointly owned by the Franciscans and the Greek Orthodox? Yet scripture refers to a manger. I've heard this cave business mentioned before but don't really understand. Can you point me to any resources? The Bethlehem area has a lot of caves. In fact, St. Jerome lived in one while he was working on the Vulgate translation of the Bible, if memory serves. Caves have been used for time immemorial as stables for critters. You don't have to build them. They (more or less) keep the rain out, and they don't wear out. So the tradition has always been that Jesus was born in one of these cave/stables. A close reading of Scripture reveals that Jesus was not born in a manger, but *laid* there after being swaddled. That's because a manger is not a place, but a thing. It's a feed box. Luke notes that (as is his custom) for two reasons. First, because it's true and second because it's pregnant with huge significance. Just as he will end his gospel with Christ revealed in the Eucharist (remember when the disciples see the Risen Christ but don't recognize him till he takes bread, gives thanks, breaks it and gives it to them?)--so he begins his gospel with Mary bringing forth the Bread of Life in the town whose name means "House of Bread" and laying that bread in feed box. This is why Orthodox icons of the Nativity always feature an ox and an ass at the stable. They are recalling the prophecy of Isaiah and linking it both to thte Nativity and to the Eucharist and our failure to appreciate the gift: "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the LORD has spoken: "Sons have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. 3 The ox knows its owner, and the ass its master's crib; but Israel does not know, my people does not understand." (Isaiah 1:2-3) What I Get For Ignoring St. Ephraim St. Ephraim once remarked that we must be kind to every person we meet, for everyone is fighting a great battle. I have, not to put too fine a point on it, not been very kind of late to Carrie Tomko. It has seemed to me that she has been rather unfair in her assessments of various and sundry people, ideas, and organizations and I have rather sharply criticized her for that. But then she goes and reveals a little piece of her heart in a very moving essay and I think to myself, "You big stupid loudmouth. Why not try a little honey instead of vinegar, you dolt! The thing that bugged you about her writing was that she seemed to be so afraid to trust anybody. Well, has it ever occurred to you that there might be a wound at the root of that and that kicking the wound is a poor way to encourage more trust?" So, I have a little appointment with a confessor to make. And by way of trying to right a wrong I've done, I'm posting this publicly since I posted my complaints about her blog publicly. My apologies, Carrie, for being so rough on you. We still disagree, but I'm sorry I paid no consideration to the possibility of real pain my comments might have caused you. Oh, by the way, in the same vein, since Joe retracted his nasty remarks over at Mystery Achievement, I likewise took down my nasty remarks and left only the link noting his apology. I think I'll take that one to confession too. If I think of anything else that involves youse guys, you'll be the first to know. Thursday, December 22, 2005
Expect more sporadic blogging through the New Year I believe I'll take a break starting this weekend! And this afternoon, we go caroling! Tra la! Happily, Mystery Achievement and Secret Agent Man Have Patched Things Up This being so, it would hardly behoove me to carry a grudge. If SAM's happy. I'm happy. Let's all have a Merry Christmas! Fr. Robert Carr writes: Are you familiar with posadas? These are the Latino Tradition of Re-enacting the journey of Mary and Joseph trying to find room at the inn. I love to share such things with American Catholics (You probably know that I work mostly in spanish). Would you be interested in adding my special report (mp3) on Posadas to an entry in your webpage. I am just looking for ways to get more and more people to see life in the Church especially to help share with Americans what is happening in other Non-English Speaking American Cultures. Judicial Reasoning Like This Can Only Occur In a Society Whose Historical Perspective is One-Generation Deep How could something dehumanizing possibly be dangerous for society? Amazing. There's a Party Going On! Listen live right now to Heart, Mind, and Strength radio (streaming online) and you'll hear me and a bunch of other visitors ringing the bell, visiting and caroling. In between, various Catholic noshing happens with bits of fun mini-catechetics and cultural commentary. Me and the fambly will be on at 2:30 EST. More on Domestic Spying A reader writes: It's time for our history lesson. Ready? Despite minor errors in detail (FISA was created in 1978, not 1975 apparently), my reader has his finger on the central question: "Why does the Bush Administration feel the need to go around this obvious rubber-stamp court?" Why indeed? I think shouting "Don't you know we're at war, dammit?" is reaching its sell-by date as the all-excusing rationale for whatever Bushies want to do. Particularly when unsupervised snooping in the name of the War on Terror immediately leads to investigations of the bloodthirsty Islamofascists at the Catholic Worker. One reader, predictably, tries to make excuses for this: Yeah, why would ANYONE think that an organization inspired by Dorothy Day (a former communist) would have any communist sympathies? Another reader aptly replies: Dorothy Day and the Catholic Workers are no more communist than Mother Teresa or St. Francis. Apparently it's no longer the War on Terror. It's the war on anything that might vaguely be suspected of not fitting in with generic Republican culture. Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Church to Alter Creed to "We believe in Craig Venter, the Lord and Giver of Life" Hey! What could possibly go wrong? After all, a grateful God is on our side! Years of College, Years of Law School, Passing the Bar, Finally Ascending to the Bench ...and yet still this judge is a complete and total idiot. It's amazing how hard some people have to sweat and strain to make themselves stupid. Speaking of Agitprop Newsweek does a puff piece on the Duh Vinci Code movie and Amy shares my sensation of feeling like the Principal in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It's maddening to see such grotesque fraud being taken seriously by so many people and rewarded so lavishly. You get the sense of the psalmist, "Why, O Lord, to the wicked prosper?" Morton and Greydanus on "Brokeback Mountain". I'm willing to grant that the film is art. And I think it should be approached as a piece of art. I think Greydanus does a fine job of analyzing it as such. My response has primarily been to the "Eat your spinach. This is a Morally Improving Piece of Agitprop About the Greatest Thing in the Universe, Gay Sex!" tone the press has take with it. I am frankly sick to death of being told by every MSM outlet that nothing less than my unqualified praise and adoration of homosex will do. So I'm not exactly pre-disposed to take critical raves seriously even when (albeit with huge qualifications, as Greydanus makes clear) a piece of art may merit them. I love Democrats for Life Not only are they doing the hard work down in the trenches of trying to persuade their fellow Dems not be robotic, lockstep whores for the sacrament of abortion (and receiving much spit in the eye for their efforts), they are also performing the very important task of pointing out that the GOP does its own sort of whoring by mouthing platitudes about Jesus and little babies while cutting cord blood research spending from $9.9 million to $4 million in next year's budget bill. A Chance to Get to Know G.E.M. Anscombe She was one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th Century. Beat the pants of C.S. Lewis in debate once. Catholic convert. Staunchly pro-life. Coined the term "consequentialism" and was its most vigorous opponent (consequentialism being basically the notion that the end justifies the means and that we can do evil in order to achieve good results). Here's a bit of her work. And here's a bit more: An excellent obituary (summing up her contributions in life) in First Things: Her excellent 1977 article on Contraception and Chastity Sir Elton Pretends to Wed! Worldwide juggernaut toward gay pretend weddings continues to steamroll remnants of Western tradition even as we are still being told that homosexual oppression is one of the gravest threats to social peace in our day. Uh huh. The 19th Century had a Passion for All-Explaining Theories of Everything So it is natural that the last remaining holdout of 19th Century ideology--Darwinism--would still have some apostles who continue that grand tradition of trying to explain everything with their theory. Here's some columnist for the Seattle Times explaining how evolution account for why people like privacy during sex. One word: Jennycam Benedict on the God of Mary Check this out From henceforth all generations will call me blessed"–these words of the Mother of Jesus handed on for us by Luke (Lk 1:48) are at once a prophecy and a charge laid upon the Church of all times... . Some of my Evangelical convert friends retain a strong reticence about Marian devotion. I empathize, but I still think they are allowing their emotions to govern them. The "minimum daily adult requirement" approach to Mary that seeks to keep her at the periphery of the Christian life overlooks the fact that one of the primary ways God reveals himself is through his relationship. The God of the Philosophers is knowable through Nature: Creator, Master, Intelligent Designer, Ground of Being. But the God of Abraham is knowable only through Abraham and his children. Likewise, God in Jesus Christ is most knowable through his greatest disciple, Mary. To overlook this is to miss something crucial at the core of the gospel. The Thing That Struck Me About Australia Was How Young the Country Felt Something of that youthful impetuosity comes through in the reaction of Brookes News Journalist Gerald Jackson to the latest attempts by Equal Opportunity types to make everybody bend over for Islam. It's hard not to cheer for the guy in the face of such bullying cowardice. I doubt very much whether ordinary Aussies are going to stand for much more of this dim-witted bureaucratic weeniness in appeasement of brutes, bullies and thugs. I haven't commented much on the whole domestic spying thing... mainly because I wanted to see some facts about what was happening. I have no particular difficulty with the State, in a time of war, exercising extraordinary powers to keep an eye on people who are calling dirty numbers (i.e. Al-Quaeda abroad). I'd think them remiss in their duty if they didn't. But the problem with with Leviathan is that he tends to always try to amass more power over troublesome individualists than is really necessary. It becomes fatally easy for the state to move from protecting us from terrorists to protecting us from ourselves. And so, I'm disappointed, but not shocked to see that Leviathan has been spying on those dangerous Islamic maniacs at Catholic Worker. This is the basic problem with simply trusting that the State, entrusted with ever more limitless power and without oversight, will just do the Right Thing. The historical evidence for this is wanting in actuality. Golly, What a Surprise. Who Could Have Foreseen it? Iraqi Vote Points to Islamist Path I did enjoy this blogger's approach to the problem: You know the old saying about the horse and the water, and the decision to drink. Freedom means doing exactly as we tell you. Your dose of cinema for the day It's a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story In 30 seconds. Re-enacted by bunnies Tuesday, December 20, 2005
I hate being right all the time Back in 2002 I said it was just a matter of time before the culture of dissent from sexual norms arrived at "What's so bad about sex with children?" and dragged out the invaluable word "taboo". And now, voila! A delicate, often heart-wrenching piece of theater.... explores volatile terrain" and indulges in much chin-stroking about "moral grayness" as it invites us to sing along with a pedophile. (Hat tip, Kathy Shaidle.) Since my prophetic skills seem to be keen for the moment, permit me another prediction: the day will come when the Church is condemned, not for permitting pedophilia, but for condemning it. Or perhaps more precisely, she will be condemned for condemning it, but also condemned for hypocrisy in allowing it. It will be another example of the Church's failure to face the fact that pedophilia is a natural God-given gift and that the Church's hatred of nature has doomed thousands of people to live in the closet rather than express their glorious and freely chosen expressions of mutual love. Once "mutual consent" is made the sole measure of moral rightness, this step is virtually inevitable. A reader writes: You know, I might post a thing or two to these torturous comboxes if they didn't grow as fast as certain kinds of cancer. A few hours ago there was no post. Now there is a post with 80 comments. It's like stirring a hornet's nest with a stick. I just wish that some of my more zealous readers had any sense that consequentialism was a temptation and not a positive virtue. Well, recapping from yesterday: I posted a straightforward plea to make torture "safe, legal and rare". As I expected, a number of readers, instead of saying, "But what *is* torture?" instead bent over backwards to show that the Church can be safely ignored and that genuine, authentic, reallio-trulio torture can be practiced if it serves the purposes of the good old US of A. To be sure, they also (again) demanded that I define torture for them, since that is such a useful tool for obfuscating the fact that they just endorsed a call for "safe, legal, and rare" torture. At length, somebody pointed out that there have essentially been two debates going on. Debate #1 is "What is torture?" Debate #2 is "Even when we grant that something is torture, should we go ahead and do it?" In the hope that perhaps the umpteenth reply to the pitiful pleas that I define torture will be listened to, I wrote this: My concern has always been with those who try to make the case that, somehow, someway, we ought to be able to torture. Some people make that case clearly. Many more make it by sleight of hand. Some of my readers were satisfied that I was not trying to elude any questions but was rather sending them to consult people with technical competence in such matters. As I've said numerous times in the past, the place to go for definitions of torture are the commonly agreed upon sources, not me. If the dictionary doesn't do it for you, then you need to find something more specific, written by experts in (in this case) treatment of prisoners. I have no expertise in such matters. Many of the things my readers list in their "for instances" could be considered torture under certain circumstances. Many of the same things would *not* be torture under other circumstances. This is why we have Army codes on treatment of prisoners. Unfortunately, other readers were still unhappy. It's what comes of trying to keep up a defense of the indefensible, I suppose. So some kept pressing me for *my* definition of exactly what constitutes torture. I gave a "for instance": waterboarding, wherein the victim is brought to the point where he believes he is about to drown. Amazingly, some are ready to quibble that this is not torture. Still others expressed sneers at my opininon that human rights are for human being and not merely legal human beings. So the conversation meandered away from the attempt to defend naked calls for torture and on to the much safer territory of a what a bleeding heart wuss I am for believing that the basic protection from torture provided by things like international law should apply even to terrorists. This simple-minded notion that human rights are for human beings earned much hearty derision from the apostles of realpolitik. After this, the conversation more or less trailed away from me and what I think. So: to sum up. I am not an expert on interrogation techniques and codes for handling prisoners in penal situations. Happily, as with other matters in which I lack expertise, there are people out there who *possess* expertise. Periodically, military guys like Bill Cork have even done the kindness of pointing readers who wish to know what can and cannot be done according to military codes of conduct to the appropriate literature. If people really have a burning passion to know whether, say, waterboarding or voltage to the groin is something the standard codes of conduct permit, there is in fact literature they can consult. Now, oddly, some people (not all) have no interest in doing so. Instead, they insist on pressing a non-expert like me to give detailed answers that would satisfy a trained lawyer. I can't think why they should choose to overlook the testimony of experts and instead put me on the stand. Why, it sometimes could appear to the untrained observer that they are more interested in creating a fog bank of endlessly parsed definitions, so as to never get around to facing the fact that some things are, in fact, torture. Further evidence of this drive to obfuscate and justify torture is seen in the fact that when somebody *does* call for Torture to be "safe, Legal, and rare", they do not rebuke him for it, but instead rebuke me for pointing out that he is calling for something the Church describes as "gravely immoral" to be permitted. Suddenly, they are mining the riches of the Church's tradition, looking for the glories of torture in Magisterial teaching. Development of doctrine means nothing. When you point out that the same thing can be said for slavery, they ignore the fact that the Church's teaching has developed in a number of areas besides torture, haul out a couple of proof texts, and ignore things like this. The whole goal is to say that, when it comes to torture, the authoritative teaching of the Catholic Church can be ignored, if it suits our national aims. And, for good measure, critics of this are labeled "pro-terrorist". Judging from my mail and from the informal poll I took a week or two ago, I don't think these desperate tactics are working--at least with my readers. On the other hand, I am always mindful of something a friend of mine used to say: "Americans are always only three meals away from a revolution." Or, as somebody wiser put it, "If men say these things when the tree is gree, what will happen when it is dry." I think that if things get seriously difficult in the war on terror, that it will not take much to turn the majority of Americans into people who will hand over to Caesar the right to Do Whatever it Takes to make us feel "safe". And that will include not just the "right to torture" but the handing over of many other rights as well. The problem is, the modern Nanny State is a sort of Roach Motel for freedom. Freedoms go in, but they don't come back out. Atheists do not spend a great deal of time fretting about non-Western religions. Few atheist websites spend many electrons sneering at animism, or Sun worship, or Norse religion. As Chesterton said, if you want to know what a culture holds sacred, just look at what it considers blasphemous. "If you don't believe it," said Chesterton, "try to have a blasphemous thought about Loki." Philip Pullman bears this out: "Although I call myself an atheist, I am a Church of England atheist, and a 1662 Book of Common Prayer atheist, because that’s the tradition I was brought up in and I cannot escape those early influences." Most evangelical atheism seems to me to share this remarkable provinciality. It's like the last step in a series of Protestant sectarian splits. Pullman's atheism is about little more than "not being Anglican". It's certainly not at all about not being Hindu, or Norse, or Greco-Roman. And it's very far away indeed from being for something. When Jingos Attack One of the best and wisest people in the blogosphere, Secret Agent Man, gets screamed at by an orc for failing to pass the orc's test of 100% uncritical mindless endorsement of everything American. It's not enough that SAM love his country. He must love his country's sins too. And he must agree that the war in Iraq was just or he hates America and freedom and goodness. Then, for good measure, SAM gets hysterically tarred as an anti-semite for not bowing and scraping to the latest manufactured panic of the ADL. Update update: To his credit, D'Hippolito apologized for his outburst. Likewise, to his credit, someguy deleted a goodly portion of D'Hippolito's more splenetic remarks. Vote for Tolkien on Film! Voting for this year's ORC Awards is now open - and Tolkien on Film is nominated in the second category, "Best Tolkien themed book published in 2005." Anyone can vote here. Do me a favor and go vote for Tolkien on Film. I've always dreamed of having a book I contributed to win an ORC award! Like Nixon Trying to Disco... Whenever Dems try to inject religious discourse into their speechifying it always makes the flesh crawl. Here's theologian Nancy Pelosi, getting religion about the budget: "As the Bible teaches us, to minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of worship, to ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us," said House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California. "Let us vote no on this budget as an act of worship and for America's children." The Dems were the once-mighty biblical orators. They gave us William Jenning Bryan, whose "Cross of Gold" speech is one of the most famous admixtures of biblical imagery and contemporary politics in American rhetoric. They were the home of Al Smith, and the mighty Martin Luther King. But since they sold out to the abortion whores and various post-Christian lameoids and policy wonks, the wine has turned entirely to vinegar. The Stupid Party isn't much better. Bush made me wince when he declared there was "power, wonder-working power" in the American people or the free enterprise system of something to that effect. But the thing is: the GOP still has within it people who really believe in the supernatural, biblical gospel *and are allowed a serious place at the table*. They make the GOP suits nervous, but they have not been entirely suppressed. In the Evil Party, they are suppressed and constantly mocked:  A party that has staked its foundations on this sort of primal hatred of the biblical tradition is a party that is headed for, among other things, rhetorical imbecility, since most of the language of the West is unintelligible apart from Scripture. Jimmy Akin offers a bit more on Hollywood's Latest Catechesis Concerning the Utter Wonderfulness of All Things Gay Stalin's Half-Man, Half-Ape Super Warriors Stalin, the Tyrant from the Golden Age of Science Fiction, wanted to interbreed men and apes to make the New Soviet Army. How crude. We advanced westerners are showing him how it's really done. Just one more reason God smiles on us and confers upon our civilization the thanks and praise he so clearly owes us and we so obviously deserve. How lucky we are to be a people whom God could not possibly judge. Monday, December 19, 2005
My comboxes: beyond parody Here's an exquisite contribution: Torture should be safe (waterboarding), legal and rare. And if you don't understand why that is different from saying the same about abortion, you don't understand the difference between saving innocent life and destroying it. Reason #934857433554 I'm glad I belong to a Magisterial Church. I will stick with the formulation that torture is gravely immoral, not with the dissenting notion that it should be "safe, legal, and rare." Amazing. Utterly amazing. On the bright side, we seem to be getting past the "Of course I'm against torture, but golly I'm so confused about what torture *is*" game and are now graduating to "Yes. Let's torture! Screw the Church's teaching about intrinsic immorality. As long as we keep them safe, legal and rare, intrinsically immoral acts are okay, especially when they are being advocated by people with political views similar to mine." Also gotta love the "If you oppose me, you think you're G.K. Chesterton" defense. Ranks right up there with "If we can't torture, it's the suicide of the West!" Oh, and, of course, there is the reliable, "If you're not for torture, you're pro-terrorist!" sound that the barrel starts to make when you scrape the bottom of it. Yessiree, abandonment of torture will lead to the loss of our very souls! Only lovers of bin Laden oppose torture. Give thou me a break. "Safe, legal, and rare". What's next? "It takes a village to torture a child"? How fitting that torture apologists should adopt the rhetoric of Bill Clinton, the Archetypal Perverter of Language in American politics. A fitting doom. Speaking of CE... I published a piece last week on Apostate U. Then I spent several days answering mail about the piece from almost unanimous correspondents saying variations on "Me too!" Here's a small sampling of the mail I was busy with last week. Guess the piece hit a nerve! How fun! A Cruise! With the exalted title of Senior Content Editor, people often have the idea that I pretty much call the shots at Catholic Exchange. Actually, this is not true. I write. That's it. I write the Catholic Scripture Study. I write the correspondence. I write the Words of Encouragement. I write the Wednesday feature. I write the special bleats and blats and blurts that go out to announce some new project. Writing. That's my department. Consequently, I often get pleasant surprises when the guys with the big Vision Thing decide to do something new and fun... -- Like host a Catholic Scripture Study Cruise to Alaska August 4-11, 2006! I've always wanted to do this and now I get to since I will be one of the teachers (along with Patrick Madrid, Steve Ray, Fr. Patrick Winslow, Gail Buckley, and the Catholic Exchange gang). The ship leaves from Seattle (my back yard!) and makes its way up to Alaska and back over the course of a week. You get a chance to relax and to learn about Scripture, as well as explore Alaska a little bit and have any of us speakers at your beck and call to talk about all things Catholic. Plus there's all the fun cruisy stuff to do. I'm sticking an ad for the cruise over on the left rail. To sweeten the pot, we're offering $100 per person discount for all registrations before January 15, 2006. Make this year your shot to take a really fun vacation that will also nourish your faith. Holy leisure is an ancient tradition in the Church. Take a week and explore it! It will be fun to get to meet you at last! When Evangelicalism Starts to Rot Here's a classic example of what happens when an Evangelical, under the suasion of PC culture, attempts to do a flat-footed "Bible study" to find the "biblical" answer to questions like "What does God think of in vitro fertilization and stem cell research?" The author is absolutely helpless both with Scripture and with evaluating the Church's tradition. She's all proof texts in the service of a fore-ordained agenda and totally helpless in understanding both what Sacred Tradition is and how it really develops. It's stuff like this that long ago convinced me that Evangelicalism as it is presently constituted is a purely temporary phenomenon. Some of it will decay into the vinegar of post-modern deconstuctionist atheism. Some of it will become Catholic or Orthodox. Some will lapse into therapeutic feelgoodism. Some will become flathead Fundamentalism. But a hundred years from now, Evangelicalism is not going to look anything like it looks now. Torture's Long Shadow By a former Soviet dissident and prisoner who, unlike so many clever pundits eager to defend Strength Through the Sacrifice of Conscience, actually experienced cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatments and says that differentiating them from torture is ridiculous. America: The Happy Land of Upside Down If you cover up the rape of a minor and you are a Catholic bishop, this is what is known as "crime". If you cover up the rape of a minor and you are Planned Parenthood, this is what is known as "heroism". My respect for the Idaho State Legislature Just Went Way Up Napoleon Dynamite deserves all the accolades Idaho can throw at it. Secret Agent Man on Conspiracy Theorists If only the author of Witchhunt Central would listen. The great irony of those who fall prey to the urge to ferret out all the webs of conspiracy and secret societies and occult knowledge working against the Church is that they tend to become gnostic themselves, certain that the only way to salvation is to amass "true knowledge" about Rosicrucians and Masons and whatnot. They end so full of fear and so ready to see the most innocent things as sinister that it's a tragedy, really. Does somebody's mailing address have the word "rose" in it? What evil thread of conspiracy does that betoken? Did the Pope cite an author whose brother-in-law once wrote an article about Swedenborg? The smoke of Satan has entered the Sanctuary! Eventually they begin (as the author of Witchhunt Central does) to lose all trust in everything, including the gospel itself. Yet it does not occur to them that the problem is with them, the quality of their faith, and the quality of their understanding of theology. No, the fault is with the Church. The the only thing they are left trusting is their own sense of infallibility in tracing the webs of conspiracy--and, of course, the fellow paranoids who urge them on in their deepening distrust of everything, especially the Church and the gospel. Sunday, December 18, 2005
Caption Contest The thought "Pope Unveils 2005 Episcopal Spine" occurs to me in my naughtier moments. Oh! One Last Thing! Saw Kong. Loved it! I don't understand the complaints. I don't understand "Jack Black was miscast" (a man born to play a narcissistic manipulator). I don't understand the "movie has no emotional heart". I don't understand why it's bombing. I'll go see it again (along with Narnia). I won't take the kids to the former, but we'll revisit the latter. I just wish Pitta Jixxin would think bigger! :) Finally, Huge Thanks to Everybody Who Participated in the CAEI Quarterly Fund Drive! Thanks to you, we can function for another month! We at Chez Shea like functioning. Functioning is good. From all of us at Chez Shea: God bless you for your kindness and generosity, Happy Advent, and Merry Christmas! On the radio tomorrow I'll be doing Johnette Benkovic's "Moments of Truth" show from 11 AM Eastern to Noon tomorrow, December 19. I like doing radio shows that don't require me to get up at 5:00 AM. Puff Piece on the Glories of New York as the Most Baby-Murderin' City in America Gotta love the narcissistic comparisons to the Underground Railroad. Who runs it? Sojourner Lies? The happy side of the piece is the hand-wringing of the author, who clearly sees abortion as gravely threatened. Good. In Defense of Abp. Buechlein A reader writes: Regarding your post titled "Sandra Miesel, as is her Custom, Beats Around the Bush" The Post-Christian West laboring to acquire the godlike power to create and destroy human life for the pleasure of the powerful. Thanks be to God that we are the good guys in the great Clash of Cultures with the Islamosphere. Imagine what would happen if evil Muslims were allowed to exercise this power that we wield with such incredible wisdom, love, and selflessness. A reader writes: I have some questions about the eternity of God I havn't been able to resolve on my own and I thought I'd ask you for your opinion/help on this issue. Now, God is either temporal, or God exists outside of time. I don't think there's any way we can square a claim that God is bound to time. Certainly he is without beginning or end and is eternal, according to revelation. I wonder whether your problem doesn't arise from a term like "atemporal". I suspect "supertemporal" might be closer to the mark. You appear to be suggesting that could create something and then not understand what he has created (in this case, timespace). I don't understand why you would think this. Since God is the creator of past, present and future, I don't see why they would be impossible for him to grasp. Particularly if, as Christianity teaches, he actually entered into these realities as a creature himself in the person of Jesus. I understand these things no better than you do, of course. But I faill to see how my inability to understand them show that God is unable to. Any other comments, class? Man Claims to Have Figured it All Out The Prophet Chesterton sum up this latest manifestation of insanity: Every one who has had the misfortune to talk with people in the heart or on the edge of mental disorder, knows that their most sinister quality is a horrible clarity of detail; a connecting of one thing with another in a map more elaborate than a maze. If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of it; for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by the things that go with good judgment. He is not hampered by a sense of humour or by charity, or by the dumb certainties of experience. He is the more logical for losing certain sane affections. Indeed, the common phrase for insanity is in this respect a misleading one. The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason. My Neighbors are TIME's Persons of the Year Seattle's great that way. You can't walk down the street without tripping over a Person of the Year. I suppose this is better than one issued by 60 year old Progressive Nuns with Iron-Grey Hair and Sensible Shoes who staff the Last Outpost of the Sisterhood of St. Orbis Rotunda Professor Bainbridge Begins by Pondering Kerfuffles at Hollywood Presbyterian... ...and winds up writing a beautiful little paean of praise to one of my favorite books: Evangelical is Not Enough by one of the best Christian writers on the planet, Thomas Howard. I, like many Evangelical converts to the Catholic Faith, owe Dr. Howard an unpayable debt of gratitude. If some king of the earth - John Donne's Sermin for Christmas Evening, 1624 If some king of the earth Have so large an extent of dominion, in north and south, As that he hath winter and summer together in his dominion; So large an extent east and west As that he hath day and night together in his dominions; Much more hath God mercy and judgement together. He brought light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light; He can bring thy summer out of winter, thought thou have no spring. Though in the way of fortune, or understanding, or conscience, Thou have been benighted till now, wintered and frozen, clouded and eclipsed, damped and benumbed, smothered and stupefied till now, Now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day not as in the bud of the spring, But as the sun at noon to illustrate all shadows, As the sheaves in harvest to fill all penuries. All occasions invite his mercies, And all times are his seasons. Sandra Miesel, as is her Custom, Beats Around the Bush Here's her letter to the Indy Star:
The good Archbishop has living under his very nose not one, but two, world-class experts on The Da Vinci Code and the very real damage it has already done to the intellects and hearts of millions. But in an almost archetypal picture of ecclesial out-of-touchness, he gives this brain-dead interview. Maddening. McCain Torture Ban Spells End of Haugen Haas Music Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added as well. Friday, December 16, 2005
And now a guest blog from Jimmy Akin, whose blog is currently busted Jimmy writes: THE BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN FIASCO Controversy recently erupted over the U.S. bishops’ Office for Film and Broadcasting’s review and rating of the film Brokeback Mountain—a pro-homosexual propaganda film known to many as "the gay cowboy movie." THE REVIEW IS HERE. (link: http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/05mv682.htm) Harry Forbes, the director of the OFB and the individual who reviewed the movie, gave it a gushing review with slight caveats thrown in as sops to those who would find the film objectionable. He also gave it an "L" rating, which in OFB parlance means that it is suitable for a "limited adult audience, [this rating is for] films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling." The rating that the film should have received was "O"—described by the USCCB website simply as "morally offensive." When Forbes’s review hit the net, the controversy erupted, leading to stories like THIS ONE ON LIFESITE NEWS. (link: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/dec/05121503.html) The fiasco surrounding the review of Brokeback Mountain is simply the most egregious example of a problem that has been building for some time at the OFB. When I first encountered their reviews a number of years ago, I was very impressed with how well they were done and how successfully they brought balanced Catholic sensibilities to the field of film criticism. But in recent years the quality of the reviews and ratings has declined—to the point that I no longer consult them as they are of little use. In the case of Brokeback Mountain, though, the OFB has gone beyond mere uselessness. Let’s start with the issue of the rating. Many films contain some morally objectionable content. This is unavoidable since filmmakers are sinners like everyone else. But the mere presence of morally objectionable content does not mean that a film as a whole is objectionable. For example: Suppose that the latest Hugh Grant heterosexual romantic comedy featured a minor character who is gay (say, a friend of the female love interest in the film). And suppose the film tacitly approved of that character’s homosexual behavior. The tacit approval given to homosexuality WOULD BE morally offensive by definition. But because the character in question is a minor one this means that only part of the film is morally offensive, not the film as a whole. As a result, the film might deserve a rating other than "O" (assuming the rest of it wasn’t morally offensive). But if the film, instead, was a homosexual romantic comedy where homosexuality was essential to the core of the film—and if it tacitly approved homosexuality—then the film as a whole would be morally offensive (even if it had other praiseworthy elements) and would deserve the "O" rating. "O"s, in other words, don’t deal with minor elements in the film. They deal with the central core of the film. Brokeback Mountain is not a homosexual romantic comedy. It’s a homosexual romantic tragedy. As a result, homosexual behavior is central to the theme of the film, and the fact that the film gives tacit approval to homosexual behavior (by Forbes’s own admission in the review) means that the film AS A WHOLE is morally offensive and deserves an "O" rating. It may have elements that are not themselves offensive, but the film’s moral approval of its central theme (a long-term homosexual relationship) is morally offensive, making the movie itself offensive. The fact that Forbes did not recognize this BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS fact set off the ensuing controversy. In response to the controversy, on Friday, December 16th, the OFB unceremoniously changed the rating from "L" to "O." Definitely a step in the right direction, but the way in which this was done left much to be desired. Specifically, the following text was appended to the review of Brokeback Mountain on the Catholic News Service site: "Originally rated L (limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling), ‘Brokeback Mountain’ has been reclassified O -- morally offensive -- by the USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting. This has been done because the serious weight of the L rating -- which restricts films in that category to those who can assess, from a Catholic perspective, the moral issues raised by a movie -- is, unfortunately, misunderstood by many. Because there are some in this instance who are using the L rating to make it appear the church's -- or the USCCB's -- position on homosexuality is ambiguous, the classification has been revised specifically to address its moral content." Note what is NOT being said here. They are NOT saying that the original rating was in error. Instead, they are blaming the audience their film reviews are meant to serve for "misunderstanding" the L rating, which would still be the correct rating for the film if only it weren’t "misunderstood by many." So the film is NOT truly morally offensive, even though it is now being rated that way. Further, the change is being made "because there are some in this instance who are using the L rating to make it appear that the church’s – or the USCCB’s – position on homosexuality is ambiguous." In other words, other people are at fault and are wrongfully forcing the OFB to rate a film as morally offensive that really is not morally offensive. This is a non-retraction retraction. And it’s an erroneous one, because the film simply IS morally offensive—as is BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS from a basic knowledge of its contents. To see why, let’s turn to Forbes’s review. As others have noted, the review simply gushes. Forbes confesses that he has been awaiting this film (it "arrives at last"), and he can barely restrain himself from heaping praise on it in numerous ways. Examples: "‘Brokeback Mountain’ . . . arrives at last, and the film itself -- a serious contemplation of loneliness and connection -- belies the glib description [of being a gay cowboy love story]." "While it is the story of an intimate relationship, more to the point it's the relationship of two emotionally scarred souls." [After one character has been separated from his homosexual paramour] "we see him crumple in despair as soon as he's alone. The first human connection he's had is coming to an end." "It's the emotional honesty of the story overall, and the portrayal of an unresolved relationship . . . that seems paramount." "Director Ang Lee tells the story with a sure sense of time and place, and presents the narrative in a way that is more palatable than would have been thought possible. Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana's screenplay uses virtually every scrap of information in Proulx's story, which won a National Magazine Award, and expands it while remaining utterly true to the source." "The performances are superb. Australian Ledger may be the one to beat at Oscar time, as his repressed manly stoicism masking great vulnerability is heartbreaking, and his Western accent sounds wonderfully authentic. Gyllenhaal is no less accomplished as the more demonstrative of the pair, while Williams and Hathaway (the latter, a far cry from ‘The Princess Diaries,’ giving her most mature work to date) are very fine." "Looked at from the point of view of the need for love which everyone feels but few people can articulate, the plight of these guys is easy to understand while their way of dealing with it is likely to surprise and shock an audience." "[T]he universal themes of love and loss ring true." Despite the fact that he is in unmistakably enamored with the film, Forbes does throw in two mild caveats to appease those who would object to the film’s approval of homosexuality. The first caveat comes thirteen paragraphs into the twenty-one paragraph review: "As the Catholic Church makes a distinction between homosexual orientation and activity, Ennis and Jack's continuing physical relationship is morally problematic." No note is made that the homosexual orientation itself is—in the words of the Catechism—"intrinsically disordered." Forbes’s review leaves one with the impression that the homosexual orientation may not itself be a source of concern and that only homosexual activity is "problematic." A few paragraphs later, immediately before the content advisory at the end of the review, Forbes gives another caveat but immediately undercuts what mild force it has by giving his praise of the film the last word: "While the actions taken by Ennis and Jack cannot be endorsed, the universal themes of love and loss ring true." Also disturbing is Forbes’s attempt to downplay the fact that this is a pro-homosexual "message film." He argues: "But the pain Jack and Ennis cause their families is not whitewashed. (The women are played with tremendous sympathy, not as shrill harridans.) It's the emotional honesty of the story overall, and the portrayal of an unresolved relationship -- which, by the way, ends in tragedy -- that seems paramount." This account seems intended to leave the reader with the impression that the pain caused to the two gay characters’ wives and children (they married women after they began their homosexual relationship) and the fact that their relationship ultimately ends tragically are supposed to detract from the idea that the film is broadcasting a message. This is sheer spin. In fact, these elements are CRUCIAL to how the film hammers home its message. The story begins in 1963 and ends when one of the two cowboys is killed in what today would be called a "hate crime" for his homosexuality. The unmistakable message that the filmmakers intend is thus: "How sad that our culture was (and is) so ‘homophobic.’ If only people had been more accepting of homosexuality then Ennis and Jack wouldn’t have felt pressured into marrying women and having families. Their ongoing homosexual adultery wouldn’t have caused their wives pain. And they would have been cruelly mistreated and one brutally killed as a manifestation of the ‘homophobia’ that continues to plague our society today. So that things like this will never happen again, we should all learn a lesson from this that our society must come to embrace homosexuality as an equal, respectable alternative lifestyle." In other words: The film’s core message is radically antithetical to Catholic teaching. The fact that Forbes is so enamored with it, that he either misses or knowingly downplays the message aspect of it, that he treats Catholic teaching on homosexuality almost as an afterthought to how this film should be appraised, that he believes it to not really be morally offensive, and that he is willing to blame others for forcing him to call it morally offensive when it is not morally offensive in his opinion, all speak of the growing problem that has plagued the U.S. bishops’ film review service—and they speak poorly of Mr. Forbes’s capacity to do the job entrusted to him by the bishops. The bottom line is that this film is not a "borderline case" where one could debate whether or not it is morally offensive. It is BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS that this one is morally offensive. If Mr. Forbes cannot be counted upon to call a film morally offensive when it is as blindingly obvious as this one is then he does not have what it takes to do his job. Greetings! It's the Seventh and Final Day of the Quarterly (and World's Most Interrupted) 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 drive 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. Oh, and remember: I'm happy to come and speak for you. Hanson retelling Thucydides’ story is like Penny Marshall trying to remake “Raging Bull.” A rather unfavorable review of Victor Davis Hanson's latest work in service of the Iraq War. Nobody Does Jesus Junk Like Evangelicals Check out the link and be grateful that nobody is giving you any of this stuff for Christmas. To the Consternation of the Chattering Classes, LWW Rocks the House Yet another Passion moment fills Hollywood with the deepening dread that all those Christians out there haven't gone away and that it isn't going to be anytime soon that the stupid cattle out there go for Brokeback Mountain, Boys Don't Cry, or any of the other ham-fisted agitprop from our Manufacturers of Culture. Even Kong, the hoped-for critical diversion from this tacky Christian insurgency, is sputtering along on two cylinders, compared to Aslan's mighty roar. Not that I don't plan on loving Kong. But I do love to see C.S. Lewis working his magic on a whole new generation. Schadenfreude at the expense of the Chattering Classes just sweetens the deal. Events Supercede my Combox Torture Apologists It was beginning to look like we were going to have to go to the next level. After weeks of paralytic inability to read a dictionary or locate basic rules of interrogation in Army manuals, punctuated by repeated pleas for repeatedly given definitions, several of my readers were tiring of playing that "But golly! What on earth *is* torture anyway?" game. Some had actually reached the point where they were willing to openly say that waterboarding (where a victim is brought almost to the point of drowning) is not torture: For instance, I think waterboarding is justifiable. If I were captured in Iraq with knowledge of an impending strike on terrorists I'd much rather endure that highly unpleasant but transient experience (they say no one can resist it for more than a couple of minutes) than amputation or electic shocks to the groin. Sorry Mark, I guess you can count me in as a prostitute for evil. Well, if you insist, but I still think there's time to change your mind. Others declared that rejection of torture equalled "the suicide of the West", which won my vote for the most singularly Orwellian formulation. But the real brass ring (or is it knuckles?) goes to the reader who simply abandoned all pretense of attempting to do Catholic moral reasoning and forthrightly offered a naked paean of praise to whatever Caesar wants to do--no matter what--in order to... what? make him feel safer? pay back the subhuman Muslim bastards? show bleeding heart wussies like me that the USA is Numero Uno? It was hard to tell: I do not think torture is wrong. I call it self-defense. One could hardly ask for a more naked endorsement of "Let us do as much evil as possible that good may come of it." It's not terribly clear how torture could have prevented 9/11 (or will prevent another one). But it is a refreshingly forthright sacrifice of one of the basic principles of Catholic moral teaching (cf Romans 3:8) in the worship of the prince of Fear who rules this world. It could be nicely summarized as "What shall it profit a man to lose his life and gain his soul?" However, all this "Lets' not take the gospel seriously when our skins are at stake" rhetoric has turned out to be for naught. Because Sen. McCain, who knows rather more about it than even the President (having endured it himself) brought "shame" on himself by daring to suggest that loopholes for torture should be closed and excuses for it abandoned. And to the horror of the combox pundits above, the President (who is, I reminded, a lot smarter than Bush-bashers like me think), agreed with this shameful, cowardly, foolish, America-hating, West-destroying, wimpy, limp-wristed--and right--move. As an inveterate Bush-basher who has (I am assured by several readers) nothing but hatred for the President, I heartily commend and congratulate the President for, in the end, doing the right thing. Bai MacFarlane writes:
Professor Bainbridge is, as usual, very sensible The elections in Iraq are a great triumph. But then, so was the establishment of the Weimar Republic after the rule of the Kaiser. The question is, where will it lead? Only time will tell. God help it lead where we are hoping it will: to a free and properous Iraq. Richard Dawkins: Still Dumber Than a Box of Hair It's not when they talk about Science that the ID critics lose me. It's when they talk about philosophy and religion that they show themselves to be high school sophomores so often. Dawkins thinks the crucial question for ID guys is "who designed the Designer"? Has he never heard the term "sui generis", not to mention "supernatural". His argument essentially pre-supposes that God is simply another element within nature requiring a Cause. Christians have *never* argued that Everything Requires a Cause. They have argued the Everything in Nature Requires a Cause. The whole point of the argument is that nothing in nature is not moved by another and since this is so, there must be something beyond nature--an uncaused Cause--that moves that which is not capable of moving itself. I'm sure there are better arguments than this against ID. It must get tiring having people like Dawkins be the Recognized Point Man for Atheism. Sort of like having Pat Robertson be the Media's Idea of the Spokesman for All Christianity. Greydanus on Kong My main quibble: "But I didn't much care about the characters in the original." So I'm still looking forward to it. Well done, all ye Folders! The reader who invited y'all to join Folding@Home writes: Kudos to you and your minions! Thanks to them, the St Blog's on-the-web Speaking of Mindless Equations of New with Evil Carrie Tomko over at her blog Witchhunt Central is waging a three-pronged one woman Inquisition on (this week) Opus Dei, Pope Benedict, and Han urs Von Balthasar. If you want a case study in how to turn the Catholic Faith into a hotbed of paranoid fear, elaborate conspiracy theories, and ever more deepening confusion and loss of faith, that's the place to turn. I'm not allowed to speak there anymore, because Carrie in her open-minded pursuit of the truth has banned me from her comboxes. But if one of you wants to give a shot at suggesting to Carrie that it is ludicrous to identify Opus Dei with Russian occultism or to link them with Rosicrucians, much less to suggest that Benedict is about to embrace the theology of Matthew Fox, or to claim that von Balthasar was a satanist, have a go. Carrie could do with an infusion of fresh views from sane people, instead of simply surrounding herself with the crazies who currently are egging her on to apostasy and half-baked Art Bell style conspiracy manias. She won't listen to me. But maybe she'll listen to you. A reader writes: I wanted to throw this your way to see if you or your readers might be able to provide any help or insight. I'm not very up on PDL stuff. I strikes me as the Latest Evangelical Fad, but then I don't think evangelical fads are always bad things. I would ask any readers who respond to be people who actually a) *know* something about PDL stuff and b) actually can speak to the question of its compatibility with Catholic teaching. What I *don't* want to hear from is people who just automatically say, "Eeeww! Protestants!" and then go on mindlessly equating old with good and new with evil. Duh Vinci Code Trailer is Out The pernicious lies take on visual form May 2006! Be the first to be made stupider by a stupid film adaptation of a stupid book! The Funeral is Over Yesterday was the climax of a week of exhausting bustle, travel, organization and increasingly long nights for the whole Humiston clan, especially Jan. She was making 50 mile trips to Orting (where Neal lived) every night to help with the sorting and sifting and clearing out of various stuff. She also organized the funeral. Never am I so glad of worshiping in a liturgical tradition than in moments of great shock and pain. The idea of having to have spontaneous worship and wisdom pop into my head via direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit is enough to make me comatose. Instead, we had a funeral Mass. Jan selected the readings, but the rest of it was, well, the Mass. Like an old shoe. You could just sit there and take it in and not be clever. Neal was cremated. So the only remains for us to venerate was a small black box of his ashes, but it was enough. At the end (where the announcements normally go), Jan offered a brief tribute to her Dad that was brief and beautiful. Then we drove down to Tahoma National Cemetery through hauntingly misty woods filled with slanting rays of winter sunlight that looked like visible grace. There was a military honor guard who did a moving and beautiful flag ceremony, a 21 gun salute, and "Taps". That's what finally did me in. I stood and bawled for a few minutes along with my sister-in-law. I do believe "Taps" is the most mournful and moving piece of music in the world, especially on a bitter December day when you are laying a hero to rest. Fr. Daniel blessed the ashes and we were done. I felt so bad for Margaret, Neal's newlywed widow. At one point in the funeral she gave out a groan of grief that had all the sadness in the world in it, but she has been stolid and surrounded by friends and family who care for her. I think she'll be alright. Our family being what it is, the funeral was immediately followed by a meal at the local restaurant with a lot of storytelling and jokes. My kids made some kind of vile concoction out of ice cream and Jan caught up with all of her Idaho side of the family that she hasn't seen in years. I sank ever deeper into narcolepsy, having slept only 3 hours the night before and running largely on adrenaline yesterday. A big meal is not conducive to alertness. Eventually, somebody woke me from my gentle slumbers and told me it was time to go. We got home a little before eight and by nine Jan and I were in bed, my arm flopped over in exhaustion and our heads both drowned deep in sleep. For the first time in a very long time I slept ten hours. Today, as is her custom, Jan will now permit herself the space and time to grieve quietly, having taken care of everybody else. This is the day for tea and foot rubs and quietly happy music reminding her of the good things of God. It's also our anniversary. Tonight I'll take her out to a nice little restaurant and the kidlets can have a huge adventure visiting their big brother in his apartment. Sounds just right. |
