Alice von Hildebrand Strikes Again!

InsideCatholic just reprinted a 2008 article by philosopher Alice von Hildebrand entitled, "When Is Stupidity a Sin?"  Here's a quote:

When a Catholic gratefully proclaims that the Church has the fullness of revealed truth, this assertion should be wrapped both in humility and gratitude. This is a key to a successful apostolate: "To be possessed by truth" is a clarion call to live it, reflect it, and thereby draw other hungry souls to its beauty.

Read it!

Over THIS?

Pro-Abortion America (NOW, NARAL, etc.) have fought like a bunch of linebackers to keep Tim Tebow's extremist advertisements off the air. Check 'em out; but brace yourself, they'll make even the most resolute pro-lifer grimace.

Lol. Now that you've watched the entirely innocuous ads with Tim Tebow and his mom, are you as perplexed as I am about why the abortionists would try to keep these off the air? Their whoopin' and hollerin' has caused more of a fuss than these ads could ever have done by themselves. It's awesome, really. Normally, we traditionally-minded Christians are the ones who drive up the ratings of our enemy's propaganda. We get all worked up about a nasty movie or play and make all sorts of otherwise unaware bystanders suddenly become very interested. This time, the shoe is on the other foot.

Now, of course the ads aren't exactly innocuous. In fact, even though they say so little, they are deadly poison to the abortion industry. The have two attractive people, who clearly love each other immensely, and one of whom is famous - now even outside of his professional reputation. (In fact, opposition to the ad has probably turned Tim Tebow, at least for now, into a household name.) So why are these ads poison to those people? Because the ads undermine the mentality that makes abortion possible. For decades and decades, America has slowly been buying the lie that most of us know from our own experience isn't true: babies are a burden and it's better not to have them if there's a real chance that its not gonna work out just right. These advertisements remind us of what we all know: not only that nothing in life is guaranteed, but that somehow, with a bit of grit, optimism, friendship, and faith - heck, with just a little of any of hose things - life has a way of turning out OK, unless by OK we mean two kids and a dog and a white picket fence and two nice cars with annual vacations overseas. In that case, our odds narrow somewhat. But if we can roll with the punches just a little, we don't typically have to resort to murder to get things to work out passably. Sometimes, oftentimes, if we have eyes to see, things will turn out far better than we could have planned (not dreamed, but planned) ourselves anyway.

Actually, scratch my metaphor about poison. These ads are ingenious little bits of warm sunlight casting in among fungus that had been hidden in shadows. Just like fungus avoids sunlight, the abortionists avoid truth:

Life is worth living.

Through the Looking Glass

Talk about truth.  Turns out we've had prophets warn us for centuries about word-twisters.

The Truth Hurts

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” We’ve all heard the refrain, and we all know deep down inside that it’s false. Words have an incredible power in our lives. They have the ability to change us for the better or the worse. When you think of the positive impact of words, you might think of Lincoln at Gettysburg, Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, or Neil Armstrong as he descended to the surface of the moon. These words fill us with pride or spur is on to good actions. Words can also move us to profoundly evil emotions and actions. The genocide in Rwanda which killed up to 1,000,000 people was in part brought about by government propaganda that repeatedly accused the oppressed Tutsis of being roaches, of subhuman dignity. Because words are so important and powerful, telling the truth is as equally important and powerful an action. Today’s readings highlight the importance and necessity of proclaiming the truth.

In the first reading we encounter the prophet Jeremiah, who is one of the more colorful Old Testament figures. God choses him to be a prophet, to proclaim the truth to Israel. Jeremiah wants none of it. He knows he’ll be persecuted for it, and he’s not up to the task. Basically, he’s like any one of us: “God, don’t choose me, I can’t do; I’m not the one for the job.” But in a very powerful passage, Jeremiah recounts, “The Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, ‘behold I have put my words in your mouth.’” From then on, no matter how much Jeremiah wants to keep silent and not speak the truth, he’s almost forced to do so. At one point Jeremiah complains, “The Word of the Lord has brought me nothing but shame, criticism, and ridicule. If I say, ‘I will not mention him or speak anymore in his name, there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.’” The prophet Jeremiah, regardless of consequences, was compelled to speak the truth.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is in the same boat. He comes to his hometown of Nazareth, where he preaches in the synagogue, The Gospel tells us, “all spoke highly of him and all were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” But Christ knew that the people’s hearts weren’t in the right place. They were looking for signs and wonders, but didn’t want to go through the hard and necessary process of repentance. So Jesus reads their hearts—he’s God, so he can do that—and tells them the truth. Now imagine how much that must have hurt him, on a human level, to do so. He had been enjoying nothing but fame and adoration up to that point. In addition, these were the people he grew up with and knew intimately. These supposed friends and neighbors go from speaking highly of him to trying to kill him in a paroxysm of fury. Jesus, like Jeremiah, is driven to tell the truth, no matter what the personal consequences. Telling the truth has huge implications.

At our baptism, each of us was baptized into Christ. That means we take on Christ’s role (and Jeremiah’s, who prefigured Christ) of prophet. That doesn’t mean we go around reading palms or telling people that the world’s going to end in 2012. No, in the biblical sense a prophet is simply one who preaches the truth, consequences be as they may. We are witnessing a great example of someone living out his baptismal call to be a prophet with the great college quarterback, Tim Tebow. During the Super Bowl next Sunday, he will appear in a commercial that defends the sacredness and dignity of life from the moment of conception. The commercial, because it implicitly shows the evil nature of abortion, is being protested by many groups. Tim Tebow is in a real sense, a prophet; one who can say with Jeremiah, “there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.” If God lives in us through grace, my brothers and sisters, shouldn’t he also speak through us?

Parents have a unique and privileged role in standing up for truth. The Church teaches that parents, and not teachers or other authorities, are the primary educators of their children. It falls squarely on the shoulders of moms and dads to pass along the truths of the faith and important values to their children in the midst of a very confusing culture. This is no easy task in our society, but it is nonetheless necessary. Parents, you have a special advantage in educating your children, though, precisely because you love them more than anyone else.

It is this all-important love that St. Paul extols in the second reading. St. Paul was no shrinking violet when it came to proclaiming the truth. He wrote, “Woe is me if I do not preach the Gospel!” But he also realized that preaching the truth was fruitless without love. In today’s second reading he says, “If I speak in human and angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, but do not have love, I am nothing.” The mistake that we make so often is teaching, admonishing, or correcting without love. A person is converted, or comes to the truth, not through our brilliant arguments or flawless reasoning, but through the love that accompanies our profession of the faith. Jesus says, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

All of us have areas of our life where we don’t live the truth fully. We should examine our relationships with our spouse, our parents, or our friends to see where lies, sometimes so hidden but dangerous, are rooted. It would also be beneficial to examine how well we have lived our baptismal calling to be prophets-to stand up for the truth, regardless of the consequences. So often, I think we will find, we are more than comfortable just going with the flow. But, my brothers and sisters, Christ is constantly calling us to more. He calls us to live in the splendor of his truth and in the deep impenetrable bond of his love. Christ said to his disciples and he says to us, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

A recent article by Mark Shea at InsideCatholic.com got me to look up Rudyard Kipling's "The Gods of the Copybook Headings." The poem refers to the blank notebooks used by schoolboys of Kipling's day, each page of which had a pre-printed proverb on the head of each page, for the boy's edification. Here is the poem:

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

The presupposition of the poem is that there are principles built into the nature of the universe. They are summarized by the what Aldous Huxley, among others, has called the Perennial Philosophy, and what Peter Kreeft writes are loosely summarized by the teachings of Taoism, Confucianism, Stoicism, Platonic philosophy, and monotheistic religion. This description doesn't imply moral relativism; rather it shows that something of morality really is innate.  (Christianity, coincidentally, isn't about this or any other morality, not really; but it does take good, solid morality for granted.)  These principles are what we would call moral common sense. The poem makes the point that we ignore these principles, capitulated tidily by the Proverbs of the Bible and on the upper margins of old fashioned stationary for boys, at our own risk.

Proverbs that Might be True, pt. 5

Barbarism is not a picturesque myth or a half-forgotten memory of a long-passed stage of history, but an ugly underlying reality that may erupt with shattering force whenever the moral authority of a civilization is lost.

Christopher Dawson

(Ok, so it's a bit long for a proverb, I admit...)

Can Anyone Guess?

Can anyone guess what is the problem with the views expressed in this interview?

Well, that's a trick question. Problems would better state the matter. In case you don't know, the "Rev." Mary Glasspool has recently been elected by separated "Christians" to be their second gay "bishop".  She will serve as an auxiliary in Los Angeles. (The quotation marks are deliberate, and yes, I mean exactly what they imply.)

Her last comments are what are most profoundly disturbing and revealing about what's wrong in the Anglican Communion. On the surface we seem closest to them in theology, and for years, there was a more apparent similarity that has now broken down because of the Episcopalians' acceptance of every sort of sexual aberration.

Here's what's wrong. Mary Glasspool, and many Episcopalians with her, believe that as long as we can all gather for the Eucharist and share communion together, then we are OK. It doesn't matter if we all believe different things - some accepting the Gospel, others implicitly rejecting it and trying to reshape it in their own image; it doesn't matter if some are striving to live Christian lives dependent on grace, overcoming their vices and growing in virtue - while others do whatever the hell they want and call it living in grace rather than law (the Gospel calls this lifestyle lawlessness, e.g., Acts 2:23, 2 Thess 2:8, 2 Thess 2:9, 1 Tim 1:9, 1 Pet 4:3, 2 Pet 2:8, 2 Pet 3:17).  According to Mary Glasspool, now a "bishop" of the Episcopalian "Church," none of that matters, as long as we can come together for communion.  The Latin word means "strong union," it is exactly what does not exist within the Anglican Communion, and especially within the American branch - the Episcopalian "Church".  There is no doctrinal union - union in how they see the world; nor is there moral union - union in how they live their lives.  They haven't got any communion at all, really.  And their "Eucharist" means about as much.

The Anglican Communion started off with compromise - the Bishops of England deciding to go with Henry VIII's flow.  Then, to quell internal dissent about this doctrine or that, they came up with 16 and then 39 points of agreement, written so vaguely that anyone could sign in "good conscience."  The Communion has since then seen itself as a "Via Media," a broad, middle way between "Roman" Catholicism and "Reformed" Protestantism.  They'd have the best of both worlds, they would.  Two contradictory propositions can be held at the same time by a thinker or by a Church, given enough latitude between them so they won't fight.  That's their thinking.  Implicit in that attitude, as much as in Mary Glasspool's, is that none of it is really that true, or at least, not that important.  This is the very serious deadly sin, the dreadful decay, of sloth: seeing a good (truth) and just not caring about it.  From the moment one embraces this sin, even if one likes the various Christian doctrines, one doesn't accept them as true and conform one's life to them.  Instead, one just likes them.  If we treated our knowledge of gravity with such mental laziness, we'd fall very visibly.  But we cannot see spiritual truths quite so obviously as material truths, and so it is easier to fake them.  But precisely in thinking that contrary spiritual propositions can be held simultaneously as true, they reveal what they believe: spiritual propositions aren't real.

We Catholics have something of this tendency - but it is always about matters of practice and discipline - never about faith and morals.  That is, our latitudinarian expansiveness requires celibacy for priests in the West and marriage for priests in the East.  It allows colored vestments in the Roman Rite and white ones only in the Byzantine.  We can fast from meat on Fridays, or from whatever else is suitable.  We can read this spiritual writer or that, it's all of a piece, really.  We can depict Christ on the Cross as African, Asian, or Australian.  These distinctions are based on prudential judgments and aren't really from God, but by convention.  But it's all prudential judgments based on the same faith and morals throughout the Catholic world, and those are real and they are really from God.  What we are not free to do is to insist upon celibacy for all priests or to prohibit it.  We are not free to say, "Mass on Sunday isn't obligatory."  We must not say that because we can depict Christ as whatever sort of man we like, he was no man at all.  These things are from God and to reinvent them is to fake them, to lie.

We must do the hard spiritual work of maintaining real spiritual unity, based on real love and real agreement on the real essentials of Christian faith and morals.  Far from scoffing the erosion of Christian faith in separated Christian communities, we should take a warning from the direction they take, pray for them, and extend to them a hand, an invitation to rediscover Christ and the Church that He founded.  Otherwise, we will have abandoned Christ.

Graham, Catania, and the Bit of Pork

The first readings each day for Mass for week come from the Books of Maccabees. Today's readings (2 Mc 6:18-31; Ps 3:2-3, 4-5, 6-7; Lk 19:1-10) document the passion of Eleazar, an old and respected leader of Israel, a scribe. Judea had been under a Greek dynasty for a hundred and fifty or so years, since Alexander the Great conquered it, together with the rest of the Eastern world. For the most part, the Greeks had not been too demanding: pay your taxes and don't cause a fuss. But King Antiochus IV Epiphanes had a different agenda. Let's put it this way. Epiphanes means manifest in Greek, and what he meant by calling himself (that's right, he picked his own surname against common convention) was that he manifested God. Uh-huh.  No joke.  He commanded that his whole empire - roughly what we would now call Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and western Iran - should be hellenized, made Greek, made to follow Greek customs.  This measure would secure their obedience to him.  Now, since they were the bigshots in town, the Greeks were exactly the sort of people that most folks kinda tried to imitate anyway.  No problem.


Except for the Jews.

They had this thing, called the Torah (they still do) which means something like Law or Instruction.  Its purpose was both to govern the people and to teach them goodness, to teach them God's will, God's mind, God's heart.  Less than four hundred years earlier, they had been in bondage in Babylon for disregarding it.  By the time of Antiochus, about one hundred and sixty or seventy years before Christ, the Jews had pretty well learned the lesson: stick to God, and things will go OK; abandon His way at your own risk.  But Antiochus the self-styled "manifestation of God" was not one to brook dissension.  He became furious at Jewish dissent and eager sought out Jews who would help him 'enlighten' (yes, that's the term he would have used, or maybe 'get up with the times') their countrymen.  That's where today's reading picks up.

Eleazar, the man of God, is commanded to break the Law of God by eating pork. He refuses on the grounds that to do so is immoral.   His oppressors, agents of King Antiochus, have known him for years.  They've been friends.  They ask him privately to pretend to eat the pork so that he can save his life.  He refuses on the grounds that to do so would set a bad example for the youth.  The king's men become furious and force feed him.  He spits out the pork and insists:

Even if, for the time being, I avoid the punishment of men, I shall never, whether alive or dead, escape the hands of the Almighty. Therefore, by manfully giving up my life now, I will prove myself worthy of my old age, and I will leave to the young a noble example of how to die willingly and generously for the revered and holy laws, (2 Mc 6:26-28).

Eleazar will not abandon God in order to please men, nor even to save his own life.  This attitude baffled the rulers of Eleazar's day, his "friends," and they flew into a rage and beat him to death at the age of ninety, entirely forgetting his service, their friendship, even his gray hairs.  They not only put him to death, but many others as well.  Why should he be so obstinate over such a small thing, a little piece of meat that everybody else is eating?

We must pray for our Church and its leaders.  The local church of Washington, D.C., right now needs the prayers of our brethren immensely.  Local officials in the city government have decided to get on the gay marriage bandwagon.  It is probably going to decide to attach to any funding or contracts it awards the stipulation that the recipient must not "discriminate" against gays, including failing to recognize their "marriages."  Those who do so will be ineligible to receive either assistance from, or contracts to work for, the city.

Catholic Charities of Washington, D.C., has long been the most effective provider of social services in the city, and the largest private one to boot.  It provides services to over 10% of the city's residents.  Many of those services are contracted to it by the City, a tacit recognition of the fact that the Church is able to do what the City cannot: mobilize volunteers and trained, certified workers to provide services efficiently and in a caring way for the city's neediest residents.

The problem is that the Church won't eat the pork.

Everyone else is doing it.  Nobody is making the Church change its teachings, after all.  It's free "to go right on hating gay people" (opines a local columnist).  It just has to pay spousal benefits to their sodomite cohabitants, that's all.  Oh, and, it goes without saying - not use those words, either.  Oh, and it can't refuse to help them adopt children, either.  If the Church won't acquiesce, then the City cuts it out of the help-the-poor loop.  Well, the Church will continue helping the poor, using as much of its own resources as it can, just as it always has.  The problem is that all those poor people that got helped by City money administered by the Church won't have anyone to serve them now.  Except maybe the City... which we know does splendidly with all the other services it provides: schools, roads, emergency rescue - all top notch in D.C., right?  Right.

Well, to keep the Church from bailing, the City and its propaganda wing, the Washington Post (it should be called the Washington Pravda), have decided to lampoon the Church and bash it as hard as it can.  In the Pravda, er, Post's online column's, Susan Jacoby has decided that the Church is "blackmailing" the poor, helpless government.  The goal is to pressure the Church into a compromise.  Headlines read such as, "Church threatens to cancel social services over gay marriage."  The truth is obfuscated: it is said that other dioceses have not stopped services in the face of similar legislation.  What is left unsaid is that the "similar legislation" in other states has included religious/conscience exemptions of the sort excluded by the DC City Council's bill.  Except in the case of Massachusetts, other states have allowed those with a doctrinal reason to continue operations.  In Massachusetts, the relevant dioceses have ceased the provide the relevant services, though almost everyone thought the church would open wide and eat the pork that Antiochus demanded to prove obedience.  The purpose here, as there, is to push the Church just a little bit further out of public life, to be able to say, "See how useless those hypocrites are!"  If you have any doubt about it, you have only to ask the leaders of these legislative movements.

The effort in DC is spearheaded by Jim Graham and David Catania.  Back in July 2000, the two openly gay members of the City Council were sponsoring a bill, without religious/conscience exemptions, that would have required all employers who provided health care to include coverage for contraception.  Graham commented, "My problem is surrendering decisions on public health to the church…I've spent years fighting church dogma."  That bill failed because the broader political climate prevented it from coming to fruition.  The climate has changed now, and the two seem to have the votes they need to continue their fight against "church dogma."

The complaint is sometimes made that our leaders in the Church are not strong enough, or outspoken enough.  They hobnob to easily with public sinners, it is said.  (Lol. I am glad they do not shun my company!)  But our leaders have a history of fighting as well - they will not be pushed or shoved.  When the Maryland legislature was poised to remove the legal protection for the confidentiality of the confessional back in 2003, (lovable, old) Theodore Cardinal McCarrick said, "If this bill were to pass, I shall instruct all priests in the Archdiocese of Washington who serve in Maryland to ignore it... On this issue, I will gladly plead civil disobedience and willingly -- if not gladly -- go to jail."  Archbishop Wuerl, now governing our archdiocese, has been as adamant.  The archdiocese will not put itself at the service of the City's welfare system if doing so is conditioned upon betraying its broader mission.  The Post has graciously given the Archbishop a chance to defend the diocese from its headlines in this op-ed piece, published today.  It is well worth a read.




Our role models in the Church, it seems, will not eat the King Antiochus' pork.

Brethren in Free America, please pray for us here who are being put to the screws by Epiphanes.

Introducing the Rev. Mr. David Wells

Dear Reader,

It is with great excitement that I would like to announce to you the first major news about this blog, well, in forever.  A friend of mine, the Rev. Mr. David Wells, is a deacon-seminarian of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.  He will hopefully be ordained a priest in just a few months, and has agreed to join me as a contributor to this blog.  Mostly, he will be posting his homilies.  He may also post papers or links to papers he's writing at seminary.  He's a sharp one, so they should be interesting to read.  One hopes that Deacon Wells will also splash random thoughts from time to time, because his random thoughts are pretty good too.

I am eager to have Deacon Wells' contributions, partly because they will be good in themselves, and partly because they will increase content and broaden the overall perspective of the blog.  That can only be a good thing.  I've known Dave for a number of years now, and he's got an approach that is both laid back and yet serious, which translate to an evangelical zeal that challenges and yet is not at all off-putting.  Most importantly, he is a man of prayer, and I believe his words will inspire his listeners and readers to a more intense spiritual life.  If I can increase those who hear or read him, even by just five or ten per day, I will have done a good service to the Kingdom of God.

Surrounding the addition of Deacon Wells, and perhaps others, as contributor(s) to this blog, some other changes will come over it in the next few weeks and months.  They will mostly be small.  Their purpose will be to intensify the focus of the blog on the apostolate, especially with an eye toward exposing people to the holy Catholic religion.  Hopefully, this will help non-Catholics see the reasonableness and beauty of our way of thinking and living; hopefully it will help us Catholics to live and think in a more reasonable and beautiful way.


Yours,
Ryan Haber
Kensington, Maryland

Ordination, a Cappuccino, and One Hell of a Town

I am in Rome right now, visiting the Eternal City for the third time in my lifetime.  My good friend from my seminary days, Fernando, was ordained to the Holy Order of the Diaconate today, and I came to see it happen.  The pictures of the ordination at the Altar of the Chair, inside St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City, did not come out so well because of the dim lighting inside the mammoth edifice.  Here's a picture of Fernando and me during the tour he gave us of his seminary.  (He's really not that much taller than I am; it's only that I am squatting to avoid making him feel bad on his ordination day.  Lolol.)  He will, if all goes as planned, be ordained a priest of Jesus Christ at the end of June back in his home diocese of Santa Fe, New Mexico.  The ordination was as beautiful as one would expect.  Nothing is done poorly in St. Peter's.

After the ordination, reception, and tour, my friend Trisha and I walked around Rome for a few hours, stopping for a late lunch and some souvenir shopping for friends back home.  Lunch was great.  Italians do food very, very well.  No place else could a panino, a simple ham and cheese sandwich, taste so excellent.  The gelato that followed... well, let's just say that I am a confirmed gelatoholic and have been for some time.  That is the real reason that I run, actually.  After lunch, before we began browsing our way through the shops north of the Vatican in the direction of the neighborhood where Fernando's family was holding his reception, I decided I needed a cappuccino.  Italians do coffee very well, too.  Only in Italy can it be 80* and a coffee somehow feel refreshing.  Trisha doubted me, but after a nice lunch in the shade on a pleasantly warm day, a cappuccino really did the trick.  I don't usually drink very much caffeine, but this didn't bother me.  In fact, only eight hours later, I am still wide awake blogging.  Nope, the caffeine really wasn't a problem.  As we walked and browsed back, the Holy Father drove by.  Trisha ran into the store where I was browsing Italian religious books and pulled me out just in time to see him.  That was a pretty cool treat - we were within twenty feet or so and could see him waving through the open windows of his street vehicle (not the popemobile, because this wasn't actually a public appearance... he was just appearing in public).

The reception was at a restaurant near the Chiesa Nuova, where a prayer vigil was held the night before for the deacons-to-be.  Please do me a favor and do not ask Trisha why we missed the prayer vigil.  I'll never hear the end of it.  Anyway, about the church:  The church is actually named, but never called Santa Maria di Somethingorother; I think there are too many Santa Maria's in Rome, so at some point somebody decided to start with a new name.  Chiesa Nuova, "Newchurch," if we were in England, seems to have stuck unofficially but unambiguously.  Now the restaurant near the church was called Don Mario's, and man, was it good!  First course, all kinds of appetizers: bruschette, prisciutti, polpi, formaggi, and more.  Then two pastas, one in some sort of vodka or arrabiatta sauce, the other in an alfreddo.  Then the meats: veal, chicken, pork, ham, sausage, beef, with a portion of each for everybody.  Then the desserts.  The fifth course was the coffees and the lemon sorbet, to clean out the palette.  It was really good.  I do not normally go on about food so much, but it was excellent.

After dinner we all walked back, each party going its separate way as we went.  Trisha and I took some pictures during the blue night.  There's one to the left.  I think it is of Castel Sant'angelo, that in older days guarded the way to the Vatican perhaps, but now only guards museum exhibits.  The only problem with Rome is that it is so damn ugly and un-photogenic.  I mean, really.  That's the Tiber, lazily reflecting those horrible lights.  Lolol.  Actually, if you haven't noticed my tongue in my cheek, let me come clean and tell you that Rome is beautiful.  As I type this blog post overlooking the Viale di Trastevere, the main street in the neighborhood of the hotel where I am staying, I can honestly say that sometimes seems difficult to find a spot in Rome that is not photogenic.  One of Fernando's close friends is here with his wife, and neither of the two is Catholic.  This crowning achievement that is Rome has certainly overwhelmed them, especially the gems like St. Peter's, Maria Maggiore, and the Sistine Chapel.  If they are not convinced of Catholic truth, they are certainly stunned by Catholic beauty.  We joked about how ugly churches so often are, Catholic or Protestant, back in the States.  Smaller than St. Peter's is a given, but ugly need not be.  We Christians owe it to the world to show the goodness of our beliefs and morals with the beauty of our lives and works.  We Catholics have a sacramental faith that makes physically manifest God's glory and love.  We Catholics owe it to our separated brethren to lead the way.

Selling Out on Truth

If you get five free minutes, read this article on The Catholic Thing. It is about the progression from fudging on truth into abandonment of love. It is critical of mainstream Catholic relief agencies, whose workers are mostly trained as secular social workers without an eye on God's will and the truth of Catholic moral teaching. Accordingly, these agencies sometimes end up mucking around in the same moral relativism and general nonsense of their secular counterparts.

Coincidentally, Justin Timberlake of all people, has a rapped song with the line, "If you never know truth, you never know love." Holy cow! That might be one of the most profound metaphysical and moral statements possible. I've mentioned it before in this blog, but it it bears repeating: truth is found in amazing places.

Caritas in Veritate

It's a funny little thing that the Holy Father did with the title of the encyclical that he released today. The title is Caritas in veritate. It means "love in truth," (not, by the way, "love truly" as the English may be construed; in Latin, that would be different). Now, even though the encyclical JUST CAME OUT, there is already all sorts of commentary being printed about it. How can these people have read it? Perhaps they have advance copies, dear reader, but I haven't. And I haven't read a word of it yet. But I have noticed one thing that none of the commentators have mentioned.

The title's wrong. It's backwards. The Holy Father is, I presume, quoting the scripture verse:

"Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love," (Eph 4:15-16).

Well, I also presume that the Holy Father knows what he is doing, and so he has done it deliberately. But why? That's a good question. Let's read the encyclical (by clicking here) and find out.

Pius XII, Vindicated (Again)

If Pius XII was such a Nazi sympathizer, as has become popular "common knowledge", why were they trying to kill him? Click here for more.

Guidelines for Fraternal Correction, pt 2

The last article discussed when to fraternally correct, and this second one will address how. As in all things, the Golden Rule (Mt 7:12; Lk 6:31) applies.

First, consider how we would react if someone, even someone we liked and who liked us, came to us arrogantly making demands and threats. It probably wouldn't go over well, and if we complied, it would be out of fear or guilt, and resentment would accompany our compliance. True?

So as a matter of sheer practicality, it is best to take the opposite approach once we've decided that someone must be fraternally corrected, and that we should be the one to do it. An attitude of humility and concern for the one corrected is key. The attitude must not be fake, nor should it be a ruse or a cover for other motivations. If we have more personal reasons for wanting a change, we should be honest with ourselves and the other about that.

To humble our heart, I have found a few reflections helpful. I try to think of ways I have contributed to the negative situation. I consider times when I have harmed the other, or done the same thing to another person that I want to challenge the correctee about. "He lives dirty dishes all over the house," should be balanced in our mind with, as applicable, "and I leave laundry in a big pile in the basement." This balanced recollection should be part of the discussion we have with our correctee. In such a situation, the correction is also a self-correction.

"Hey, dude. I've been thinking. Our house is trashed. I'm not blaming you at all - all those clothes piled in the basement are mine. I don't know how you feel about it, but I'd like to live in a tidier place. Maybe we could each resolve to straighten up our stuff in the next day or two. Would you be willing to clean up these dishes and put them away? I've definitely got to get those clothes to where they belong."

Another approach, rather than simply making a demand, "You have to stop doing X," is to show how the other's actions affect us. "Buddy, I don't think you know, but last night, I had a hard time falling asleep because of the music you were playing. I was useless at work today because I was so tired. Do you think you might be able to turn it down on weeknights, to help me out?" By temporarily abandoning the language of rights and justice, and simply sharing our heart and mind with our brother, we will often move him to compassion and sensitivity, building our community. If that doesn't work, then we may need to take stronger action, but usually easy does it, and a mild approach is more effective.

In cases where there are wrongs done in both directions, we must be willing to take responsibility and apologize for our share of the hurt. The killer thing about being a Christian, and the nature of a sincere apology, is that both are free. That is, we Christians make our apologies for our sins without regard to any sort of recompense. We apologize for our faults as they negatively impact others because that is the right thing to do, the thing that reflects our true role in the situation. It is not our concern whether the other accepts our apology or responds in kind. Often, he will not. He will feel he is righteous and that our apology has vindicated him and proven that aching spot in his conscience to be wrong. So be it. It may often be that, for the sake of doing the right thing, we must tolerate harm done to us or a justice left undone. I apologize to try to make amends, and he responds arrogantly. I cannot affect his response. I only know that I have at last done the right thing; any harm that comes to me as a result, even a mild one, is a harm that makes me more like Jesus. And that is a very good kind of harm to endure.

Guidelines for Fraternal Correction, pt 1

I learned about the concept of fraternal correction for the first time in the seminary. The concept is simple. When one has a complaint or problem with another, and neither has authority over the other, the one with the complaint shares it with the other in an attempt to correct him or the situation as a whole.

In another post I will babble on about how to do a fraternal correction. The spiritual director gave us guidelines for the how. For now, I will discuss briefly the why and when. These come from my own observation. Take them for what they are worth.

Fraternal correction is important in the life of a community because it prevents a grievance from festering. By providing a healthy outlet for problems, it reduces the temptation to the divisive and diabolic sin of gossip. Make no mistake about it: gossip destroys the life of a community and comes straight from hell. The Greek word for gossip, or slander, is diabolos. There is a good test for whether "sharing" is "healthy venting to a third party," "seeking outside advice," or whether it is actually vicious gossip. The test is to consider our willingness or eagerness to relate the events only to persons who know nothing of the situation or the individuals involved, and to leave out all identifying characteristics. If we are just itching to say someone's name, we are almost certainly about to engage in malignant gossip. Don't. Now, back on track.

Fraternal correction encourages proactivity and ownership on the part of the members of the community, rather than passively waiting around for someone else, someone in authority to solve every interpersonal tension. Fraternal correction should be a skill in the repertoire of every grown man and woman.

When should we fraternally correct? I mean, if we all run around venting all of our grievances all the time, without ever being judicious and careful in doing so, we will almost certainly tear everyone around us down, and ourselves too, and end up friendless. Sensing this possibility, I came up with these criteria for a correction. All three criteria being met fully, I proceed with my intended correction.

#1. I must like the person whom I am considering correcting. Love isn't good enough a criterion because we Christians are supposed to love everyone, and boy, do we. Lol. We fool ourselves too easily on this point. But if I actually like the person and feel warmth and affection toward him, then I can be confident that my motives are pure enough, that I am doing it at least partly for his own good and not my own weird, selfish motivations.

#2. My complaint must be graver than my ability to endure. If it is a petty thing that I can deal with on my own, then I do. The expression, "suck it up," comes to mind. If what the person is doing is an objective wrong against me and is making hard for me to avoid doing wrong to him, then I should bring it to him in correction. If my brother is doing something that will lead him or others to real harm, then I should bring it to him. If my brother chews with his mouth open and it disgusts me, but doesn't actually harm me or immediately lead me to sin against him seriously, then I should chill out a bit. At this point, I need to be careful there is nothing I can do to let go of the problem: work through my own issues, reprioritize my values (close friendship over mere table manners, etc).

#3. I should be reasonably confident that he will heed my concern. We listen most to peers whom we know to care about us and to like us. The more serious the matter, the more personal or painful, the more confident we must be that the person confronting us is doing so out of love. There are extremes, though. I cannot wait until I am absolutely sure that someone will listen to me, when I am concerned that he is suicidal, or that someone under his care is in harm's way. At times we must discharge our conscience and let the chips fall where they may. The more grave the concern, the less confident I need to be and the more willing I should be to go out on a limb.

These three criteria are those I came up with. It would be great to receive feedback and correction from a brother or sister on the matter. In part two I will outline the procedure for correction that the spiritual director laid out before us at the seminary.

Even Demons Confess Him Lord... But Do We?

The readings for today, the Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Dt 18:15-20, Ps 95:1-2, 6-7, 7-9, 1 Cor 7:32-35, Mk 1:21-28), don't seem closely bound together at first. The riddle, though, is solved thus. The epistle, this one to the Corinthians, doesn't usually have a theme in common with the other readings, but is meant as general moral advice for any occasion. The first reading and the gospel reading are meant to have something to do with each other, and the psalm, usually a prayeful response to the first reading, is often the key. Such is the case today.

Moses, before leaving the Israelites to go to die in peace, tells them that they are right to fear seeing God's glory in person again, and that God will send them more prophets, whom they must obey. They must be careful not to heed (the Hebrew literally means "to hear the voice of") false prophets, though, or disaster can be expected. They emphatically assert that they will obey prophets to come in God's name. Of course, we who know the rest of the story know that God's own Chosen People do not in fact often obey God's own chosen prophets. In fact, they punish the prophets more often than they pay them any mind. Fast forward to the gospel reading from St. Mark's account. Jesus, the one about whom the prophets spoke, has finally come to His people. As they treated the prophets, they just give Him a hard time. But in the synagoge, demons obey Jesus.

Of course, they haven't any choice because they are completely under His power, whereas He very graciously leaves us our freedom to continue screwing things up almost indefinitely. But that's just my point. God, whom neither the Israelites (nor we) voluntarily obey very often is obeyed by demons. We are put to shame by the lowest creatures in the universe, who have sunk the furthest. Every sin we commit is an implicit denial of the lordship of Jesus Christ; contrast this with the demon who confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord (Mark 1:24). Of course the demon hated the fact of Jesus' lordship. We merely slyly avoid thinking about the question when we have a lust, passion, or greed to satisfy.

Now, I am not trying to make it like demons are better Christians than we Christians are. Far from it. But I am trying to keep us from being cocky. We Catholics, especially, who have fullness of Christian revelation, ought to be ashamed to call ourselves Christian when in morals and manner of living we are outdone by separated Christians, by non-Christians, even by pagans. Too often, we are triumphalistic instead. Many young Catholics, in our newfound zeal and (good) desire to reclaim and live anew the ancient Catholic faith that has so long fallen on deaf ears and hard hearts, use words like 'Protestant' as if they were cuss-words. That is not only uncharitable, but self-convicting. If Protestants are bad for having less truth, what are we who behave less charitably? If we would convince others of the goodness of the Christian faith as held by the Catholic Church, we might think about listening more closely to the heart of Christ.

The Perennial Philosophy

The Perennial Philosophy is a philosophy not invented, but identified, by Aldous Huxley - yes, the same dude who would go on to recommend LSD as a way to gain a new view of reality. Ok, so, before he got to that point, he wrote extensively about how certain elements of thought appeared in diverse sources. The basic principles of this philosophy found among puritans and pygmies are simple. Reality is real - both spiritual stuff and material stuff, and we cannot make them whatever we like just by intending to do so, or by calling them something different. A rose is a rose is a rose, and by any other name, it still smells the same. St. Thomas Aquinas saw it. Confucius saw it, and even said that the restoration of proper names to their things was the foundation of any real reform. We have to call a spade a spade. So those are the basic principles - reality is real, and we have to call things what they are. When we get away from this path, we get into real danger, the sort of danger of a man driving a car through a shopping mall, the whole way telling his passengers, "Relax, it's just the normal 9th Street Tunnel traffic! I can handle it."

The traditional moral code prohibiting murder, theft, etc., is part of it. The same perennial philosophy, this common inheritance of humanity's common sense, also sees marriage as the foundational unit of society and prohibits those things that directly attack it, like adultery, and also those things that call its purpose and function into question, such as contraception and homosexual relationships. These things call the purpose of marriage into question because, according to the perennial philosophy whether found in the West's Aristotelian Thomism or in China's Confucism, the purpose of marriage is the begetting of children and the mutual benefit of the spouses. Lopping off one of those purposes does not merely leave a sterilized marriage, but a crippled or imitation marriage. You can call it what you like. The pioneers of our present situation called it "companionate marriage," marriage for companionship only. But whatever they called it, it was not marriage according to the perenniel philosophy.

The trick in undermining the perennial philosophy in the West has been that the worst things are saved for last. Nobody came out eighty years ago and said what they wanted for this foundational institution not merely of the West but of all human society. They didn't say that they wanted to see it virtually liquidated. They said they wanted to make it more about love. That sounded real nice, I bet. But they snuck in a concept of love that had chiefly to do with feelings, and was not so much about permanence and the begetting of children. Everything since regarding marriage has been legitimated on the basis of this new, false concept of love - love as a feeling. The problem with feelings isn't that they are bad. They are unstable. And obedience to feelings as if they were gods explains a great deal of the fifty percent divorce rate, for starters.

It's going to be hard for us to transcend our feelings and do what's right even when it doesn't feel good. We won't be able to do it on our own, and as a culture we've gone too far down this road of irresponsibility masquerading as love merely to tweak our course. We need wholesale repentence. Only Jesus can bring it. We who know we need it also need to pray for it. If the Pelosis of the world are leading us into moral oblivion, they will be held accountable. If we who think we know better don't spend hours fervently praying, by our prayers hitting the brakes, we will be held accountable for that.

St. Thomas Aquinas made the bulk of his academic career going around Europe after a man named Sieger of Brabant, who said you could have contradictory truths (not perceptions, but realities), and that whatever you called a thing, that it was. Everywhere St. Thomas went, he calmly tried to get folks to listen to common sense and reason. While he lived, he was very successful because he was very prayerful. Let's follow his example.

St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.

The Merest of Babes

The Mass readings for today (Tuesday after 1st Sunday of Advent, year B1: Is 11:1-10; Ps 72:1-2, 7-8, 12-13, 17; Lk 10:21-24) are really nice. The first one, from the prophet Isaiah, is fine, and the second one from Luke is one of my very favorites. It articulates the topsy-turvy logic of the Gospel in which the whole thought of the city of man is turned upside down. Below, I've copied it out of the RSV translation because it sounds a bit nicer to my ears than the lectionary.

In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will. All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."

Then turning to the disciples he said privately, "Blessed are the eyes which see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it," (Lk 10:21-24).

Think about that, folks. Children! Your kids understand Jesus better than you do. At another place, Jesus says that tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom ahead of the pharisees. To us, pharisee is a bad word. Not so for them. We often compare the pharisees to lawyers, politicians, or priests. None of those is comparable though, because they have bad connotations in our ears. Maybe expert is a better way to think of them. Jesus is basically saying that tax collectors and prostitutes are finding peace of conscience, joy of life, and the faith, hope, and love that leads into eternal life. And we're not. We don't get it, or else we're getting it pretty late.

We think we're good, we think we know how Jesus thinks and works, we think we've got life under control. Children know that they need help. "Daddy, can you tie my shoe?" A drug addicted prostitute lying in a gutter knows that she needs help. She might even know that help's name is Jesus (it literally means "salvation" in Hebrew!). But we are smug and sit in the train station thinking that we are conducting the salvation train, and so it leaves the station without us. How many of us, perhaps unbeknownst to even ourselves, feel that we are somehow doing Jesus a favor by going to church. It makes me think of the ancient pagan idea of feeding the gods with sacrifices of the flesh of goats and bulls.

Lol. But we have a God who wants to feed us with His own immortal flesh. Are we humble enough to just listen, like a little child? Or are we, in our smugness, going to say, "Lord, Lord!" while harboring an attitude that blinds us to His love, Him who the prophets yearned to see? Lol. And when we see Him, will we be too concerned with what others thing, too cool and sophisticated and mature, to let ourselves respond wholeheartedly? Children are better than adults again in that they are more naive, and simpler. It was fun to watch even some very sophisticated and hip sixteen year olds' jaws drop when we brought them to the forest for a hike, to see them climb trees and play on the rocks. Are we too sophisticated and "mature" to enjoy the Kingdom of God?

That's One Sassy Lady

So Flannery O'Connor is an amazing writer. She was, rather, because she is presumably no longer writing, but is enjoying her heavenly reward, which, I suppose, might well involve writing. She is amazing not only for the quality of her diction and the deftness of her pen, but for the richness of her content, for the splendor of her imagination. No speaker of English should die without having read at least a story or two of hers. Here are some quotes from outside her corpus of fiction.

"All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal."

"Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher."

(Dan Brown comes to mind... not you, roommie. The other "Dan Brown.")

"Faith is what someone knows to be true, whether they believe it or not."

How true. Atheists ignorantly think faith is a belief without experiential fact. It's almost the opposite; it is, having experienced a fact, clinging to it even when it no longer seems very believable. It's the same virtue that makes things like marriage possible. Marriage is the virtue, you might say, whereby one person, having seen the goodness in another, clings to that person even when he or she no longer seems very likeable.

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."

"When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs as you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock, to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind, you draw large and startling figures."