FestungArnulfinger

Why We Don't Need Free Birth-Control

2012-01-20T16:16:00.000-04:30

In 2008 I was at a Christmas party given my one of my ultra-Catholic friends. These are the kind of people who sing Christmas carols in Latin, say Rosaries for the unborn, and hold prayer vigils outside of Planned Parenthood clinics. These are people who do not use contraception, home-school their kids, and would never wear anything so revealing as a sleeveless dress.

This was right after Obama was elected, but before he was inaugurated and, naturally, there was a good deal of speculation about what he would do. Healthcare was obviously on the table and I would say that two-thirds of the people there favored socialized medicine. That’s right; more than half the people in that room, people as culturally conservative as it is possible to be, favored a Single-Payer System – but with one proviso: you had to keep abortion out of it.

The next day, I wrote President-elect Obama a letter with this simple message: you can sell a single-payer system to conservative Americans if you keep abortion out of it. (I also sent this same letter to David Axelrod, whom I actually know and have done business with.)

Since then, exactly the wrong things have happened.

Instead of a Single-Payer System, we got a warmed over version of Romneycare. The whole point of healthcare reform was to save money by eliminating the bureaucracy that rationed healthcare, but this system would simply add yet another layer of bureaucracy.
When push came to shove in Congress, Obama caved in on the Public Option, but went to the wall to defeat the Stupak Amendment which would have kept abortion out of it, thus turning every loyal Catholic (and many other people of faith) against it.
And now Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has announced that most employers will be required to cover contraception in their health plans. This is hugely problematic for Catholic employers who believe that even paying for someone else’s contraception is immoral.

These developments are just the tail end of a long trend.

Until the McGovern nomination in 1972, the Democrats were the party of Labor. They fought hard for union rights, equitable tax polices, high minimum wages, and government programs like Social Security and Medicare that ensured a reasonable minimum standard of living for retired workers. Sure they were little bit more liberal than the Republicans on social issues, more progressive on civil rights, against prayer in the schools, but these were small issues that only rarely decided an election.

And then along came the Counter-Culture and the Democrats abandoned their working-class base. They became the party of abortion, de-criminalization of drugs, and the normalization of homosexuality. Carter, despite being a social moderate, began the process of deregulation that has wreaked havoc with American finance, causing one speculative bubble after another (S&L, Dot-Com, Housing) and has caused whole industries to collapse (since 1978 every major airline has filed for bankruptcy and the top ten interstate trucking firms are all out of business). And then along came Clinton and they began instituting trade and tax polices that shipped jobs overseas wholesale.

Wages are down 30% since 1972, our trade deficits are super-colossal, and the rich now control more of this country’s wealth than any time since the Gilded Age of the 1870’s.

And where are the Democrats?

Making birth-control coverage mandatory so that people can fornicate on their employer’s dime.

Why not fight for full employment, high wages, and real healthcare so that workers can afford to buy their own damn birth control?

Posted on Craig's List

2012-01-14T17:00:00.001-04:30

Stands to reason ...

2011-12-07T16:21:00.003-04:30

Well, yeah! No one likes to wear helmets. They're uncomfortable and bulky, it's awkward putting them on when you're in the mood to skate, sometimes you don't have one handy when you need it, and it lessens the feeling of the breeze in your hair. So, can you blame a fellow if he doesn't always wear one of those things?

But condoms — well, who doesn't like the feeling of those? Hardly seems worthwhile to do "that" if you're not wearing a nice snug condom to enhance that feeling intimacy.

All right, we are two nations ...

2011-12-05T14:16:00.002-04:30

When I saw this postcard at PostSecret I was really sad for the poor girl:

But when I read the two comments below, I was just about heart-broken:

-----Email-----
Hi Frank - My husband and I are not able to have children. Or at least I'm not. I had my 2nd ectopic pregnancy the day before Thanksgiving and they took my last fallopian tube. I would love to get my contact info to the poster of the abortion secret in case she changes her mind and considers adoption. We would make amazing parents!...[email removed]...

-----Email-----
Hi Frank - Can you please take down my email? I'm getting hate mail. I guess it wasn't the right thing to do. Thank you!

Can you even begin to imagine what sort of person would send hate mail to someone so desperate and earnest?

all right we are two nations

2011-11-07T13:16:00.002-04:30

In reaction to the Occupy Wall Street movement, a group in Minnesota put up this bill-board:

In the past thirty years our tax code has been completely re-written to benefit the rich, our jobs have been sent over-seas, productivity per worker has doubled yet wages have been hammered down by at least 30%, economic inequality has grown to Gilded Age proportions, basic healthcare has become unaffordable for the working classes, millions have lost their homes due to predatory lending practices, bail-outs that were supposed to prop-up "key sectors of the economy" have been paid out as bonuses —
but somehow the people objecting to this are the "covetous" ones?

Words

2011-08-29T16:05:00.003-04:30

Herman Göring is famous for saying, "Whenever I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my revolver," except, of course, that he didn’t say it. (It actually is a line from the play Schlageter, written by Hanns Johst.) But the concept is pretty clear, don’t you think?

There are some words that make us “reach for our revolvers,” and the Liberal/Conservative divide is fairly riven with these words. Of course, there is the controversy over so-called “inclusive language” but there are many more subtle shibboleths such as:

• Liberal parishes refer to themselves as “welcoming parishes” while conservative will admit to being “traditionalist” but prefer to call themselves “authentic Catholics.”

• Welcoming Churches list the times for “liturgy,” while Traditionalist Parishes list the “mass times.”

• While Traditionalists often criticize the behavior of “the bishops,” centering the fault on these individuals personally and by name, Liberals routinely blame “the hierarchy” and thus blame the very existence of an authoritarian structure for the problems.

• “Reconciliation” is usually offered for about half-an-hour on Saturday afternoons in Liberal parishes, while “confessions are heard before each mass” at Traditionalist parishes.

• Liberals often drop the article in front of nouns, speaking of “church,” “community,” or “spirit,” as in “church is community lead by spirit.” Traditionalists would say “The Church is a community lead by the Holy Spirit.” I’m not sure why Liberals drop the other articles, but in the case of “church” it’s because they don’t want to commit to saying that the Catholic Church is “a church” or “the Church.” They also don’t capitalize “Church” nor pronouns referring to the Deity, as in “Christ and His Church.”

• Bonnie Wheeler, in a history of women in the Middle Ages (definitely a liberal undertaking), referred to the popularity of “making journeys to sacred spaces” instead of saying (more accurately) “making pilgrimages to shrines.” I have no idea of what her agenda was, but such bizarre circumlocutions must have some purpose.

• Liberals say “eucharistic minister” instead of “extra-ordinary ministers of the Eucharist” because they don’t want to acknowledge that you’re only supposed to have them in the extra-ordinary circumstance of having an huge congregation and only one priest to give out communion.

• Traditionalist say “Tridentine mass” and “Novus Ordo mass” while liberals say “extra-ordinary form of the mass” to stress that the Tridentine form is not usual and not to be encouraged.

• Liberals say “contemporary music” to make it sound fresh and new, Traditionalist say “folk mass” to make it sound idiotic.

• I once read a piece in the Tribune about a mother whose child was celiac and could not eat wheat without serious medical consequences. She wanted rice-wafers to be consecrated for her daughter (neither valid nor licit), but the priest offered instead to give her communion under the species of wine. (The very same solution Father Phillips offered my celiac daughter.) The woman objected to this, because she “didn’t think children should be drinking alcohol.” Only a Liberal would think of the Blood of Christ as booze.

• Liberals never use the word “sermon,” always “homily.” I don’t know if there is a difference, but I do know that I like it when I am preached to, told that I am wrong/weak/licentious, and told to cut it out. I don’t need anyone to explain the Gospel to me, I need someone to harangue me into living the Gospel.

• Liberals say “abstinence,” Traditionalists say “chastity.”

• What Liberals denounce as the “rhythm method” is referred to by Traditionalists as “periodic abstinence.” Note that this is the correct use of abstinence (i.e. abstaining from something), as a married couple would still be “chaste” (i.e. abstaining from illicit sexuality) even if they were to engage in relations at such a time.

• Though it is a perfectly good term, Traditionalist never say “acolyte,” always “altar boy,” because they ought to be boys. Liberals usually use the “inclusive” term “altar server.”

• Some fool of a retired friar, looking to raise funds for a perfectly worthy missionary effort, gave an homily at Saint John’s that began with the phrase, “You have a beautiful worship space here!” After mass, I took him aside and told him that the phrase “worship space” hit the wrong note with the crowd at Saint John’s. “Really? What should I have said?” he asked. “Church,” I said, “We have a beautiful church here.” I hope he got the message, and was not lynched by the arch-traditional 12:30 crowd.

An Insight Bound to be Unpopular

2011-08-29T15:59:00.000-04:30

“The Tridentine Mass has great mystical power and the proof of this is that no Satanist has ever bothered to make fun of the Novus Ordo Mass. Every Black Mass ever said has been based on the Tridentine Model. Our enemy knows where our strength lies better than we do.”

— Scott Apton

There is NOTHING He Can Say

2011-05-31T11:14:00.002-04:30

Monday morning I got word that my fiend Tom Roeser had died the day before. In the early 1970's, when I was eleven or twelve, I read a series of articles in the Sun Times by Mr. Roeser about the Catholic Church, Vatican II, and how most people held misconceptions about both. They were informative, well written, and they had an influence on me. Years later, when I had the good fortune to meet Tom Roeser, I was able to tell him that these articles were one of about a dozen factors in my decision to become a Catholic. He was visibly touched and said that bringing someone to the Faith was the best work a man could do and that he was gratified to know that he had in some small way helped me to find God. That was fifteen years ago, and we have been friends ever since.

Of course, I'll be going to his funeral. I've already written a letter of condolence to his wife. In a few weeks, I will probably have an opportunity to talk to her after mass and I can think of a dozen things to say that will probably make her feel better. I imagine it is a comfort to her to know that many, many people's lives were touched by Tom and will miss him. He was eighty-two years old, he had enjoyed a good measure of success in his life, he died a loyal Catholic with every expectation of God's mercy, and so his death is not a tragedy, but rather the inevitable final act of a long life well spent.

Somebody else died early Sunday morning.

Sunday we had gotten a call. A boy had fallen off a building. Police weren't giving out any details, but someone we knew in the building called to tell us that one of the two people in the building unaccounted for was my son's friend "D." It wasn't until the next day that we got word that, in deed, D. had fallen to his death in what was probably a senseless accident. My son was told that all of D's friends were going over to be with D's parents at in their dreadful hour of loss. My son spent the better part of the day there, only coming home late in the evening.

When he got home, my son was plainly worn out, depressed, dragging. Wife-mate gave him some soup and no one spoke. After a few minutes, I mentioned that our friend Mr. Roeser had passed away on Sunday. My son nodded and said, "I'll have to write Mrs. Roeser a letter."

"I've already written one; you can just add your signature to mine."

"I'd like to write her a letter, I know what to say to her."

And we all understood what he meant by that. He meant that he had just spent a whole day with people that will never be consoled, who will never find comfort in his words, whose loss is unspeakable. After that, writing a letter to Mrs. Roeser would not only be easy, it would be a comfort to him.

Exactly What To Expect

2011-05-22T12:37:00.001-04:30

This post card was sent in to PostSecret, a blog that publishes anonymous cards sent in from all over the world:

Thoughts on "Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Month"

2011-05-20T20:23:00.008-04:30

I picked up a book recently that was simply fascinating in its disingenuousness, “Why We’re Liberals: a Political Handbook for Post-Bush America,” by Eric Alterman. The book’s format is catechial, with his asking a question and then appearing to answer it. The problem is, he never really answers the question.

For instance, Chapter Nineteen is called “Why do Liberals Love “Activist Judges”?” where Alterman simply dodges the questions of why or whether liberals like judges who legislate from the bench, and why or whether this is a good thing, by pointing out instead that conservative judges have in many cases also usurped legislative functions.

Or Chapter Sixteen, “Why Do Liberals Hate Religion” is mostly taken up with a discussion of how there are plenty of religious liberals, like Jim Wallis, and that their only real objection is to “Biblical literalism” that threatens the separation of church and state. Alterman never acknowledges, or even mentions, that the primary role of religion is in dealing with personal sin, whereas the predominant trend in liberalism thought for at least the last forty years is that personal failings are usually a result of social and environmental factors, which largely negates the idea of personal sin.

Which leads us back to Chapter Twelve, “Why Won’t Liberals Admit That America is Suffering from a Crisis in Moral Values” where Alterman devastates the opposition by pointing up that the Teenage Pregnancy Rate has been falling for the last twenty years!
So, let’s look at the "problem" of teen pregnancy.

Like all pregnancy rates, teen pregnancy was at an historical low in 1940, primarily because after ten years of economic depression people just weren’t having a lot of babies. And then the rate shoots up with post-war prosperity to an all time high around 1960, but this isn’t a problem because throughout the 1950’s the average bride was only 20.3 years old. That’s right: about half of all brides were teenagers, so naturally the teen pregnancy rate would be high. Since 1960, the average bride has aged some five years (she is now 25.6) and teenage marriages have become a rarity.

What hasn’t gone down is the rate of Illegitimate Births! The Out -Of-wedlock Birth Rate rose steadily from 1940 to 1990 and has remained fairly stable in the low forties per thousand since then. About twenty times what it was in 1940.

Even more distressing, Birth Out-Of-wedlock as a percentage of Total Births has grown from a negligible one in fifty in 1940, to one in three today. Putting all moral or religious concerns aside, this is still an important issue from a purely practical standpoint. I didn’t have to look very far to find dozens of documented ill effects of bastardy, a sampling of which I offer below:

Fatherless children are at a dramatically greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, suicide, poor educational performance, teen pregnancy, and criminality.
A majority victims of child sexual abuse came from disrupted or single-parent homes. Whereas only 31% of sexually abused children live with both biological parents, 42% lived in single parent homes, and 27% of the abused children lived with either a stepfather or the mother's boyfriend.
According to police reports, 49% of all child abuse cases are committed by single mothers.
Children of never-married mothers are more than twice as likely to have been treated for an emotional or behavioral problem and six times as likely to exhibit violent behavior at school.
Children in single-parent families tend to score lower on standardized tests and to receive lower grades in school and are nearly twice as likely to drop out of school as children from two-parent families.
Children from low-income, two-parent families outperform students from high-income, single-parent homes. Almost twice as many high achievers come from two-parent homes as one-parent homes.
The proportion of single-parent households in a community predicts its rate of violent crime and burglary, but the community's poverty level does not. The relationship between family structure and crime is so strong that controlling for family configuration erases the relationship between race and crime and between low income and crime. This conclusion shows up time and again in the literature.
63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes.
90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes

The fact that nowadays the overwhelming majority of teen mothers are unmarried masks the real problem but, when you separate these variables, statistical analysis shows that the real problem is bastardy. The emphasis on “Teenage Pregnancy” is simply a red-herring, a way of pretending to deal with a social problem while avoiding the real issue. It is a way of being “nice” and “non-judgmental,” of not appearing to “stigmatize” people, when a revival of the social stigma against bastardy is exactly what is needed.

What we need is a Bastard Prevention Month!

Those Socialistic Popes!

2011-02-04T01:03:00.001-04:30

“No one is in a state of salvation who knowingly lives on the profit of usury.”
— Pope Innocent III

“Would justice permit anyone to own and enjoy that upon which another has toiled? As effects follow the cause producing them, so it is just that the fruit of labor belongs precisely to those who have performed the labor.”
— Pope Leo XIII
“Rerum Novarum [On the Condition of the Working Classes]”

“It is shameful and inhuman, however, to use men as things for gain and to put no more value on them than what they are worth in muscle and energy.”
— Pope Leo XIII
“Rerum Novarum"

“It is incontestable that the wealth of nations originates from no other source than from the labor of workers.”

— Pope Leo XIII
“Rerum Novarum"

“Free competition, though within its limits is productive of good results, cannot be the ruling principle of the economic world. It is necessary that economic affairs be brought once more into subjection to a true and effective guiding principle.”
— Pope Pius XI
“Quadragesimo Anno”

“[It is the] function of government to adjust ownership to meet the needs of the public good.”
— Pope Pius XI
“Quadragesimo Anno”

“The system is vicious, both ethically and ontologically … capitalism degrades men to mere economic facts of cost, to be bargained for at lowest possible market prices.”
— Pope Pius XI
“Quadragesimo Anno”

Juno and the McGilla

2011-01-24T14:05:00.007-04:30

The classic “McGilla” goes something like this:

A very agitated fellow walks into a bar and asks: “Is Joe McGilla here?”

“I don’t know,” the bar-tender replies, then he turns around and calls out: “Is Joe McGilla in the house?” He calls this out once or twice and, when no one answers, he says to the fellow asking, “I guess not.”

"Well,” the fellow says excitedly, “If you see Joe McGilla, tell him he’s just become an uncle!”

“Oh, congratulations!” the bar-tender offers his hand, “Let me set you up with a drink on the house!”

Now, the trick here is that there is no Joe McGilla;.

This story is about a fellow who wants a free drink and the whole thing about McGilla becoming an uncle is just the trick he uses to get the drink. Most movies have a McGilla, that is, a plot element that sets up the whole story. Just as in the bar, if the bar-keep didn’t believe that there was a real Joe McGilla, then the fellow wouldn’t get the drink, so too in a movie, if the audience doesn’t believe the McGilla then there really is no movie.

Either you buy it that Carry Grant is mistaken for a spy in “North by Northwest,” or the rest of the movie doesn’t matter. Either you believe Jimmy Stewart has a guardian angel willing to intervene in his life, or it’s not “A Wonderful Life.” Either Bill Murray has to re-live the same day again and again, or the next day isn’t “Groundhog Day.” Theorists call this “willing suspension of disbelief,” I just call it “buying the McGilla.”

So here’s this movie “Juno,” about the trials and tribulations of a pregnant teenager. The movie is not about her getting pregnant, it’s about her being pregnant, and so if she doesn’t stay pregnant then there is no movie. So we need a McGilla: we need a reason for why an intelligent, sarcastic teenage girl, from a typical middle American family, who’s pretty cavalier about getting herself pregnant, would not just do the usual thing and get rid of it. The problem is compounded by the fact that having a baby is a whole lot more trouble than setting someone up with a free drink, so the McGilla has got to be pretty good.

And it is.

When Juno, the girl in trouble, ducks on down to a clinic to have herself a quick scrape, she runs into Su-Chin, a dorky Asian girl holding a sign that reads “No Babies Like Murdering” and crying out in broken English “All babies want to be borned!” (Not since Benson Fong played Charlie Chan’s #3 son has an Asian stereotype been simultaneously so degrading and sympathetic.) Juno walks up and has a conversation with Su-Chin about school, neither of them mentioning why they are there, until Juno walks on to the clinic with Su-Chin calling after her “Your baby has fingernails!” Juno walks on, has a seedy encounter with the receptionist in the clinic, and then finds herself unable to fill out the forms required. In the next scene she is on the phone to her best friend saying that she’s decided to keep the baby, citing the fact that the baby already has fingernails among her reasons.

Now, that’s a pretty good McGilla and I buy it. I actually know sidewalk counselors and they regularly report conversion experiences of that type. Perhaps they are not common, but they do happen and usually for the same reason: the counselor says something that makes the pregnant woman come to see her child as a real person.

So this is actually a very good Pro-Life message — right?

Well, not according to the film makers. On the commentary track (and evidently in interviews as well) both writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman say that this movie is actually Pro-Choice, essentially because Juno makes her own choice.

Do you buy that? I don’t.

Let’s try a thought experiment. Can we imagine someone who’s on the fence about abortion going to that movie, hearing the thing about the fingernails, and then coming down on the Pro-Life side? I think that is plausible. They might also see how happy the baby’s adoptive parent is at the end of the movie, or how the process causes Juno to become more mature, or how crass the clinic employee was; any of these factors might constitute a persuasive Pro-Life message.

Now, can you find anything, any reason at all why someone on the fence might see Juno and become Pro-Choice as a result? I can’t imagine such a thing.

So here’s a lovely irony. Two decidedly Pro-Choice film-makers have made a demonstrably Pro-Life film just to have a plausible McGilla!

I love it.

Soviets Against Abortion!

2011-01-10T17:47:00.000-04:30

Super cool Soviet poster from 1925, warning against midwives performing abortions.

Abortions performed by either trained or self-taught midwives not only maim the woman, they also often lead to death.

Exactly!

2010-12-13T13:57:00.001-04:30

"As a world view, atheism cannot of course be refuted, since Faith is, always has been, and always will be, stronger than facts."

— Francis Parker Yockey

What We Give Up When We Hate

2010-08-23T23:04:00.003-04:30

Probably fifteen years ago now, this fellow, we'll call him "Pete," asked me for a quote on a printing job, his sister's wedding invitations. He was in the industry, worked for a pre-press shop out-putting film, and he knew me as a client of the shop he worked for. So I gave him the estimate and, seeing at it was for his sister, I gave him the usual 20% discount that people in the trade give each other. The estimate was for about $350-. But the job did not come in as quoted. It was larger, more complex, in short it wasn't the job I quoted on. And it came in at a rush, the invitations needed to go out promptly, so I expedited the job without ever having a chance to talk to him about it not matching the spec's quoted. And, when it was done, I billed it out for what it was worth, about $600-. His sister picked the job up and thought it was lovely, and I sent the bill on to Pete.

That's where the trouble began. His take was that the bill was about $250- over estimate, whereas my perspective was that the job was about $250- more work than the job I had quoted on. He put up quite a fuss and, rather than argue, I just told him to pay me what he thought he owed me. He cut me a check and I washed my hands of the matter.

I thought I was through with this, but it was not to be. He was not a person I had to see at work, and so I did not. I avoided him, kept it superficial when I ran into him, and in general just tried to drop it. But then I was at a party, a real nice catered affair, and Pete came up to me and acted like we were still pals. So I told him in no uncertain terms: "You can be my friend, or you can rip me off, but you can't do both." He was shocked, he thought the matter was settled. The next week I received a packet in the mail consisting of copies of all the estimates, my final bill, and a letter justifying his conduct. Naturally, there was no mention that the job delivered did not match the specifications of the job quoted.

About six months after that I ran into him again at the Critical Mass bike ride. He tried to ride next to me and I told him to "get lost." (Actually, I used a more common phrase maing profane reference to fornication.) He thought his letter had cleared everything up, but I gave him a real reaming, explaining in rather profane terms why he was just dead wrong about this.

Much to my utter surprise, the next week I received a check from him through the mails for the disputed $250-. Wow!

Didn't see him again until election night. I had done some printing for a lady lawyer who was running for judge and she had invited me to an election night party. Since her husband owned the nicest bistro on the North Side and, as the party was to be held there and, as I had worked all day as a judge of election without a break, I thougt I might stop by for a beer and maybe some escargot. But Pete was there. He came right up to me and acted like we were friends again. But I stopped him short: "Remember buddy, I told you that you could be my friend or rip me off, but you couldn't do both!"

He staggered back, "But I sent you the check!"

"You can't make me cash it!" I snapped, "I'd rather go on hating you than cash that check!"

Pretty straight-forward deal, wasn't it?

By refusing the $250- I had every right to keep on hating him, didn't I? He can't buy back my friendship, can he? No! I have principles. My hatred is worth more to me than venal money.

But really, I had left Christ out of the equasion. Whenever we chose not to forgive someone (no matter how "justified" we may feel) we reject Christ's mercy. Only by forgiving can we have any hope of being forgiven.

It's a hard teaching, but there it is.

Professor Fired for teaching Catholic Doctrine

2010-07-15T14:34:00.002-04:30

Dr. Kenneth Howell was an adjunct lecturer in the University of Illinois Department of Religion for nine years. Howell was told after this year’s spring semester that his tenure with the Department of Religion had ended. This decision came after a Howell, who is Catholic, wrote an email about the morality of homosexual activity in light of Natural Law to his students in an introductory course on Catholicism. A student complained on behalf of an anonymous friend that Howell was engaging in “hate speech.” This complaint resulted in Howell’s termination.

The student complained that Howell’s statements about homosexual activity “ostracize[d] people of a certain sexual orientation.” The student suggests that it is acceptable to teach “a student about the tenets of a religion” but not to declare “that homosexual acts violate the natural laws of man...” This complaint is odd insofar as his two concerns would have been nullified by attentively reading Howell’s initial email.

Howell carefully distinguished between actions and persons: “In short, to judge an action wrong is not to condemn a person. A person and his/her acts can be distinguished for the purposes of morality.” Howell made this statement before diving into his discussion of homosexual activity. The student’s complaint (and UI’s response to it) reflects an intellectual immaturity that cannot distinguish actors from actions. Under this student’s theory, and that which UI has apparently adopted, any condemnation of action is condemnation of a person (a.k.a. “hate speech”).

Howell also addressed the second prong of the student’s complaint that Howell went beyond his role to teach Catholic tenets by addressing Natural Law. “Catholics don’t arrive at their moral conclusions based on their religion,” Howell wrote, “They do so based on a thorough understanding of natural reality.” Insofar as this statement is true, UI and this student might prefer that Howell simply tested his students on a comprehensive list entitled “What Catholics Believe” with the footnote, “For an honest discussion of why, please consider the University of Notre Dame.”

UI, according to its chancellor for public affairs, remains “absolutely committed to teaching the theory of Catholicism.” In Howell’s email, Howell was doing exactly that. Yet the associate dean for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences said that, “the emails sent by Dr. Howell violate university standards of inclusivity, which would entitle us to discontinue his teaching arrangement with us.” This forces me to toy with the absurd conclusion that Howell was fired for doing his job. I am stuck here unless I consider some alternative explanations.

One explanation was addressed above, that UI simply does not want a rigorous discussion of the Catholic faith. Perhaps this is because the UI’s Department of Religion does not subscribe to the apparently radical notion that a religion can have a “why” or be based in, as Howell’s email suggests, reality and human nature.

If this isn’t the case, I’m left to conclude that Howell wasn’t fired for teaching what he taught with the depth that he offered. Rather, he was fired for having the chutzpah to actually believe what he was teaching, thereby giving credibility to the incredible “theory” of Catholicism. Perhaps at UI, professors are forbidden from being what Fr. Luigi Giussani said teachers need to be, namely, reference points of a tradition, at least when that tradition is as archaic, unsubstantiated and politically incorrect as Catholic moral thought.

Whether UI’s leadership cannot distinguish between actors and actions and fired Howell for hate speech; whether he was fired for suggesting that religion is reasonable and that the Catholics are Catholic because of (not despite) reality; or whether UI acted because Howell is foolish enough to believe what he says, UI has publicly borne intellectual shortcomings within its Department of Religion, and a distaste for academic freedom. All in all, it looks like UI’s decision was as much an indictment of Catholicism, as it was of Howell the person and teacher, who was recognized for excellence in both 2008 and 2009.

Regrettably, any reason for UI’s action also shows an unwillingness to engage diverse viewpoints because of a distrust of reality or uncertainty that its positions will stand successfully when weighed against it. When one has certainty about a belief (or, for UI’s sake, a theory) there is little reason to fear engaging those who uphold a different perspective. Especially when, as in this case, one’s opponent has carefully avoided personalizing discussion about an action’s merit. What would UI and its students have to lose through honest engagement of reality as proposed by Howell?

UI is currently reviewing Howell’s termination, according to a recently released statement from UI’s president. I hope that UI will honestly and objectively examine Howell’s circumstances. Doing so should force the conclusion that the decision to fire Howell was overly hasty and ill-conceived. If UI determines otherwise, we can expect Howell to stay in the news. He is currently working with the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian organization that litigates on behalf of religious freedom.
— Joseph Orrino
Ilusussidiario

Forgive Me Father

2010-06-17T16:07:00.003-04:30

"The story of groups of Catholic gays being denied communion when they approach the priest wearing rainbow clothing has jumped from Australia, where the Rainbow Sash Movement began, to Chicago.

"Color me baffled again. Catholic teaching is clear. If you are living in “mortal sin,” you are not allowed to take communion. To do so is to commit yet another mortal sin. Mortal sins include all gay sex, masturbation, adultery, birth control, lying, skipping mass on Sunday, and a host of other fun things.

"The only way to get communion once you commit a mortal sin is to go to confession and be absolved of your mortal sin by being truly sorry and promising not to do it again. In the Catholic world, all non-celibate homosexuals are barred from communion unless they’ve just confessed, been absolved, and not yet sullied themselves again.

"This is all silly, of course. Catholicism is delirious of course. But, come on, people: If you don’t believe in the teachings and moral requirements of a particular church, go find another church!"

— Rex Wockner, gay journalist.

Nail on the Head

2010-04-14T21:42:00.003-04:30

Rather surprising that a bourgeois liberal like Penelope Leach would say something so absolutely on the mark:

Why is it socially reprehensible for a man to leave a baby fatherless,but courageous, even admirable, for a woman to have a baby whom she knows will be so?

The Case Against Pacifism

2010-04-08T16:42:00.003-04:30

If we believe that if Britain had only been fortunate enough to have produced 30% instead of 2% of conscientious objectors to military service, Hitler's heart would have been softened and he would not have dared attack Poland, we hold a faith which no historic reality justifies

Yet most modern forms of Christian pacifism are heretical. Presumably inspired by the Christian Gospel, they have really absorbed the Renaissance faith in the goodness of man, rejected the Christian doctrine of Original Sin as an outmoded bit of pessimism, have reïnterpreted the Cross so that it is made to stand for the absurd idea that perfect love is guaranteed a simple victory over the world, and have rejected all other profound elements of the Christian Gospel …
This form of pacifism is not only heretical when judged by the standards of the total Gospel. It is equally heretical when judged by the facts of human existence. There are no historical realities which remotely conform to it. It is important to recognize this lack of conformity to the facts of experience as a criterion of heresy.
— Reinhold Niebuhr

Down with Bourgeois Atheists!

2010-04-08T04:00:00.001-04:30

I've been reading "I Don't Believe in Atheists" by Chris Hedges and it is really good!

Those who believe in collective moral progress define this progress by their own narrow historical, cultural, linguistic and social experience. They see "the other" as equal only when the other is identical to themselves. They project their own values on the rest of the human race. These secular and religious fundamentalists are egocentrics unable to accept human difference. Those who are different do not need to be investigated, understood or tolerated, for they are intellectually and morally inferior. Those who are different are imperfect versions of themselves.

These secular utopians, like Christian fundamentalists, are stunted products of a self-satisfied, materialistic middle class. They seek in their philosophical systems a moral justification for their own comfort, self-absorption and power. They do not question the imperial projects of the nation, globalization or the vast disparities in wealth and security between themselves, as members of the world's industrialized elite, and the rest of the human race. Philosophy, like theology, is often in the service of power. This creed is no exception.

True in Politix and Relegion

2010-03-05T01:10:00.002-04:30

"The fundamentalist mind … looks upon the world as an arena for conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, and accordingly it scorns compromises (who would compromise with Satan?) and can tolerate no ambiguities. It cannot find serious importance in what it believes to be trifling degrees of difference: liberals support measures that are for all practical purposes socialistic, and socialism is nothing more than a variation of Communism, which everyone knows is atheism."
— Richard Hofstadter
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

Sounds About Right ...

2010-02-20T18:37:00.000-04:30

From Indexed

Socialistes Pour la Vie!

2010-01-22T02:58:00.001-04:30

French Socialists march for Life!

Slogans include:

Right to housing, right to work, right to life!
Capitalism is death, revolution is life!
Our lives are worth more than their profits!

Check out their blog if you speak French!

Pro-Life Message?

2010-01-16T17:20:00.000-04:30

Or an expression of grief?

This was posted on the Ugliest Tattoos Website without any explanation of who it is, where it is from, or what its intention was, but I find the imagery both touching and disturbing at the same time.

What Color is Heaven?

2010-01-16T03:10:00.000-04:30

At the Battle of Lepanto (1571), the navies of the Holy League (consisting of the Papal States, the Habsburg possessions of Spain, Naples and Sicily, the Republics of Venice and Genoa, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchies of Savoy, Parma and Urbino and the Knights of Malta) faced off against the fleet of the Ottoman Turk. Both sides were backed by their religious leaders, Pope St. Pius V being the sponsor of the Holy League, and both the religious and political authority of the Ottoman Empire resting in the hands of Selim who was both Caliph and Sultan. And so the flag-ships of both armadas flew religious banners, both of which were understood to be the "color of Heaven."

The banner supplied by the Pope consisted of a golden crucifix upon a field of blue, and that makes sense because to a European, the clear blue of the sky would be the "color of Heaven."

The banner supplied by the Caliph consisted of the names of God stitched in golden embroidery upon a field of green, and that too makes sense because to Muhammad, a son of the desert, the verdant green of vegetation would be the "color of Heaven."

This is an important and telling cultural difference. We might further extrapolate that the "cultural characters" of Europe and the Muslim world now reflect these colors, the affluent West being blue with melancholy (or perhaps more accurately "acedia") while the stagnant East is green with envy and resentment.

Of course, these are generalizations, for every person has their own "color of Heaven." My Heaven is gray: the color of Chicago skies, the color of practicality, the color of contentment.

Actual billboard in Auckland, New Zealand

2009-12-18T12:33:00.005-04:30

Casanova on Free Will

2009-10-01T02:06:00.003-04:30

"Man is a free agent; but he is not free if he does not believe it, for the more power he attributes to Destiny, the more he deprives himself of the power which God granted him when he gave him reason."

—Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt

Why it is so hard to talk about Social Justice.

2009-09-30T17:47:00.000-04:30

"People try to influence one another constantly... People influence one another to support some values and to oppose others. In the past, they promoted such overt values as chastity, obedience, thrift. Today they advocate such covert values as the common good, mental health, welfare — blanks that may be filled in with any meaning the speaker or listener desires. Herein lies the great value of these vague terms of the demagogue, whether political or professional. Just as a presidential candidate may talk about restoring the nation's economy to a 'healthy' condition, without specifying whether he is promoting a balanced budged or deficit financing, so a psychiatrist may talk about 'mental health,' without revealing whether he is promoting individualism or collectivism, autonomy or heteronomy."
— Dr. Thomas Szasz

Get two Catholics together and they will probably agree about justice as it applies to the individual, but they will probably diverge on the meaning of "social justice." This does not excuse us from working for social justice, nor from being charitable to each other when we disagree about what it means.

Gloria Steinem vs. Oswald Spengler

2009-09-04T03:21:00.003-04:30

Actual quotes.

Ten Points About Single-Payer Health-Care

2009-09-01T18:20:00.003-04:30

1] Abortion. Yes, I am opposed to including abortion funding in any health-care plan, but the issue is not as simple as that. Right now many people who cannot afford to deliver a baby go for the much cheaper option of aborting the baby. I think that if the cost of these options were identical, many babies who would otherwise be aborted might be carried to term, thus saving lives.

2] Rationing. One of the biggest objections to any form of government health-care is that “the government will impose rationing,” as if the market doesn’t do that already. Until we have unlimited health-care, decisions will have to be made about who gets how much care. If you are going to address the health-care issue, then please state, not that you are against rationing, but how you think health-care should be rationed.

3] Expense. The United States spends the most on health-care of any country in the world [14% of GDP], almost half-again as much as second place Germany [10.5%] and nearly twice as much as Sweden [7.3%]. Without a huge superstructure of bureaucrats administering billing, making collections, and pouring profits into insurance companies, the cost of health will come down even as more people receive care.

4] Life Expectancy. People who live with a single-payer system live longer. The United States ranks 27th in life expectancy. Japan is in first place while Canada is in second, both with completely socialized systems. So we pay more and die younger anyway.

5] Taxes. Yeah, your taxes will go up, but your health-care premiums and expenses will drop to near zero. [You’ll probably still have to buy your own Dr. Scholl’s bunion pads and toothpaste under any plan, however.] Right now, my insurance premiums are larger than my income tax, so even if my tax doubles, I will still come out ahead.

6] “I heard about someone in Canada who...”. Anecdotal. For every horror story about bad care in Canada, I’ve heard a dozen on Air America about denial of care in the U.S,. Everyone has anecdotes on their side, but statistics show that socialized medicine is better.

7] Post Office. No one is calling for the government to run our health-care system (like it runs the post office), the proposal is that the government pay for our health-care. And government is very good at disbursing funds. The Social Security system, for instance, has a much lower overhead than any insurance company or investment firm.

8] Medical Savings Accounts. Basically, this scheme would allow people to sock away pre-tax dollars into a savings account that can be used for health-care expenses and, after some time, if not used for health expenses, may be used for any purpose, again, tax-free. I believe that it is immoral to give people an incentive to neglect their health, and that is all this financial jiggering with the system will accomplish.

9] Fairness. Right now we have a system that subsidizes health-care for the better off (through tax write-offs), pays for health-care for the indigent, while leaving the vast bulk of the working classes to struggle with inadequate care or simply to do without. Any system that pays for unproductive elements of society to receive free heal-care, while neglecting the working classes that keep this country running, is grotesquely unfair and screams for reform.

10] Obamacare. Yeah, I’m against what the critics are calling “Obamacare” because it is one more reactionary, right-wing scam being foisted upon the working-man. What we need is an out-and-out single-payer system and the sooner we get it the better!

Obvious, once you think of it that way.

2009-08-29T05:10:00.000-04:30

There are two good reasons many people don’t want sex:

1) they don’t expect to enjoy it,

or

2) they’re not getting along with their partner.

When one or both of these are true, low desire is healthy, not something to fix.
— Dr. Marty Klein

Crush the Fascist Serpent?

2009-08-10T21:38:00.002-04:30

Saw this banner at the Pride Parade back in June and naturally it interested me. (Just in case you can't read the "tagger style" writing, it says "Life Begins When You Stand Up to Christian Fascists.") Many people I admire (Spengler, Junger, Pius XII, and just about every self-identified National Bolshevik) has been attacked as "fascist" and now my faith was fascist too. Unfortunately, it was just a banner, no flyer explaining who they were or what they were up to, and they passed by too quickly for me to ask any of them what it was about.

Imagine my delight when I ran into a fellow with a smaller banner with the same wording at the Bughouse Square Debates a few weeks later. Having no shame, and a 'satiable curiosity, I went right over and asked the fellow about it. He asserted without hesitation that the government of this country was a virtual hostage to "Christian elements." He cited as proof of this the continued opposition to "marriage equality," the "assault on the sovereignty of women's bodies," and the fact that Obama had recently appointed Joshua DuBois, associate pastor of a Massachusetts Pentecostal church, to head the President’s Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Well, a Christian heading the office of Faith-Based something-or-other — surely that's inappropriate!

Almost certain that the din in the back-ground was not the traffic on Clark Street, but the approach of jack-booted legions of clean-living Pat Boone types coming to take away my sacred right to free love and sedition, I asked the fellow, "How do you figure that Christians are imposing their morality on us; seems like you secular fellows have been getting your own way on the abortion issue since 1973."

"Well — abortion is a right!"

"Even late-term abortion? Even if a majority of Americans oppose it?"

"You can't tell a woman what to do with her body!"

"So then, you don't trust the democratic process to sort this out?"

'When you're taking away people's rights; that's just mob rule!"

"Okay — what about that guy in Wisconsin that had his pharmacist license suspended because he wouldn't dispense birth-control. Do you think the state has a right to coerce people to do things that violate their religious beliefs?

"He wasn't doing his job. Dispensing contraception is part of being a pharmacist!"

"So, you're anti-democratic on abortion, and you favor coercing people to violate their conscience ..."

"Yeah ..."

"But the threat to this country is Christian fascism?"

"That's right!"

What did she expect?

2009-08-08T19:20:00.004-04:30

"It'll spice things up."

"It will add a new dimension to our marriage."

"Aren't you big enough to love more than one person?"

"If it doesn't work out, then we can go back to the sway things were."

From "Social Justice & Stations of the Cross"

2009-07-28T18:27:00.002-04:30

"To be anti-communist is no good at all, unless we are against the evil system of which communism is the necessary and inevitable consequence. How many of us Christians take any trouble to discover why millions of workers are in revolt against capitalism and money rule?"
— Eric Gill

No Comment

2009-07-14T12:24:00.003-04:30

“I do not believe there is an atheist in the world who would bulldoze Mecca — or Chartres, York, Minster, or Notre Dame.”
— Richard Dawkins, "The God Delusion," p. 249

On 5 December 1931, by order of Stalin's minister Lazar Kaganovich, the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour,the largest Orthodox church ever built, was dynamited and reduced to rubble. It took more than one blast to destroy the church and more than a year to clear the debris from the site.

Better Catholicism through Bolshevism!

2009-07-04T18:36:00.000-04:30

I have three kids and I’m pretty proud of them. They are all honest, hard-working, polite, have never been in trouble, have always done well in school. The only thing that disappoints me about them is that my oldest, Pumpkin, is totally secular.

This came up last night when I was having a smoke on the front porch with my son. “Why do you think Pumpkin is so secular?” I asked.

The answer came immediately, “Because she’s bourgeois.”

I understood his meaning immediately. Pumpkin was the very model of bourgeois success. She had excelled in school, won a prestigious scholarship, and is poised to go to graduate school after she finishes college next year. She dresses well, yet is never flashy nor does she stand out in a crowd. She would never say anything that might be called “politically incorrect.” She believes in dealing with things reasonably,” by which she means in a way that is both practical and secular.

I had never thought about it in these terms before, but the logic of it became immediately self-evident to me, and I replied (only half-teasingly), “And I suppose you’re a good Catholic because you’re such a good communist?”

“Being a good communist is nine-tenths of being a good Catholic, and those are the nine-tenths I’m good at.”

[A bit of back-ground here. I had spent the years of my youth and young adulthood as a godless communist and, even after finding God, I never bought in to a bourgeois world view. Let me be clear about what sort of communism I’m talking about here. I was an Old Left, Soviet style, puritanical, party discipline and heavy industry, working class communist, not a New Left, pacifistic, counter-cultural, hippie who simply dressed up his anti-social bourgeois liberalism in Marxist jargon. When I came to God this involved adding to my beliefs more than changing them. I had always renounced those aspects of the Soviet System that the Church had objected to (e.g. political and religious oppression, gulags, torture), so this was mostly a matter of adding a spiritual aspect to my life.]

This sparked a long discussion and, at the end of it, I agreed with him completely. The upbringing he had received inculcated a strongly communist world-view that had not only fitted hand-in-glove with his Catholicism, but had given him the discipline and habits to live a good Catholic life. I think it might be worthwhile now to present our findings.

Being Comradely!

Xeno said that one of the worst reproaches he could get as a child was: “That’s not the comradely thing to do.” Leaving dirty dishes at the table, taking seconds before making sure everyone had firsts, using up something without replacing it, cutting in line, not sharing with your playmates, even crabbyness would garner this reproach. Xeno was taught to pitch-in when there’s work to do, not to slack off until the work is done, never to brag, always to treat people politely. People often comment on Xeno’s respect for his elders and consideration for workers, and this too is because of my insistence upon being comradely.

“I feel dirty about money.”

Money matters were something about which I always demanded extra scrupulosity. Sharp dealing (as opposed to fair dealing) was regarded as a sin which cried to Heaven for vengeance. Whenever Xeno is paid for a bit of work, he is always on time, works until the job is finished, and keeps a better-than-average pace. Around the neighborhood, Xeno is in demand as a dog-walker, baby sitter, and snow shoveler because of his good communist work ethic. Unearned wealth was regarded as the root of all evil, and Xeno takes real pride in always giving full value for his wages.

“You took the glamor off evil.”

We go to a rather conservative parish. You know the type: Latin mass, big families, girls modestly dressed, boys in white shirts and slax. And these are good people, but many of them slip into materialism now and then. They live in the suburbs, drive big cars, have a few possessions of which they are overly proud of. By and large, they are very moral people (chaste, generous, pious) but they have trouble seeing consumerism as being un-Christian.

In our house, consumerism was bad, not only because of a Christian rejection of materialism, but because it makes you the hod-man of the bourgeois. If you never bought into the bourgeois notion that every year you needed a new car, the latest fashions, a larger house, an ever bigger screen TV, exotic vacations, whatever it was that they were advertising now, then you could be truly free. As soon as you want these things, you are capitalism’s slave, and we positively gloried in not having cable TV, not owning an automobile, living in a cramped house, eating home-cooked meals, buying most of our clothes at the thrift store. The things we really wanted were modest: books, really first-rate work boots, a night out bowling.

The communist principle of “production for use” is a further inoculation against consumerism. Xeno has a cell phone (He needs it so that we can keep track of him when he’s at his various after-school jobs.) and it’s old, battered, and has none of the “functions” that people are so enamored of nowadays. When his friends show off their new phones that play games, stream video, and connect to Twitter, he is supremely indifferent. “A cell phone is for communication, not amusement.”

“Consumerism degrades culture”

Even at my own parish I see this. Altar boys exchanging “ghetto handshakes” in the vestry. Admiring talk of violent movies. Familiarity with the lyrics of rap songs. These things are seen as harmless by many parents yet I would not tolerate them in my children.

Bourgeois popular entertainment is aimed at the lowest common denominator to ensure the highest return on investment so it naturally degrades into crap. While Xeno’s friends were going to the newest, most popular movies, I showed him classic films. While other parents listened to soft-rock or “oldies,” I had the radio tuned to the classical station. While I didn’t shun or forbid all popular entertainment, I always made it clear that it was high culture that had real worth.

“A Good Communist Rejects Sexual Consumerism”

Strangely, this is best expressed by someone trying to justify sexual consumerism:

But if the sexual market-place is impersonal, non-judgemental, and pluralistic, it still has its own built-in biases. These biases are covert — invisible in snap-shot impression — and they have more to do with the nature of markets than the nature of sex. The market for consumer goods of any kind is ever-changing, quick to absorb each new novelty and abandon the old … Without novelty and variety, short-term “necessities” and quick-turnover “classics,” our consumer culture would go into decline and, so too, no doubt, would our particular variety of capitalism.

…It is not a sign of moral breakdown or “excessive” permissiveness that the sexuality visible in the consumer culture seems always to be out-reaching old limits: this is the dynamic of the market, and in sex as well as fashion or entertainment, it pushes always and inexorably toward new frontiers.

Thus the sexual market-place both democratizes and INSTITUTIONALIZES (authors’ italics) the sexual revolution. Practices that were once pioneered by a few brave souls become, through the market-place, the potential property of anyone … The perverse becomes the commonplace.

— Barbara Ehrenreich, Elizabeth Hess, and Gloria Jacobs
Re-making Love — The Feminization Of Sex,
Anchor Press / Doubleday, Garden City /
New York, 1986, p. 110-111.

My son finds sexual excesses revolting, not so much from his Christian morality, as from his rejection of consumerism. The fact that many of these have become matters of commerce (e.g. pornography, prostitution, strippers) actually sickens him, however this is not a prudish rejection of sex, but a communist revulsion at consumerism.

“Proletarian Morality”

A good communist doesn’t waste his time on sexual adventuring, but rather, settles down in a stable relationship and sets about making cadres for the revolution. My son often teases me about this, asking, “How does Proletarian Morality differ from Bourgeois Propriety?” Simple, just as the same revolver has a different meaning when it is in the hands of a cossack or of a class conscious worker.

And this is just one more example, of which there are many, of how my communism has inculcated good Catholic habits into my son.

The Baby-sitting Attitude

2009-07-03T23:18:00.000-04:30

Some years ago, I was sitting on my front steps watching my two youngest as they drew in chalk on the sidewalk. This was a pretty usual thing. Wife-mate and I would come home from work, she would need time to make dinner, and so I would take the kids out front, or maybe to the park about a block away, and watch them for a hour or so to give Wife-mate a chance to make dinner without interruption. Sometimes I would take something to read with me, sometimes I would take the football to throw with my son, sometimes I would just watch them. It was a nice, relaxing part of my day and, now that my kids hang-out with their school chums until dinner time, I miss it.

Anyway, I was sitting there one day when a fellow came by, looked at my kids, and asked me, “Baby-sitting?”

Now, to my mind, “baby-sitting” means taking responsibility for someone else’s kids. I am responsible for my kids all the time, night and day. The word “baby-sitting” only makes sense when there is some time when you are not responsible, ergo parents are never “baby-sitting.” This being self-evident to me, I answered the man, “No, they’re my own kids.”

Again he asked, “Baby-sitting?”

Baffled by his meaning, I just shrugged and answered, “I guess.” He walked away and I thought it over. Probably to him, watching kids was women’s work, and represented an imposition when he had to do it. Or maybe he conceded that watching his own kids was his responsibility, but found the task onerous or inconvenient. Either way, this was diametrically opposed to my own attitude. I loved watching my kids. I miss it now that they’re old enough to do things on their own.

After that run-in I began to notice that the “baby-sitting attitude" was common. And not just among men. I began to notice how many parents were constantly looking for chances to get away from their kids. How they were always hiring baby-sitters, dropping their kids off for play-dates, scheduling sports, lessons, a myriad of activities that would keep their kids busy for a few hours.

I guess the ultimate example of this was when my son was about five and needed some serious dental work. I stayed right with him throughout the procedure, even though he was out with gas for most of it. While the dentist worked from one side, I sat on the other, holding his hand just in case he came to. When it was over, he wanted me to pick him up, and I was right there to do it. Just before we left, the dentist thanked me for sticking around. He said that most parents went out for coffee when he was working on their kids, and that it made it a whole lot easier when the parent was there to comfort the child.

Naturally, I was appalled. What kind of parent would go out for coffee when their child was facing something so potentially traumatic as dental work? Hearing about this probably made me even more conscientious than before.

Another aspect of this is the “do as I say, not as I do” problem. The best way is to lead by example, and I would never think of asking my kids to do something that I, myself would not do.

My parents used to send me to Sunday School when I was a kid. I hated it, balked at it, and, eventually, they gave up. Years later, when I was in high school, my dad asked me why I hated Sunday School so much, and I answered, “You never went to church; why would I like Sunday School?”

He didn’t get it, and evidently, most people don’t. For when I had kids of my own, and my first daughter was up for first confession, I asked her catechism teacher if it wouldn’t be a good idea for the parents to go to confession at the same time so as to give the kids a good example. She thought this was a bad idea, “since it would take too much time.” When I suggested that at least I could set an example by confessing right before my daughter, she agreed to that. After the event, however, I was approached by some very angry parents who resented what I had done because it caused their kids to ask why they didn’t make confession. (Wow! That’s when I decided to find a more traditional parish.)

I don’t mean to brag here, but once in a while someone will ask me how I got such great kids. My answer is always the same, “I’ve dedicated my life to it.” Really — it’s not hard to know what your kids need, it’s just hard to keep at it and do those things all the time.

The reason I bring this up is because of something good I heard about the other day. My best friend and her husband just had their first baby two months ago. They were taking baby Liam out for his first trip in the stroller. After the dad carried the stroller down the front steps, he began to push it. His wife offered, “I’ll push it if you want.”

“I can do it.”

“Well — I wouldn’t want you to feel emasculated, you know, pushing a baby carriage.”

He stopped dead. “This is my son, I’m proud of him! Why would I feel emasculated showing him off to the world?”

I think baby Liam is in good hands, don’t you?

The Downside of Paganism

2009-06-30T17:45:00.002-04:30

“You can’t believe the extra work I had when I was a god.”
— Shōwa tennō (Hirohito)

Where's the Outrage?

2009-06-23T03:55:00.000-04:30

Three Sundays ago, Dr. George Tiller was shot dead by an anti-abortion fanatic while attending Holy Service in Wichita Kansas. I found out about it when I saw this posting on Facebook: “Eric Scheidler is utterly dismayed at the Tiller shooting. Reprehensible. A dark day.” Later that day, I got an e-mail of the press release from the Pro-Life Action League stating that “any act of violence in the name of protecting the lives of unborn children is a betrayal of the pro-life movement, which proclaims the sanctity of all human life." The next day, my buddy John Jansen despaired of the killing on his blog. Almost immediately, American Life League’s Executive Director, Shaun Kenney denounced the killing, and later that week, his associate Judy Brown abhored the killing and offered her condolences to the Tiller family.

I read a lot of Catholic/Pro-Life stuff. I’m on the e-mail list for several Pro-Life organizations, read most of the blogs of the members of the “Catholic Dad’s Blogspot,” have a number of friends who work full-time in the Pro-Life movement, and no one that I read regularly or know personally condoned the Tiller murder. So I looked further afield and found that the overwhelming majority of Pro-Life organizations, organizers, spokesmen, bloggers came out against this crime.

[Don’t bother citing contrary examples, because I already know they're out there. My point is that they are a statistically insignificant minority.]

Let me try to reduce all of those statements that I read into one sentence:

“I oppose abortion, but I can’t condone murder.”

And, was there a corresponding outpouring from the other side? Did anyone say:

“I approve of abortion, but I can’t condone murder.”

Because murder was what Dr. Tiller was up to. Say what you will about first (or even second) trimester fetuses merely being a “blob of tissue,” you are either a liar or a sociopath if you say that a third-trimester fetus is anything less than a baby waiting to be born. I’m not going to argue with you right now about when life begins, but by the third trimester, by any morally honest standard, we are talking about a real baby. I will concede that a morally honest individual might not think that a fetus is really a person before quickening, or before viability, but these landmarks are long past by the twenty-first week, and killing these late-term babies was what Tiller was up to.

[Don’t give me the “medical necessity” argument. By Tiller’s own admission only 8% of his cases were for “fetal indications.” And, think about it, if an abortion were really medically necessary, then it would be done in a hospital, by the woman’s own doctor, not by some hired-gun in a hick town.]

Where is the outrage?

If the “Pro-Choice” camp were really morally honest, when Tiller was shot, they would have qualified their grief over this instead of lionizing him. Instead, I read on Sister Anne’s blog that days after the murder, protestors were waling down Michigan Avenue with signs reading "abortion on demand without apology."

Spiritual but not Mystical

2009-06-07T18:41:00.002-04:30

I often work at night, alone, and I usually listen to a book on tape when I do this. Since picking up a book to listen to involves almost no effort, I routinely listen to books that I would never actually read. Sometimes this allows me an insight into what people who differ from me think (e.g. “Suicide of the West,” by James Burnham), sometimes I find hidden gems that I never knew existed (e.g. “Down and Out in Paris and London,” by George Orwell), sometimes this allows me to read classics that I never seemed to have the time for (e.g. “House of Mirth” by Edith Wharton), and sometimes it simply allows me to say “Yes, I read that, and it’s a piece of crap!” (e.g. [and especially] “Atlas Shrugged,” by Ayn Rand, and “Left Behind” by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, possibly the two most incompetent works of fiction and wrong-headed philosophical outlooks ever to get into print). Other times, is just gets me thinking.

“Tuesdays With Morrie” is a book by Mitch Albom describing his visits with Morrie Schwartz, his favorite professor in college, as he is dying of ALS. It was hugely popular and is held to be a work of great insight and wisdom. The dying Morrie lays stress on “human” values, like love, family, compassion, he bears up cheerfully in the face of death, which indicates his inner peace, and he counsels his student not to spend so much time pursuing transient successes like money, career, or fame. The trick here, is that fairly obvious insights are lent weight by the gravity of their coming from a dying man. If it were merely thin broth, then it would have bothered me no more than the uninspired sort of homily one gets at Old Saint Pat’s, that poster of the cat saying “hang in there,” or a mirror painted with the words of the “footsteps prayer.” But this book bugged me, and I thought about it for days.

The obvious short-coming was that it was “spiritual without being religious,” by which I suppose I mean it dealt with matters of the spirit outside of any fixed system of spiritual duties. So I asked my son, Xeno, (who had to read the book for class) if the “spiritual without being religious” thing bothered him as well. He told me that he didn’t like the book either but that I didn’t really have the problem by the tail. “After all,” he said, “Your friend Karl is as spiritual a guy as there is, and he’s not religious.”

This was an excellent point. My buddy Karl the Anarchist left the Church years ago, isn’t really sure if there is a God or what sort of nature a god might have, yet he was profoundly spiritual. Every fiber of Karl’s being is devoted to working out his vocation in life, to social justice, to sanctifying mankind. He is a mystic.

By mystic, I mean he has a personal knowledge of God. I know this by how he walks the earth without fear or violence. By his refusal to value earthly things as much as by his complete practically in dealing with the world. I know this as much by his compassion as by his sense of humor. He spoke to my son once about the first time he was in prison (he has been imprisoned many times for civil disobedience). He was eighteen when he met Dorothy Day on a park bench and she talked him into joining her in refusing to participate in an air raid drill. They were both arrested and he was sent to Ryker’s Island to await trial. Immediately he was set upon by toughs who said, “I’m going to have your shit on my dick or your blood on my knife.” He thought for a moment, realized that no knife could ever touch his spirit, and told them to go ahead and do what they would. He was left alone, just as he has been in the dozens of times he has been jailed since, and the months he spent in federal prison for refusing to pay war taxes. You cannot intimidate a mystic because the world does not matter to them.

Reflecting on this, I realized that the problem with Morrie Schwartz’s “wisdom” was not that it was “spiritual without being religious,” but that it was “spiritual without being mystical.” In fact, this is almost always the problem with what we might call “secular spirituality.” Karl is just about the only person I’ve ever met who is mystical without being religious. And Schwartz is not a mystic.

[How do I know? Because I am a mystic. You will forgive me for this arrogant boast, but it is the only valid claim to knowing anything about mysticism. I have long resisted writing about mysticism, as it would involve divulging my own mysticism, and I don’t want to set myself up as some kind of bodhisattva or something. I’m just a regular guy, who’s had the mystical experience. I’m not nearly the better person I ought to be for this either, so it probably counts against me in the scheme of things.]

It doesn’t take long to tell when you are talking to a mystic and not just a dying man with equanimity. Mystical detachment is simple (think of Descarte’s melting wax, or Bridget of Sweden looking into Christ’s palm) yet its impact is beyond profound (think of Saint Teresa of Ávila saying how the love of God pierced her heart “like a flaming arrow.”). A real mystic never dwells on why the world doesn’t matter, he takes that as his starting point. A real mystic never tells you to work less, he tells you to find your vocation. A real mystic never tells you to “simplify your life,” he tells you to embrace mortification. A mystic never speaks of family as a “support system,” of marriage as a “partnership,” nor does he dwell upon “being a good person.” For just as faith without works are dead, so too is charity without love, for it will not do your soul a bit of good to give a hungry man a bowl of soup unless you love him. The mystic cares not for the accidents of this world.

So must a genuine spirituality always be mystical? No, and this is where religion comes in. Religion is there to allow the ordinary, un-mystical person, to live like a mystic. It demands that you do things out of duty that a mystic would do out of communion with God. Genuine religion demands that you forego the consolations of the world and focus on the spirit. Genuine religion demands that you spend time in prayer, time that a mystic might spend in direct communion with God. Genuine religion demands that you cherish your spouse as your own flesh, that you receive the Holy Spirit, that you act always out love, that you look for God’s hand in everything — and no mystic needs to be told any of those things!

“Tuesdays With Morrie,” however well-meaning it might be, is yet another attempt to give spiritual succor to those without either religion or mysticism. As such, it is a fraud.

A Shocking Admission

2009-06-05T15:11:00.000-04:30

To each group we explained what contraception was; that abortion was the wrong way—no matter how early it was performed it was taking life; that contraception was the better way, the safer way—it took a little time, a little trouble, but was well worth while in the long run, because life had not yet begun.

— Margaret Sanger

The Wanderer and the Void

2009-05-26T20:30:00.000-04:30

The 21 May 2009 issue of the Wanderer had two articles, side by side, that both addressed the same problem. The first was by Alice von Hildebrand and it posed the question right in the headline: "Should Abortion or Other Social Concerns Have Priority?"

She began by saying that, putting aside "pro-choice" Catholics (who are not really Catholic at all), there is a divide in the Church between those who see abortion as being the paramount issue of our time, and those who see it only as one among many issues of concern to Catholics. She then points out that whereas the other issues are fairly complex (e.g. peace and war, the death penalty), and some are almost incomprehensibly complex (e.g. social justice), abortion was always wrong. She stated that only by over-looking the "quality" of the issues, can we think that these other concerns possibly outweigh the enormity of abortion. She states:

Among moral obligations there is a clear hierarchy: Desirable as it is to fulfill them all, in case of conflict, we should give precedence to the one that has more weight, and ask ourselves whether or not an action is irreparable or not. Death is an end point. An abortionist cannot bring back to life a dismembered little baby deprived of the very possibility to ask for mercy.

Just to the left of this was a piece by Scott P. Richert, "A Bridge to Nowhere," in which he asks just how effective have pro-life efforts been since 1973. His conclusion is that the pro-life effort reached a high-tide in 1989 when the court handed down "Webster v. Reproductive Health Services" which allowed certain limitations on access to abortion. At the time, one of the architects of Roe v. Wade, William J. Brennan, Jr., was in poor health and expected to retire, which he did the next year. Bush then replaced Brennan with David Souter, who not only turned out to be pro-choice, but then influenced Anthony Kennedy to uphold Roe v. Wade in subsequent decisions. So — Bush was not pro-life after all.

Then followed the Clinton years and the appointments of Ginsburg and Breyer, both of whom were expected to be, and were, pro-choice. But then hearts lifted when George W. Bush was elected, because he was an Evangelical and thus, presumably, more committed to the pro-life cause than his father, an Episcopalian. No such luck. Richert details how Bush's moves against abortion were all on the margins, that he failed to sign on to a Republican pro-life initiative in 2003 (ostensibly so that abortion would remain an issue in 2004), and appointed two justices (Roberts and Alito) who have pretty much come out and said that Roe v. Wade is settled law. He concludes:

Why aren't we winning? Why isn't abortion under steady attack, and Roe v. Wade on its last legs?

Because pro-life candidates know that we have nowhere else to go. We cannot, will not, should not vote for candidates who support abortion. Yet we are convinced that it is our civic duty always to case a vote, and some Catholics even argue (with sum justification, based on a passage in the Catechism of the Catholic Church) that it is our moral duty as well.

Which means that, in a race between a putatively pro-life Republican and a pro-abortion Democrat, we cannot vote for the Democrat, so we must vote for the Republican.

And the Republican knows it. And he knows that we'll vote for him again when he comes up for re-election, whether he follows through on his pro-life promises or not. So the temptation is there to take the easy way out — to campaign as a pro-lifer every two or four or six years, but to govern as someone for whom abortion is a non-issue.

Thus pro-life voters have become for the Republican Party what black voters are for the Democratic Party — a block of "sure votes" that can be appeased by words and ignored in action.

And if you think that has worked out well for blacks, I have a bridge to nowhere to sell you.

Scott P. Richert is executive editor of Chronicles, the magazine of the highly conservative Rockford Institute. He is a traditional Catholic who writes frequently for the Wanderer. His pro-life credentials are impeccable. If you don't believe me when I tell you that an "anti-abortion" vote for the Republicans is a vote wasted, then maybe you'll believe him.

My Godson

2009-04-28T21:31:00.002-04:30

My Godson, Liam Francis Willingham, was born today at 11:55. It is, perhaps, the greatest honor of my life that I have been asked to be this child's spiritual father and it is my fervent wish to prove worthy of this trust.

I love him.

La Vie et la passion de Jésus Christ (1905)

2009-04-23T16:30:00.000-04:30

OMG — it's like you're there!!!

His Most Serene Imperial and Royal Highness, the Archduke Crown Prince Rudolf of Hapsburg

2009-04-06T13:46:00.001-04:30

From time to time I like to re-read the following passage about the funeral of Crown Prince Rudolf from “A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888/1889” by Frederic Morton.

Vienna, Tuesday afternoon, 5 February 1889

At four o’clock sharp, the bells of the Court Chapel began to toll, slowly. Slowly, proceeded by slow -riding Hussars, the ancient black mourning carriage of the Hapsburgs drove out of the inner Palace courtyard, drawn by a pair of black steeds. The Emperor sat inside. For once the sight of him drew no cheers. Thousands of hands removed thousands of hats. Numberless heads bowed in silence, solders presented arms. Bells tolled, not only those of the Court Chapel now, but that of the cathedral and of all other churches in the metropolis, all beating together slowly, all in one tremendous, melancholy pulse.

Archducal carriages rode out next, coachmen sitting, footmen standing, in black tricornered hats, black livery, black stockings and black-buckled shoes. Then came a single Lipizzaner with a rider in formal Spanish mourning dress. Then a six-horse carriage occupied by Rudolf’s Lord Chamberlains and the principal officers of his personal Court. And then came the hearse itself, a black baroque sculpture, pulled by six Lipizzaner grays. Under a black canopy held up by fretted black columns, surmounted by Rudolf’s arms in gold, the coffin floated through the ringing of the bells. Bells, bells, they rang slowly from the ten thousand and one steeples thought the realm, from Lake Constance on the Swiss border to the wilds of Transylvania. You were never out of earshot of metal, moaning.

On both side of the hearse moved burning torches. Pages in feudal dress held them aloft, marching in single file. Riding in single file to their right were six Arciere Honor Guards with white plumes on silver helmets, their crimson coats studded with gold; to the left, six Hungarian Honor Guards on white steeds, in silver-laced red tunics, tiger-striped capes fluttering off one shoulder. Then came, also on horseback, medieval bodyguards with halberds and black panaches. Then came, marching stiffly, a battalion that was a mosaic of the Monarchy’s armed prowess — one company of the Imperial and Royal Army, one of the Austrian Militia, one of the Hungarian National Guard, one of fezzed Bosnian Sharp-shooters, and one company of Marines in the uniform of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Then came the lesser figures of Rudolf’s entourage on foot, and finally a rear-guard squadron of Hussars.

And now, as had happened in so many generations, the pageant of a high death was punctuated once more by the halt of the august procession before the small, plain Church of the Capuchins.

Karl Count Bombelles, Rudolf’s First Lord Chamberlain, disembarked from his carriage. With a golden staff he knocked against the simple portal. The dialog began, ancient and brief.

“Who is it?” a friar demanded from the inside.

“His Most Serene Imperial and Royal Highness, the Archduke Crown Prince Rudolf of Hapsburg.”

“We know him not.”

The door remained closed. Again the golden staff knocked.

“Who is there?”

“The Crown Prince Rudolf.”

“We know him not.”

The door remained closed. Once again the golden staff must knock.

“Who is there?”

“Your brother Rudolf. A poor sinner.”

Only then did the door open.

This is, perhaps, one of the most charming of funereal customs as it serves to remind us that, whatever our status in this world, that we shall be judged very differently in the next.

Sex Offender

2009-03-30T15:49:00.000-04:30

NJ girl, 14, arrested after posting nude pics

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A 14-year-old New Jersey girl has been accused of child pornography after posting nearly 30 explicit nude pictures of herself on MySpace.com — charges that could force her to register as a sex offender if convicted.

The case comes as prosecutors nationwide pursue child pornography cases resulting from kids sending nude photos to one another over cell phones and e-mail. Legal experts, though, could not recall another case of a child porn charge resulting from a teen's posting to a social networking site.

The office investigated and discovered the Clifton resident had posted the "very explicit" photos of herself, sheriff's spokesman Bill Maer said Thursday. "We consider this case a wake-up call to parents," Maer said. The girl posted the photos because "she wanted her boyfriend to see them," he said.

The teen, whose name has not been released because of her age, was arrested and charged with possession of child pornography and distribution of child pornography. She was released to her mother's custody.

If convicted of the distribution charge, she would be forced to register with the state as a sex offender under Megan's Law, said state Attorney General Anne Milgram. She also could face up to 17 years in jail, though such a stiff sentence is unlikely.

This story is shocking for several reasons.

The first, and most obvious, we ought to be shocked at the state our society when a fourteen year old girl wants her boyfriend to see "very explicit" pictures of herself and so posts them on a forum that is on view to the public at large. When I was young, such photos were considered blackmail material, now they are, evidently, something to be proud of.

Secondly, I have to wonder what the N.J. officials were thinking when they arrested her. Aren't laws against child pornography there to protect children? Plainly, this girl is profoundly disturbed (or simply well adjusted to a profoundly disturbed society) and she cannot be held culpable for this kind of self-destructive behavior. Certainly such photos must be suppressed, possibly the state needs to intervene in this poor girl's life, but the last thing she needs is to be forever stigmatized as a "sex offender" when her only crime is to be such a child of her times.

From Post Secret

2009-03-22T13:35:00.000-04:30

Separated At Birth?

2009-03-17T14:52:00.001-04:30

Marriage Without Duty is Loveless

2009-03-11T22:36:00.000-04:30

I often read Dan Savage’s sex advice column in the Chicago Reader. He is an homosexual, while most of his correspondents are heterosexual, and so his answers to them are sometimes quite hilariously wrong. This week, however, he was tragically wrong.

“Sexless and Desperate” wrote in saying that she had been married for about four years and had one child with her husband. S+D’s problem was that, while she had a perfectly normal desire for frequent coition, her husband almost never wished to have marital relations. She added that he would rather masturbate to pornography, which he does about three times a week.

Mr. Savage responded that, while he would normally simply advise the woman to end the relationship and find a more eager partner, since the couple has a child he thinks it would be better that they stay together. He then advised S+D to seek and open relationship with her husband. “So long as you’re a good and loving partner and co-parent, and so long as your family is your first priority, you should be free to seek safe, sane, and non-disruptive sex elsewhere.”

Of course, from an atheist/secular/queer perspective, this must seem like perfectly serviceable advice, but the real answer is staring us right in the face. The wife should simply insist that her husband stop masturbating.

• First off, masturbating counts as cheating. Despite what our secular society says, masturbating is a fundamental violation of chastity and a betrayal of the marital bond. S+D’s husband has no more of a “right” to masturbate than he has to keep a mistress or patronize prostitutes.

• Secondly, any fool should be able to figure out that the husband is simply dissipating his sexual energies on self-abuse and, if he were to cut that out, he would soon enough seek satisfaction from his wife.

• Thirdly, pornography has obviously given the fellow a distorted idea of what sex ought to be like. Real, human, intimacy is difficult, messy, and demanding. Moods, emotions, and the desires of another person come into play. It requires effort. One of the evils of pornography is that it turns sex into a consumer item, an easily available self-indulgence. Pornography is absolute poison to human intimacy.

• Finally — no mention of duty? S+D has a right to sexual intimacy with her husband. The fault here is entirely his and he should be made aware of it.

Am I the only one who finds it hugely ironic that secular humanists call Catholic expectations of chastity “unrealistic” when they fail to see how totally unworkable their own sexual mores are?

An Unacceptable Truth?

2009-03-04T12:46:00.001-04:30

I am baffled.

I understand why fundamentalists reject Darwin: their literalist Bible fetish is all they have and Darwin stands foursquare against the version of creation (actually two different versions) in the Book of Genesis. As a Catholic, and not chained to biblical literalism, so evolution isn’t a theological issue to me, but at least I understand why it is to fundamentalists.

But Global Warming — why do an over-whelming number of Traditionalist Catholics reject the possibility of greenhouse gasses causing climate change?

I can see no theology behind this, nor have I ever heard any such reasons cited. The facts would seem to be pretty straightforward:

• An overwhelming preponderance of scientists believe that carbon emissions from industrial activity are causing potentially catastrophic climate change.

• The only scientists who don’t are bought-and-paid-for by energy companies.

Facts are facts and why the facts themselves should be subject to a Liberal/Conservative divide is beyond me. Liberals and Conservatives both agree that teen-age pregnancy, STD’s, poverty, terrorism, war, and economic collapse are all problems, even if they disagree profoundly over what to do about them. Why Conservatives should discount the very existence of this problem is beyond me.

Could it be — wishful thinking?

Most Traditional Catholics live a suburban life-style that is highly dependent upon automobile transport and high-energy consumption. Such a life-style would be morally unjustifiable were they to accept the scientific consensus on global warming. It would be, as Al Gore has said (to much derision) —An Inconvenient Truth. One that requires radical changes in the kind of life they lead.

Is it uncharitable of me to think this? Perhaps, but just the other day I was talking to a friend from church. He’s pious, a conscientious grandfather, good sense of humor, intelligent, a fine fellow all around. But he said to me, in all seriousness, that he felt it was pointless to conserve oil because he thought oil was a natural product, continuously being produced beneath the earth’s surface. Wow — is that wishful thinking or what?!?!

I would really like to see comments on this, because it just baffles me.

An Insight Worthy of Spengler

2009-03-03T22:21:00.000-04:30

If we could take Christ off the cross and put him over to one side, and then put the cross without Christ on the other side, we would have the picture of the world. Who picks up Christ without the cross? Our Western, affluent, Christian civilization. No discipline, nor mortification, no cross, no self-denial. Who picks up the cross without Christ? Russia, China. The ascetic principle of Christianity has moved to the totalitarian states: discipline, order, law, commitment to a common end. But neither side has the answer. The cross-less Christ is weak, effeminate, and can never save us, because there is no mention of sin. The Christ-less cross allows Dachau, Auschwitz, the squeezing of the lives of individuals like so many grapes to make the totalitarian wine of the state. The world problem and our own person problem is this: Will Christ find the cross before the cross finds Christ?
-Servant of God Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Small Mortifications

2009-03-03T00:56:00.000-04:30

Back when I was a godless communist, we all drank our coffee black because “lathering” your coffee (i.e. putting in cream and/or sugar) was bourgeois consumerism. The communist analysis of this has actually proven correct, as the rise of Starbucks illustrates. Our urban bourgeois (the so called “Yuppies”) have become ever more extravagant consumers of coffee, having long since abandoned simple “lathered Java” for espressos, cappuchinos, and “coffee drinks” that are confected with steamed milk and gooey syrups, topped with cascades of whipped cream and garnished with slivers of chocolate. Why, I feel positively echt proletarisch every time I drink black Joe straight from the pot.

Imagine then, how pleased I was to read the other day that Opus Dei numeraries drink their coffee black as a mortification. I had never really thought of this lingering trace of communist discipline in my life as a mortification, but that’s exactly what it had been right from the start, and it got me to thinking about the place of small mortifications in my life.

Of course, anyone with kids can name a dozen small mortifications they endure each day for their kids. Wife-mate used to like to soak in the tub for hours with a good mystery novel; it’s been years since she’s been able to do that. Frequently I would scarf down a whole pint of Haggen-Datz at one sitting, but now, not only can’t we afford the good stuff, but I pretty much just let the kids have ice cream for dessert while I content myself with another apple. If something for dinner is good, then my kids eat it right up; but if it is bad, then I’m the one that will have to finish the leftovers. Who gets to use the bathroom last? Who has to clean up the vomit? Who gives up his sweater when the afternoon turns cold and someone has forgotten hers? Do I even need to answer these questions?

The mortifications involved with having kids are perfectly natural, and that’s part of what makes them good for you. But they’re also things we do without thinking, they cease to be mortifications because we do them automatically. Similarly, many good habits cease to be mortifications: by now I don’t know if I would even want to put cream and sugar in my coffee.

Contrariwise, mortifications lose their value when they are done for show. Saint Benedict had it right when he corrected a monk who always took the worst piece of fruit in the bowl, for that was false modesty; he should take the first piece his hand fell upon, neither picking the best nor the worst.

I think that in our lives we need to look for mortifications, may of which are right there if you would only see them. The stairs we could take instead of the elevator, the trips that could be made by walking or bicycling instead of driving, the time that could be better spent in prayer than in listening to the radio — there are probably a thousand little things that we could take up as little crosses throughout the day.

This lent, I want to find them.

What mortifications do you find in everyday life?

Assume That Your Kids Know Nothing

2009-02-23T18:29:00.003-04:30

My parents just expected me to know things.

Like my father, who was always spouting off something like: “That Mac Churchill is a regular Sammy Glick!”

“Who?” I would ask.

“Mac Churchill!” he would rail, naming a business associate that I had met many times.

“No, who’s Sammy Glick?”

“You know!” he would say, as if to an idiot, “Sammy Glick!”

Years later, I found out that Sammy Glick was the ambitious, grasping, unscrupulous protagonist of the 1941 novel “What Makes Sammy Run?” Why my father should have expected me to know anything about a novel published nineteen years before I was born, I’ll never know. And why he would have expected a ten-year-old to know the metaphorical significance of Craig’s Wife, Shylock, or Nevil Chamberlain without explanation, I’ll never know either. Similarly, at one time or another, he berated me for not knowing where Lithuania, Abyssinia, or Siam were on a map, when none of those names had appeared in an atlas since the 1930’s. (Lithuania has since re-appeared among the nations of the world, while Abyssinia and Siam are now known as Ethiopia and Thailand respectively.)

He could really make me feel stupid.

When I was about eight or ten, however, an incident made me realize that perhaps this was not my fault. We were staying at my Grandma’ Ruby’s house, and I was watching Victor Mature in “Samson and Delilah,” when my mom told me it was time for bed. I protested, “This is a cool movie! I want know how it ends.”

“It just the story from the Bible,” Ruby said, “You know how it ends.”

“No, I don’t.”

Ruby then insisted that I be allowed to watch the rest of the movie. Later, after I had been sent upstairs to bed, I could over-hear her telling my mother in no uncertain terms that I should be taught something about the Bible. “Even if you are agnostic, your children ought to know something about Christianity. Our culture is basically Christian, and he ought to be able to understand it!”

(I never was taught anything about Christianity by my parents, however, and was often caught short when anyone else talked about it. I didn’t, for instance, know the basic Gospel story of Jesus until I saw Jesus Christ Superstar in junior high school. I grew up assuming that everyone accepted Darwin, and was shocked to find out that some people believed in a literal seven days of creation. After that, I assumed that all Christians were Biblical literalists, and was just as embarrassed later when I was told otherwise in the most sneering of terms by a very offended woman Episcopal priest. And the Biblical references in Shakespeare and poetry — take 10% off my English Literature grades for that!)

When I had kids I resolved never to assume that they already knew something, or would just pick it up as they went along.

Perhaps I was pedantic about it, perhaps I was lecturing, but they were never stung by their ignorance as I had been so many times. I trained them to speak-up when they didn’t know something, to look it up themselves if they couldn’t ask, and never to be ashamed when they didn’t know something. I would interrupt myself to explain a word ("… he had a certain adiposity. Adiposity: do you know what that means?"), quizzed them to make sure they knew what I was talking about ("Croats are Catholic and Serbs are Orthodox — what do we mean by 'Orthodox'?"), asked them what words in movies and lectures meant ("What does she mean by 'Evangelical'?") They joke about it (“Dad’s in lecture mode now!”) but they don’t hesitate to pester me with questions night and day (“Dad — what does ‘rueful’ mean?”).

Recently, I came to realized that I might have succeeded at this. My favorite professor from college came to Chicago for a lecture recently and I took the opportunity to see her for the first time in twenty-five years by having her over for dinner. The whole family was at the table, and she was talking about her husband (“… that was just after he had gotten his terminal degree …”), when I interrupted her.

“Pardon me,” I said holding up a finger to motion for her to hold that thought. Then, turning to my kids, I asked, “Do you know what a terminal degree is?” When they all shook their heads, I explained, “It’s the highest degree that one can get in one’s field. Usually, it’s a Ph.D.” Then I turned back to my professor, “Sorry to interrupt, but I didn’t think they knew that.”

“Oh, I don’t mind at all!” she smiled at me brightly, “Now I know why you have such bright kids!”

Prayer to Charlemagne by Dom Prosper Gueranger O.S.B.

2009-01-28T16:43:00.000-04:30

The original French edition of The Liturgical Year by Don Geranger listed January 28 as the feast day for Saint Charlemagne, which the Church permitted to be celebrated in some German villages. Later editions of the same work left out that feast day.

We present here for the benefit of our readers the prayer composed by the renowned liturgist in honor of Charlemagne:

Hail, o Charles, beloved of God, Apostle of Christ, defender of His Church, protector of justice, guardian of good customs, terror of the enemies of the Christian name!

The tainted diadem of the Caesars, purified by the hands of Leo, sits on your august forehead; the globe of the Empire rests in your vigorous hand; the ever-victorious sword in your combats for Our Lord is sheathed at your waist, and on your forehead the imperial anointing was added to the royal unction by the hand of the Pontiff who consecrated you and confirmed your authority. As the representative of the figure of Christ in His temporal Royalty, you desired that He would reign in you and through you.

Now God rewards you for the love you had for Him, for the zeal you displayed for His glory, for the respect and confidence you showed toward His Spouse. In exchange for an earthly kingship, transitory and uncertain, you enjoy now an immortal kingdom where so many million of souls, who by your hands escaped idolatry, today honor you as the instrument of their salvation.

During the days of celebration of the birth of Our Lord by Our Lady, you offered to them the gracious temple you built in their honor (the Basilica of Aix-la-Chapelle), and which is still today the object of our admiration. It was in this place that your pious hands placed the newborn garment worn by her Divine Son. As retribution, the Son of God desired that your bones should gloriously rest in the same place to receive the testimony of the veneration of the peoples.

O glorious heir to the three Magi Kings of the East, present our souls before the One who wore such a humble garment. Ask Him to give us a part of the profound humility you had as you knelt before the Manger, a part of that great joy that filled your heart at Christmas, a part of that fiery zeal that made you realize so many works for the glory of the Infant Christ, and a part of that great strength that never abandoned you in your conquests for His Kingdom.

O mighty Emperor, you who of old was the arbiter of the whole European family assembled under your scepter, have mercy on this society that today is being destroyed in all its parts. After more than a thousand years, the Empire that the Church placed in your hands has collapsed as a chastisement for its infidelity to the Church that founded it. The nations still remain, troubled and afflicted. Only the Church can return life to them through the Faith; only she continues to be the depositary of public law; only she can govern the powerful and bless the obedient.

O Charles the Great, we beseech you to make that day arrive soon when society, re-established at its foundations, will cease asking liberty and order from the revolutions. Protect with a special love France, the most splendid flower of your magnificent crown. Show that you are always her king and father. Put an end to the false progress of the faithless empires of the North that have fallen into schism and heresy, and do not permit the peoples of the Holy Empire to fall prisoner to them.

Prayer and Distraction

2009-01-07T13:44:00.001-04:30

I had a couple of random thoughts this morning:

• A few months back, my friend Kat asked me to pray for her brother, whose has chronic leg problems had gotten worse of late. He never gets out of the house, I never see him, and it occurred to me that I should probably call up Kat and ask how he is doing.

• When my daughter was only a-year-and-a-half-old, she was bitten by a dog. She promptly bit the dog right back, leading us to conclude that if anyone had Saint Hubert’s special protection against dog bites, it was our little Bean-Girl. Since then, I have taken it for granted that Hubert was her patron. But since she is going to be confirmed in the Spring, it occurred to me that Bean-Girl should probably begin studying the lives of the saints so that she can pick out her own patron.

Now, these are both two perfectly legitimate, useful thoughts, but there was a time when they would have bothered me. You see, they both came to me while I was praying for these people and, when I was younger, and new to prayer, I would have regarded these thoughts as interruptions. But I have come to understand that, if prayer really is conversation with God, then God is going to respond to you.

Think about it; far from being an interruption in my prayer for Kat’s brother, the thought that I should ask after him turned my prayer from a mere repetition into a living, breathing concern about her brother. This is the kind of reflection that ought to come with prayer.

A few months back I received the welcome news that my best friend, Moira, was going to have a child. That evening, when I was saying the Rosary, and I got to the Second Joyful Mystery, the Visitation, it occurred to me that I had just had a visitation from Moira. Immediately I was flooded with happiness, seized with a joy deeper even than when I had first heard the news. And I turned this right back to the Rosary, realizing the profound bliss that Elizabeth must have felt upon greeting the pregnant Mary. I then contemplated how Jesus had known these same human joys and sorrows that we all experience, since he had become man. How, when we come to him for forgiveness, because he lived a human life, he knows why we fail. Sure I stopped my Rosary and contemplated this for five or six minutes, but all of these thoughts made my Rosary a deeper, more personal, better devotion.

Of course, we must guard against distraction while at prayer. The banal concerns of everyday life must be put aside when we approach God. But we also need to be able to respond in a conversation with God. If we close ourselves off to all other thoughts, then our prayer lives will become a pointless repetition of half-felt phrases.

The Burning of St. Joseph's Cathedral

2008-12-31T15:18:00.000-04:30

Before and after pictures of the interior of of St. Joseph's Cathedral in Hartford.

The original Gothic structure was burnt in a fire on Monday, December 31, 1956. New York Engineers presented three scenarios for the rebuilding of the Cathedral. The Archives document that the walls were structurally sound. While it could have been repaired, Archdiocesean officials chose to demolish the Portland brown structure, and replace it with a modern structure.

One simply has to wonder why a profoundly beautiful edifice would be replaced by such a monstrosity. Did people ever really think that Modernism was more beautiful than traditional styles? More "relevant?" Was it simply the self-aggrandizement of being able to award such a rich commission and put one's name to a new structure? I myself recall the crassness of those times. Of women's coiffures that no longer resembled human hair. Of furniture covered with plastic slip-covers that made them excruciating to actually sit on. Of fine restaurants that served frozen food. Clothes made of synthetic fabrics, cut to obliterate the human figure, and the heavy perfumes and antiperspirants necessary when human sweat fermented in fibers that could not breathe.

My motto:

Forward — to the glorious thirteenth-century!

Scrupulosity Disorder

2008-12-29T13:53:00.000-04:30

It amuses me to no end when I find some old concept being touted as a "new idea." Malcolm Gladwell discovering the "Tipping Point" when this is no more than Frederich Engel's notion of the "Nodial Point," Protestant Evangelicals organizing their churches into "small, faith communities" as if it were an innovation, when both the KPD and NSBO were organized into "cells" as early as 1930, as if "globalization" and "offshoring" were anything more than Spengler's "Alienation of Tecnics."

Recently, I found a real lu-lu in the "8th Annual Year in Ideas" from the New York Times Magazine of 12 December 2008:

Scrupulosity Disorder by Jascha Hoffman

In a paper published in the August issue of The Journal of Anxiety Disorders, Chris Miller and Dawson Hedges of Brigham Young University estimate that as many as one million Americans may suffer from a moral-anxiety-cum-mental-illness known as “scrupulosity disorder.” They define it as obsessive doubt about moral behavior often resulting in compulsive religious observance — and they warn that it can lead to depression, apathy, isolation and even suicide.

As the believing man’s version of obsessive-compulsive disorder, the diagnosis raises questions about where, exactly, the line is to be drawn between probity and perversity. It isn’t obvious how to treat someone who can’t sleep for worrying about their rectitude — or a devout Christian who is seized by the urge to exclaim, Goddamn! and repeatedly reproaches himself for it. Rather than try to fight off obsessive worrying, therapists might ask patients to give in to it, so that they can see that their supposed transgressions might be harmless. “If you believe in a God that’s all-knowing, you should trust him to know these blasphemous thoughts are mental noise and not what’s in your heart,” says Jon Abramowitz, director of the Anxiety and Stress Disorders Clinic at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The diagnosis might raise some difficult issues. Ritual hand washing could seem compulsive in an atheist, but surely it isn’t for a Muslim, for whom such behavior is ordinary religious observance. Are the anxieties and fears that may accompany a passionate religious life themselves pathological? Abramowitz, who has treated scrupulous Christians, Muslims and Jews, is confident that a therapeutic approach to obsessive spirituality does not threaten religion. He says that when patients are gradually released from crippling doubt about their own virtue, they can emerge with a new sense of faith.

Compare this, if you will, to the entry for "Scrupulosity" from Donald Attwater's "Catholic Dictionary" (Macmillan Company, N.Y.C., 1931):

Scruples: The promptings of a conscience which is led by insufficient motives to imagine sin where none exists or to regard as mortal sin that which is only venial. (This is the only use of the term recognized by spiritual writers and moral theologians.) Scruples have their use in inciting to greater care in the service of God, but they are dangerous to the health both of soul and body, especially in one who relies entirely on his own judgement. The best, and frequently the only, remedy is humble submission to the advice of one's confessor.

When we note that the Catechism of the Council of Trent (issued by order of Pope Pius V in 1556) deals quite clearly in condemning "despair of salvation," leading us in a foot-note to a lengthy discussion of scrupulosity in Thomas Aquinas' "Summa Theologica" from the thirteenth century, it becomes clear that this "new discovery" of scrupulosity is centuries old at the very least.

Saints have been afflicted with, and have over come, scrupulosity. Perhaps the most popular being Saint Thérèse of Lisieux who wrote the story of her life and spiritual progress through fear and scrupulosity to a deep understanding of the Fatherly love and mercy of God.

So why should scrupulosity be so remarkable now? Probably because of its rarity. Even fifty years ago, psychiatrists probably encountered this frequently (calling it "obsessive compulsive disorder"), but as the pieties of old have faded, not only must this have become more rare, but has probably become rarefacted in those who suffer from it.

We can draw a lesson from this "discovery" when we note that the opposite of scrupulosity is the sin of presumption - the belief that God will save me regardless of what I do, simply because He is all loving and all powerful, and therefore cannot allow me to be lost. How often do we hear people express the notion that they will be saved because "I'm basically a good person." Take my word for it, in this modern age, no psycologist will diagnose a plague of "Presumption Disorder."

Mallidays?

2008-12-12T00:40:00.001-04:30

I might not have this quite right, I was taking a shower at the time and couldn't take proper notes, but this morning on the radio I heard a commercial where a woman was complaining that "The holidays have become so commercial, that I call them the Mallidays ..."

I was dumbstruck. So, when I got to work, I did a quick Google search and turned this up from an article in the November 2000 issue of Practical Homeschooling:

No more "Mallidays"!
(gifts that have spiritual value can restore the meaning of holidays.)
Such a special time of the year--or such a stressful time. It all depends on whether we're celebrating the holidays ... or what I've come to call the "Mallidays." Mallidays are holidays based on materialism. Our mass-media culture does an excellent job of shaming us into believing we have to buy tons of heavily marketed stuff in order to properly celebrate ...

And I'm wondering: did anyone ever point out to these people that "holidays" is just a secular/materialist/consumerist way of not saying "Christmas?" Saying that the word "holidays" has been profaned is like saying Bozo has lost his dignity.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Good Advice

2008-11-22T19:47:00.000-04:30

I went to confession today and I got some good advice:

"People can live without truth, but they can't live without explanations."
— Fr. Ken Sedlak, C.Ss.R.

What the father meant by this is that our whole consciousness is wrapped up in making sense of our existence. We try to take simple facts (like, things always seem to fall down) and try to explain them into truths (like, the Law of Gravity). Mostly we do this in our everyday lives.

— Why is Pod-Man getting C's and D's in math? : Because he won't apply himself.

— Why is Erin's speech slurred? : Because he's been drinking.

— Why am I so unhappy? : Because of my mother/father/wife/husband/rotten kid ...

The problem with most explanations is that they are self-serving. (Surely I'm not the problem!) If we could be really honest with ourselves, then we could formulate explanations that closely approximate the truth. Until we can do this, we have to doubt ourselves, ask if it isn't really our fault, give others the benefit of the doubt, perhaps even accept blame we feel we don't deserve. Sometimes we need to defy the obvious explanation, suspend judgement, and simply extend ourselves to be charitable.

Extremism In America: part II

2008-11-21T01:51:00.001-04:30

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Years ago, when my son was seven or eight, we watched the Spaghetti Western The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Pod-man loved it! It was fast, it was exciting, the music was thrilling, there were twists and surprises. But then the next day he came to me with a question. “Blondie is good, Angel Eyes is bad, and Tuco is ugly — but is Tuco good or bad?”

“Well — what does he do?”

“He’s greedy and he kills people, but he’s brave, and he loves his brother, and he prays for the dead, and he wears the scapular.”

“So —?”

“So — he’s a good person who does bad things!” Pod-man fairly shouted, delighted to have figured this out.

“Just like you!”

He sighed, crestfallen, “Just like me.”

Life is a Messy Business

I have noticed that while extremists reason in black and white (something is either right or wrong), relativists see everything in shades of gray (who are we to judge?), but that life itself is made up of spots of black and white. It is easy to point to specific actions we have taken and praise or condemn them as good or bad (acts of charity, nights of drunkenness, devoted service, neglected duty, willing sacrifice, wanton indulgence), but it is difficult to either beatify or condemn anyone we know well. Life is just a messy business. Good people do bad things. Sometimes the easy way out is just too easy not to take. Who cannot live without regret?

Please compare these two examples:

Mr. J— is a friend of mine who just got married. He’s prosperous, a professional, very ethical about his business. His wife is well-educated, good hearted, works for a non-profit organization accomplishing good things. For what it’s worth, they’re good-looking too. But I found out at their wedding that they have no intention of having children — ever.

Miss. H— is another friend. She’s also a professional, highly creative in her work, well respected in her field. She’s also a mom, and one of the best mother’s I know. Her daughter is bright, well adjusted, happy, and, for what it’s worth, cute as a bug. Miss. H— is also a lesbian.

Now — which of these people is part of the culture of death? The sterile heterosexual, or the fertile lesbian? There’s something to admire and condemn about each of them, isn’t there? Frankly, I am more disappointed by the selfish couple than by the lesbian, but you might add things up differently.

And who is a better example? I genuinely hesitate to have my kids abound a lot of DINKS (i.e. sterile couples, “Double Income No Kids”) but I really don’t think that Miss. H— is going to make homosexuality so glamourous as to entice my kids.

And what kinds of sins are being committed here? Both examples are being sexually selfish, but the sterile couple are being socially selfish as well, since they contribute nothing to the next generation.

It’s a messy business, isn’t it?

Familiarity Breeds Familiarity

It’s hard to hate someone you know, isn’t it? You might find Mr. J— and Miss. H— despicable from my description, but they are my friends and I like them despite their failings. It is telling that, in response to my last post on extremism, John Jansen and Maggie Lee (who both know me personally) never questioned the earnestness of my appeal, while RobK (who only knows me from our frequent web contacts) and Jill (who knows me not at all), were more critical.

Social scientists have long commented on how homogeneous groups become ever more extreme, while heterogeneous groups seek consensus. Private clubs become ever more disdainful of outsiders, while disparate groups of army conscripts form lasting bonds. America was once full of heterogeneous groups (not only draftees, but public school cohorts, “main line” churches, trade unions, neighborhoods) but less and less this is the case. Every demographic indicator shows that we are sorting ourselves out. People “shop churches” for ones filled with like-minded parishioners. Neighborhoods show ever more homogenous voting patterns and “life-styles.” Colleges and universities pitch themselves to differing cultural types. The three choices of network TV are replaced with a cornucopia of entertainment options. Why, in the 1960’s, when most households had but one television, Ed Sullivan, who offered “something for everyone,” was big; a rock-n-roll band for the kids, a night-club comedian for dad, and a crooner for mom. But now, who watches the same things that their kids do? Once “Top 40 AM” radio stations played songs that we all knew (we all had our favorites, but we knew and heard them all), nowadays the “top 40” is irrelevant. In our day, conservatives have given up on movies and network TV, liberals detest talk radio, greens and libertarians have given up on all mass media. I could probably name a dozen songs, movies, TV shows from the sixties that anyone my age would know; can you name one song, movie, or TV show produced in the last ten years that all of the people you know have actually heard or seen?

This can’t be good.

The Cost of Extremism

Judy Brown recently condemned a proposal to ban most abortions (excepting only rape, incest, and the health of the mother) in South Dakota and, possibly because of this, the proposal went down to defeat. Who among us would not prefer to see fewer abortions, yet her stance might just have insured that more abortions take place in South Dakota.

Have you ever met someone who thinks third-trimester abortion should be legal? I have, and they all give the same argument. None of them actually favor third-trimester abortion, but they all say something like “if we let them ban that, then pretty soon they’ll ban all abortions.” Do you suppose (maybe?) that they think this because the Pro-Life movement is dominated by unbending extremists like Judy Brown?

The vast bulk of the public thinks that first trimester abortion should be allowed, while second- and third-trimester abortions are an abomination. Virtually all European countries have laws to this effect: why not here? Probably because extremists like Judy Brown and Rad-Feminists are controlling our debate.

Suppose for a minute, that there were a mass movement, a ground-swell, to ban late-term abortion. Don’t you think that many Democratic politicians would sign on to it? Do you think that if the extremists were marginalized, instead of the majority, that both parties would compromise and come to a consensus that is better than what we have now?

If an orphanage were on fire, you’d run in and save as many babies as you could, right? You wouldn’t stand aside and say, “Since I can’t save them all, I won’t do anything!”

Extremism is Counter-Productive

Years ago, many years ago, when my college-age daughter was a pre-schooler, she and I were walking down Grand Avenue, when we ran into some Pro-Life activists protesting in front of an abortion clinic. I’ve lived in this town all my life, but I didn’t even know the clinic was there, so I was very surprised to run into protesters. And they had signs, very graphic signs, showing aborted babies (forgive me, I almost typed “fetuses”). Pumpkin was shocked and revolted. I hustled her right by, but she saw the worst of it just the same. That night she had nightmares. To this day she remembers those pictures — and she resents it. Far from having a salubrious effect upon her, she now thinks of all Pro-Lifers as being fanatics. There are probably many factors causing her to fall away from the Church, and for being “pro choice” (such as her “pro-choice” mother, her poor catechism, the liberal college she is now attending), but I will always think that this was the first factor that undermined the moral values that I tried to instill in her.

[When my friend John Jansen told me he would be part of a campaign to “show the truth of abortion” I discussed this with him. He thinks that showing such pictures has a converting effect (it is, after all, the truth of the matter), while I think it has an alienating impact. Just the same, when he was protesting downtown, my son and I stopped by on our way to work to show our support for him. He is doing God’s work and we can only hope that he is right.]

Contrast this, if you will, to my experience with my friend Moira.

I was first introduced to Moira by an associate from work, who was sure that we would not get along as Moira was a Radical Feminist and I a believing Catholic. But we talked, and she found me interesting, and we became friends of a sort. We saw each other from time to time, talked a lot, became closer friends, and she became curious about my faith. For I never condemned her, never criticized her, I understood where she was coming from (for my mother was totally secular and I had grown up around such people); I merely offered my own life and experiences as an example for her. And she responded. Her own life had been directionless, without sustenance, perhaps even meaningless, and she began to see that my faith was a distinct contrast to this. After a year or so, she told me that she was taking instruction in the faith. I had the great privilege of seeing someone that I had influenced be accepted into the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Faith.

And she met a fellow. They dated, became engaged, and then he too joined the Church. Now they are married, she is with child, and I fully expect to be Godfather to her child next May.

Her sister, without any prodding by Moira, came to see the real strength of Moira’s faith, and now she is enrolled in a RCIA program. She will probably become Catholic this coming Easter.

That’s how it’s done. By quiet faith, good example, friendship, and understanding.

Not by hectoring, condemnations, badgering, slurs, insults, intolerance, and all the rest that extremism entails.

Last Things

One day I will face God and his Perfect Judgement. On that dreadful day I will have much to answer for, but I will be able to point to Moira and say, “See — at least I have brought one of your sheep back to the fold.”

What will Judy Brown point to? All those needless abortions in South Dakota?

From the Observer's Guide to Popes, Cardinals, Bishops, Priests and Religious

2008-11-12T04:12:00.000-04:30

It was recently brought to my attention by a Religious Sister, that she was not a nun. Upon looking it up, I discovered that "monk" and "nun" refer only to cloistered religious, while "friar" (or "brother") and "sister" refer to religious who live an active vocation in the world of service to the needy, sick, poor, and uneducated. The confusion arises because, just as we address all priests as "father," so we address all male religious (who are not priests) as "brother," and all female religious (who are not abbesses) as "sister."

That's right — you weren't taught by nuns, you were taught by sisters!

Edwina Froehlich: Apostle of Breast-Feeding

2008-11-08T04:53:00.001-04:30

Edwina Hearn was born in the Bronx borough of New York City in 1915 and moved to Chicago to attend Mundelein College in the late 1930’s. She was both socially conscious and a devout Catholic. She worked with the Catholic Family Movement and was national executive director of the Young Christian Workers, a Catholic lay organization. She married John Froehlich in 1948, at the rather late age, for that time, of thirty-three.

In the 1940's, Edwina witnessed her older sister Pauline go through what were then standard hospital childbirth procedures: plenty of drugs, the use of forceps and no fathers allowed. Her sister also was discouraged from breast-feeding.

Two years later, when she was pregnant with her first son, she was told that she was too old to breast-feed. She scoffed at this and the other conventional wisdoms of the time, gave birth at her Franklin Park home with her husband and an obstetrician attending, and breast-fed all three of her sons. At that time only 18% of American mothers breast-fed; it was considered old-fashioned, a cause of colic, and generally bad for babies.

At a Church picnic, in August of 1956, Marian Tompson and her friend Mary White engaged in a conversation about the joys and difficulties of breast-feeding. The two women decided that, in the face of the existing social opposition to breast-feeding, a community organization (what would nowadays be called a “support group”) should be formed and they immediately approached other women that they knew to be breast-feeding; Mary Ann Cahill, Mary Ann Kerwin, Viola Lennon, Betty Wagner, and Edwina Froehlich then pregnant with her third son. They met in the living room of Mary White’s home and founded what became known as the La Leche League. This name was chosen by the seven Catholic founders of the organization not only to honor of Our Lady of Happy Delivery and Plentiful Milk (“Nuestra Señora de la Leche y Buen Parto”) but also because the word “breast” could not be used in the newspapers of the time.

The first formal La Leche League meeting was held in Mrs. Froehlich’s home in October, 1956. For the first several years, the league operated out of Mrs. Froehlich’s home in Franklin Park, Ill. She’d care for her children and do chores while walking around the house with a phone receiver tucked between her shoulder and ear, counseling women from around the country. A second line was installed in her home for just that purpose.

Mrs. Froehlich was the league’s executive secretary from 1956 to 1983 and remained engaged with the organization through the end of her life as a member of the founders advisory council. Today the La Leche League International counsels nearly 300,000 women a month in more than 20 countries.

In 1958 several of the founders, including Mrs. Froehlich, put together a loose-leaf binder of what they thought they knew about breast-feeding. They called it “The Womanly Art of Breast-feeding.” The first printed edition appeared in 1963 and now more than two million copies are in print.

This last June 8 Edwina Froehlich died at the age of 93 two weeks after suffering a stroke of apoplexy.

Mrs. Froehlich was the very model of what I consider to be good Catholic social activism. She saw a social need and organized her friends to meet that need. She embodied the Catholic virtues of charity, subsidiarity, and generosity. In 2058 I shall, if I am still alive, be 98 years old. I wish to travel to Rome in that year, where I am certain I shall hear Edwina Froehlich confirmed as a saint.

Extremism In America

2008-11-06T04:25:00.001-04:30

Last night, in addition to being election day, was the last performance of Pearl Fishers at Lyric Opera. I had planned on going to the Obama rally in Grant Park later but, right after the Opera, I went out for a quick drink along with most of my fellow supernumeraries . The results came so quickly that I never had a chance to get to the rally and I was having a beer at Stocks & Blonds when Obama made his victory speech.

Most of us were pretty happy, but my buddy Bill wasn’t. He’s a nice guy, friendly, easy to work with, conscientious; I’ve been in four or five operas with him and I can’t think of a bad thing to say about him. So I was surprised, not that he supported McCain, but that he talked about Obama as if he were Al Sharpton. He was genuinely concerned that Obama was some kind of race hustler who was going to enroll millions on welfare, create thousands of government sinecures for hordes of shiftless loafers, rig-up affirmative action so that masses of near-cretins would get all the spots in our best universities, and tax the productive sector into bankruptcy. Of course, Bill knew that I was an Obama supporter, but he held no ill will against me, and he knew that I certainly didn’t want any of these bad things to happen, yet he thought this election was nothing short of a catastrophe.

This got me thinking about extremism.

Now, I know a lot of different people. I used to be a Godless Communist and I still know lots of hard-core leftists. I go to the most conservative Catholic parish in Chicago. Most of my clients at work are designers, gallery owners, and restaurateurs, and I also work at Lyric Opera, so I talk to a lot of artistic types. I handle all of my deliveries myself, so I know the dock workers at the buildings, the drivers on the paper trucks, the bike messengers, all of them blue-collar guys. And I love to talk, so when I go to the Sox games or the Symphony I always strike up a conversation with the people in the next seat. My kids are in public school and I routinely talk to all the parents there. My best male friend is gay and we usually hang together in the toughest leather bar in Chicago, while my best female friend is a Maronite Catholic, recently married, who wants me to be godfather to the baby she is now caring. I am probably the only printer anywhere who has done pro bono work for the Midwest Workers Organization, Daughters of Saint Paul, West Town Bike Coöperative, Socialist Labor Party, Saint John Cantius parish, and some anarchists who were trying to get a fellow off death row. I think that I know more different people, from more different points of view, than just about anybody.

And I hear a lot about extremism.

I hear my Catholic friends speak of pro-aborts as being homicidal monsters with a crass indifference to human life. Yet none of the pro-choicers that I know regard abortion as anything less than a human tragedy, a last resort only to be used in a desperate position.

Similarly, my secular friends see the religious as a sort of American Taliban, intent upon depriving women of all rights and keeping them ignorant. Yet none of my pro-life friends favor the incarceration of women who have abortions and they all give their daughters excellent educations.

I know Republicans who are convinced the Democratic Party is full of socialists who want to string bankers up from lamp-posts, while my Democratic friends are convinced that Republicans want to return to the twelve-hour days of sweat-shop labor. Conservatives who think that a single-payer health system would mean vital care routinely denied to patients, and liberals who think that the poor are being allowed only third-world health-care in this the wealthiest of nations. Conservatives who think the liberals are trying to wreak the economy and Greens who think the capitalists are trying to ruin the environment. Those who favor the war see the peacenicks as traitors who want to capitulate to terrorist demands, while those against it see their opponents as warmongers embarked upon an imperialist adventure to pillage the oil resources of a country that had nothing to do with terrorism.

Yes, there’s a lot of extremism in America — but it all seems to be on the other side!

Most people seem to want a good education for their kids, an economy that provides a decent living for all, health-care for the sick, fewer abortions, security at home, and peace overseas. Everybody hates paying taxes and wants the government to leave them alone, yet they see certain services as essential and want the government to make the other guy behave. No one wants their kid to grow up to be a whore, or a drug addict, or a child molester. Everyone thinks they’re not paid enough, that things cost too much, and that their kids are growing up in a tougher world than they did. Who doesn’t think the culture is going to hell, yet who wants government censorship to clean things up? Everyone hates their government and loves their country. And they are also sure their enemies control the levers of power and are just ruining the country they love so much.

Really, we are not so different.

I would estimate that about one person in twenty is an extremist, conspiracy theorist, religious fanatic, predatory sexual deviant, sociopath, libertarian, hate-monger, racist, or some other kook you can’t deal with. But the rest are good folks.

When I have a party, I invite all my friends. I have never seen any discord between Brother Chad (of the Cannons Regular of Saint John Cantious) and Richard, a homosexual opera director; they both love choral singing. Nor any difficulty between Karl the anarchist and Ed the real estate speculator. No one cares that Gail is a lesbian or Arlene a vegetarian, and Michael the pacifist gets along quite well with Brian who is proud of his service in Iraq. And everyone looks after the kids, because you know, kids can get into mischief.

See — it’s really hard to demonize someone you know.

Part of this country’s problem is that there are so few things that bring us together. In my father’s day there was a draft and most men spent a few years in the service. This brought them together: north and south, rich and poor, Jew and gentile, they had to live and work together and they did. And churches were broad institutions. There were liberal Baptists in those days, and conservative Presbyterians. Most denominations held a spectrum of views, but now people have “shopped churches” and cluster together, conservatives in the Evangelical denominations, liberals in the “Main Line” denominations, Catholics distributed between “traditional” and “welcoming” parishes. And there was over-lap between the political parties. There were Liberal Republicans who favored small government, yet championed civil rights. And there were Conservative Democrats who were stridently working class, yet held to old values of patriotism and tradition.

All gone.

I’m against the war — must you question my patriotism?

I’m against abortion — must you call me anti-woman?

I’m against GAT and NAFTA — must you revile me as” protectionist?”

I favor a single payer health care system — must you jeer me as “socialist?”

I’m against gay marriage — must you call me a hate-monger?

I favor taxing the rich — must you deride this as “class envy?”

I’m a patriotic American — can’t you just accept that, even if I’m different than you?

We really are one nation, we are very close. The fellow voting the other ticket isn’t really an extremist, he just thinks that we need to take a different path to the things we all want. Talk to him and you’ll see.

Handy Map of Hell

2008-11-04T17:29:00.002-04:30

(Keep it in your wallet!)

I Want to See This Film

2008-10-30T21:52:00.001-04:30

Nestled deep in the postcard-perfect French Alps, the Grande Chartreuse is considered one of the world's most ascetic monasteries. In 1984, German filmmaker Philip Gröning wrote to the Carthusian order for permission to make a documentary about them. They said they would get back to him. Sixteen years later, they were ready. Gröning, sans crew or artificial lighting, lived in the monks' quarters for six months—filming their daily prayers, tasks, rituals and rare outdoor excursions. This transcendent, closely observed film seeks to embody a monastery, rather than simply depict one—it has no score, no voiceover and no archival footage.

What are the Moral Obligations of the Pro-Life Voter?

2008-10-27T16:28:00.001-04:30

What are the Moral Obligations of the Pro-Life Voter?

The purpose of this essay is not to explain or justify a Pro-Life position but rather, to deal with the political and moral responsibilities of the Pro-Life citizen. I am a believing Catholic, I accept the whole of Catholic moral teaching, I am not only opposed to the Culture of Death in all its manifestations but I specifically oppose abortion. The question that I am dealing with here is what, as a Pro-Life voter, are my political options?

Can we get rid of abortion?

Americans overwhelmingly favor legal access to abortion. Perhaps as many as two-thirds, but certainly more than 60%, of Americans believe that abortion is a private matter and that discretionary abortion should be available to women in the first trimester. Not only are these numbers are simply insurmountable, but they have not changed in thirty years! The idea that a Pro-Life government could be elected, much less impose a ban on abortion, is naïve at best.

Support of abortion rights is cultural and a culture cannot be changed by government fiat. Since the advent of reliable contraception in the early 1960’s, women have come to expect that they will no longer have to plan their lives around pregnancy. They can delay marriage, take lovers, space their children as they please, pursue careers — all in complete disregard to the fertility that constrained the choices of previous generations. Most women, especially educated women, are not about to resume older modes of life. They expect — they demand — high-powered careers, exciting sex, and conveniently planned pregnancies. No amount of reasoning, moral or spiritual, will affect their essentially materialistic world-view. Similarly, the effects of medical developments, popular entertainments, and secular education cannot be reversed by government dictate. These ideas are fostered by the content of movies, books, academic curriculum, news reportage and everyday conversation. They cannot be fought at the ballot box.

A woman’s “right to choose” enjoys constitutional protection. Whether or not you believe Roe v. Wade is good law, the fact is neither this nor any other Court is going to overturn it. The Court that ruled on Roe v. Wade was largely composed of Republican appointees, and newer Republican appointees (made by the supposedly Pro-Life Reagan and Bush) have shown no willingness to tamper with this decision.

Only a constitutional amendment can overturn Roe v. Wade. No realistic effort exists to introduce, much less ratify, a constitutional amendment. Today, the legal situation is so nearly frozen that only nuisance laws can be passed and upheld. Laws that actually limit abortion are routinely struck down. I doubt that any law, passed at any level of government during the last thirty years, has actually prevented a single determined woman from obtaining an abortion.

Why have the Republicans
done nothing?

Where is the legislative effort? Not only have the Republicans failed to start the process of amending the Constitution, but they have limited their efforts to banning a particular method of third-trimester abortion (“partial birth”) that would have left dozens of other methods available.

Why has impeachment not been tried? Our Constitution provides Congress with the means to redress judicial malfeasance: impeachment. If, as is so often claimed, the Republican party thinks that Roe v. Wade constitutes a miscarriage of justice, then we must ask: Where is the Republican-led effort to impeach those justices “legislating from the bench”? The G.O.P. moved quickly to impeach a recent President over a tawdry dalliance with an ambitious tart, yet thirty years have passed without an effort to impose constitutional discipline on the High Court.

Only by perpetuating abortion as an issue can the Republicans hold captive a block of voters who find this practice abhorrent. Certainly, some Republicans sincerely believe abortion is a crime, have done all they can to combat this evil, and do not court popularity with callous disregard to the sanctity of life. But the party as a whole has been calculating and manipulating the Pro-Life voter. By perpetuating the notion that this issue is in play, the Republicans have held Pro-Life votes captive for thirty years.

What are my duties as a citizen?

To function properly, a democratic government must respond to the will of the people. If a sizeable block of voters take themselves “out of play” over one issue, then the government will simply stop responding to them. While some issues are dead (for example: prohibition, the gold standard, segregation) others are alive and being decided in the halls of government. A responsible citizen does not cast a “dead vote” based on issues that are off-the-table, but instead actively participates in the issues of the day. Tax policy, the environment, peace and war are all issues that change — and change dramatically — depending on the party in power. A vote for or against NAFTA, for or against school vouchers, or for or against increased environmental protections might actually affect these pressing issues. But a vote for prohibition, for the gold standard, for segregation — or against abortion — is simply wasted! I know cloistered monks who read the newspapers and vote according to the actual state of the world. Why then should secular citizens act like ostriches with their heads buried in a dead issue?

What should the Pro-Life citizen
consider when voting?

•An overwhelming majority of Americans believe that some forms of abortion should remain legal. Unless and until these attitudes change, an anti-abortion vote is a futile gesture at best!

•As the courts now hold abortion to be a constitutional right, only amendment or impeachment can serve as remedies. And, as Congress controls both of these processes, abortion is irrelevant to the office of President and to any state or local office. Choosing a presidential candidate based on the his abortion stance is simply nonsensical.

•The Republican party has done nothing to actually reduce or eliminate abortion and we should not expect a change of course at this late date. A vote for Republicans on the strength of this issue is a vote for mere lip-service.

What should all responsible citizens consider when voting?

•Since 1972, wages have fallen dramatically by at least 15% (though perhaps as much as 30%). Family income has risen only because the number of hours worked has risen, typically because married women have been obliged to work. The policies that caused this constitute an assault on the working classes, something unjustifiable to a Christian morality that holds it a sin to defraud the working man of his wages.

•Since 1980, the tax burden has been shifted from the wealthiest, to the 60% of Americans in the middle, both by the drastic reduction of tax rates on the very rich and by an increased reliance on payroll taxes. This, too, constitutes an assault on the average working citizen, as there is no link between low marginal tax rates and economic growth.

•We are engaged in an immoral war. Iraq had no ties to Al Quida and no weapons of mass destruction, yet we were given these reasons, whether through deceit or ignorance, as a justification for war. This war has been condemned by the Pope, the United Nations, and most of the nations that we once considered our closest allies. We are hemorrhaging both blood and money, our civil liberties are being eroded, and all decent Americans are ashamed of what happened at Abu Ghraib. A vote against this war might actually save lives.

• Global warming is real. Ask any scientist — geologist, botanist, or even ichthyologist — and, if he doesn’t work for an oil company or conservative think tank, he will tell you that global warming is a clear and growing danger. A vote against this and other forms of environmental degradation is a vote for all the babies born today.

• The death penalty is a live issue. The Pope is against it (albeit, not dogmatically) and the record of false conviction is disquieting. Make up your own mind and your vote just might affect things.

• The bottom has fallen out of the minimum wage. If we adjust the minimum wage of the mid-1960’s for inflation, it works out to about $11— an hour! What percentage of American workers are making even this figure, much less a real family wage?

• Our manufacturing base is gutted. Our manufacturing capability is down about 35% since 1980, our primary steel industry is virtually gone, and we no longer produce such American-invented products as microwave ovens, tube-socks, and superheterodynes.

• Other life issues actually are in play. Stem-cell research, cloning, euthanasia — these issues are going to be decided in the next several years, but Pro-Life voters will not influence the debate if they are still captive to the issue of abortion.

• Our health-care system is inequitable, costly, and inefficient. Health-care expenditures in all other industrialized nation are lower while life expectancies are higher. Insurance premiums and Medicare taxes are going up, while doctors’ salaries are going down, yet genuine reform is nowhere in sight.

• The economics of abortion. Many abortions are had by women who feel they “can’t afford the baby.” Such a thing was inconceivable when a typical workingman’s wage allowed him to keep his wife at home with their kids. We can probably do more to save innocent life by restoring the income of workers to a viable “family wage” than by pursuing the forlorn hope of a ban on abortion.

• We must reclaim our political system. Current polls show that 80% of Americans favor drastic reform of our health-care system, 70% of Americans believe that immigration should be reduced, and at least 60% of Americans oppose GATT and NAFTA, yet neither party supports these positions. We will not compel action on any of these problems as long as we are captive to a moribund issue.

Think and Vote!

Compromise or Chäos — a reply to my friend Rob

2008-10-27T03:17:00.001-04:30

If we are living in the world, the question is never are we going to compromise or are we going to remain pure. The question is always how much are we going to compromise. Ideally, if we had perfect discernment, we would know exactly how much to compromise to get as much of what we want as we can, but I haven’t perfect discernment, I only have opinion.

I am certain that you yourself have already compromised, possibly without thinking about it.

The Pill is well known as an abortifacient, you know that and I know that, but no one in this day and age is talking about banning hormonal contraceptives. Even Evangelical Christians, who are with us on the abortion issue, are against us on this one. And so I am sure you don’t even bother asking if a candidate favors banning the pill. I in fact recall, hearing Alan Keyes mention on a radio show here in Chicago, back when he was running for Senator, that he favored Natural Family Planning and thought it should be taught in the schools. Yet even he, whose pro-life credentials are among the best, made no mention of banning the Pill.

Similarly, we are both aware that fertilized embryos are routinely destroyed, discarded, or turned over to medical research because they have been harvested but not used for In Vitro Fertilizations. Think you can ban I.V.F.? It is way too popular and most people don’t even think of these embryos as babies.

If you would only vote for a candidate who was truly pro-life, and opposed the Pill, and the I.U.D. (which works by not allowing fertilized embryos to implant), and I.V.F. — would you have anyone to vote for?

I think not.

And this time around, are you voting for Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party? He promises that his presidency will end abortion. Or will you be voting for McCain, a waffler on the abortion issue.

You see — you have already compromised to what you know are political realities.

These are some political realities as I see them:

• Abortion isn’t going away.

We can cite polling figures from morning until night but at the end of the day they don’t count for anything. What does count is actual votes at the ballot box. And if South Dakota, one of the most conservative states in the union, rejects an anti-abortion measure by a large majority, then what makes you think that the rest of the country, which is far more liberal, would accept such a thing?

The political situation right now is that pro-aborts feel pretty secure in their position and only pro-lifers tend to be one-issue voters on that subject. Abortion has never really come before the American people as an up or down proposition and I fear you would be disillusioned if it did. Every so often we hear about how “young people are pro-life” but then this never translates into a pro-life vote ten years down the line. Why? Because it is very easy for a fourteen year old virgin living with her parents to adopt a hard-line pro-life position, but once she gets out in the world and has a few lovers, she decides that she’s not so eager to walk that tight-rope without a net. It is telling that, among women, only the very young and the post-menopausal (or those women who don’t “need” abortion) are pro-life. There is simply way too much self interest at play to get a working majority of Americans to agree to abolish abortion.

• It can’t get any worse.

America has just about the most liberal abortion laws in the world. Where else can you get a completely discretionary abortion in the ninth month? I like to shock my kids by pointing out that, five weeks after my Bean-Girl was born (she was premature), we could have legally aborted Pod-Man or Pumpkin who went full term. I show them photos of Bean-Girl asleep two weeks after she was born and point out that, were she still in the womb, we could have had her killed.

There’s really not much Obama could do to make things worse. FOCA only makes Roe v. Wade federal law, it’s completely redundant. Yes there are things he could do at the margins. He could reverse the Mexico City Policy and he could try to repeal the Hyde Amendment, but these are relatively minor. Most Federal employees, the Army and Navy, are already receiving tax-payer funded abortions and it is my understanding that the funding for abortion in the Third World that we do not provide is made up for with funds from Western Europe that would otherwise be going to digging wells and buying seed corn. Money is fungible, you know.

The Republican position on stem cell research and human cloning is not that they are against it,merely that they will spend no government money on the project. This is a crass calculation on their part that these are going to be very lucrative fields and they want their rich friends to cash in on it, not the taxpayer. [Just as their Medicaid prescription benefit was a huge give-away to the drug companies.] The Republicans are no more principled here than they are about anything else.

Lives will not be lost by a vote for Obama. I doubt if even a dozen more abortions will take place because of changes he puts through, yet I firmly believe that McCain’s warmongering will cost many, many lives. I believe the net gain is worth voting for.

• The Republicans have done nothing.

Why do you keep rewarding them for bad behavior? When will it be time to teach them a lesson?

Nine of the last eleven Supreme Court appointments were made by Republicans, and yet only two, Thomas and Scalia, are demonstratively pro-life.

More importantly: if I think they are lying, then why am I required to vote for them?

You have stated elsewhere that I am reluctant to mention Obama by name, and this is true. Because my message here is that the issue of abortion is not in play. I earnestly believe that no matter who we vote for the abortion issue is not going to change in the near-term. I am not trying to sway voters who favor Republican policies on the war, the economy, or any of the actual issues that are in play, to vote Democratic. I am merely point out that voting for the Republicans because you think they will do anything about abortion is a fool’s errand.

• Extremism leads to bifurcation and bad government

Back in 1952 and again in 1956 America had a choice between Adlai Stevenson and General Eisenhower. They were both decent, capable, patriotic Americans and either would have made an excellent president. They both spoke to the center, the differences between them were slight,they probably agreed on most principles and disagreed only in degree, in judgement, and in execution. And our democracy was much healthier for it.

Since then (and going into the why of this would take volumes) we have been splitting as a nation. Now we have two extremists running for office, campaigns are nasty, filled with lies,punctuated by dirty tricks. Our Supreme Court has been disgraced by its partisanship in the election of 2000.

I favor democracy, not because I believe that a majority of Americans define what is right and true, but because every dictatorship know to modern man has proven to be more repressive than any democracy. If we can’t make democracy work (as Weimar Germany, Republican Spain, or Kuomintang China couldn’t) then we are doomed to something worse.

And, democracy is the surest guarantee of religious liberty.

Compromise is the essence of the democratic process. A compromise on abortion would not only save lives, but it might just save our democracy.

Or, let’s put it this way: Stalin was pro-life; he banned all forms of abortion in the Soviet Union. Would you vote for him before Barak Obama?

• I am not like Biden or Pelosi.

I affirm the teachings of our Catholic Faith. Life begins at conception. It is a sin to destroy life. Neither Obama nor Biden represent my views on abortion. I have tried to instill in my children a horror of abortion. I have written frequently of my opposition to abortion and of my own experiences with it. I have gone to the protests, said the Rosaries, counseled my friends against it. By my efforts I have brought at least two people into the Church (both were radical feminists when I met them). I have done my best to toil in the Lord’s vineyard.

On election day I will be voting for peace and you for life, not because you don’t want peace, nor because I don’t want life, but because we both think we can get only the one and not the other.

An Answer to My Friend Rob

2008-10-24T02:44:00.002-04:30

Recently, my buddy RobK wrote a reply to one of my posts:

Dutch, I notice that you like to compromise on this issue - and convince others to do the same.

The battle over life is the most fundamental human rights battle that we have ever faced as a people. Yet, you call those who are standing up and fighting the good fight "extremists." You have defended voting for the most extreme pro-abortion presidential candidate ever put forward. You suggest supporting a law that includes the notorious "health of the mother" exception is good enough. No one could accuse you of being an extremist on the right to life. Perhaps lukewarm?

Christ was seen as an extremist. Many of the saints, particularly the martyrs, were seen as extremists. They refused to compromise the truth, the values at their core. Yet you are willing to compromise for political expediency.

My friend, your political stance on abortion is flat out wrong. Whenever I cling to something wrong (as I once did on this very issue), it was because of my own sin and my wanting to be god. What are you clinging to that lets you make this compromise? Whatever it is, I pray you can let it go. You may not recognize it, but you are doing the work of the wrong side on this.

I was very touched to get this reply, especially by the last paragraph. From what I can tell, Rob is a great guy, he runs the Catholic Dads Blogspot, which is a wonderful resource, and I don’t doubt for a minute that he wrote this to me in a spirit of genuine friendship. Being called “lukewarm” in the Pro-Life cause was quite a rebuke, one that I hope I don’t deserve; because if it is true, then I will have to answer, not to Rob, but to my maker.

Rob is right in saying that I have been urging compromise on this issue. We have been batting the issues in this campaign around for some time now, and I don’t think that they need one more re-heating. What I would like to do here is address the issue of compromise itself, and why it is necessary.

We Must Not Compromise Our Faith

Rob is quite right in pointing out that the Saints never compromised and that is why they are Saints: they rendered unto the Lord what is the Lord’s. It is my fervent hope that I am as true in my faith as even the least of God’s Saints. Though I am a sinner, I am not a blasphemer, nor an heretic, nor a schismatic. I accept in its entirety the Teaching Authority of the Church and try to form my conscience in line with its teachings on faith and morals.

In a Free Society, in fact, in order for it to be a Free Society, everyone must have absolute religious liberty and, for the most part, we have that here. Jews are allowed to run Kosher butcher shops and to refrain from working on Saturdays. Dry Baptists are never forced to drink spirituous liquors. Jehovah’s Witnesses are never forced to accept blood products. Even during Prohibition, Catholic priests were allowed to use real wine when celebrating the Mass.

The only thing that I could see that would make me refuse to compromise on some issue is if it would not allow me to practice my Catholic faith in peace.

Democratic Government is About Compromise

There are thousands of sects, denominations, cults, and independent churches in the United States and I am free to go to any one of them. However — there is only one government and I have to share that with my fellow citizens. And the way Democracy works, when it works, is to arrive at a consensus position on the pressing issues of the day that most citizens can accept. In order to be good citizens we must participate in the process of arriving at this consensus. When this process of arriving at a consensus breaks down, then democracy ceases to work and the whole system is in danger of failing.

Take for instance Prohibition. This was put through on a wave of patriotism during the Great War. There was alleged to be a grain shortage because of its diversion to make spirituous liquors, drunkenness was alleged to be dragging down productivity in war plants, and, frankly, the spirit of the times didn’t allow “wets” (ho actually formed a majority) to publicly advocate their position. So an ill-conceived law was put into place and, precisely because there was a widespread consensus against it, the result was lawlessness.

Our Democracy Has Broken Down On The Issue Of Abortion

Are you against the pill and the IUD (both of which are abortifacients)? Are you against in vitro fertilization (which usually results in one or two births for every ten fertilized blastocysts)? Of course you are, and so am I. But society is not. Support for these things is simply overwhelming, so large that no one even bothers to collect polling data on them. The civic anti-birth-control leagues mentioned in Sinclair Lewis’ Babbitt (1922) are a thing of the past. Everyone knows what Roe v. Wade is, but I doubt if even one in twenty registered voters has even heard of Griswold v. Connecticut. Will you admit that the battle here is lost?

Surely, you are not holding out for a candidate who is against every crime against the un-born, are you? No — you realize that an overwhelming majority of Americans want birth control and IVF, too many to be denied, and that they will have them. Similarly, a supermajority of Americans favors first Trimester Abortion.

But as soon as you get to third, or even second trimester abortion, support vanishes and even larger majorities favor outlawing these particularly horrific practices.

So why then do our laws not reflect this? A quick look at abortion law around the world shows ours to be the most liberal. Most countries have rather tight restrictions on late-term abortion, yet we do not, and I believe that this is because our democratic system has broken down on this issue.

The Democratic party is held hostage to a fanatical feminist pro-abort faction who will not stand to see the law changed, while the Republican party gives lip-service to the social conservatives that make up their coalition, while most Americans want this issue to be resolved with a compromise position (according to polls, only 29% feel there is no room for compromise on this issue).

Since we probably have no chance of getting an out-and-out ban on abortion, why not try to get a ban on late-term abortion? After all — it might just save a few babies!

Would A Ban On Abortion Be Effective?

Many years ago, I met a very nice, very carefully brought up, filthy rich widow. She told me that back when she was young, in the 1920’s, that girls in her “set” were so woefully ignorant of birth control that they just got pregnant and when to their society gynecologist for a “menstrual extraction.” She had had several of these, and it was years before she realized that this was just the polite euphemism for an abortion. Quite illegal at the time. You see — the rich have always had their abortions. The poor have always had them too, though usually at a higher cost in mortality. And we should add that a survey of Chicago Police blotters from the first three decades of the last century revealed that the most common form of homicide in Chicago at that time was infanticide. That’s right, even during the lawless days of Prohibition gang-wars, half of all murders in Chicago were committed on the newborn.

Abortion is completely banned in Chile, El Salvador, and the Philippines, yet they have some of the highest abortion rates in the world. Belgium, which has laws almost as liberal as ours, has the lowest.

Ask yourself: how best can we save babies? By enacting a lot of laws that will be dodged? Or by trying to change the culture?

We Must Change the Culture

We cannot vote in a new culture. We cannot vote away lust, or promiscuity, or the glamour of evil. These things are the fruit of the soil of culture. Movies, television, novels, popular songs — these are the things that shape the morals of a nation, not the ballot box.

Back when we were kids, broadcasters had a sense of public responsibility. Pre-marital sex was taken to be forbidden, a lot of “flesh” was not shown on TV, bastardy was stigmatized, criminal behavior was not glamorized, drugs were understood to be soul destroying. Now — I guess anything goes.

Okay — I don’t know what we can do about the pervasive degradation of our culture, but I do know that’s where the problem lies and, in a democratic society, we can’t change cultural attitudes at the ballot box.

The Failure of Democracy Is Possible

In July of 1932 the elections in Germany brought 319 Communist and Nazi deputies into the German Reichstag. This was more than half. This meant that a majority of deputies were committed to destroying the system, and that’s just what happened. By January of 1933 Hitler was Chancellor. It took him just over a year to completely dismantle German democracy. The extremists had won.

Now, I’m pro-life, but I’m not an extremist. Yes, I accept the Church’s teachings on this. Yes, I want abortion to be banned. In fact, I have an horror of abortion. But I am also well aware that the public does not agree with me on this.

We are, in this country, becoming very polarized. From my point of view (and, yes, this is a Democratic point of view) I am shocked at what I am seeing. Virulent postings on YouTube accusing Obama of not being an American citizen, of being a crypto-Moslem, of being in league with terrorists. I hear the shouts of people at McCain and Palin rallies calling for Obama to be killed, and don’t hear either candidate denounce such threats. I remember how the election of 2000 was essentially stolen by the Supreme Court and how Kerry, who had actually served in Vietnam, was slandered by Swift Boat Veterans as a coward, while Bush, a draft dodger, was let off.

A few weeks ago there was an ugly crowd in front of Chicago’s historic Water Tower. They held placards that said, “Don’t Make It the Black House” (try telling me that isn’t racist!) and they were yelling at anyone with an Obama button: “Baby Killer!” (Rob, would you yell that at someone? Anyone?)

What this country needs to do is to come together.

Not everyone who supports the war is a genocidal imperialist, any more than people who want peace are in league with the terrorists.

People who favor social justice are not fostering “class envy,” any more than people who are concerned about economic growth are merely being selfish.

And — there are people of good will on both sides of the abortion divide.

What Is To Be Done

I don’t think that any vote I could make this fall will end abortion, but I do think that we can vote for, and get, peace.

I, for one, am voting for peace.

Rob — I hope that this analysis has clarified my thinking to you, perhaps even made you see that I am not “lukewarm” about being pro-life, but whatever you think, please let us remain friends in Christ.

Top 10 reasons not to see The Da Vinci Code

2008-10-20T16:48:00.001-04:30

Leaving mass yesterday, I mentioned to my buddy John Jansen that I had been one of the people who went to protest the opening of The Da Vinci Code movie a few years back. I told him I had compiled a list of Top ten reasons not to see The Da Vinci Code and protested with them listed on a big sign. John thought the idea was hilarious and asked to see the list.

Here it is:

Top ten reasons not to see The Da Vinci Code:

10] No one looks good in a mullet, not even Tom Hanks.
9] An albino villain is just not “PC.”
8] “Mrs. Jesus?” That’s not even in the Gnostic Gospels!
7] Seeing Audrey Tautou in this will ruin “Amélie.”
6] The Priory of Zion is Pierre Plantard’s hoax, but the Priory of Brion is Robert Plant’s new band.
5] You already wasted $24.95 on the book, why send good money after bad?
4] “Andy, you’ve got to do something! Opie’s gone and made a blasphemous movie!”
3] Tom + Audrey = all the chemistry of “Gigli!”
2] You’re going to see that when “Hoot” is on the other screen?
1] Why risk damnation over a lousy movie?

What does Judie Brown want?

2008-10-14T17:21:00.003-04:30

Judie Brown is, for all pro-lifers, a very familiar name. She is not only the founder of the American Life League, but she is a widely published writer whose opinions frequently appear in Catholic and (conservative publications. I have written before about her "no compromise" stance on abortion and now I feel compelled to write again.

In 2006, a strong anti-abortion measure was put on the ballot in South Dakota and soundly defeated, loosing 55 to 45%. Anti-abortion activists responded by introducing Measure 11, a ballot initiative that would restrict abortion, making exceptions for the health of the mother, rape, and incest. The idea being that perhaps voters would accept a more lenient law than the one that was proposed two years ago.

(Think about it: this is how democracy works. Responsible statesmen look for compromises that most of the people will accept and then enact those compromises into law. It is authoritarian systems that dictate to the people what public policy will be in complete disregard of public opinion.)

Now, to my mind, this compromise saves babies. Sure, some abortions will be allowed, but many, if not most, will not. For that matter, even if only one baby would be saved, I would support this measure.

But Judie Brown and South Dakota Right to Life think differently. Judie Brown has written:

What this measure exemplifies is surrender to political polling and public opinion that will cost the lives of — only God knows how many — preborn children. It has always been my view that we who are leaders in the pro-life movement are supposed to set a standard of hope, confidence in truth and joy in defending it, regardless of polls, politics or pundits.

And regardless of political realities as well?

Does Judie Brown really think that voting for this measure will cost the lives of more pre-born children than voting against it? Is she delusional? Perhaps this measure is not perfect, but it is undeniably an improvement over the way things are now! Perhaps a stronger measure would be better, but what is to prevent us from voting in these restrictions now and then voting in additional restrictions later?

But no extremist ever favors a workable compromise, do they?

I suspect that what Judie Brown really fears is that a substantial improvement in the abortion laws would simply make the issue go away, and would make her leadership in the pro-life movement irrelevant, and that she likes being a demagogue more than she cherishes the lives of babies.

106-year-old Nun to vote for Obama

2008-10-14T01:48:00.001-04:30

"I'm encouraged by Senator Obama," Sister Cecilia Gaudette, a member of the Religious Sisters of Jesus and Mary born on March 25, 1902. "I've never met him, but he seems to be a good man with a good private life. That's the first thing. Then he must be able to govern." Asked about her hopes for the US under an Obama presidency, she says: "Peace abroad. I don't worry about the Iraq war because I can't do anything about it. Lord knows how it will end."

Gaudette said the last time she voted in an American presidential election was in 1952 and she cast her ballot for President Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican.

Total Disaster?

2008-10-11T18:40:00.000-04:30

From time-to-time I check out Catholic pro-life activist Matt C. Abbott’s blog. Recently he posted the following quote:

"It would be a total disaster if Obama were elected — abortion and homosexuality will go totally out of control. I understand that John McCain is not a perfect candidate, but if we don't stop Obama, he will put the nail in the coffin."
— Father James Farfaglia,
pastor of St. Helena of the True Cross of Jesus
Catholic Church in Corpus Christi, Texas

Now, “total disaster” brings to mind catastrophes along the lines of Hurricane Katrina, where lives and property are destroyed by an irresistible force, and calling an Obama presidency a “disaster” is well past hyperbole. Let’s look at the record.

Roe v. Wade makes just about every abortion, under any circumstance, legal. Unless we allow post-birth infanticide I really don’t see how things could be worse. And have the Republicans done anything about this? Aside from nuisance laws and completely marginal regulations (the Partial-Birth Abortion ban hasn’t prevented a single abortion) they have done nothing for the last thirty years. The record makes clear that we cannot expect McCain to actually do anything about abortion, and I don’t see how an Obama presidency would change anything about the status of abortion in America.

Homosexuality totally out of control? Like what — it’s illegal now? Does the good pastor really think that allowing same-sex marriage (which, for the record, I am against) would make homosexuality so attractive that myriads of otherwise straight men and women would go gay all of the sudden? Sure, social pressure can restrain homosexuality, but there is also a saturation point where all of those with homoerotic desires are “out” and active, and we have reached that point. Further liberalization would do nothing to increase the numbers of homosexuals and we cannot legislate a social climate that would bring back the social mores of the 1950’s.

How about the banking crisis? Is that a disaster? People are losing their homes and jobs, after all. Almost forty years of de-regulation, of dismantling the safety mechanisms that were put in by the New Deal has led to wild speculation and an inevitable crash. McCain promises us more of the same, would that be a disaster?

The war — that’s a disaster, isn’t it? Some 4,000 Americans lives wasted so far in a war based on lies and deception. McCain promises us another hundred years of imperialist adventuring, would that be a disaster?

Nearly 47 million Americans are without health insurance and this undoubtedly leads to higher rates of morbidity and mortality. Our for-profit healthcare system has left 16 percent of our population without access to health care, yet costs twice as much as the single-payer systems that every other civilized nation has. Yet McCain wants “the market” to solve this problem. How many have to die before that’s considered a disaster?

By The Numbers

2008-10-10T02:08:00.000-04:30

Here is a chart of the composition of the Supreme Court by party affiliation since Roe v. Wade in 1973:

You will note that it was then, and has remained, overwhelmingly Republican. That's right — Roe v. Wade was put through by a court that was 2/3 Republican! Since then, the balance has gotten even more lop-sided, why, there was a period there when Byron White was the only Democrat on the court!

So — do you expect me to believe that one more Republican appointed justice might just tip the balance? That we have to vote Republican to keep the Supreme Court from "going Democratic?"

Let me assure you that, based on the record, we can count on Republican justices to:

• Not over-turn Roe v. Wade. (e.g. McCorvey v. Hill)

• Undermine the rights of citizens to sue corporations ( e.g. Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc.)

• Undermine our Bill of Rights (e.g. ACLU v. NSA)

• Steal elections from the people (e.g. Bush v. Gore)

The Martyr's Secret

2008-09-15T21:27:00.001-04:30

"Men who love a crucified God need never think of torture as all-powerful."

— Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh

Douglas W. Kmiec on the "Pro Life" Republican Party

2008-09-10T17:26:00.001-04:30

I regret to say the current Republican Party thrives on demonizing its opposition to win elections ... Talking strongly pro-life, Republicans often do little, promising that some judge not yet appointed is the answer or advocating leaving it all up to the states to decide, seldom acknowledging that many, perhaps most, states would end embedding the "legal status" of abortion.

Douglas W. Kmiec is Professor of Constitutional Law at Pepperdine University School of Law. He headed the Office of Legal Counsel for both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He was Dean and St. Thomas More Professor of the law school at Catholic University of America (2000-2003). For nearly twenty years he was a member of the law faculty at the University of Notre Dame from 1980 to 1999. he founded the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy.

Eucharistic Crimes and Misdemeanors

2008-09-05T21:37:00.002-04:30

About two weeks ago PZ Myers, a biology professor from Michigan, carried out his threat to desecrate the Holy Eucharist and then bragged about it on his blog. He sent a nail though it and then tossed it in the trash along with a few pages of the Koran. (I’ll give him points for daring — desecrating the Koran has become a risky business lately.) I’m not one to quibble with him either, as some have done, he probably did get his hands on a bona fide Host. Given the laxity of liturgy in most parishes nowadays, it would be a simple thing for someone to accept Communion in the hand, palm the genuine Host and, by simple ruse, appear to have consumed it.

This just makes me sad and confused.

Sad, not only for Jesus whose sufferings have been compounded by this sacrilege, but sad for a man so consumed with an hatred for religion that he feels compelled to pull such loathsome stunts.

Confused, because when I was godless, I never had any quarrel with religion. Nor did any of my atheist friends. Most of the people who seemed to have a real issue with religion were self-identified “recovering Catholics,” or ex-Evangelicals or Pentecostals, all of whom had either a lingering belief in God or professed that “my problem isn’t with God it’s with what men do to him.” These people were not genuine atheist and Mr. Myers is behaving like them, not like the genuinely disinterested godless, which leads me to suspect that Myers is really angry at a God he claims not to believe in.

Meyers professes an hatred for religion because of its alleged baneful effects upon society, yet any objective analysis would have to conclude otherwise. Churchgoing has long been associated (especially in the Black community) with high levels of temperance, clean living, and a good work ethic. Most of our hospitals and universities were founded as religious institutions. Charitable giving is highest among the churched, and, unlike Islam and other proselytizing faiths, most Christian churches have always associated works of mercy with their evangelical efforts. Christianity has worked for the abolition of slavery not once, but twice (at the end of the Roman Empire as well as after its reintroduction by Moslems in the fifteenth century). Christianity was the first belief system that accepted women as being of equal worth with men, abolished human sacrifice wherever it encountered it, and postulated that rulers had moral obligations to their charges.

So what does he say about his actions?

He begins by mentioning that the Forth Lateran Council saying that “This is the event where many of their important dogmas were codified, including the ideas … that the Eucharist was the sacrament that only properly ordained priests of the Catholic church could give, and that the Jews were a pariah people, who could hold no public office, had to pay a special Jew tax for their right to exist, and were required to wear special clothing to distinguish them from Christians.” This statement is both false and misleading.

It is false because it had always been the case that only ordained priests could confect the Eucharist. The actual work of the council was in affirming that Transubstantiation is the mechanism of confection (as opposed to Consubstantiation or simply being an incomprehensible mystery).

It is misleading for two reasons, the first being that he implies, without actually stating, that belief in the Real Presence was an innovation brought in by the Forth Lateran Council and represents a “change” in doctrine. In point of fact, before the Protestant “Reformation,” every Christian denomination believed in the “Real Presence.”

Furthermore, Catholic doctrine on matters of faith and morals can never change, so it is disingenuous to equate this theological definition with a change in mere practice, which he does by mentioning the injunctions against the Jews in the same sentence.

For the record, we should also point out that these injunctions against the Jews were a Christian incorporation of Moslem practice. Moslems had since the days of the Prophet segregated every society they controlled by forcing non-believers to wear distinctive badges, hats, or medallions, and it was only for a brief time that the Church required this.

Myers then goes on to accuse the Church of inventing “stories of Jews and witches taking the communion host to torture … None of the stories were true, of course,” which makes one wonder of Mr. Myers has ever met an adolescent. From rolling your joints out of Bible pages to fornicating with the pastor’s daughter in the choir loft, profanity and sacrilege have always been one of the reliable tropes of adolescent pranks. Is it really beyond Mr. Myer’s imagining that no one, from 1215 to the present day, has stolen a consecrated Host and defiled it for mere amusement or to prove to his companions what a daring reckless fellow he was? And what about the petty ways that oppressed peoples strike back at their oppressors. Just as blacks in segregation days probably spat in the food they cooked for whites, or called them “honkey” behind their backs, or subverted the system in a thousand petty ways, I am absolutely certain that Medieval Jews from time to time stole the Body of Christ and defiled it. Why not? Even if it meant nothing to them, it was a cheap and easy way of getting back at the Goyim. And when you put these two trends together? What makes more sense than a teenage Jew desecrating the Host to impress his buddies? [Furthermore, it is axiomatic that anyone doing the Devil’s work is a de facto witch. Thus, anyone desecrating an Host is, ipso facto, that thing secular humanists like to insist don’t exist, a witch.]

Myers then goes on to give us a laundry list of persecutions allegedly brought on by specious claims of Host desecration that, naturally, he dismisses as “superstition.” What about xenophobia? Jews were, after all, a foreign element in European society and xenophobia is the normal situation for virtually every society on the face of the planet. Only in late, decadent periods (Egypt after the 18th Dynasty, the Neo-Babylonian Empire, Hellenistic Greece / Imperial Rome, Han China, Carvakan India, Umayyad Spain, Modern Europe) are so indifferent to their own cultural heritage as to not be bothered with xenophobia. While not a good thing in itself, xenophobia is actually a sigh of an healthy society and should not be condemned in such an out of hand manner.

Myers concludes this list with the snotty observation “the last time a Catholic nation rose up to slaughter its non-Christian citizenry was a whole 70 years ago” thus blaming Christians for the genocide perpetrated by the pagan Nazis.

Next Myers deals with his critics many of whom have been writing in with hateful e-mails, letters, and pipe-bombs. Wait, no, there weren’t any pipe-bombs! Scratch that — I guess what I meant to say was prayers. Yes — Myers critics hate him so much that they are actually praying for him! Mark Sutton and Jim Nicholson both wrote letters cited by Professor Myers in which they have the effrontery to pray for him! Surely there must be some hate crime law prohibiting this loathsome sort of activity! This simply goes to prove Myers’ conclusion: “that religion breeds the most disgustingly vile haters in our country.”

Then he deals with poor Isaac who has the temerity to assert: “As a Christian it is an insult for anyone to call my beliefs stupid shit.” Myers goes on for a whole paragraph about how Isaac is somehow “closed minded” because he takes offence at his beliefs being called “stupid.” Now, last time I checked, “insult” meant “to treat with insolence, indignity, or contempt,” and that’s just what Myers has done. And he’s free to do so. We live in a free country and he’s free to insult anyone he chooses. But, as the purpose of an insult it to offend, it is rather disingenuous of Professor Myers to then act as if he’s been a gentleman all along, don’t you think?

It’s just tiresome, isn’t it? Myers trying to “prove” that religion is false when the whole point of religion is faith — that which cannot be proven. Pity the poor man who will never understand the words of Saint Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney:

“I often think that even if there were no other life than this one, it would be enough happiness just to love God here and to do something for his glory.”
— The Curé d’Ars and the Love of God

Very Effective

2008-09-05T15:25:00.000-04:30

A tip o' the hat to John Jansen who found this first.

Ex-Voto de 1662

2008-09-03T21:24:00.001-04:30

On my one visit to Paris I set aside a whole day to see the Louvre. Wife-Mate and Pumpkin accompanied me in the morning, but in the afternoon they went shopping and left me with 6-month-old Pod-Man to see the more obscure galleries. As you go up from floor to floor, the ceilings get lower, the paintings smaller, and the artists more obscure. I was probably on the third floor when I stumbled upon this painting tucked away in a section full of the court painters of the Seventeenth Century.

I stopped absolutely dumb-struck: this painting was obviously about a miracle! I was touched to the core by how immediate, profoundly, and clearly this came to me. Unfortunately, when you get that far from the touristy first floor, all of the signs are in French, but, just the same, I pulled out my notebook and wrote down: Ex-Voto de 1662 / Philippe de Champaigne.

When I got home, I checked it out, and Ex-Voto de 1662 is indeed a votive offering (or ex-voto) by the painter Philippe de Champaigne which depicts the miraculous cure of his daughter that occurred at the Port-Royal de Paris Cistercian convent. In the painting, a ray of light illuminates Mother-Superior Agnès Arnauld, who experienced on the ninth day of her novena for Champaigne's daughter, Sister Catherine Ste. Suzanne, the hope that a cure would come for Sister Catherine. Catherine (seated, praying) was the painter's only surviving child, and had been suffering from a paralyzing illness. Until that point, prayer and medical treatments ("potions, baths, unctions, and thirty bleedings") had proven futile. After the Mother-Superior's novena, Sister Catherine soon attempted to walk, and found herself increasingly mobile; the illness no longer seemed present.

The painting includes a Latin inscription on the wall on the left of the painting. Neither the text nor the lettering were Champaigne's work.

        CHRISTO VNI MEDICO
     ANIMARVM ET CORPORVM

  SOROR CATHARINA SVSANNA DE
  CHAMPAIGNE POST FEBREM 14 MENSI
  VM CONTVMACIA ET MAGNITVDINE
  SYMPTOMATVM MEDICIS FORMIDATAM
  INTERCEPTO MOTV DIMIDII FERE COR
  PORIS NATVRA IAM FATISCENTE MEDICIS
  CEDENTIBVS IVNCTIS CVM MATRE
  CATHARINA AGNETE PRECIBVS PVNCTO
  TEMPORIS PERFECTAM SANITATEM
  CONSECVTA SE ITERVM OFFERT.

  PHILLIPVS DE CHAMPAIGNE HANC
  IMAGINEM TANTI MIRACVLI ET
     LAETITAE SVAE TESTEM
           APPOSVT
           AO 1662

The inscription, addressed to Christ, tells that Sister Catherine suffered for 14 months from a high fever and that half her body was paralyzed. She prayed with Mother Agnès and her health was restored, and again she offered herself to Christ. Champaigne offers the painting as a testament to this miracle and to express his joy.

This is one of the most amazing works of art that I have ever seen. Even reproductions, which do not ever capture the supernatural luminosity of the actual painting, never fail to touch me deeply. It reminds us always to trust in God's mercy and to renounce our attachment to worldly things.

A Word of Advice to Pro-Aborts

2008-08-19T09:24:00.000-04:30

Outside of church, most people I know are “Pro-Choice” and, because I’m pretty left on most issues, they simply assume that I am too. My church teaches that life begins at conception and, as I am very earnest about my faith and my duty to God, I accept this teaching. Now, as I am a good citizen I am interested in politics and, as I am intellectually honest, I will listen to all sides of an issue with an open mind. In the spirit of being helpful, and in furthering better political debate, I’m going to offer Pro-Aborts a little advice on how to try to change people’s minds on this issue.

1] Until You Prove Otherwise, The Issue Is Murder.

Just saying, “I don’t think a blob of tissue is a person” doesn’t really do much to change my mind. Go on, make a case here. Draw the line in the sand and defend it. When does life begin? Give me some reasons. You just might be able to defend the notion that life begins at quickening, why don’t you try? But just pretending that the things pregnant women carry around in their bellies aren’t babies isn’t really an argument.

2] The Issue Isn’t Choice As Long As It Is Murder.

Frequently, I hear pro-aborts say things like: “If you’re against abortion, then don’t have one,” or “I trust women to make their own choices about abortion.” Let’s just go back to the idea (still not dis-proven) that abortion is murder and look at those statements again:

— “If you’re against murder, then don’t kill anyone.”

— “I trust women to make their own choices about murder.”

Plainly, these statements are beyond nonsensical and well into being idiotic. I think murder should be illegal, not because I don’t wish to commit it (I do, send for my proposed “hit list”), but because I do not wish to see myself nor my family murdered. Similarly, I don’t trust anyone to “make their own choices” about murder.

3] The Responsibility For All Of Those “Unwanted” Babies Belongs To Their Parents, Not To Society, Nor To Pro-lifers Personally.

Many is the time that I have heard pro-aborts say “Well, if those anti-choice people are so concerned about all of those babies, then why don’t they adopt them,” and the answer is, they do. I personally know a family of seventeen, most of them adopted, three of them adoptees with Down’s Syndrome. Go to my parish and it’s not hard to spot a few of these families, because they are the ones with black and white children sitting together in the pews. Furthermore, these are couples adopting American babies (with all of their problems of crack addiction, low birth weight, and pre-natal neglect), unlike the Yuppies who go overseas to get a “healthy baby.”

Secondly, linking “support for single moms” to abortion is a red herring. The idea that people should take care of themselves and the “problems” they have made for themselves without expecting government assistance is a perfectly defensible moral position. Everyone knows where babies come from, everyone knows how to avoid having them, and there’s no hypocrisy in saying that murder is not a legitimate way of avoiding parental responsibility.

4] There Is No Equating Abortion With The Death Penalty.

“If these anti-choice people are so ‘pro-life,’ then why do they favor the death penalty; isn’t that killing too?” Well — maybe because murderers are guilty and babies are innocent? Is it really that tough to see the difference? I don’t favor the death penalty, but I have no trouble seeing this distinction. Furthermore, I challenge anyone to come up with a plausible moral justification for a system that protects the guilty and slaughters the innocent.

5] Abortion Is A Woman’s Issue And Men Shouldn’t Have Any Say In It.

Kind of like saying spousal abuse is a man’s issue, isn’t it? I mean — shouldn’t we trust men to make their own choices about beating their wives? If you’re against spousal abuse, then don’t do it.

Or is injustice a human issue?

6] You Can Be A Good Catholic And Be “Pro-Choice.”

Saying “I know plenty of good Catholics who are pro-choice” is about on par with saying “I know plenty of good vegetarians who eat steak.” Church teaching is very clear on this and, once you deviate you have ceased to be Catholic. (Sorry.)

7] Religion Should Be Kept Out Of Politics.

Agreed! The purpose of government is to maintain public order by regulation of conduct, not thought or belief.

The nature of the Trinity, the matter of the Real Presence, or the validity of Apostolic Succession are religious questions that are rightly left to the individual conscience.

Murder, however, is a matter of conduct and thus well within the purview of government.

So — there you have it! Just change my mind on abortion being murder and then we can talk about all that other stuff.

A New Life Begins!

2008-08-13T04:26:00.000-04:30

The best news from my best friend!

My Best Friend

2008-08-08T13:47:00.000-04:30

My best friend got married last week.

When I met her some five years ago, she was the friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, totally secular, and a man-hating feminist. Since then she has found God, become Catholic, converted a nice fellow to Catholicism, and married him.

You cannot begin to understand how happy I am for her.

Can there be any doubt at this late date?

2008-07-28T17:46:00.001-04:30

“…a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner who he should surround with care and affection.”

— Pope Paul VI,
Humanæ Vitæ

The Sin of Presumption

2008-07-17T13:52:00.004-04:30

I would like to begin with four examples:

• Wife-Mate used to work in an office with an older woman who was very “fashion conscious.” This woman was always buying clothes, wearing them once or twice, and then giving them away to her co-workers. She gave Wife-Mate things from time to time which she would accept politely and then never wear. Finally, after giving her a black scarf covered with perfectly hideous orange and tan polka-dots, she asked why Wife-Mate never wore any of the things she gave her.

Trying to be diplomatic, Wife-Mate answered, “I usually wear black.”

“But everything I’ve given you has black in it!”

It was only then that Wife-Mate explained that it wasn’t so much that she liked black, as that she hated being colorful.

• When we were first married I caused quite a number of spills in the refrigerator. I would reach over the things of the front of the shelf and grab something, like pickles, by the lid, lift it up, and then the lid would come loose and there would be pickle juice all over the shelf. Each time this would happen I would curse Wife-Mate for being too lazy to screw lids on properly as I cleaned up the mess.

Finally, one day, Wife-Mate asked me why I screwed on jar lids so tight that she could never get them loose.

• One dark winter evening about two years ago, I was leaving work. As I went up the stairs, I could see a young black fellow hanging around the front entrance to my building. He was probably trying to sneak into the building so I began to think through how I was going to get out the door without letting him in. I figured that I would open the door just a crack, slip out, and tell the fellow that he would have to be buzzed in by using the intercom. However, this fellow proved to be quite bold. As soon as I opened the door a crack, he yanked it right open and tried to bolt in before I could stop him. I was about to block him, when I realized that it was Barack Obama. He was there to see a political consultant whose offices were in my building.

• I go to anti-war protests as often as I can. Usually, in fact almost always, there are protestors with signs along the lines of “Keep Abortion Legal.” If you confront these people and ask them why they’re bringing abortion signs to an anti-war rally, they will usually answer something like, “The same people who got us into this war want to oppress us at home by taking our rights away!”

What’s going on here is a sin we don’t often think of: the sin of presumption. When we act on assumptions about other people’s intentions and motivations we fall into venal sin even if these assumptions are correct. Presumption is a sin against charity when we assume the worst of people and at this point becomes a mortal sin. This is a tricky situation, because we often need to act upon assumptions and are not in a position to discern the truth. Sure I tell my kids to keep away from strangers, and yeah my guard is up whenever I’m approached by young black men, because that’s the prudent thing to do. But it is also not the Christian thing to do. The best we can usually hope to do is to assume the best motivations for our friends, give the benefit of the doubt to strangers, question our stereotypes before we act upon them, talk things over whenever possible, and remember to confess this sin frequently.

POSTSCRIPT: A few years ago there was a peace march down State Street. Before we began, I confronted a woman about her “Keep Abortion Legal” sign and she called me a hypocrite for “.. pretending to be for human rights when you’re not against patriarchy!”

At that point I let it drop. But later two older black women who were walking down State Street pointed at the home-made sign I was carrying that said: “Christian morality cannot justify a war with Iraq!” — Pope Benedict XVI.

One of them came over to me and said, “I like your sign!”

So I pointed to the abortion sign and asked, “What do you think of that sign?”

She just made a nasty scowl and shook her head.

I guess I just presumed she would, huh?

Pray the Rosary, wear the Scapular!

2008-07-16T19:58:00.000-04:30

Post-modern Vignette #1

2008-07-14T21:29:00.002-04:30

When Ed Sullivan heard there was a nun who had gained some popularity singing in Brussels, he was on the next plane over. He brought back Janine Deckers, an actual Dominican nun known as Sœur Sourire (“Sister Smile”) who played folk guitar, sang in French, and got about Brussels on a motor-scooter. After appearing on the Sullivan Show, Sister Sourire’s “Dominique” became a hit-record, peaking on the pop charts at #1 during Christmas week of 1963. That year she won a Grammy award for “Best Gospel or Religious Recording” and later Debbie Reynolds portrayed her in a ﬁlm biography.

But the same year the ﬁlm was made, Deckers become disenchanted with religious life, leaving the Fichermont Convent (before having taken ﬁnal vows) in October of 1966. Though she claimed to have donated all of her royalties to her convent, the Belgian government nonetheless held her liable for as much as $63,000- in back taxes. Now recording under her own name, Deckers tried vainly to duplicate her earlier success, producing such oddities as “Glory Be To God For The Golden Pill” and an updated electronic version of “Dominique” twenty years after the original.

Having faded into obscurity, Sister Sourire made headlines once again in March of 1985, when she was found dead of a massive overdose of barbiturates and alcohol in her modest apartment in Wavre, Belgium.

Anne Pecher, for twenty years the lesbian lover of Janine Deckers, was found with her.

Also dead from an immense quantity of goof-balls washed down with booze.

The Janus Face of Marriage

2008-07-08T03:15:00.000-04:30

The other day I was in the smallest room in the house, awaiting developments, and the only thing in the room to read was my oldest daughter’s magazine: Jane. I don’t know exactly what sort of magazine Jane is supposed to be, but I gathered that it’s for women who are less slutty and career oriented than those that read Cosmo, but looser and more materialistic than those who read Redbook. I flipped around looking for something that might hold my interest. As I am not interested in “coordinating my summer look,” nor in “break-up etiquette,” I finally settled on “tips for your wedding.” I got married once — that’s something I can relate to.

Of course it was all froth. All about dresses, caterers, snazzy new drinks you could serve (as if the cocktail was not perfected with the Rye Highball). Nothing about what sort of service one might have (Novus Ordo, Tridentine, or Sarum Rule), information about N.F.P., nor even a ringing denunciation of pastel tuxedos.

All of this lather was interlarded with quips “from real brides.” One of these was almost shocking in its physiognomic truth:

“Keep the dress on as long as possible. When you take the dress off, the magic day is over.”

Wow!

This statement sums up so much of what I hear about marriage today. The overwhelming sentiment of new wives seems to be that they “feel trapped.” I hear it from my friends, read it in women’s magazines (though not girl’s magazines like Jane), listen as it is discussed by so-called experts on T.V,. Men too, complain about the effects of this, saying that their wife “isn’t the girl I married,” “isn’t fun anymore,” and in general has a vague discontent that cannot be addressed nor got rid of.

And why shouldn’t this be the case? Marriage is the end of something now. It is the end of freedom, and sexual variety, and having your own way. Instead of gaining a companion, women feel as if they have forever compromised themselves, must ever afterwards take into consideration the opinions of another, until the end of their days have to fight to preserve their autonomy as persons lest they be sucked into the trap of becoming a “dependent woman.” And they chafe at this. They hold back at the consummation of this commitment, delaying children sometimes for years after marriage. Finances, the real power in a capitalist society (and we are a capitalist, not patriarchal society), are kept strictly separated. Modern women keep their own names, as if “Jones” or “Williams” were more special than “Johnson” or “Weinberger”. They dedicate themselves to their work, as if these pathetic jobs constituted a “career.” [For the record: I have a job, my wife has a job, Plácido Domingo has a career.] Except for the indulgence of allowing themselves to become fat, very few women seem to find any tangible benefit to actually being married. If they marry reliable consorts, they lament that he is “boring,” yet if the fellow is creative and fun-loving, then they complain that he won’t “settle down.” If he tries to be the head of household, then he is “domineering” and this breeds resentment, yet if he concedes this role to her, then he is unworthy of her respect.

Am I painting a familiar picture?

But in times past, marriage was the beginning of something. It was the beginning of life’s two great adventures: sexuality and family formation. It was most definitely the end of innocence and the coming into a woman’s estate. Life — with all of it’s burdens, joys, tribulations, suffering, and satisfactions replaced the sweet innocence of youth where the worst mistake one might make would be to wear the same dress to prom as your rival.

Virginity is made fun of now as being a naïve affectation, and yet it had its rewards. Never, would the virgin bride be able to compare her husband to another lover as our modern bride undoubtedly does. (Men are even worse about this, as they crave variety in a way that women don’t.) Sex isn’t anything new on most wedding nights now, in fact it is usually something quite old by then. And, when it isn’t any better after the wedding, there is bound to be a sentimental disappointment. Marriage demands that your spouse be everything to you, but how can that be when he is simply one among many?

Of course, in the traditional Christian understanding of marriage as a life-long commitment, monogamy was not a trap, but a system for keeping the couple together. No relationship nor person is perfect, and even the most compatible couples are bound to quarrel from time to time, but you can’t stay mad at the only person in the whole world who can give you sexual bliss. Pretty soon, you have to make up, the sexual urge forces you to reconcile, and reconcile with a passion. Once love and commitment are dissociated from sex, then sex cannot force the reconciliations that every relationship must need from time to time.

Fortunately, there are still some bright spots out there. My friend Moira will be getting married in August. She rejoices that her husband will never have another woman to compare her with, that she will be all and everything to him. She has waited chastely for a long time and says this chastity has made her realize just how much she loves her betrothed. When I read to her the comment about the magic being gone when a bride takes off the dress, she just laughed out loud and said: “When I take off my dress — that’s when the magic begins!”

Why You Should Carry a Rosary: part 2

2008-07-07T12:17:00.003-04:30

Four more reasons to carry a Rosary:

1] It is an effective façade when you need to be alone. Last Sunday I went to confession and had to do penance, so I went out on the front steps of the church, pulled out my Rosary, and began to pray. The prayers actually had nothing to do with the Rosary, I just knew that if I were fingering a Rosary and looking off into the distance, that no one would come up and bother me. I have found this to be very effective: pull out a Rosary and people will leave you alone. I often use the Rosary as a smoke-screen when I simply want to be left alone with my thoughts.

This doesn’t work with my little Bean-Girl however, as she will simply come up and say the Rosary with me.

2] It is a symbol of Catholic solidarity. A few years ago, a local newspaper published a particularly nasty anti-Catholic cartoon and so the Blue Army organized a protest. There were about sixty of us gathered on the street opposite the paper’s offices, several speakers addressed us, and then we ended with the Rosary. Let me tell you that it felt really good to be able to pull out my everyday Rosary (a nasty pink plastic thing that has the crucifix re-attached with a safety-pin) and pray with them. Almost everyone had a Rosary too and I’ll bet the people that didn’t felt a little out of place, kind of like they’d dropped the ball.

When my daughter was stuck in traffic behind a car crash with Mrs. Hamilton, and Mrs. Hamilton pulled out her Rosary to pray for anyone who might have been hurt, Bean-Girl knew to pray along. And when traffic began moving again, Bean-Girl counted the decades on her fingers for Mrs. Hamilton.

And if, God forbid, I should be the poor fellow in that traffic accident some day, I trust that someone will find my Rosary in my pocket and know to call for a priest.

3] It offends the right people. I know this is a bad reason, an uncharitable reason, perhaps even an un-Christian reason, but you and I both know that there is a certain kind of Catholic-hating Protestant out there who is really bugged by the Rosary. I live right by Moody Bible Institute and I often used to be approached by earnest young Evangelicals asking if I had made Jesus my “Personal Savior.” That stopped when I began taking my Rosary walks through their campus from time to time.

4] The Rosary as a Lullaby. My sweet friend (and new mom) Maggie Lee left me a message about the Rosary and I think it’s worth repeating here:

Praying the rosary is so satisfying. And it will lull a baby to sleep after all else fails. I walked Michael up and down the floor many nights when we first came home and would say the Rosary after even the tried and true "Sh-boom" wouldn't get him to sleep.

The Devil is Sterile

2008-06-25T22:11:00.001-04:30

My son and I spend Sunday evenings watching classic films. Recently we’ve seen "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” and “They Made Me a Criminal.” The idea here is not just to see old films, but to see cinematically important films, and so, when my son suggested “Rosemary’s Baby,” I went right down to the library and got it. It’s important for several reasons; it’s the first “Hollywood” film by Polish director Roman Polanski, it’s one of the first films that combines psychological horror (like “Psycho”) with actual supernatural events (like “Dracula”), it’s the last film produced by William Castle, it features notable performances by John Cassavetes and Mia Farrow.

The whole trick of the film is that you are not supposed to be sure what the witches are up to until the end of the film. Most of the evidence is that they want to offer up Rosemary’s baby as a human sacrifice but, if you pay close attention, there is also the possibility that she is going to have the Devil’s child. Pod-Man, being a very close viewer of film (and, ever since seeing "The Battleship Potemkin," especially of montage sequences), picked up on the unmistakable clues that it was to be the Devil’s child. So, when I asked how he liked it, he replied, “I figured out the secret twenty minutes in and, since I knew that could never happen, I wasn’t ever really scared.” Now, you might think that the Devil could never impregnate a woman because he doesn’t exist, but this wasn’t Pod-Man’s meaning. He, being a well catechized Catholic boy, knows that the Devil, like all of the angels, is a purely spiritual being who may only take on the appearance of a physical form. Though he is a person (in the sense of a rational being), he is not a body and cannot impregnate a woman. Go screw him all you like: he can’t knock you up or even give you a disease!

And this just burns him up!

He knew that Adam and Eve could participate in God’s creativity and that’s why he tempted them, out of jealousy. He knows too, that we are at our most Godlike when we create life (within marital union, of course) and so he does everything to poison this. Birth control, abortion, homosexuality, pornography are all about turning our healthy instinct for creation towards sterility, sin, and indulgence. Feminism, as it denigrates motherhood and exalts sexual consumerism, is perhaps his most perfect creation.

I was recently at the wedding of a friend. He’s a lawyer and his wife is also a professional, they are young, healthy, intelligent, good looking, honest, hard-working, decent people. Just exactly the sort of people you expect to be good parents. Yet they have no desire for children. I put this down to their being secular, since I know of no genuinely pious people who desire marriage without children, and I take it as one of the most powerful condemnations of godlessness that in a secular society it is the very best elements of the population who fail to reproduce.

Contrast this, if you will, to another friend of mine who is due to be married in August. She is deeply in love and has been engaged for some time, yet has had to delay her wedding for several years because she has lupus. When her lupus acts up she experiences crippling arthritis and must take powerful steroids just to function on a normal day-to-day basis. Unfortunately, these steroids make horrific birth defects not only possible, but probable. Of course, her doctor simply recommends that she use birth control and then abort if this fails, but my friend will have none of this. Recently, however, things have begun to get better for my friend. She has been weaned off the steroids and is only experiencing slight symptoms. She will be clean of the medication and ready for pregnancy in August and she just can’t wait! The chance to be fully one with her husband, and to share in God’s creativity with him, represents the fulfillment of her every ambition. She’s even plotted out her fertility and discovered, to her utter delight, that it will be at its very peak on her wedding night. She is saturated with happiness at this development and it is such a delight when she calls me with more good news.

Can you imagine how green with envy the Devil must be at this?

Why say the Holy Rosary?

2008-06-18T00:10:00.000-04:30

I have a friend who became a Catholic about five years ago. She was totally secular before that and, as this is similar to my own background, right from the start she would seek my advice about how to live a really Catholic life. I told her all of the usual things (e.g. keep close to the sacraments, pray several times a day, examine your conscience every day, root for the Sox, etc.) and, as she knew me and trusted me, she simply took my advice and did her best at trying to live as a good Catholic in this messy world. And for her, it worked. She has a sense of inner peace and well-being that had eluded her in her former life.

Over time, however, people would challenge her on these things and so she would come to me once again to find out how to answer her critics. We ended up having long, and enjoyable, conversations on the efficacy of the sacraments, the role of women in the church, sexual morality — in short, the “why” of being a Catholic. I have always felt that, being forced to defend my views intellectually in these conversations, my faith is deeper and richer as a result. Many of my posts on this blog are a direct result of these conversations and I will often get a morning after call from my friend saying that she’s forwarded my blog entry off to whoever had been pestering her about things in the first place.

About two years ago, my friend became engaged to a fellow who was just as secular as she had been. Naturally, as she loved him and wanted to see him in Heaven one day, she wished for his conversion and asked my advice in the matter. I told her that usually working for conversion was like pushing on a string, and that more souls have been saved by the example of the saints than by all the words of preaching, so the thing to do was to live as a good Christian example for him. Well — it worked. Two weeks ago her fiancee was accepted into the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church and my friend is about as happy as can be.

So, my friend has a new question. Her fiancée thinks that the Rosary is repetitive and pointless. Why should he say the Rosary? Here then, are the best reasons I can think of:

1] It’s boring and repetitive. I know this sounds like a bad reason, but upon reflection you will see that there are many times in your life when something boring and repetitive can be an absolute relief. When we thought my son had broken his leg, and he was being taken off for X-rays, a nice boring, repetitive Rosary was simply the best way of dealing with my anxiety. When the troubles of the day won’t leave you alone and you just can’t sleep, the rhythm of the Rosary can be your lullaby. All spiritualities around the world use chanting as a way of clearing the mind and calming the soul; you can use the Rosary as your own chant.

2] It can be an aid to meditation. Unlike Eastern Spiritualities, where “meditation” means something akin to self-hypnosis, meditation actually is an exact synonym for “thought.” Sometimes we need to keep from thinking, simply to surrender ourselves to God as I mentioned above, but just as frequently we need to think about God, his plans for us, and our relation to him. The Mysteries of the Rosary are a rich treasure that are not only worthy of our contemplation, but can also speak to us. Recently, when I was out for my evening walk with the Rosary, the Second Joyful Mystery (the Visitation) made me think of how, when my friend told me that she would be getting married in August, the hairs had stood up on the back of my neck. That was not only such good news to hear, but it was so pleasing to see them doing everything the right way (they are chaste, plan on using NFP, have a deep commitment to each other, have learned how to work out their differences, are not concerned with material success), and it was thrilling to think of the many blessings marriage would bring to them (an even deeper commitment, children, a partnership lasting throughout life). I thought of how this good news was a Visitation in my life, and of how all of the Mysteries show up again and again in our lives, and how we can’t let these chances for spiritual growth pass us by. How each Joyful Mystery is a chance for thanksgiving, how each Sorrowful Mystery is a chance to offer our sufferings up to God, and how each Glorious Mystery is a chance to surrender ourselves to God.

3] It pleases God and Mary. It’s the gift that’s sure to please. Worried about your son’s broken leg? Give Mary a Rosary and she is sure to join in your prayers for him. Praying for the conversion of godless communists? The Rosary is too powerful a weapon to neglect. Just too many troubles in your life to even begin thinking about? Take the time to say the Rosary and, by doing something for God, you will feel you’ve done something valuable.

4] It’s a good example for your kids. My kids know that I say the Rosary every day after dinner and so they know that prayer is as much a part of my life as eating or drinking. When my little Bean-Girl is sick, she comes to sit on my lap when I say it. When Pod-Man is in the dog-house, he knows that he’ll get out all the faster if he comes out on the back porch and says the Rosary with me. They see that prayer is a habit that you must have if you would be close to God.

5] It’s so manly! Since the very day Our Lady gave the Rosary to Saints Dominic and Hyacinth for use against the heretics, real men have taken the Rosary as their weapon. Dominic himself marched into the thick of the battle of Muret in 1217 armed only with his Rosary. The battle of Lepanto was won by Don Juan of Austria because he had the drummers in his galleys set the rhythm for the oarsmen by reciting the Rosary. (The feast of the Rosary is on the anniversary the battle, 7 October 1571.) Warriors engaged against the infidel Moslems have been particularly devoted to the Rosary, not merely Don Juan, but also John Sobiewski who relieved Vienna from the Turkish siege, and Eugene of Savoy who again defeated the Turks at Peterwardein as well. Marshal Foch, Generalissimo of all Allied Armies during WW1 said that he never missed a day. During the English occupation of Ireland men willingly went to the scaffold rather than give up their Rosary. It is a militant prayer for a manly faith!

6] It has dignity. A few days ago a bicyclist was hit and killed by a car in a freak accident around the corner from my house. The day after he was hit, his co-workers put up a “Ghost Bike” for him (a bike painted white and locked permanently near the place where the accident occurred). After dinner that night, I took the kids for a walk to see the “Ghost Bike.” There were about ten people standing around, four or five co-workers, two or three of my neighbors, several people who were just curious. We didn’t approach as close as the others, standing about twelve feet away so as not to bother anyone, and we said the Rosary. Very quickly the crowd fell silent and looked at us. They were glad we were there. They were glad that someone who knew how was praying for that poor boy. The Rosary commanded their respect because it has dignity.

He Put a Rosary in R.F.K.'s Hand

2008-06-16T20:19:00.001-04:30

From a column by Steve Lopez in the Los Angeles Times:

"People were six and seven deep," Juan says, but he got close enough to stick out his hand. As Kennedy grabbed it, Juan heard a bang and felt a flash of heat against his face. Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin, had fired from just off Juan's shoulder.

"I thought it was firecrackers at first, or a joke in bad taste," says Juan, but then he saw Kennedy sprawled on the floor and knelt to help him up.

"He was looking up at the ceiling, and I thought he'd banged his head. I asked, 'Are you OK? Can you get up?' One eye, his left eye, was twitching, and one leg was shaking."

Juan slipped a hand under the back of Kennedy's head to lift him and felt warm blood spilling through his fingers.

"People were screaming, 'Oh my God, not another Dallas!' "

Ethel Kennedy knelt down at her husband's side and pushed Juan away. Juan looked on, angry and stunned, fingering the rosary beads in his pocket.

"When I was in trouble, I would always go and pray to God to make my stepfather forget what I'd done, or to keep me out of trouble the next time. I asked Ethel if I could give Bobby the rosary beads, and she didn't stop me. She didn't say anything.

"I pressed them into his hand but they wouldn't stay because he couldn't grip them, so I tried wrapping them around his thumb. When they were wheeling him away, I saw the rosary beads still hanging off his hand."

Brilliant essay on Culture of Death!

2008-05-30T15:07:00.001-04:30

The following was excerpted from Jovan Radakovich's blog!

Auto-genocidal/Post-modern culture treats children as an expensive and peculiar hobby, something like a curious fashion statement. Children are, after all, expensive, messy, and they interfere with an active dating life. And if children are seen as a mere fashion accessory or an emotional indulgence, then one will do just as well as two (and much better than three or four). This attitude reveals itself in the demographic statistics of all societies that have adopted post-modernism. Across the Western world (and some unfortunate parts of Asia), there has been a catastrophic collapse in birthrates. Over the next few decades, parts of Europe may see their populations fall in half.

Organic culture views children in a radically different fashion, which was summed up brilliantly by Oswald Spengler in his seminal The Hour of Decision:

A woman of [tribe] does not desire to be a "companion" or a "lover," but a mother; and not the mother of one child, to serve as a toy and distraction, but of many: the instinct of a strong tribe speaks in the pride that large families inspire, in the feeling that barrenness is the hardest curse that can befall a woman and through her, the tribe. Out of this instinct arises the primitive jealousy, which leads one woman to take away from another the man whom she covets as the father of her children. The more intellectual jealousy of the great cities, which is little more than erotic appetite and looks upon the other party as a means of pleasure, and even the mere fact of considering the desired or dreaded number of children who are to be born, betrays the waning of the tribal urge to permanence; and that instinct for permanence cannot be reawakened by speeches and writing. Primitive marriage...was anything but sentimental. A man wants stout sons who will perpetuate his name and his deeds beyond his death into the future and enhance them, just as he has done himself through feeling himself heir to the calling and works of his ancestors.

Thoughts on Prayer

2008-05-28T00:42:00.002-04:30

Having grown up in a secular home, I was never taught to pray and only came to this habit after becoming Catholic when I was twenty-three. So, largely because of being self-taught, I have had to think about prayer, learn how it works, develop my own ways and habits. This process has, perhaps, given me a different perspective on prayer than those who have grown up with the habit. These are some things I have learned about prayer:

• Pray every day. When I received my instruction in the faith from Father Frank Kane he told me that Catholics are obliged to pray every day. He told me that Saint Augustine thought that the faithful were minimally required to say two Our Fathers and two Hail Marys every day. So that was where I began.

• Pray when all else has failed. Once, when I was working in a print-shop downtown, I was having a tough time running a really old press, a Multi 1250. On my lunch break I went to the bookstore run by the Daughters of Saint Paul to pick up a book I had ordered. When I got there, one of the sisters asked me why I looked so down. When I told her that I was having trouble running a press, she asked what kind of press, and it turned out that she had also run the very same press for the Daughters’ print shop at their mother house. She then went through the possible causes of my problem (worn in-feed rollers, inadequate buckle, incorrect stop-finger timing, etc.). When, at last, we had gone over everything that could have been out of adjustment and ruled them out as the cause of my problems, she shook her head and said, “That’s when I try a prayer to Saint Paul!” And you know what? She was absolutely right! By the simple act of turning your problems over to Our Heavenly Father, you will find yourself more clear-headed, more at-ease, once again ready to face your travail.

• Pray for your own causes. One day I found a pamphlet on an empty seat on the #36/Broadway bus. It showed an ordinary man in silhouette next to the headline: “REMEMBER ... This Unknown Communist has a SOUL” It urged you to wear the Green Scapular and pray for the conversion of Godless Communists the world around. It occurred to me then, that once I had been that Unknown Communist, and that whoever had left that flyer on the seat had been praying for me. I resolved then to pray each day for the conversion of Godless Communists each day. You should take up a cause as well! I suppose there is nothing wrong with taking up a big one, (like an end to abortion, or the conversion of the Jews, or the souls in Purgatory) but you should give consideration to a group that needs God’s grace and is pretty much neglected. Praying for the conversion of Godless Communists probably peaked-out in 1953 and I might just be the last one left Is anyone praying for the conversion of the Tuvinians? Start praying for them and you might just be the only one!

• Pray because no one else will. I used to see a guy where he worked downtown. (Let’s call him “Will.”) He was always very good at his job and, since he was more helpful than anyone else there, I always went to him. After using him for about fifteen years, I saw him on the street. Will told me that he had taken early retirement from his job (he was in his early fifties) and moving to a different city in order to get away from his crack dealer. It turned out that he had been addicted to crack cocaine for eleven years! I wished him the best of luck, gave him my e-mail address, and told him that I would pray for him. He told me that he was an atheist, and didn’t believe in prayer, but he thanked me for it anyway. I haven’t heard from him since. Recently I asked one of his co-workers if any of them knew how Will was doing. She was very cagey until she realized that I knew Will’s secret, but then she admitted that no one had heard from him since he had left town. “That’s a shame,” I said, “I pray for him every day, you know.”

The woman was astonished, “You do? I had no idea that you were such good friends with him.”

“I’m not,” I admitted, “But if I don’t pray for him, who will?”

“Nobody.”

• Pray because people ask you to. I was at work one day when I got a package of Green Scapulars in the mail. I’m like a kid on Christmas morning when something comes for me in the mail, so I opened it right away. One of my clients was there and, when he saw the scapulars, he asked what they were. I explained that wearing a scapular was like wearing a prayer, that the Green Scapular was like a prayer for conversion, and that I often gave Green Scapulars to people needing conversion. He then asked, “If I took one, would you pray for me?”

“Sure!” I gave him a scapular, but immediately I regretted it. You see — I didn’t much care for the fellow. In fact, without breaking into a sweat, I could probably make a list of 500 people who I would rather see in Heaven than this fellow. I agonized over it for days. I really did not want to pray for him, but I also couldn’t see how I could refuse. It became clear to me that, as a Christian, I was obliged to pray for anyone who asked me to if their request was reasonable.

Now, from time-to-time, that fellow will ask me if I still pray for him. I’m proud to be able to tell him that I haven’t missed a day.

• Prayer must be a real conversation with God or it’s pointless. If you’re saying the same thing day after day, then you’re doing something wrong. You should be thinking about what you are saying and open to the thoughts that God will put upon your heart. You need to ask yourself constantly if you really want what you are praying for or if you are just going through the motions. You need to ask yourself if there are things you should be doing in addition to prayer to address a certain situation. Perhaps you have neglected to thank God for some particular grace that has come your way? Your prayers should not be a laundry list!

• The saints are your friends, treat them that way. They are people just like you, with their own concerns and interests. Do you think if you just pick the name of a saint out of a hat, that he will be any more interested in your problems than some name you pick out of the phone book? When a saint is made “patron” of a particular thing, this is just a rough guide. Both Dymphna and Drogo are patrons of mental health, but Dymphna’s concern seems to be with people who are genuinely disordered, whereas Drogo is more concerned with emotional distress. Read the lives of the saints and make friends with them.

• Wear your prayers. Praying for conversions? Get that Green Scapular! Worried about your kids? Wear that Saint Joseph medal. Find yourself tempted by vice? A Saint Benedict medal will be a constant reminder that you need not face temptation alone.

• Let your kids see you pray. I start the day each morning by ironing a shirt and saying my prayers. I expect anyone in the room with me to join me when I say a Hail Mary or Our Father. My kids hear me run through the list of those whose conversions I am praying for and my son often joins me at the end saying “... and Godless Communists the world around. May the love of Jesus enter into their hearts.” My youngest daughter loved to have her toes played with when she was an infant, so I began saying my after-dinner Rosary on her toes. She loved it, and the others saw that praying was an ordinary part of life, not something apart from life.

• Do not neglect the Rosary. Marshal Foch said it all:

“I think that I did not miss a single day in reciting [the Rosary], including the most terrible times of battle when I had no rest night or day. How often did I see her manifest intercession in the decisions which I made in choosing a precise tactic. Take, then, the advice of an old soldier seasoned by experience: Do not neglect the recitation of the Rosary for any reason.

• Pray for the unknown intentions of others. I say three Hail Marys every morning for the intentions of the Pope and an Our Father for the intentions of the Catholic Dads!

A Lesson in Forgiveness

2008-05-27T18:02:00.003-04:30

I have to work with someone who is unforgiving, literally. (I’ll call him Scarpia, after the evil police chief in Puccini’s opera Tosca.) If you make a mistake around Scarpia, and apologize, then he will snap at you: “What good does it do to apologize when you’re just going to do it again!” Of course, if you don’t apologize, then Scarpia will chastise you by saying, “I can’t believe you did that and then didn’t even apologize!” So — either way, you won’t be forgiven.

Now, forgiveness is just about the toughest vocation that Christians are called to and no one ever gets particularly good at it. I know I’m not. My parents were secular and, even though they were basically decent people, their attitude was that forgiving people was simply part of good manners, not a Christian duty, and so there was a limit to it. Christians know otherwise: forgiveness is a duty at all times.

Here are a few things I’ve learned about forgiveness:

• The best way to learn about forgiveness is to have a few kids. Having children almost instantly makes you a better person. You become more loving, more responsible, less self-centered and you learn that forgiveness is a part of everyday life. Each and every day your kids will do something wrong: spill a glass full of juice, leave every light on in the house, waste toilet paper, torment the dog, poke each other’s eyes out — all that kid stuff. And you know that they didn’t mean it. That they’re just kids who might know better but still don’t have the self-control to do better. So you have to forgive them. And guess what? It’s kind of easy. You just love them to death and you can’t bring yourself to think ill of them, so forgiving them becomes pretty natural. The trick is to learn to forgive everyone that way!

• Corollary to lesson one: God forgives you just like you forgive your kids. Once you have kids, and feel how easy it is to forgive them, you come to understand that God is our Father in Heaven and he forgives us just as freely. Once you feel this in your bones it is a profound spiritual comfort.

• You can’t forgive someone unless they are sorry. If they’re not sorry, then you are just pushing on a string. In fact, I would even say it is false piety to say that you have forgiven someone who isn’t sorry. The best you can do is to forget about it.

• “You hate me because you still love me!” Believe it or not, that brilliant insight comes from one other than Mussolini. (Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.) He’s really got the nut of the problem to: you can only hate someone you care about. So, if you find that you are beginning to hate someone that you love, you really should do something about it. Either tap into the love you still have for them and use that to forgive them, or resolve not to care. Don’t let this second option scare you, because this is exactly what Jesus meant when he told us to turn the other cheek. If you can’t love someone, then don’t let yourself be eaten up with hated for them, teach yourself not to care.

• A final lesson.

For the last seven years first my son and I, and now my little girl too, have been supernumeraries at the Lyric Opera. Supernumerary is just Italian for “extra” and that’s what we are. We don’t sing, we don’t speak, sometimes we dance, but usually we just do the mundane things on stage like carry the Pharaoh in on a sedan chair in Aïda, throw Falstaff out the window, and fill up the grand ball room in Eugene Onegin. My son is opera-crazy, I like opera fine, and my little girl just likes doing things with Daddy. And it’s a great experience. They pay us $15- a night, we get free tickets to the dress rehearsals, you get to be on stage with world class singers, and the back stage camaraderie is wonderful.

Everyone at Lyric is simply the best in the business, so there isn’t the usual tension and politics arising from having to put up with incompetents and, as a result, everyone is as friendly and helpful as can be — that is, everyone except for someone I’ll call Eugene (from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin). Eugene was an old hand when we started working at Lyric some seven years ago (he’s been in more than 500 performances) and he pretty much kept to the other veterans, snubbing newcomers dead. He wouldn’t talk to either my son, or me even after we’d been there for four seasons until, one day, he commented on my thermos full of tea, “Tea — how nice.” I thought this might be an opening so, starting with the next performance, I brought along an extra mug, poured a cup of tea, and left it at his station in the dressing room. At the end of the evening he would unfailingly bring me back the up, nicely cleaned, and thank me. But, just the same, he was still rather diffident and never engaged me in conversation. At this point, my son HATED Eugene and kept asking why I went out of my way to be nice to him. I told him it was the Christian thing to do.

Then, one day when we were getting into costume for a performance of Carmen, Eugene came over to me, stuck a finger into a hole in my very old T-shirt, and said, “Are you really so poor that you have to wear such shabby underwear?” Then he ripped his finger down and tore a huge gash in the shirt.

Well, I just lost it. I began to scream, at the top of my lungs something along these lines: “Eugene, you have treated me like shit and snubbed me dead for five f***ing years, but I always did the Christian thing and treated you nicely. I turned the other cheek and even made you tea for every damn performance this year! But now you have gone too far! You might just have reached into my pocket and taken my money! Yes — I am so poor that I have to wear T-shirts until they wear out and now you’ve gone and ruined one of them!” Then I turned around and got dressed. I was told later that EVERYONE in the room thought I was going to start hitting Eugene, and that four young guys were lined up around the corner to break it up if they had to.

I was as mad as I’ve ever been in my life and I started to think about what I would do if Eugene tried to apologize. And I worked it out perfectly! I decided that if he tried to apologize without replacing the shirt, then I could snub him because I was still out for the shirt. But if he did try to replace the shirt, I was going to reject him and say, “Eugene, you can’t buy back my friendship! It’s not for sale.” Did I have all the angles covered, or what? No matter what he did, I could go on hating him!

But when I got home and told my son about what had happened, he wanted to know what I was going to do about it. At that point I had to face up to the fact that I was a Christian, and had to state my terms for forgiveness up front, so that the poor schlub would have some kind of chance at being forgiven. “Okay —“ I said, “If he apologizes and replaces the T-shirt, then I’ll have to forgive him.”

“Wouldn’t it be more fun just to hate him? I mean — he really is a stuck-up jerk.”

Of course, my son was right, I really did just want to hate Eugene forever, but I had stated my terms and intended to stick to them. When I went back in three days for the next performance, there, at my space in the dressing room, was a very nicely wrapped package with an envelope on top. I walked over and spent two or three minutes just staring down at the envelope. I didn’t want to open it, but at last I did. Inside was a nice card with a simple hand-written apology, “It was all my fault.” The package contained not one, but three new T-shirts. At that point there was only one thing to do, so I went over to Eugene and said, “Thank you.”

“Really, it was all my fault and I’m sorry.”

I nodded, “It’s done, now let’s forget about it.”

Over the course of that evening’s performance, probably half-a-dozen guys came up to me and said that accepting Eugene’s apology was mighty big of me. Since then, Eugene has been a lot nicer, not just to me, but to everyone else around the opera house. But mostly, I felt a lot better not having to carry all of that hate around with me.

So the lesson is this: Forgive people because it will make YOU feel better.

The Hand of God?

2008-05-21T00:16:00.001-04:30

Christ's Vineyard Christian Reformed Church
2716 West Chicago Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60622

Michelle Shocked

2008-05-15T19:49:00.001-04:30

It wouldn't be a cross if it wasnt to bear!

Ferdinand Foch,Marshal of France, on the Holy Rosary

2008-05-13T16:12:00.002-04:30

“I think that I did not miss a single day in reciting [the Rosary], including the most terrible times of battle when I had no rest night or day. How often did I see her manifest intercession in the decisions which I made in choosing a precise tactic. Take, then, the advice of an old soldier seasoned by experience: Do not neglect the recitation of the Rosary for any reason.”

Two Friends: a lesson in humility.

2008-05-10T00:47:00.003-04:30

Though he would go on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1956, in the early 1940’s Juan Ramón Jiménez was a refugee. A poet, who had fled Spain during the Civil War, he settled in Washington, D.C. where he worked as a professor of literature. He was an obscure and lonely man, until one day he chanced upon a man working in his garden. The man, Henry by name, described by Jiménez as “timid yet firm at the same time,” struck up a conversation with Jiménez.

“Of all my acquaintances in this country,” Jiménez recalled, “none have I come to understand better or more quickly.” The two men spoke the same language, the language of God and the growth of the soil, democracy, and an abiding faith in the people. Often they spoke in Spanish. Jiménez often read Spanish poems, his own and others, to his friend Henry, who in turn often spoke of his deepest spiritual convictions. Jiménez was later to write:

There can be no doubt tat this man is a mystic, made of the same stuff as the greatest of the Spanish mystics, Saint Teresa de Jesus, John of the Cross, Louis de Leon. He is as militant in his faith as they were ... Saint Terese’s “God Can be Found in a Well Watched Kettle” means to him “God can be found in a dairyman’s milk-pail and in a farmer’s corn-crib ... he is convinced of an enduring and just principle of ancestry — every man is the son of his own words and work.

Months after meeting Henry, Jiménez mentioned his friend to some colleagues who then made a shocking revelation about Jiménez’s friend. “Was it possible?” Jiménez wondered. He ran all the way to Henry’s garden, where he found his friend working alone. “Señor Wallace, tell me the truth,” Jiménez asked breathlessly, “Are you the vice-president of the United States?”

“Si, Juan Ramón, lo soy. Look, aren’t my tomatoes magnificent? Take some along with you for lunch.”

Have an Eye Single for Righteousness

2008-04-28T20:59:00.000-04:30

Advice given by "Uncle Henry" Wallace to his grandson, Henry Agard Wallace on his twenty-first birthday.

You must not expect to be a really big man unless you live a sincere, earnest, religious life. In other words, you want always to be on the side of the great Power that rules this world, and that we have learned to call "Our Father." In solving the questions that will come up from year to year and from day to day, the man who is on God's side is really on the side of the majority, although the world will not think so and he may for a time doubt it. Nevertheless, posterity will appreciate the man who does the right as he sees the right, and who has an eye single for righteousness.

Henry Agard Wallace later went on to found Pioneer Hi-Bred (the first company to sell hybrid seed commercially and the second largest in the field today), to breed the Wallace Leghorn Chicken (which now accounts for more than half of the world's egg production), and to serve as Secretary of Agriculture and Vice-President of the United States.

Dorothy Day - Servant of God

2008-04-21T21:16:00.001-04:30

"Thinking gloomily of the sins and shortcomings of others, it suddenly came to me to remember my own offenses, just as heinous as those of others. If I concern myself with my own sins and lament them, if I remember my own failures and lapses, I will not be resentful of others. This was most cheering and lifted the load of gloom from my mind. It makes people unhappy to judge people and happy to love them."

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2008-04-05T23:13:00.002-04:30