Those Socialistic Popes!

“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

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!

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!

"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

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

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

"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.