Confirmation Problem

I recently received a question about how a homeschooler might deal with a parish confirmation program that really, really stunk.

Are there any options other than a parish based program to Confirm our children? Our parish does not allow parents to homeschool any of the sacramental years including Confirmation (2 year program). 
My son Lucas detests going to class because it is a class of all boys that he describes as a bunch of crazed monkeys. They disrupt the class the entire 2 hours and it's very hard for him to concentrate. I realize that they all are 12 and 13 and this is normal. But Lucas is very mature for his age thinks it's silly for them to act this way. 
He's asking us why he has to go through this? He could learn all this material at home without all the distraction. It's hard to argue with that logic. We've spoken with our priest and with the director of the Religious Ed program. Both have emphasized the need to be apart of the church "community" and just stick it out. Being part of this particular community (his class) would mean acting like a crazed monkey! So you can see our dilemma. Please send any thoughts and/or suggestions.

This was my response:

You have several options. 

All involve pain.   

1) Once someone is baptized, they may approach ANY legitimate minister of the other sacraments in order to receive those other sacraments. All that is necessary to receive a sacrament is 

(a) the recipient knows what it will do to him/her 

(b) the recipient wants that change to happen and 

(c) the recipient knows enough about the liturgy to successfully move through it.   

That's it.   

So, you could go to ANY PARISH IN THE WORLD in order to get your child confirmed. Any bishop, indeed, any priest whose bishop has given him authority to confirm, can do this for your child. Thus, you are quite within your rights to check out other parishes/dioceses for alternatives. Hispanic children, for example, commonly go to a grandmother's house in Mexico to get confirmed over the summer and avoid the gringo stupidity that you are presently encountering.  

2) You can fight the priest. The documents are QUITE clear on this point. The Rite of Confirmation #3 even says: 

“The initiation of children into the sacramental life is ordinarily the responsibility and concern of Christian parents. They are to form and gradually increase a spirit of faith in the children and, at times with the help of catechism classes, prepare them for the fruitful reception of the sacraments of confirmation and the eucharist.” 
Articles 2220-2225 of the CCC re-state the parental duty/right in slightly different language. CCC 2225 says "Parents should initiate their children at an early age into the mysteries of faith." The phrase "mysteries of faith" is a technical theological term that refers to the sacraments (Part II of the CCC is called "The Mystery of Faith" and it discusses sacraments and liturgy).   The parents are the primary educators of their own children and no pastor, no bishop, no DRE, no deacon, NO ONE can interfere in your right and your duty to prepare your own children for the sacraments. I have a couple of chapters on this in my book, Designed to Fail: Catholic Education in America. 

If you bone up on the Magisterial documents and approach the pastor, making it clear that you know what you're talking about and you will take it to the bishop if he doesn't allow you to prepare your child at home, most pastors will back down because they know they have no ground to stand on.   If you run into a stupid pastor who really wants to fight on this issue, then after talking with him, take it to the bishop. 

Bishops know perfectly well that they can't force you through the parish program. He may or may not bluster and try to bully you into it, but if you stand your ground, he will relent, if only because he wouldn't want you to take it to the papal nuncio, which you should make clear you are willing to do.   

The most common objection is that the parish is supposed to participate in the child's preparation for confirmation. Yes, well, you are part of the parish, so you represent the parish to the child. The parish exists to support the family, not vice versa. Families got along without parishes for the first 1000 years of the Church just fine. Parishes don't exist without families. Parishes must support the parents. Anything else is a violation of the principle of subsidiarity.   

3) You can go into the class with your child, as is your right, and loudly correct any error the confirmation instructors try to bring forward, i.e., make a real nuisance of yourself. It works best if you get ALL the homeschooling parents to do this en masse. Facing a large-scale revolt, the pastor will quickly find an alternative way to deal with homeschoolers.  

The only reason he's been able to ram this down your throats so far is you haven't all gotten together and had a come-to-Jesus meeting with him. If he sees 20 or 30 families all ticked off and all ready to head to the bishop and sit on the bishop's doorstep, the pastor will back down and accommodate you.   Familiaris Consortio (#69-72) recommends that parents form associations to work together for their common good. In this day and age, that means you need to band together against your pastor, break green lumber over his head in order to get his attention, then tell him what he needs to do to fix his ignorance, and his insulting attitude towards the parents in his parish.  

He'll hate you for taking option #3, but that's ok. He'll get over it. And he will cave, guaranteed. Pastors hate parish insurrections. A big insurrection reduces the likelihood that the bishop will give the pastor a cushy parish next time he has to pass through the spring "pastor roulette" when bishop transfers pastors.   

Now, that having been said, bishops don't like noise either, because it looks bad on their vitae if the noise reaches Rome. Given the internet, most noise reaches Rome nowadays. So, #3 is really going to tick off the bishop as well (although Rome won't mind) and it will give homeschoolers a generally bad name with him. I just mention it because it DOES work, if nothing else does.   

4) Skip confirmation for the moment. Yes, I know it's a sacrament, and yes I know it sounds wrong, but if he just waits until he's 18 or 19 to get confirmed, then all of this juvenile behaviour from the pastor and the deacon magically falls away. 

Typically, most parishes have a "catch-up" program for adults who missed confirmation in their youth (which is not uncommon). The adult program is much less onerous, typically only a couple of weeks, and the level of discourse does not involve crazed monkeys.   

It should be noted that, for purposes of receiving a sacrament, canon law recognizes the age of 8 as being an adult. So, technically, an adult prep program for your child is perfectly within his rights if he's 8 years old or older. Now, nobody is going to let your twelve-year old into an adult confirmation program, and I wouldn't argue that you should try, but since your child is unlikely to fall away from the Faith UNLESS he participates in the parish confirmation nonsense, it is actually a prudent decision on your part to simply delay the sacrament until such time as either the boy or the pastor grows up.   

Since the former is more likely to happen than the latter, I don't think it unreasonable to wait until he's 19 for confirmation if you can't avoid the near occasion of sin in the parish program any other way.   Again, #4 is not the best choice, but I throw it out as an option that I think can legitimately be considered if you don't want to pursue the other courses of action. 

What Is Maureen Dowd Missing?

In Maureen Dowd's latest column, she claims the Catholic Church is just as oppressive as Islam.

Yes, indeed, I must admit it, we are.

That's why we cut off Maureen's clitoris when she was five.

Without benefit of anesthesia.

Just like the Muslims do.

And we married her to a forty year old man when she was seven.

She lost her virginity to him that same year.

Just like the Muslims do.

In fact, they learned all that from Catholics.

Betch'a didn't know that, eh?

Maureen knows.

She's brilliant.

She works for the New York Times.

They're all so brilliant at the New York Times.

We wish that we wish we would be like them, but we can't wish it because we are so everlastingly "patriarchal" (that means "stupid," I think. I'm not sure. I don't work for the New York Times. Big Sigh).

In any case, Maureen, who (along with Dan Brown) has revealed these hidden secrets, has obviously never recovered from the shock of what happened to her.

Sadly, she escaped and we failed to recapture her, cut off her ears and nose, and stone her to death, as is only proper. Another thing the Muslims learned from us. The Muslims learned all the bad things from us, like blowing themselves up and stuff. We had classes for them, back in the day, but we had to stop when the smart people invented the New York Times. Another Big Sigh.

The failure to recapture her and properly punish her is the Pope's fault.

He changed canon law on us in 1983, so when we petitioned to have her caught and at least a hand cut off or something, we lost the argument.

As you can see, we had to just settle for the frontal lobotomy.

It's all the law would allow.

We apologize to America for allowing her to inflict herself on you all.

We hope you can forgive us.

Is the Times a-changing?

Shockingly enough, Newsweek, The New York Times and ABC all show signs of backing off the Catholic aspect of the sexual abuse story.

I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't read it myself, but here are excerpts from each organizations' coverage. This is incredible:

Newsweek:

Ernie Allen of national Center for Missing and Exploited Children denies that Catholics have a special or unusual abuse problem....Since the 1980’s, when insurance companies started issuing policies, they have not charged Catholics higher premiums...

The more youth formation programs you have, the more abuse you have – premiums are a function of number of youth programs, not denomination. Catholic Church has by far the largest school network in the nation...Catholics are also the single largest denomination in the nation and the second largest in the world (behind Islam).

Of 110,000 priests active 1950-1992, only 4% have had complaints (about 4400).

4392 priests complained about from 10,667 victims.149 priests responsible for 25,000 cases 75% of abuse comes from families and friends.

Since the mid-1980s, insurance companies have offered sexual misconduct coverage as a rider on liability insurance, and their own studies indicate that Catholic churches are not higher risk than other congregations.

As the report notes, insurance companies don't charge Catholics higher premiums than other faiths, because Catholic priests are not at special risk of offending. Premium rates are pegged to the number of youth programs a church has - nothing else. The more youth programs you run, the more claims there are, and therefore the higher the premiums. Catholics have the largest private school program in the nation.

As a side note to Newsweek's coverage, I again refer back to the Shakeshaft report, one of the most damning and one of the most completely ignored stories of the first decade of the 21st century.

When Shakeshaft's report on public school education from 1990-2000 is compared to the John Jay report on Catholic priest abuse, a remarkable thing emerges. In the five decades from 1950 to 2000, we saw 11,000 abuse allegations against roughly 6700 priests. 6700 were substantiated, 1000 were unsubstantiated, the rest were moot as the priest had died. 78% of the Catholic priest victims were between the ages of 11 and 17, while 6% were 7 or younger.
4.5 million versus 11,000.

One decade versus 5 decades.

Hmmm.....

That means 450,000 abuse cases from the public schools each year versus 220 abuse cases per year from Catholic priests. A difference of 2000 percent.

Perhaps this is why school teachers were, at one time, required by law to be single and they were forbidden to date while they were teachers. Vows of celibacy apparently protect against abuse. And even early 20th-century Protestants knew it.

The New York Times confirms this:

If the rate of abuse among Catholic priests stands (per the John Jay data) at roughly 4 percent, that’s less than half the rate that Allen cites for the population as a whole. And the Jay study covers the sweep of the last 50 years; if you compare the rate of accusations against priests now (as opposed to during the crisis of the 1960s and 1970s) to Allen’s 10 percent figure, it looks like Catholic clergy currently abuse children and teenagers at about one-fifth the rate of the male population as a whole.

In this same week, ABC News followed up with a report on sexual abuse in athletic and fast food venues. It seems some USA Swimming coaches were routinely photographing and abusing the swimmers they trained.

USA Swimming's response?

The executive director of USA Swimming, Chuck Wielgus, acknowledged the problem, but said "It's "It's not nearly as serious in USA Swimming as it might be in the rest of society."
"I don't want to be the one to sit here and say 36 is not too many, one is too many, but this is not just a problem that's isolated to one sport," said Wielgus.

In some cases, the swimming coaches found to have been sexual predators were able to move from town to town, one step ahead of police and angry victims and their parents.

"We have a system that does not encourage the reporting," said Bob Allard, a San Jose, CA lawyer representing sex abuse victims suing USA Swimming....

Asked if he had apologized to any of the young teen victims, Wielgus responded, "You feel I need to apologize to them?"
He added, "I think it's unfair for you to ask me whether individually or me as the representative of an organization to apologize for something when all we are trying to do is everything we possibly can to create a safe and healthy environment for kids who are participating in our particular activity."

But ABC wasn't done. It then continued with a segment on Starbucks and other fast food venues. When it was demonstrated that employees were sexually abused by supervisors:

Starbucks executives declined to be interviewed but in a statement the company said, "These two employees concealed their relationship from Starbucks, which violated company policy. We are confident that the case will ultimately be resolved in finding that Starbucks is not at fault."

...The case turned ugly as the Starbucks law firm, Akin Gump, used hard ball tactics to defend their client, including successfully seeking to make public the young woman's sexual history once it learned she had been interviewed for "20/20."

"They are trying to defend themselves by calling me a slut," she told "20/20." "It's intimidation. It's harassing to sit though deposition and just be re-victimized."

Federal judge Andrew J. Guilford agreed with Starbucks lawyers and ordered the information unsealed because of the company's need "to defend themselves" and "level the playing field."

Starbucks disclosed in court papers that the woman has had sexual encounters with 12 men other than Horton, seven of them before she met Horton.

Starbucks says it does have a strict policy against sexual harassment and managers dating baristas, but there is nothing specific about relationships with teens under the age of 18.

McDonalds and Taco Bell also have lawsuits pending against them, and those lawsuits likewise involve statutory rape by supervisors.

And, of course, NO ONE wants to talk about the sleeping elephant of Islam, where child marriage is perfectly in accord with Muslim morality, indeed, it is praised as a way to emulate the prophet Mohammed.

“In God’s eyes legal, but in laws of the country (Malaysia) not legal,” said the Kijang state assemblywoman when questioned on the legality of child marriages [in Islam]....

Section 8 of the Kelantan Muslim Family Law Enactment (2000) states that any girl below 16 cannot marry, except with written permission from the Syariah Court.

When questioned on what criteria would merit such consent, Ubaidah replied that in cases where a girl and her partner are “madly in love beyond control”, the court would grant them permission to marry. A father who wishes to marry the girl off to a rich man may also receive similar authorisation from the court.

Although Ubaidah said that a girl’s consent and understanding is needed before marrying her off, she said: “Silence is consent”. If a girl is married off without her consent, she can seek help from her relatives or approach the religious department herself, Ubaidah added.

Now, this is just one story about sharia law in Malaysia.

We could also bring forward stories from Yemen, where a 13-year old girl died of bleeding from genital tears five days after her marriage to a 30 year-old man, or Saudi Arabia, where the shariah court refused to annul the marriage of an 8-year old to a man in his late 40's, or Pakistan, where girl children are married off to adult men to settle family feuds (swara), pay a debt, or as part of a deal to marry off an older sibling. A seven year old married to a 45-year old man with other living wives and children is absolutely common.

The list could go on, but why bother?

If reporting on sexual abuse were accurate, there would be five reports of Protestant, rabbinic or Eastern Orthodox sexual abuse for every one report of Catholic sexual abuse. There would be 200 reports of public school sexual abuse for every one report of Catholic sexual abuse. There would be thousands of reports of Muslim sexual abuse for every one report of Catholic sexual abuse.

Wherever there is sharia, there is what Westerners would call child sexual abuse. It is legal, moral and laudable. But no one goes after the imams for this, do they?

Who do they go after? Pope Benedict XVI, formerly known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

As for Cardinal Ratzinger's culpability, he was appointed head of the CDF in 1981. Take a close look at the chart from the John Jay report provided by the New York Times blogger:

Do you notice anything interesting? Do you see how that red line (number of cases) and that blue line (number of priests committing abuse) both begin a REALLY rapid descent? Well, if you look closely at the year when that rapid fall begins, that year would be 1981 - two years after John Paul II is elected Pope and the same year Ratzinger is picked to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Even though the CDF won't streamline the process and gain sole jurisdiction over abuse cases until 2001, the chart shows that the minute Ratzinger became the head of CDF, someone, somewhere started shutting these abusive priests down. By 1995, most of the rat holes had been closed.

The press didn't pick up on what was going on until AFTER Ratzinger or one of his confreres had already finished most of the work.

This chart is from a New York Times blogger, folks.

You want to make the MSM look silly?

Push this chart around.

UPDATE:
Shockingly enough USA Gymnastics is doing the same thing.

Of Pet Goats and Apologies

Reuters and other news sources have found a new way to milk their pet goat.

Reports indicate that several important Jewish men and women are very upset that the Pope's personal preacher mentioned the opinion of his Jewish friend during his Good Friday homily. Reading from a letter he had received, the preacher pointed out that - from his Jewish friend's perspective - the MSM attack on the Church was comparable to the anti-Semitism displayed in Europe in the early part of the 20th century.

By a rare coincidence, this year our Easter falls on the same week of the Jewish Passover which is the ancestor and matrix within which it was formed. This pushes us to direct a thought to our Jewish brothers. They know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms. I received in this week the letter of a Jewish friend and, with his permission, I share here a part of it.

He said: “I am following with indignation the violent and concentric attacks against the Church, the Pope and all the faithful by the whole world. The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism. Therefore I desire to express to you personally, to the Pope and to the whole Church my solidarity as Jew of dialogue and of all those that in the Jewish world (and there are many) share these sentiments of brotherhood. Our Passover and yours are undoubtedly different, but we both live with Messianic hope that surely will reunite us in the love of our common Father. I wish you and all Catholics a Good Easter.”

And also we Catholics wish our Jewish brothers a Good Passover. We do so with the words of their ancient teacher Gamaliel, entered in the Jewish Passover Seder and from there passed into the most ancient Christian liturgy:

“He made us pass
From slavery to liberty,
From sadness to joy,
From mourning to celebration,
From darkness to light,
From servitude to redemption
Because of this before him we say: Alleluia.”

That's it. As with the non-existent Tea Party "N" word slur from a few days ago, there is no use of the "H" word (Holocaust) or "S" word (Shoah) for the simple reason that it is possible to discuss violence against the Jews without calling either to mind.

People may not realize it, but the Holocaust didn't start until well after World War II had begun. Nearly all the death camps are in Poland or Byelorussia - captured territory. Google it.

Personally, I'm a little tired of the Jews trying to claim the Holocaust as their own personal disaster. After all, the Roma (Gypsies) suffered, on a per capita basis, much more severely in the extermination camps then the Jews did. Indeed, almost none of the Gypsies survived the war, and they are still subject to enormous persecution. But the Roma don't have strong political pressure groups, so no one makes movies about what happened to them.

Furthermore, while 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, so were 3 million Catholics. Twelve million people died. Auschwitz alone killed Catholics EXCLUSIVELY for the first 26 months of operation (actually, one Jew did die at Auschwitz during that time period, but you get the idea). However, Catholics haven't spent the last seventy years kvetching about it.

The Holocaust targeted Jews.

The Holocaust did NOT target JUST Jews.

Catholics have as much right to invoke the Holocaust as the Jews or the Roma.

But all of this is moot, since Fr. Cantalamessa didn't invoke the Holocaust.

Instead, he invoked pre-war anti-Semitism. Now, anti-Semitism was rife in Europe for decades before the Holocaust started killing Jews. Indeed, Hitler took power in 1933, and the MSM of the 1930's ran some absolutely scurrilous attacks on the Jews between 1933 and 1939. But, apart from a somewhat higher level of virulence, this MSM anti-Semitism was what most European countries had in their own newspapers between the Dreyfuss Affair and the beginning of WW II.

This is the violence that Cantalamessa and his friend were discussing.

So, to say that there is a correlation between:
(1) how the MSM in Europe treated the Jews in the 1920's and 30's and
(2) how the MSM today treats the Catholics is
(3) merely to speak aloud an historical fact.

Still, Elan Steinberg, vice-president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants is upset. Rabbi Marvin Hier of Simon Wiesenthal Center is perturbed. A spokesman for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) is heartbroken. Rabbi James Rudin, senior interreligious adviser to the American Jewish Committee, is shocked.

Maybe they don't read history books.

In any case, there is a demand for a personal apology from the Pope.

Now, I would think it would be a lot more efficient if the people who are offended by this accursed Catholic-loving Jew went out, found Cantalamessa's Jewish friend and just beat on him until he started thinking like a "real Jew", or whatever it is they think themselves to be.

After all, if they're mad at him, why bring us into it?
Like the New York Times, we're just the messenger here.

But, OK.

Let's take the apology aspect of it seriously.
Soooo.........

..... exactly what is the Pope supposed to say?

"I'm sorry my preacher has Jewish friends"? That won't go over well.

How about, "I apologize for my preacher daring to portray Jews who disagree with other Jews - we all know they think as a monolithic block."? No, call me dense, but I can't see how that apology will help either.

What if he said, "We who are goy salute you!" It has a certain ring to it, but maybe not enough of an apology aspect.

Ok, ok, I got it... "Jews are only supposed to notice attacks on their people. We all know they have no sympathy or interest in how others suffer from attacks. I am grief-stricken that my preacher attempted to violate that stereotype." ....

No....., no, on second thought, I don't think that one will work either.

This is a real puzzler.

So, could all these offended individuals explain exactly how the Pope is supposed to apologize to the Jews for the remarks of a Jew?

Has anyone got suggestions?

PS - Has anyone noticed that this Pope gets in trouble not for what he himself says, but for telling us what other people said? First Regensburg and the quote an Eastern Emperor made about Muslims, now this. Maybe if he had gone to journalism school and got a union card, he wouldn't get so much grief. The boys in the biz hate scab labor.

Noonan Doesn't Get It

In her most recent column, Peggy Noonan argues that the MSM tried very hard NOT to report on the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. They were dragged kicking and screaming to the table, and they still get cold chills every time they run a story.

Peggy Noonan is simply wrong.

According to the Dept. of Education's own studies, the public schools produce victims at a rate 400 times higher in the course of ten years than the Catholic Church produced in 50 years.

If the news reporting were equitable across all lines, we would see 400 stories on public school sexual abuse for every one story we see on priest sexual abuse.

Similarly, the rates of sexual abuse among Protestant and Jewish denominations are also higher than that in the Catholic Church.

If the reporting were equal across all incidences, we would see two or three stories about other faith denominations' abuse for each Catholic priest story.

Finally, we must remember that child-marriage is not only NOT a sin in Islam, heterosexual pedophilia is considered a virtue, since the 50 year old man who consummates marriage with a nine-year old girl is simply emulating Mohammed (To be fair, this was not unusual in ancient times. Moses himself demands of the commanders of the army: “Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man” (Numbers 31).

Mohammed lived a sinless life, according to Muslim belief, so anyone who imitates him is living a virtuous life. Mohammed married Aisha when she was six and consummated the marriage when she was nine. He was 54. There is essentially NO reporting on this fact anywhere.

No one is calling for Islam to cleanse itself of the rot.

Peggy, how about a column about that?

But why not?

Aren't you and other news types willing to risk having your throat cut for criticizing Mohammed?

So, let's sum up a little more accurately than Peggy was able to do.

The MSM reporters went after the Catholic Church almost exclusively and certainly out of all proportion to the actual amount of abuse that occurred within the Church.

It ignored (in order of abusive importance) Jews, Protestants, secular public schools and Islam.

Noonan's attempt at MSM apologetics is simply pathetic.

Yes, the abuse happened, but no, the reporters didn't try to avoid attacking the Church.

They reveled in it, the focused on it, they intend to take the Church down.

The crescendo is designed to reach its peak during Holy Week.

End of story.

Peggy Noonan is either an idiot or a liar.

I've lost all respect for her.

Bad Popes

Bonnie Erbe of US News and World Report is in high dudgeon. The Pope was remiss in handling a sexually abuse priest!

Hang the Pope!

Yada, yada, yada.

Now, as a Catholic, I want to personally thank Bonnie and company for their close attention to the Catholic Church's trials and tribulations. After all, Bonnie is very concerned for Catholic welfare. She cares about Catholics in a way that she obviously doesn't care when it comes to any other group of people.

For instance, when Carol Shakeshaft reported on the level of sexual abuse in the American public school system (400x higher in the schools than in the Church) Bonnie was silent as a lamb. For every child abused by a priest, 400 were abused by the public schools. It's actually worse than that, because the Church abuse was spread over five decades, while the school abuse is just the estimate for the last decade.

Similarly, when Yemen found it impossible to outlaw child marriage, Bonnie saw no news. There is nothing wrong with Muslims who insist that child marriage is not only legal, but laudable, because they are Muslims, after all, and we can't expect them to be decent people.

And we won't even discuss how the ritual of Jewish circumcision passes on HIV to infants, nor will we mention the higher rates of sexual abuse in Jewish or Protestant communities.

The examples could be multipled, but why bother?

None of this is news.

Furthermore, we should also recognize that it is only purest coincidence that by piling onto the Pope, the MSM are simultaneously attacking Barack Obama's most formidable political opponent apart from the Republican Party and Barack himself.

So, why does Bonnie get upset with the Pope? Because Bonnie is interested in our welfare. She cares. It brings tears to my eyes to know that she cares.

But she needn't worry. Even if Pope Benedict is eventually found to have exercised the worst possible judgment in regard to priestly sexual abusers, it's not like he's the first or the worst of the Popes to have done that. Let's reminisce a bit, shall we?

Pope Stephen VI (896-897) had a grudge against his predecessor, Pope Formosus. In order to humiliate his memory, he had Formosus’ body dug up, placed on a throne, and tried for acting improperly as a bishop. The corpse was found guilty, its three blessing fingers were cut off, it was dressed as a layman, briefly re-buried, then exhumed again and the body thrown in the Tiber. All ordinations he had performed were declared null. In gratitude for this and other actions, Pope Stephen was shortly thereafter imprisoned and strangled to death.

Pope John XII (937-964) was accused by a synod of 50 Italian and German bishops (bishops, mind you, not scurvy little reporter-babes) of sacrilege, simony, perjury, murder, adultery and incest. The conflict between the Pope’s supporters and his opponents resulted in bloodshed in the streets of Rome, some of it directly inflicted by John XII himself. Cardinal-Deacon John had his right hand cut off, Bishop Orgar of Speyer was scourged, a high palatine official lost his nose and ears. Pope John died shortly after. According to rumor, he was stricken by paralysis in the act of adultery.

Pope Benedict IX (1032-1048) was a disgrace to the Chair of Peter. Placed on the throne at about the age of 20, he was driven from office by a faction in Rome and replaced by the anti-pope, Sylvester III. Benedict managed to return the favor, driving Sylvester from office and regaining the throne, but resigning the office and selling it a short time later for a large sum of money to Gregory VI. When he repented of that bargain and tried to regain the throne from Gregory VI, the Council of Sutri convinced Gregory that he had committed the sin of simony. Gregory resigned, and Clement II was elected. Clement died shortly thereafter and Benedict seized the throne a third time. He was driven from the throne again, and Damasus II was elected in his stead. He eventually repented of all his actions, resigned the throne permanently and lived a life of penance in the Abbey of Grottaferrata until his death.

In his third book of Dialogues, Pope Victor II referred to Benedict's "rapes, murders and other unspeakable acts. His life as a Pope so vile, so foul, so execrable, that I shudder to think of it." St. Peter Damian recorded that Benedict "feasted on immorality" and that he was "a demon from hell in the disguise of a priest." He accused Benedict IX of routine sodomy and bestiality and repeated the rumor that he was said to have sponsored orgies.

Pope Urban VI (1378-1389) treated the people around him so badly that several cardinals defected, fled Rome, and attempted to elect a different pope. This began the Great Western Schism, when two different lines of men both claimed to be pope, and each was backed by a saint and doctor of the Church. Urban himself was subject to at least two attempts to assassinate or depose him, both plots hatched by cardinals of the Church.

And these are just some of the finest examples of papal depravity that could be brought forward. There are more. If you insist on being scandalized by bad popes, or leaving the Church because of a bad pope, why on earth would you choose to balk at the present contender when so many better examples of great papal sinners are available?

So, we have had bad popes. Although the evidence is still by no means clear, let us grant, for the sake of argument, that this particular pope, Benedict XVI, could be numbered with them.

So what?

As Pope St. Leo the Great (440-461) declared, in his third homily for Christmas Day, "the dignity of Peter suffers no diminution even in an unworthy successor" (cujus dignitas etiam in indigno haerede non deficit).

Even by 450 AD, less than 70 years after the Church had become the official religion of the Roman Empire, the Church had already seen anti-popes and attacks on the popes that overshadow anything the 20th or 21st century has produced. The fact that people are outraged when some evil can be attributed to a priest, bishop or even Pope is merely a demonstration that everyone holds the Church in the highest regard.

What is barely newsworthy in reference to public school teachers, what is roundly ignored when it comes to other faiths, this same conduct is considered outrageous in Catholic Faith precisely because our Faith is true and none of the others are.

The Magisterium of the Catholic Church is the sole source of moral Truth. When our leaders fail, it is a much greater failing.

"The latter are forgiven nothing", says De Maistre in his great work, Du Pape, "because everything is expected from them, wherefore the vices lightly passed over in a Louis XIV become most offensive and scandalous in an Alexander VI" (II, c. xiv).

Thanks for affirming what we already knew, Bonnie.

Would He?

According to ABC News, death threats have been made against Barack Obama on Twitter.

I am, of course, absolutely horrified... horrified, I tell you.. horrified, that anyone would have that attitude towards Our Beloved Leader.

But the contemplation of such an awful... awful, I tell you... awful sentiment sparked a musing.
No, a musing, not amusement. My muse sparkled into action. Sparkled, I say.

Now, ABC News gravely reminds us that it is a violation of federal law to threaten the life of the President.

Of course, in order to successfully prosecute the gentlemen involved, the President would have to establish that he is actually legally President.

He would have to produce a birth certificate.
No, not a certificate of live birth, an actual birth certificate.

If that checked out, he would have to explain how he fulfills the definition of "natural born citizen" given that his father was not an American citizen. Not a US citizen born in the United States, but a "natural born citizen."

There is, after all, a legal difference between being born a citizen of the United States and being a natural-born citizen of the United States.

The first requires EITHER American parents OR birth on American soil.
The second requires BOTH American parents AND birth on American soil.

So, all relevant evidence would have to be brought forward.
College transcripts and scholarships might even have to be examined.
All the documents that were never revealed would have to come out from under wraps.
All kinds of questions would have to be answered.

Yes, that's what would happen if these nefarious gentlemen... nefarious, I tell you!... nefarious gentlemen were prosecuted.

Somehow, I don't think these gentlemen will be prosecuted.

UPDATE 4/21/2010

My prophetic abilities remain intact.

1) In fact, after investigation by the Secret Service (who are required to investigate all threats against the President), neither one of the nefarious gentlemen have been prosecuted by the federal government, nor are they expected to be.

Toldja.

2) Despite Mark Shea's suggestions, the Secret Service has not even begun to hint that they will investigate me for having broken federal law.

Why would they investigate me?
Well, because Mark says I am complicit in violating federal law: conspiracy to assassinate a President!

Yes, MURDER MOST FOUL!!! (hisses....)

And I'm "coy" to boot.
I knew I was a goy, but I didn't realize I was coy.
Hmmmm.....

In any case, since Shea NEVER engages in hateful, malicious, totally absurd ad hominem attacks we know he must be right. Yet the Secret Service seems to dither.

Hmmm... again.

Could it be a.... conspiracy?

Are Secret Service agents conspiring with me against the President?
Tune in to Mark Shea's blog to find out more!
But bring your tinfoil hat, a set of earplugs, and a small towel to wipe away the spittle of his rage. He can be a "wet" speaker sometimes, if you know what I mean.

And, if you do drop by, don't forget to send him my thanks for his personal endorsement of me, "bitter writer" that I am, and two of my best-selling books!

Yes, he loved me once, before he hated me.

Or, to put it as only Ralph Waldo Emerson could, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines."

Exactly!

Death Panels in the Bill

Were you happy that the death panels, at least, didn't make it into the Chicago Butcher's law? Well, think again. They're in there - you just have to realize how neatly it was done:

13. If you are a physician owner and you want to expand your hospital? Well, you can’t (Section 6001 (i) (1) (B). Unless, it is located in a county where, over the last five years, population growth has been 150% of what it has been in the state (Section 6601 (i) (3) ( E)). And then you cannot increase your capacity by more than 200% (Section 6001 (i) (3) (C)).

There it is.

How does that equate to a death panel, you ask?

Simple - think about how the Baby Boomer generation is aging out, where they are aging out, and how the demographics of population growth works.

Old people don't have kids. In fact, Americans overall are barely having two children per family on average. The only places which will see 150% population growth will be areas with high illegal immigration levels.

Geographic areas with large numbers of aging Baby Boomers aren't going to have high population growth, except through immigration. And older people tend not to move hundreds or thousands of miles. They like to stay in their circle of friends, in neighborhoods they are familiar with. They tend to lack the financial means to move. When they do move, they tend to move to where other older Americans already reside.

So, population growth in areas with high numbers of Baby Boomers is simply not going to happen. Now, it is true that Florida appears to be an exception to these rules, but keep in mind that Florida gains population growth only by drawing on an entire nation's worth of the wealthiest of older Americans.

Result? Essentially, no hospital expansions will be possible in any area which has a large number of older people. As the number of aged people in an area increase, the institutions to care for them won't be permitted to increase.

If you don't live in an area with high illegal immigration, you won't have any hospital expansion, even though your aging population requires it. According to the law, as the aged population increases, the relative number of hospital beds will shrink.

But it gets better:

15. The government will extract a fee of $2.3 billion annually from the pharmaceutical industry. If you are a pharmaceutical company what you will pay depends on the ratio of the number of brand-name drugs you sell to the total number of brand-name drugs sold in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the brand-name drugs in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2.3 billion, or $230,000,000. (Under reconciliation, it starts at $2.55 billion, jumps to $3 billion in 2012, then to $3.5 billion in 2017 and $4.2 billion in 2018, before settling at $2.8 billion in 2019 (Section 1404)). Think you, as a pharmaceutical executive, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 9008 (b)).

16. The government will extract a fee of $2 billion annually from medical device makers. If you are a medical device maker what you will pay depends on your share of medical device sales in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the medical devices in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2 billion, or $200,000,000. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for R&D? Tough. (Section 9009 (b)).

See? The cost of producing drugs and medical devices will rise in order to pay these taxes, but the hospitals won't be able to expand their size to help cushion and cover the cost increases. So, smaller hospitals with proportionately higher drug and medical device cost per patient will be forced out of business.

And, according to the law, no one will be able to replace those missing hospital beds. It will be illegal to replace those hospital beds. They're gone.

So, not only will the relative number of hospital beds not increase, the absolute number of hospital beds will decrease.

Precisely as the population in an area ages out, the facilities to care for them will disappear.

Islam stops Christian conversion in part by forbidding the construction of new churches or the maintenance of existing churches.

Barack Hussein Obama has taken a page from sharia law and applied it to the Baby Boomers. Wherever they live in large (and growing) numbers, the availability of hospital beds to care for them will shrink.

As the American population ages out, hospitals will become proportionally too small to care for the available hospital-needy population. This will hit small states, like Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, etc., the hardest, since their states are so small that geographic variations between county and state are very unlikely to have any cushioning effect.

Butcher Barack knows his business. You have to admit, his solution is possibly the neatest solution to killing old people that could have been developed.

And now it's the law.

Wave goodbye to the nice grandparents!

May 2015 UPDATE
Well, it's 2015 and everything is working according to plan.

August 2017 UPDATE
It's 2017, and at least a few people are starting to catch on

May 2023 UPDATE

It's taking a bit longer than expected, but now the hospitals are shutting down in droves.

Why Nuns Support ObamaCare

59,000 nuns support ObamaCare, in the calm, cool ignorance that they will be the first ones up against the wall when the revolution comes.

Why would 59,000 nuns support ObamaCare in defiance of the USCCB?

The answer is simple really.

Most of the liberal orders of nuns are dying.

Nobody in these orders is under 60 years of age.

None of these orders have paid into Social Security, unemployment or Medicare/Medicaid.

They are due absolutely no government benefits.

In most cases, the dioceses aren't going to help them much, if at all.

Apart from those nuns who managed to earn a diocesan retirement because they worked in a diocese for awhile, no diocese has any financial obligation towards a member of a religious order.

Religious orders are supposed to take care of their own.

Now, in the past this worked out because the fresh blood coming in at the bottom would find employment somewhere in the Church and provide the necessary funds to keep open the religious orders' retirement homes. This cycle works great when you have a steady stream of young postulants, novices, etc.

Unfortunately, there aren't any new vocations in the liberal orders. Their old revenue stream is now as dry as the wombs of most of the post-menopausal Wicca worshippers; it's as out-of-date as the 1970's pantsuits that are their new traditional habit.

The truly sad thing is, some of the nuns trapped in these orders are still faithful to the Church - their order has just been destroyed by the Powers That Be(tm) who run their lives.

The rain fails to fall on both the just and the unjust.

In any case, every nun in every one of these dying orders is VERY worried about her retirement.

After a year of staring at the ticking clock on the wall, the same wall that Barack, Nancy and Harry have been running their heads into for the last year, the nuns are scared to death.

What if ObamaCare doesn't pass?

It's a positive nightmare.

From their point of view, government-run health care is their only ticket to a trouble-free old age. If they don't throw their weight aboard now, the train might never leave the station. So, they've climbed out and have begun to push.

They don't really give a damn about the women who will be injured by abortion or the children who will die as a result. Those young girls - both the girls in the womb and the women carrying them - were never going to join their Magic Circle novitiate anyhow. To hell with them.

What these Kumbaya creatures don't realize - or don't want to know - is that ObamaCare intends on solving the Medicare gap by euthanizing old people. Sister Sillypants had her fingers in her ears when Obama talked about euthanizing his own grandmother.

Obama is her only hope, and she has to count on likely dying before he gets the euthanasia panels fully operating. Or at least she can look forward to three hots and a cot while she waits for the pillow over her face.

So that's the great irony of the thing.

These nuns REALLY WILL be the first ones up against the wall.

And, deep in their hearts, they know it.

But now that they've given up on Christ, Obama is the only source of hope they have.

If they abandon him, to whom will they go?

Still Crazy, After All These Years

At one time, he must have been sane.

It's hard to imagine it, but the man was the editor in chief for the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You remember that little book! Green cover, lots of numbered paragraphs, kind of harsh on that whole "let's act out homosexually" idea.

How quickly we forget!

Cardinal Schonborn, may God bless him, seems to have forgotten everything he's ever read. He now says celibacy may be the problem behind the media firestorm over pedophilia in the Catholic Church of Germany and Austria.

Oh, if only priests could marry! (sob! sniffle! snort!)

It's a crying shame that they can't!

Now, lest we fall down same memory-hole, we should recall the Vatican's own verdict on this: the pedophilia scandals have been caused by sodomites.

For those keeping score of such things, that's what the John Jay report originally said, too, before the USCCB got a hold of it and "revised" the findings a few years after it came out. And, of course, the US Government's own study of public schools demonstrated that public school employees offend at a rate about 20x higher than priests. As far as we recall, public school teachers are not prohibited from marrying.

So, how many people out there think that a sodomite can be cured of his predilections simply by having him marry a really hot woman?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Anyone?

Apparently, Cardinal Schonborn is of that opinion, because he seems to think that if sodomite priests could just get married, all of these pedophilia scandals would scatter like the storm clouds before a strong wind.

Either that, or the man is quietly recommending that sodomites be allowed to attempt to sacramentally marry each other in the Church.

But certainly even a prince of the Church isn't that stupid.

Right?

Right?

Bueller?....

Where has that boy gone?

Catholic Blizzards

For over 25 years (1950-1976), Josef Pieper was professor of philosophical anthropology at the University of Munster. As professor emeritus, he continued to lecture at the university for another 20 years past that. For over 60 years, he taught Plato and Thomistic philosophy and theology. He was awarded the Balzan Prize in philosophy, and the Ehrenring. His 1966 classic, The Four Cardinal Virtues, was actually a compilation of earlier essays written in the 1950s. This book is so thorough, clear and concise that it is considered a standard text in both undergraduate and graduate theology and philosophy programs.

Why do I mention Pieper? Because Josef Pieper described Chris West's teachings as Manichean long before Chris West was ever born.

I have documented elsewhere how both John Paul II and Thomas Aquinas both directly contradict Chris West's cult teachings and pseudo-Catholic theology. But, rather than acknowledging that he is wrong, Chris continues to mis-represent both John Paul II and Thomas, insisting that the clear words of the Pope and the Angelic Doctor do not mean what they say.

For instance, although both Pope John Paul II and the Angelic Doctor describe continence as a virtue, West insists it is not. In order to make his case, he studiously avoids the passages in which both men specifically name continence a virtue, instead pointing his acolytes towards passages which have little or nothing to do with the virtue at all.

West insists that sex is the means by which everything is spiritualized, and he further insists that there can be no real virtue without this spiritualization. Josef Pieper was aware of this tendency in Catholic thought, and he had very specific things to say about it:

In The Four Cardinal Virtues, Pieper devotes an entire section to a discussion of the two forms of chastity. In it, he differentiates between chastity as temperentia and chastity as continentia.

As we already know, and Pieper explains, the perfected virtue of temperance and moderation is chastity (temperentia). In temperentia, the sensual appetite is in the habit of directing itself towards the good. In contrast, the unperfected virtue of chastity (continentia) is "not yet a natural inclination of being, neither has as yet grown firm roots in the existential core of man. This second mode of chastity is not the perfected virtue of temperance and moderation, but a strenuous control... the first is less perfect than the second, because by the former, the directing power of reason has been able to mold only the conscious will, but not yet the sensual urge, whereas by the latter will and urge are both stamped with 'rational order'(Summa Theologica II, II 155, 4 ad3)."

Pieper goes on to note that unchastity through mere lack of control is actually less pernicious than unchastity through temperentia. The merely uncontrolled can be recalled to order and repentance is quick, whereas the solidified disposition that is temperentia is hard to change and represents real malice. According to Pieper, who is summarizing Aquinas, "One who is merely uncontrolled is not unchaste, even though he acts unchastely." (italics in original, cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 7, 9, 1151a).

Now, if that were all Pieper had to say, I wouldn't bother to make this post. While that alone would be a direct attack on West's idea that continence is not a virtue, the fact that West
(a) is wrong on this point and
(b) refuses to discuss any of the erroneous positions he holds with anyone capable of refuting him
is not exactly news.

But there is more.
Josef Pieper isn't done.
The whole discussion of how the two forms of chastity get distorted just ticks Pieper off.
He has a soapbox, and he climbs on it just a few pages later.
This is page 167 of the 1966 edition of his work:

"Unlike all other virtues, it has always been the strange fate of the virtue of temperance and moderation, especially in its aspect of chastity, not to be valued and practiced or scorned and ridiculed more or less at its face value, but to be overestimated and overvalued in a very specific sense. This is something altogether unique. There have, of course, always been theoretical discussions about the hierarchy of the virtues, and one or the other has been shifted to a higher rank. But the stubborn and really quite fanatical preference given to temperentia, especially to chastity, which runs through the whole history of Christian doctrine as a more or less hidden undercurrent or counter current, has a very special aspect. No one, at any rate, has attached to justice or prudence or to any of the three theological virtues such an emphatic and evidently not simply factual, but emotionally charged evaluation.

Of course, there would not be the slightest objection against such an evaluation per se - for strictly speaking, virtues as such cannot be overrated. But here we are speaking of an evaluation and overevalutation based on a false premise; of an evaluation, therefore, which implies a misunderstanding of what is supposedly valued so highly. And against this we must object strongly.

In the province of temperentia as we have said before, it is man's attitude toward creation which is decided, and most incisively. And the 'wrong premise' upon which rest the overevaluation and erroneous values given to temperentia in general and chastity in particular amounts to this, namely, the explicit or implied opinion that the sensual reality of the whole of creation, and above all the nonspiritual element in man himself, is actually evil. To sum up: the 'wrong premise' is an explicit, or more often, an implicit, even unconscious and unintended, Manichaeism."

Although Pieper is directing his anger towards people like Tertullian, it is clear from the passage that if we were to give him Chris West's assertion that mere continence is not a virtue, he would undoubtedly send West to join Tertullian.

After all, West has clearly demonstrated a "stubborn and really quite fanatical preference given to temperentia."

Pieper goes on in this section to explain in greater detail why West is so wrong to do this (p. 168).
Nearly every word can be applied to our good friend, Chris:

"[The erroneous idea concerning] The specifically human task, or better still, the specifically Christian task, would consist in rising above this entire 'lower' sphere and mounting by ascetic practice [for West, we rise above this lower sphere through sex, but sensuality and perverse asceticism are really two sides of the same coin. Indeed, Pieper follows Aquinas example in discussing fasting and sensuous touch in adjoining sections.], to a purely spiritual way of life. Not only do fasting, vigils and sexual continence [or in West's case, sex, sex, and sex] take on a very special importance from this basic approach, but they move necessarily into the center of attention of the man striving for perfection. This evaluation, however shares and indeed intensifies the errors of its original; and despite all outward similarity, it has as little to do with the Christian evaluation of those three things [or that one thing] as the heresies of the Manichees, the Montanists, and the Cathari have to do with the Catholic dogma that proclaims that created reality is good in all its spheres, and is not subject to the arbitrariness of human evaluation; indeed, it is the basis and the point of departure of all evaluations as well as of all realization of value. " (cf. II, II, 130, 1, cf also II, II, 133, 1, Car. 1 - plus a quote from Thomas which indicates this attitude is a sin. Emphasis added)

Now, in order to quiet the West cultists ahead of time, if you read the rest of the section on chastity and unchastity, it's pretty clear that Pieper is no prude. He footnotes Malachi about there being something divine being in human seed, and points out that Thomas forbids a man from fasting to the extent that it interferes with his virility (yes, he even provides the necessary Thomistic footnotes).

Josef Pieper was teaching TOB long before JP II wrote a word, and he did it better, in the sense that he's a lot easier to read (and a lot tougher to distort). In fact, it would be absurd to believe that John Paul II would have been unfamiliar with, or uninfluenced by, one of the leading Thomists in Europe, a man who was teaching just a few hundred miles from Krakow.

So, we can now add to the long list of unanswered problems with the Chris West cult, the problem of Manicheanism masquerading as Catholic Faith.

West, of course, will respond as he always has - with silence.

When the original charges were leveled against him by his own teachers, he remained quiet while directing his shills to argue that this was a discussion more suited to the journals.

Months later, when he finally held a public interview on Al Kresta, his only response to his critics was to say that only ivory-tower academics who publish in journals had a problem with his teachings.

Likewise, his shills began by insisting that his former teachers' did not adequately substantiate their charges against West.

Yet, when they were asked to substantiate their own assertions that West's teachings were grounded in the ancient teaching of the Church, his supporters suddenly... disappeared.

Chris West has very few cards, but he plays them skillfully. Thousands of Catholics have been talked into sending him millions of dollars to promote a quasi-Catholic Faith, while West and his acolytes reap the monetary rewards.

He's the Al Gore of Catholic theology.
How long will it be before the blizzard hits?

Shut Up, He Explained

Years ago, pro-aborts came up with an ingenious argument that makes them look like saints while forcing their critics into silence: "I don't believe in forcing my opinions on others." It's the pro-abort version of, "I would like to nominate myself for the Humblest Person of the Year Award." If the individual spouting the line didn't believe in forcing his opinions on others, then why am I being lectured about how to treat others? Why is he forcing his opinion on me? The line is nothing but a gilded claim to victim status and one-upmanship combined into one concise phrase. "I don't want to listen to you. I'm so much holier and better than you. I have higher standards. Would you just shut up?" If the speaker were honest, he would say this instead. Unfortunately, it is less concise, and the speaker would look like a pompous ass if he did. So, from a strategic standpoint, the pro-abort argument is really much more satisfying. It's a real shame when Catholics get involved in similar lines of reasoning. I've already pointed out Catholics like Mark Shea who are partial to this argument, and I've noted that it is also a favorite of the defenders of Chris West. That's sad. But it's really disappointing when a Catholic bishop engages in it. Take, for instance, John Allen's applause when Bishop Kevin Farrell of Dallas used essentially this argument to defend his style of episcopal leadership:

"We need to be self-critical and realize that no one of us has the only approach to Catholicism," Farrell said. (His address was published in Origins in August). "Honest debate, not confrontation -- true dialogue where we seek to understand the other, not facile condemnation -- should be the overarching way we move forward."

"The word 'heretic' has been reserved for precious few people in our Catholic tradition," Farrell said, rejecting what he called "verbal fratricide" and a tendency to become "smug, dismissive and righteous" about the Catholic intellectual tradition.

"No theologian, or professor or pope, has ever had or ever will have all the answers to what it means to be authentically and fully Catholic," Farrell said.

Now, how a bishop chooses to lead a diocese is his own business. I am not qualified to tell him that he's right or wrong, although I do have the canonical right to offer an opinion on what it looks like to the man in the pew. Indeed, I even have a duty to do so. But, if I am to take Bishop Farrell at his word, isn't it incumbent on me to help him engage in a little self-criticism? Then let's! 

First, I don't remember seeing his sentiment laid out in any Magisterial document. Not one. Certainly we see Scripture say that we should always be prepared to give a defense of the Faith, but always in gentleness and reverence. There are LOTS of Magisterial documents that put forth that sentiment. But that's not what Bishop Farrell says. He doesn't say that we should be gentle and reverent when defending the Faith or living it out. He says "No one of us has the only approach to Catholicism." 

 Now, pardon me Bishop, but what the heck does THAT mean? Does it mean that many different orthodox spiritualities are available to the orthodox Catholic: Franciscan vs. Dominican vs. Carmelite vs.... well, you get the picture? If so, then who would argue with that? It's a strawman to say that anyone would. Does he mean to say that, given several options on how to proceed in specific situations, there is often room for differences in prudential judgement? Again, who argues against this proposition? I don't think I've ever met anyone who did. He wants "honest debate not confrontation." Is he engaged in honest debate by setting up straw men? And, leaving the straw aside for the moment, isn't THAT a prudential decision? Who determines what is "honest dialogue" versus "confrontation"? I've been engaged in honest dialogue with other people which third parties thought were confrontations - both of us had to set the mistaken party straight and point out that we were just having a strenuous discussion. I've been engaged in dialogues with other people that were the very picture of decorum but were not at all honest, and then been congratulated on how well everyone in the situation had handled it. 

But leave THAT aside and let's just look at confrontation. What, exactly, is wrong with confrontation? Confrontation has a long history in the Catholic Faith, and no one familiar with her history would deny this. The Crusades were built around very pointed confrontation, as was every military engagement with the Muslims. Who would you rather be? St. Louis, King of France, on Crusade against the Muslim, or Cardinal Richelieu, the man who made common cause with Muslims against other Catholics in order to advance the interests of France? I will note only that the ecumenism Richelieu brought to the Catholic-Muslim engagement did not make him a candidate for sainthood, while St. Louis' armed confrontation against the Muslims did not detract from his. 

Think of the numerous synods and ecumenical councils of the Church in which bishops confronted laymen, priests and bishops (mostly priests and bishops, btw), condemning them to exile, imprisonment and the burning of all their works. The bishops who condemned the heretics sure thought they had the answer to how to live the Catholic life, and they sure thought the persons they condemned as exiled heresiarchs did not. Even the famously even-tempered Aquinas got fed up with his opponents when they tried to distort the Faith and his defenses. He's a doctor of the Church. And let's not even get started on whether every martyr of the Church was involved in dialogue or confrontation. Indeed, if we went far enough back, we could even use the open, honest debate techniques that Jesus and His prophet, John the Baptist, modeled for us: "Blind guides! Blind hypocrites! You den of vipers! Who told YOU you could escape the coming destruction! Fools! You make your proselytes TWICE the sons of perdition that YOU are!" 

Or would Bishop Farrell find John, Jesus and Paul distasteful? Did they engage in outmoded and condemned confrontation? Sadly, John the Baptist would not gain many modern bishops' approval. Heck, I've heard one Midwestern bishop tell a public audience that he wouldn't want St. Paul in his diocese - too confrontational. But by ignoring these and many more examples that could be brought forward, aren't the good bishops being "smug, dismissive and righteous" about the Catholic tradition? If "[n]o theologian, or professor or pope, has ever had or ever will have all the answers to what it means to be authentically and fully Catholic," (odd how he left bishops out of the list) then why should I pay any attention to Bishop Farrell's opinion on the matter? As he himself admits, he's likely to be wrong in his opinion. If no one has the answer, then he doesn't have the answer. If he doesn't have the answer, and doesn't have any confidence that an answer can be reached, then why talk with him at all? If he's right, he's useless. If he's wrong, he should be ignored. So what is his point again? The point of dialogue is to reach a conclusion from which a judgement can be made. It is not just to natter on endlessly. If I wanted endless, mindless chatter, I would turn on the television. Or read Richard McBrien. 

So why would anyone say anything so mind-numbingly vapid as our good bishop did in this instance? From a standard of basic logic, I don't know. Don't ask me - talk to someone else. I have no answer, nor any confidence that a reasonable answer can be provided. But, if we throw basic logic aside and realize that he was just going for style points, the answer is a lot more clear. The good bishop prefers semantic fratricide, which is oh-so-much-better than verbal fratricide.... Or.... something..... 

Now, as I say, he has the right to say that. He is bishop, after all. But even if he has the right to say it, I don't have to like the victim-saint combo that he gilds himself with as he does it. No one has all the right prudential answers... except him? Please. If you were Pope, I would at least consider the possibility before dismissing it as a violation of the Faith. As it is... The great irony of the thing is this: John Allen, the man who applauds Bishop Ferrell's double-speak, emphasized the importance of striking a balance. How did Allen do this? Well, by personally condemning "Taliban Catholicism." Sigh. Now, Allen protests that such Catholics are present on the left and the right. What he doesn't do is demonstrate why confrontation is a problem. Everyone assumes, as if it is a commonly agreed idea, that confrontation is not good, condemnation is not good. And they will confront and condemn anyone who says otherwise. Got that? 

We all like to judge others (heck, that's what this column is about, ain't it?) and we all like to think that we're the ones on the high ground. As George C. Scott said in "Patton" - "Hell, yes, I'm a prima donna. I admit it! The thing I don't like about Monty (British General Montgomery) is that he's a prima donna and he WON'T admit it!" I've always admired that attitude. I prefer Patton's confrontation of the truth to a "dialogue" over mindless piffle.

Desecration

On January 15, 2010, the altar, sanctuary and sacred space of St. James Church in Chinatown was desecrated by several rock bands that had been, for whatever reason, invited to perform there by the pastor.

When video of the event hit the web, the Catholic blogosphere exploded in outrage. The priest, Father Walter Toneletto, almost immediately apologized, saying he had been misled by the organizers. He avers that he is actually the pastor of another parish, which merged with this one within the last two years, that he "lived downtown" and was unaware of the problem because he went home before the event, that he was deeply sorry, and that others were saying evil things about him.

So, in Christian charity, many people argue that we must accept the priest's word and turn our anger towards the evil men who deceived him.

This may well be true.
However, during the uproar, several questions were left unanswered.

1) The parish has an activity hall. How did the band promoters manage to deceive the pastor into giving the bands access to the sanctuary instead of putting them in the activity hall?

2) "Ah!" one might argue, "The space is such that by giving access to the activity hall, they automatically have access to the sanctuary!" Really?

First, there's no evidence that this is true. Indeed, I would be absolutely shocked to discover that an extensive renovation in 2002 would not include security measures that provide for exactly this kind of lock-off between sanctuary space and activity hall.

Second, the videos of the event (most of them since pulled by the fans who posted them), show the rock bands performing on a stage that appeared to be specially built and adapted to the sacred space, with the wooden supports specifically cut so that the platform projected out over the steps of the sanctuary.

How did such an extension get measured, cut and built unless the priest knew the bands would set up in the sanctuary and around the altar ahead of time? It could be true, but if it is, I must say, these deceivers are really, really expert, because they apparently snuck in, measured the space, pre-fabbed the stage, assembled it and started their shows without the pastor having a clue.

3) Speaking of which, what parish staff, if any, had control of the keys and supervision of the event space all evening long? How did they deceive the parish representatives at the event into going along with it? Who opened up the church, helped out with the organization that night, cleaned up and locked up? Especially if there is no parish staff besides the priests, as the parish bulletins seem to indicate? Or are the pastors at this Manhattan church in the habit of letting keys to the sanctuary float freely among the parishioners? What a curious custom for otherwise suspicious New Yorkers to have!

4) Father Toneletto claims he went downtown to his rectory, and was thus unaware that the event had raged out of control. As it happens, the church is also downtown, less than a block away from his rectory, in fact. Now, it is true that city noise can be impressive, but his rectory is not all that far away, is it?

If he had been called away to a sick parishioner or a dinner or something, that would be understandable. But he shows an amazing disinterest in what happens inside of his own sacred space, doesn't he? How did the band organizers deceive him into displaying this uncharacteristic level of disinterest?

5) Indie events are known for being borderline illegal, as they frequently overflow the permitted occupancy space for fire code and engage in other illegal activity. However, this event had an open bar for an hour and a half before the bands started playing, and was also BYOB. This was advertised on the internet. I've never met a priest who wasn't aware of dram shot law and the legal impact it could have on his church and himself. So, what was on the church fliers advertising the event? The church bulletin? Does the church have a liquor license?

How did the band organizers deceive the priest into allowing, or at least not knowing, about ninety minutes of free alcohol in the back of the church prior to the bands even going on stage?

In the spirit of the ubiquitous CRAP training (Children Really Are Protected) that every parish in the nation now foists on its parishioners, we should learn how such deception is done so it cannot be repeated on other priests, or on the laity, fools that we are. Indeed, training in how to avoid deception by roving bands of juvenile teenagers should probably be required of every volunteer in every parish in the country.

So, if Father Toneletto could describe in exact detail how he was so cleverly deceived, he would go a long way towards helping other priests, and scads of parishioners, avoid this problem.

But there are a couple of further questions:

6) When the news first started gaining steam on the net, nearly a week after the event, someone responded by sending out an e-mail in support of the parish, insisting the event never took place, that it had been canceled before anything actually happened. Who would do such a thing?

Certainly the indie fans aren't that stupid - they were posting video, photo, and blog entries about the event all over the internet afterwards and happy as clams about it. Only someone who never thought about the internet, never accessed the internet, never looked on the internet, would try to send out an e-mail denying the event took place.

7) If you do a search on Walter Toneletto, you'll find that a priest with the same name had been stationed up in Montreal, some years back, and he had a very big reputation for working with the youth. "If we give them space, they will come in and start working," says Tonelotto. "But if we do everything our way, the old way, then they stay out."

Is it the same Father Toneletto?
I don't know.

But I've worked in enough parishes to know that "youth-oriented" pastors are notorious for violating rubrics left and right in the name of "being pastoral." They tend to view the sanctuary as a stage and themselves as performers. Indeed, I once heard a priest with that attitude tell another priest who was vesting to say Mass, "Go break a leg."

Youth-oriented pastors are very big on having everyone gather in the sanctuary and hold hands around the altar while an execrable band plays even more execrable music. I once worked in a diocese run by an archbishop with a very strong orthodox reputation. Yet one of the largest parishes in his diocese held a regular "rock band Mass" once a month, in which the rock band played in the sanctuary during the liturgy, substituting their own self-composed music for the Psalm response.

Even though this was a gross violation of the liturgy, the pastor and the bishop were apparently fine with it. After all, it was "for the youth" (cue tears and violins). As far as I know, it's still going on today, a decade later (and this was not the same diocese, or even the same state, where I heard the "break a leg" comment).

Conclusion:
I don't personally think there's any question that Father Toneletto knew full well the bands were going to be in the sanctuary, that there would be beer, that their would be dancing in the aisles. He just never imagined that anyone would videotape it or that the video would end up on the internet.

Once that happened, he was a smart enough priest to realize that the best way out of the situation was to roll over and expose his soft underbelly while proclaiming his ignorance. The constant theme to his responses is, "I was mis-led and people have deliberately mis-represented me to others. I'm the victim here."

The archbishop, having publicly accepted Father Toneletto's version of the events and having studiously ignored the difficult questions surrounding his explanation of deception and deceit, clearly figures the public scandal is enough punishment for the pastor, and is betting the pastor has enough on the ball not to set himself up for another fall like this.

Besides which, the archbishop is new and he presides over New York City, where half the priests are insane, and most of the Catholic population are in various states of formal heresy, promoting abortion, contraception, etc. The American northeast , which has the highest concentration of Catholics in the country, also elects the highest percentage of pro-abort legislators. Father Toneletto is probably one of the more self-limiting of the self-destructive priests the archbishop has in his employ.

So, there's no point in pursuing this situation further. The archbishop has other, more pressing problems to deal with. Can you imagine being a bishop in a diocese where the sacrilege of the altar is one of your less pressing problems? Clearly, however, this problem has pretty much solved itself, so he's moving on. I will too.

Now, am I being uncharitable in reaching these conclusions?
Good Catholics can differ about that.

I don't mind giving someone the Christian charity of the doubt, but I refuse to ignore evidence of culpability that has not been explained away. Ignoring evidence, and admitting an inordinate, indeed, an unjustified, level of "Christian doubt" is part of what allowed the sexual abuse crisis to happen.

Sacrilege is worse then sexual abuse.
Sexual abuse merely offends the body, sacrilege is an attempt to directly offend the august dignity of God Himself. Indeed, sexual abuse involving baptized or otherwise consecrated people is itself a sacrilege, and makes the offense worse. That's why sexual abuse by priests is objectively worse than sexual abuse by school teachers.

Priests are consecrated to God's use in a way that school teachers are not.
When a priest commits sexual offenses, indeed, when even any baptized person commits sexual offenses, he commits sacrilege by the act.

Sanctuaries are consecrated to God's use and the use of the whole people of God.
This level of sacrilege is somewhat equivalent, but worse, than the sexual abuse of all the parishioners simultaneously.

I am glad that the priest has expressed remorse, that he has canceled future events of this kind, that he is holding a prayer vigil of reparation. No matter what his motivation - and I don't doubt that he is sincerely repentant - these are all good things to do.

So, why am I writing this?
I'm posting one last time about this event in order to lay the groundwork for my next post, the contemplation of a larger viewpoint within the Church that is beginning to take shape. I'll write about the exact dimensions of this in the near future.