The Competition

UPDATE II

"Mark Penn (Ex-strategist for Bill Clinton): Well, no, I think the people themselves saw unfair media coverage of Senator Clinton. I think if you go back, the polls reflected very clearly what "Saturday Night Live" crystallized in one of their mock debates about what was happening with the press.

I think here the media is on very dangerous ground. I think that when you see them going through every single expense report that Governor Palin ever filed, if they don't do that for all four of the candidates, they're on very dangerous ground. I think the media so far has been the biggest loser in this race. And they continue to have growing credibility problems.

And I think that that's a real problem growing out of this election. The media now, all of the media — not just Fox News, that was perceived as highly partisan — but all of the media is now being viewed as partisan in one way or another. And that is an unfortunate development."

Not from McCain's point of view, of course.
It's part of his election strategy.

UPDATE:
It seems my interpretation (below) of McCain's motives were not entirely without foundation.
See here and here.
--------------------------------------------------------------

I should begin this discussion by declaring a small bias.
If it weren't for the fact that we're both already married, I might very well propose to Sarah Palin.

It is so incredibly refreshing to see her in the VP slot.
It would be even better if she were running for President, but that's certain to happen in four or eight years, so I will wait patiently for that particular joy.

But my enthusiasm over Sarah is not the point of this essay.

As I watched her speech at the Republican National Convention last night, I realized a couple of things.

First, we finally have one of us in a position of power, and by "one of us," I don't mean just a pro-lifer. Sarah Palin has the common touch because she is common people. Five years ago, she was a PTA mom. She is not an Ivy Leaguer; she thinks Skull and Bones (the secret club at Yale which boasted both George Bush and John Kerry as members) is what you find in when you stumble on a wolf-pack kill. Not since Andrew Jackson - the man who destroyed the National Bank - and Abe Lincoln have we had a person so highly placed who came from such humble background, and even they don't compare, because both served in Congress before entering high office.

What does this mean? It means, if she is successful, that the Ivy Leaguers are washed up. You don't need a degree from a high-falutin' university to be great. This is the harbinger of a much greater change.

Many people have commented on how the Internet is a great equalizer. On the Internet, nobody knows if you are a dog. On-line courses can be taken from anywhere, by anyone, offered by anyone to anyone. I have written elsewhere on how the computer is destroying the great publishing houses; the former glorious gateways to publishing are slowly coming apart. A similar movement may be in store for the Ivy League.

For the last century, the large universities have been the gatekeepers to political power.
Unless you graduated from the right school, where you met the right people and were brainwashed with the right values, you could not attain high office.

The universities have been the political version of the Mafia, they are gangsters who had to be paid off, they get kick-backs in the form of government loans. For the professors and the policy wonks, it is La Cosa Nostra - Our Little Thing.

But that may be changing, and to the extent that it does, Sarah Palin is the face of that change.

But can this really be accomplished?
That's my second point.

Sarah is in a race against the clock.

Serious pro-lifers have never made it this high precisely because the vetting process kept us out. In the lower 48, the leftist news media have regularly destroyed the reputations of any moral person whom they cannot first subvert. We all know the stories: Jesse Jackson, Al Gore, Dick Gephardt, Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and many more: these politicians all began their careers with pro-life sentiments, but the news and political machines ground them all down. The vetting process subverted them, it demonized and destroyed anyone who clung to pro-life principles. You have to agree to kill children if you want real political power in this country.

Even those who made it through the process with some semblance of pro-life sentiment came out battered and bruised. There was a reason Ronald Reagan and the two Bush men never appeared at a DC pro-life anniversary march. They didn't want to be seen in public with us. When Pawlenty, governor of Minnesota, was held out as a favorite for the McCain pick, he responded by refusing to make his usual appearance at a pro-life event in Minnesota. When suddenly faced with the possibility of being President of the Seant, Pawlenty, for the first time, found himself unavoidably detained at a city council meeting twenty minutes away.

Politicians are afraid of being tarred by the media and the university policy wonks as pro-life whackos.

But Sarah Palin did not go through the process. She didn't go through the Ivy League nuthouse. She lives in Alaska, she came out of nowhere and beat the system in a state the media had never paid much attention to. Thus, she never had to accomodate the fruitcakes on Meet the Press or the homosexuals who run the New York Times front page. She was never taught to be afraid of them.

The media hate Christians because Christians - good Christians - aren't afraid of them. As Christians know, perfect love casts out fear. As Christians know, we are not to fear the one who can take our lives, rather, we fear only the loss of our souls. If they can't make us fear them, they can't control us, and it's all about control.

A woman who can disembowel a moose does not fear a prancing man with a microphone.

So, now Sarah is racing to get to the American people before the American media and machine politics can destroy her.

And this is the third point.

Sarah's speech last night merely confirmed something I've been ruminating on since she was chosen. John McCain chose Sarah Palin not only because he's a maverick, but also because he's a maverick who likes to get revenge. He's got a mean streak in him a mile wide, and I have a certain respect for that. Being mean can, under certain circumstances, be just.

The media dumped John McCain for Barack Obama, and he wanted to get even.
So he picked Sarah Palin.

He knew full well what Sarah Palin would do to the news rooms. The Sarah Palin pick wasn't just meant to pick up Hillary supporters, it was meant to tear the news rooms apart. He intended to ignite a civil war. Either the newsies would tear each other apart as feminists fought the Obaminationists, or the newsies - by heaping contempt on Sarah Palin - would dig their own grave with us, the public who employs them through our purchase of their mindless chatter.

The Internet had already begun to knock the supports out from under the MSM, or this tactic wouldn't have been possible. But because they are already weakened, because they no longer fully control the channel, McCain's plan will work. He's flooding the channel with more reality than they can process, more reality than they can chew up and spew out.

The Sarah Palin pick was meant to destroy them.

We identify with Sarah Palin. When they spit in her eye, they spit in our eye. And this particular cat fight is not being held in a dark corner of a small town where the politicos and the newsies abide over it like a dark fog, this fight is in the middle of the American national rodeo coursing through channels that are no longer fully controlled.

So, here's the question: can Sarah Palin get out in front of the people often enough? Can she make her natural resonance with us grow strong enough to out-pace the drumbeat against her?

If she can, then the world is changed, and for a very simple reason.
Sarah Palin is a normal, pro-life woman.
Once the nation gets a taste of normal, I don't think we'll settle for any more plastic men.

Correcting Speaker Pelosi

When asked on Aug. 24 edition of Meet the Press, “When does life begin?” Speaker Pelosi replied:

…as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition …. St. Augustine said at three months. We don't know.

Speaker Pelosi is in error. Pagan Roman society used contraception, abortion and infanticide quite freely. Under Roman law, the father of the household had the right to kill any infant in his household for whatever reason he wanted. He could require his wife or concubine to abort. Any child born with a defect, such as the defect of being female, could be abandoned. In theory, the father was placing the child on the road for anyone to pick up. In fact, the children almost uniformly died. Infanticide was so common that we still unearth ancient Roman sewers clogged with the bones of discarded infants. Infanticide and abortion killed so many women that it heavily skewed the sex ratio: Roman society could not reproduce. By the time of Christ, the Roman government was paying families to have children, and was forced to import immigrants from outside the boundaries of Empire in order to fill jobs. The population was unable to replace itself.

Christians were unusual in that they uniformly condemned contraception, abortion and infanticide. In fact, part of the reason Christians were considered wretched heretics is that they rescued exposed children, inventing orphanages to care for them. We knew the image and likeness of God was formed in the mother’s womb. All Christians agreed the fetus had a soul from the earliest moment of existence.

But when it came to contraception or abortion, it didn’t matter to the early Christians how that technical theological question was answered. Precisely because Christians didn’t know which it was, we had to treat the unborn as a fully human being. Making use of either contraception or abortion was acting against God’s life-giving work in the womb.

Thus, in his work On Marriage and Lust, Augustine condemned both abortion and contraception as immoral. St. Basil the Great, writing just a few years before Augustine, puts the ensoulment issue in proper perspective: “The hairsplitting difference between formed and unformed [ensouled and unensouled fetus] makes no difference to us. Whoever deliberately commits abortion is subject to the penalty for homicide.” No early Christian commentator can be found who held a contrary position. The Catholic Church has always known and taught that contraception and procured abortion is gravely evil.

Pelosi: The point is, is that it shouldn't have an impact on the woman's right to choose. Roe v. Wade talks about very clear definitions of [trimesters]...

As a Catholic, Speaker Pelosi should know that no one has a right to choose to kill an innocent person.

Pelosi: And so I don't think anybody can tell you when life begins, human life begins.

Ask any embryologist. Life begins at conception. As George Weigel points out in Newsweek, the widely used medical embryology text, The Developing Human, states: "Human development begins at fertilization when a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoon) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to produce a single cell—a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual." Embryologists specialize in studying the human embryo. While those who specialize in disciplines that do not study the embryo may pretend otherwise, the science of embryology agrees with the Church on this point: life begins at conception.

Question: Doesn’t the Church teach life begins at conception?

Pelosi: This is like maybe 50 years or something like that. So again, over the history of the church, this is an issue of controversy. But it is, it is also true that God has given us, each of us, a free will and a responsibility to answer for our actions. And we want abortions to be safe, rare, and reduce the number of abortions. That's why we have this fight in Congress over contraception. My Republican colleagues do not support contraception. If you want to reduce the number of abortions, and we all do, we must--it would behoove you to support family planning and, and contraception, you would think. But that is not the case.

Speaker Pelosi fails to recognize the reality. As the use of contraception has increased, it has, paradoxically, increased the rate of surgical abortion, just as Pope Paul VI predicted it would. Worse, every hormonal contraceptive acts, in part, by thinning the lining of the uterus, making it impossible for the embryonic child to implant correctly. Thus, every hormonal contraceptive causes chemical abortion.

Even if we discuss only barrier methods, it is the case that the promotion of contraception leads inexorably to more abortions, more STDs, more deaths because it dramatically increases the rate of promiscuity. Uganda, the only country in Africa that has steadily reduced its rate of AIDS infection, did so through a campaign that promoted abstinence. Every other African country promoted condoms. Every other African country saw AIDS increase.

Catholics cannot use or support the use of contraception. Nancy Pelosi is a baptized Catholic. She has a duty to become informed about why the Church teaches as She does on contraception.

Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Pelosi, said in a statement defending [Pelosi’s] remarks that she "fully appreciates the sanctity of family" and based her views on conception on the "views of Saint Augustine, who said, ‘The law does not provide that the act (abortion) pertains to homicide, for there cannot yet be said to be a live soul in a body that lacks sensation.’ "

If Speaker Pelosi had based her views on a full reading of St. Augustine, she would abhor contraception and abortion as intrinsically evil. This is what Augustine said about both:

Sometimes, indeed, this lustful cruelty, or if you please, cruel lust, resorts to such extravagant methods as to use poisonous drugs to secure barrenness; or else, if unsuccessful in this, to destroy the conceived seed by some means previous to birth, preferring that its offspring should rather perish than receive vitality; or if it was advancing to life within the womb, should be slain before it was born. (De Nube et Concupiscentia 1.17 [15])

Brendan Daly implies, and many people believe, that since the Church imposed different penalties for abortion at different periods, the Church has not had a consistent teaching on abortion or contraception.

It is true that Church penalties have varied over time as the Church has tried different methods to wean Her flock away from these enormous evils. In 1588, for example, Pope Sixtus V even tried to discourage abortion by reserving confession and absolution to the Holy See alone, a restriction used for only the most heinous sins. But this proved too impractical, and he soon resumed allowing local bishops the permission to absolve this sin. Today, the sin is so common even priests can absolve it.

By using different penalties for abortion performed prior to the perception of movement in the womb versus abortion performed after the perception of movement in the womb, the Church recognized that a woman who killed the child she felt moving in her womb was acting in an even more wicked manner than someone who had not yet been taught by the movement of life inside her about the sacred gift she carried. Church teaching has been consistent: abortion and contraception are always gravely evil.

So what do you do if you have used or encouraged the use of contraception or abortion? First, make a good confession. Refrain from receiving the Eucharist until you have a chance to receive absolution. Thank God for the gift of repentance, and ask the saints, most especially your guardian angel, to assist you in avoiding this sin in the future. Learn more about the teachings of the Church so that you may grow in holiness before God, our Creator and Father. And praise God always for His goodness and the life He gives us.

*I can create a one-page (back and front) PDF of this and make it available for download if anyone is interested.

Game Over

Well, Joe Biden must be pleased.
There wasn't time for him to torpedo Barack Obama's presidential hopes.
Nancy Pelosi seems to have killed him quite nicely.

There's now a half-dozen Catholic bishops condemning her comments:
Cardinals Rigali and Egan
Archbishops Wuerl and Chaput
Bishop Lori
Auxiliary Bishop James Conley

In addition, Joe Biden's Bishop, Bishop Saltarelli, has forbidden Biden the use of all Catholic facilities:

And Archbishop Chaput has told Biden not to come forward for the Eucharist in Denver archdiocese.

The silence from CNN and Yahoo is deafening, but it doesn't matter now.
Drudge is shooting him full of holes.

Barack Obama is going to get zero bounce out of this convention.
He will have to count himself lucky if he doesn't drop further.


I noticed back in March that Drudge seemed to purposely build Barack Obama up to Hillary's detriment. I couldn't figure out why. Drudge has always been solidly pro-life, and Obama was an active supporter of infanticide.

Now I know why - Drudge knew he could impale Obama on a stick anytime he wanted to.
As the convention approached, he kept ratcheting up the discontent among the Democrats.

And then Pelosi committed hari kari on Meet the Press.

It really isn't Pelosi's fault - someone among the Democrats was going to say something stupid. Pelosi just happened to get there first.

In any case, the Democrats are paying for having chosen Denver instead of San Francisco or Los Angeles. Smart people don't play in their opponent's back yard.

The solid bishops are tired of the games and they're taking the opportunity to cut off pro-abort Catholics at the knees. They've got solid support in the Curia, in the form of Archbishop Burke (who will probably make cardinal before Wuerl does). And when even Archbishop (note: not yet Cardinal) Wuerl piles on, you know the error was egregious.

On a sidenote, Wuerl's entry into the chorus is quite interesting. Bishops of Washington DC are traditionally elevated to the cardinalate, but Wuerl - who publicly said he wasn't going to excommunicate anyone - was pointedly NOT raised to the cardinalate.

Perhaps he has caught a clue and finally figured out that Benedict isn't interested in having cardinals who aren't willing to be crucified. Archbishop Wuerl has to prove himself worthy of the red hat by axing a pro-abort politician. And now that the sharp edge of his halberd has begun to clear the scabbard, the need for public consistency may well keep him interested in paying more attention to this problem.

In any case, the political game is now done.
The Catholic bishops are sniping the candidates in full earnest and this ten full weeks before the election.

Not all Catholics listen to their bishops, but enough will. Pennsylvania is history (note: Archbishop Wuerl's previous post was Bishop of Pittsburgh) - the Catholics who chucked Santorum out on his ear for simply supporting Arlen Specter are certainly not going to hand over to pro-aborts like Biden and Obama. With the solid bishops in full-throated chorus chasing down Catholic pro-abort leaders, and the bishops sympathetic to Obama and co. unwilling to unveil themselves, the Democrats have nowhere to go but down.

Welcome to the White House, President McCain.
Please take a lesson from your opponent's hemorrhage.


Update 8/27/2008:
Another county heard from.
Bishop Ferrell of Dallas has just joined in.

Somehow, I don't think he's going to be the last.

Update 8/28/2008
He wasn't.

Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik issued a response yesterday afternoon: Pelosi, D-Calif., "stepped out of her political role and completely misrepresented the teaching of the Catholic Church in regard to abortion."

What Must We Do?

Because my company, Bridegroom Press, produces the Calendar of Indulgences every year, I get the following kind of question all the time:

If there is an indulgence attached to a devotional prayer (i.e. Rosary, DMC, Mass,) if one is praying fervently, is he required to ask for the indulgence or is it “automatic”?

Answer:
You only have to have the "general intention" to receive an indulgence.
You don't have to specifically intend to receive the indulgence, but just generally intend it.

What does this mean? As long as you are doing the work in order to draw closer to God or in order to heal the world, then that is sufficient intention to win an indulgence.

You don't have to think "I'm doing an indulgence now" in order to receive it.

Keep in mind, however, that while this "general intention" works well for partial indulgences, the numerous conditions attached to a plenary indulgence would be hard to fulfill without actually thinking about them and "checking them off" one by one, as it were.

It could happen, I suppose, but it would be the unusual Catholic who has the kind of habit of prayer that would normally fulfill all the conditions for a plenary every time they prayed.

On the other hand, you could easily argue that the Church is asking us to build precisely that kind of habit of prayer, and encourages us to do this by giving us the "general intention" condition instead of asking us to have the specific intention.

The conditions for a plenary indulgence:

• Be in a state of grace when doing the work,
• Go to confession within twenty (20) days of the indulgenced act, either before or after. One confession can stand for several indulgences.
• Receive the Eucharist once for each plenary indulgence. It is best to receive on the same day the indulgenced work is perform, but the reception can be on another day if necessary.
• Pray for the Holy Father's intentions - an Our Father and a Hail Mary is generally sufficient.
• Have no attachment to sin, even the most venial. People think this is the most difficult condition, but it isn't as bad as it sounds. We aren't expected to be immune from concupiscence. After all, even baptism doesn't wash away concupiscence, so it would be ridiculous to expect us to have no concupiscence in order to win a plenary. A movement of the flesh to desire something is not the same as attachment to sin. In order to have no attachment to sin, an act of the will is sufficient, e.g., praying, "Lord, I do not desire anything or anyone except Yourself" or "Lord, I reject all sin and all attachment to the things of this world; I cling to the things of heaven, most especially the Beauty and Glory of Yourself."
• Only one plenary indulgence may be won each day, but there is no limit to the number of partial indulgences which may be won on any given day.
  

So, if you habitually go to confession about once a month, avoid serious sin, attend daily Mass and receive the Eucharist, routinely pray for the intentions of the Holy Father, and routinely make an act of the will to reject the world and accept only God, then you are probably winning indulgences left and right and don't even know it.

If not, then you will probably need the specific intention in order to win the plenary. On the bright side, whenever we fail to fulfill all the conditions for a plenary, we get a partial instead.

Why Joel Osteen Can Be President

This from a friend of mine who is brilliant:

I tell you this because it's fun to watch your head explode.

So, I never got to see any of the debates during primary season--I was busy. I've only now begun to catch Obama's rhetoric as his commercials begin to air. And I have realized something: Catholics will vote for Obama, and they will do so en masse, so to speak. Why? Because his "We are the people we've been waiting for" spiel is the exact same thing Catholics have been hearing from their hymnals every Sunday at least during my lifetime (and possibly yours). "I myself am the Bread of Life." "Christ has no hands but yours." "Let us build the city of God." Etc.

Worse yet, we've got so many Protestant hymns in the book now that subtly preach the "You've accepted Jesus as your lord and savior--Bob, tell him what he's won!" Gospel of Fabulosity. "I know that my redeemer lives, and he's up in Heaven getting me the goods." "I know that my Obama is in the White House, getting me change I can believe in." They won't vote for him because he's pro-choice. They won't vote for him because he's inexperienced and lacks substance (although some will vote for him because they think he has substance and they can't stomach McCain). No, they will vote for him because his campaign prayers are the same as their hymns, and what we're all lex orandi-ing, we're all lex credendi-ing, right? They will vote for him because, as far as they can tell, he shares their basic beliefs.

We are in deep trouble. And I have just realized why the Liturgy Wars matter.

Kate

Vocations

I recently had a conversation with a relative about vocations, specifically about losing vocations. She had definite opinions concerning the lifestyle of a man or a woman discerning a vocation to the priesthood or the religious life.

According to her theory, anyone who may have been dating or otherwise romantically interested in the person undergoing discernment should immediately cut off all contact with the one doing the discernment. Discernment requires solitude, prayer, spiritual direction. The things of the world distract from spiritual pursuits and interfere with the process of discernment.

Allowing these things in is precisely how vocations are lost, she said.

I disagreed.

Someone who is undergoing discernment about their proper state in life should certainly undertake experiences of solitude, constantly pray, and follow spiritual direction, sure.

But isn't marriage a vocation? Isn't that worthy of discernment as well?

In fact, isn't it possible that the insistence on shutting out conversations with the romantically interested is also a way of shutting down, a way of losing, a real vocation?

After all, what if the person undertaking discernment really is supposed to marry? Isn't continuing conversation with the future spouse likely to help bring out that vocation?

In centuries past, when nearly everyone either married or entered some kind of religious orders, there may have been some valid concerns about the need to avoid the call of marriage so as to better hear the call of orders.

But today, as marriage rates drop across the board pretty much everywhere in the world, is this still the right way to look at it?

Today, the marriage vocation is in as much danger as holy orders or religious orders. It is often pointed out that upwards of one in every four people living in medieval Europe were in some religious order. Read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales to see how well the orders fared during that period. One may argue the veracity of the popular perception, but the perception was precisely that religious orders were rife with drunken and fornicating monks and nuns.

Has it ever occurred to anyone that it is possible far too many vocations to marriage were lost during that period? After all, living the consecrated life of a religious order is laudable but it is not, by itself, a means of sanctifying grace. It is not a sacrament. Only the sacraments bring sanctifying grace, and living out marriage is a sacrament. Living in a monastery is not.

While Holy Orders is likewise a sacrament, it is not the first sacrament. Marriage is. The Eucharist is the heart of the sacramental life, but marriage is the form and foundation of that life.

In the order of sacraments, marriage came first. Through its fecundity holy orders are filled, through its example, monastic life takes its measure. It is the only sacrament called a sacrament in all of Scripture (Ephesians 5: "I speak of a great mystery..." - the word mysterion translates into Latin as sacramentum).

So should seminarians have conversations with women not their mothers or sisters while they are discerning their vocation, before they or ordained to transitional deacon?**

I don't see why not.

A seminarian who is talking with an old girlfriend, and through those conversations decides to become a husband and a father instead of a priest and a father is not "a lost vocation." The woman who woos him is not to be attacked for doing so.

It isn't a question of "losing a vocation", rather, it's a question of discerning the right vocation. For we must remember, both Holy Orders and Holy Matrimony are vocations.

He didn't lose his vocation.
He found it.


**After ordination, of course, the situation changes radically.

I'm voting for McCain

I absolutely hated the thought of voting for McCain.
I hated the thought of Obama worse.

But now that I've seen this, John McCain has got my vote.

Bianca Jagger?

Alright, I don't normally just link to other blogs, but this is incredible.

Bianca Jagger is petitioning in favor of the Latin Mass.

Yes, that's right.

The former wife of Mick Jagger.

Rather takes one's breath away, doesn't it?

War in a Cracker Box.

Last week, as my Friday radio show ended, I was discussing church architecture with my co-host and boss, Dave Palmer.

As we discussed how beautiful the old churches were, Dave mentioned that some of his friends found the Gregorian Mass boring because there were long stretches of complete silence, and they didn't know what to do during those long silences.

I thought, "Well, if you're in a beautiful church with lots of artwork, you contemplate the beauty of God."
But then I thought about our modern cracker-box churches.

They have no artwork, because they have no silences.
There's nothing to contemplate and no time to do it if you wanted to.

The Novus Ordo liturgy keeps us "busy" while the Gregorian rite does not.
The Gregorian rite architectures are "busy" while the Novus Ordo architectures are not.
The two rites show radically different understandings of what it means to actively participate in the liturgy.

The Gregorian rite expects you to be intellectually/spiritually active.
The Novus Ordo rite expects you to be physically/spiritually active.

Both kinds of activity can lead to spiritual engagement, but because they are ontologically different kinds of activity, they create very different kinds of spirituality.

We know the Church is hierarchical as is pretty much every aspect of her life.
So, the question is, is one kind of spirituality superior to another?
The Church has always held the contemplative life as the highest form of spiritual life.
But, the Benedictine motto is "work and pray", and Benedict's rule undergirds most of the Church's monastic life, so it isn't like physical and contemplative life are necessarily opposed.

I know the Novus Ordo is pretty screwed up, but I'm not entirely convinced that the Gregorian Mass has the solution to all liturgical problems.
After all, historically speaking, nearly all the heretics the Church has ever fought celebrated the Gregorian Mass in drop-dead beautiful churches.
Yeah, we have a lot of heretics today as well, but I'm not sure we wouldn't be in essentially the same boat even if we'd never had the Novus Ordo or cracker box churches.

If we have to have heretics, though, I would personally rather fight them from a Gothic cathedral with Gregorian chant than do so from a cracker box with Marty Haugen.

Inside Ten Years

Well, let's "read the signs of the times" as the Second Vatican Council says.

Last year, His Holiness’s Secretary in the Cong. for Divine Worship, Archbp. Malcolm Ranjith, wrote a preface to a book, Dominus Est: riflessioni di un vescovo dell’Asia Centrale sulla Santa Comunione, printed by the Vatican press which argues for a return to Communion kneeling and on the tongue. The book is by Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Karaganda, Kazakhstan.

On April 17, 2008, Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne of Lima, Perua, banned the reception of the Eucharist in the hand.

On the Feast of Corpus Christi this year (2008), the Holy Father's master of ceremonies had a kneeler brought out at communion and everyone who received from the Pope did so on their knees and on the tongue.

Then Pope Benedict did it again at the public papal Mass in Leuca.
And again the next day in Brindisi.

On June 25, 2008, the master of liturgy for Pope Benedict XVI indicated that, from now on, everyone who receives Eucharist from the Pope will receive on the tongue and kneeling.

Today, Cardinal Pell indicates that the participants at World Youth Day in Australia who receive from the Pope will do so on their knees and on the tongue.

The post for the head of the Congregation of Divine Worship is expected to open as Cardinal Arinze resigns. Cardinal Arinze was not a huge fan of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. However, he definitely saw kneeling as the normal posture for reception of the Eucharist: "Those who removed kneelers ... or altar rails... have done grave damage to the Church."



I think it is safe to say that the indult which allows reception in the hand will be going away in the next ten years.

It would be very unusual for a congregation secretary to be elevated to the head of a congregation, but if Cardinal Ranjith does get elevated to that post, I think it is also safe to say that reception in the hand will be gone within three years.

Bring back the altar rails, gentlemen.
We'll be wanting those pretty soon.
Praise God!

Shea's Rebellion

Mark Shea has endorsed two of my books. I like the man. But over the last couple of years, I have begun to suspect that he's slightly theologically insane.

The latest evidence can be found in the June column he wrote for the National Catholic Register. (Jun 14-18), in which he said:

But, that said, I can tell you that if someone suddenly demanded, “When did Jesus know he was God?” my immediate answer would be “Beats me.”

So I can well understand how someone might get a variety of answers to that question from a variety of Catholics, including priests. Jesus has, as we recall, a divine and human nature. We know from divine revelation that he “increased in wisdom and in stature” (Luke 2:52). In short, he learned things like all humans do.

In his deity, he is omniscient. In his humanity, he asks questions because he doesn’t know things. (sic - apparently capital "H" is not acceptable in reference to God).

Mark goes on to say that he suspects somebody has answered this question in the Church's history, but he's darned if he knows who it is. And since he is puzzled by the problem, he figures it is just ducky if other Catholics are puzzled by the problem too.

In other words, Mark Shea sees himself as the standard of what good Catholics should and should not know. It's the kind of self-effacement which I've written about in other columns - sounds great on the surface, but there's a reason for it.

Sadly, that's not all. He has more to say:

However, that said, my point is this: The failure of a busy, harried priest to be a theological vending machine on every abstruse question of theology — and that at the drop of a hat — is not really an indication of something sinister or substandard going on in the pulpit.

Nor is it quite fair to relate the sudden question “When did Jesus know he was God?” to either the preaching of the Real Presence or the general question “Is Jesus God?” and suggest that failure to have sudden universal competence in the first question means neglect or denial of the other two questions.

Apparently, Mark considers the question of Christ's self-knowledge (and therefore, the question of His ability to self-reveal God to mankind) an "abstruse question of theology."

Thus, the inability to say when Jesus is capable of beginning God's self-revelation is not really related to a substandard education. Apparently, since he considers himself well-educated and he doesn't have a clue, that means his kind of ignorance is not a sign of really lousy theological formation.

As I say, Mark is a nice guy, but theologically he's somewhere short of a full deck.

It should be noted that he is correct on at least one point: someone in the Church's theological history has dealt with this question. Indeed, several someone's dealt with this, since the idea that Jesus was not always fully God (and therefore did not always know Who He Is), was central to at least a half-dozen heresies of the Church, most notably Arianism.

So, yes, the question was dealt with.

Exhaustively.

Now, to be fair to Mark, the clearest answer is given by a medieval theologian whom hardly anyone reads today: Thomas Aquinas.

And the book he wrote the solution in, although it is the only book ever to be enthroned on the altar with the Scriptures during an ecumenical council, is not always an easy read: the Summa Theologica.

Now, since this is kind of a thick book (actually, it's a collection of several books - Aquinas was something of a pedant), Mark should look specifically in Part III, Question 10, Part III, Question 11 Article 4, Part III, Question 15, Article 3.

And as the answer to Objection 2 in Article 15 makes clear, Jesus did not ask questions because He did not know things. Since God does not have a body, He lacked only experiential knowledge, the knowledge of what it feels like for something to happen in the physical body He took on in the Incarnation. Even in His human intellect, He lacked no other kind of knowledge.

Christ did "grow in knowledge," but the knowledge He grew in was experiential knowledge, not intellectual knowledge, and most certainly not in self-identity knowledge. Because, after all, if you don't know you are God, then you aren't. Period.

But wait? If Jesus knew everything even in His human intellect, then why did He ask questions? Well, for the same reason I just asked the preceding question, the same reason parents ask their children questions like, "What sound does the letter 'B' make?" or "What is five times seven?"

Now, a child may think, "Man, my parents are stupid. They don't know the answers to ANYTHING, do they?" An adult, however, recognizes that not everyone who asks a question is trying to fill a void of knowledge in himself.

Mark, for some reason, finds this to be a difficult concept to apply to God Incarnate. To be fair, his confusion is shared by a lot of well-known modern theologians, but that doesn't make the confusion any less ludicrous, especially if the jokers who taught Mark consider themselves good theologians.

A speaker asks a rhetorical questions precisely because the speaker knows the answer but he wants the audience to work it out on their own, to expand their own understanding.

In this way, the audience becomes co-creators, for they create in themselves the knowledge which pre-existed their own intellectual work. As another obscure theologian named Paul once opined, we are God's co-workers (1 Cor 3:9). God is kind of serious about us being that.

So, does the confusion about God Incarnate always possessing a complete knowledge of Himself in His human intellect from the moment of conception onward strain credulity?

No. Why would it? (note the use of a rhetorical question). With God, all things are possible.

Does this lack of knowledge indicate a neglect or fault in the theological formation of the person who suffers from it?

Absolutely. A very serious fault indeed.

Have there been a lot of seminaries which consistently mis-taught on this point over the last forty years?

Again, no question of it. Absolutely.

A theological nut-case named Karl Rahner is among the most well-known of the lunatic fringe who advanced the idea that Jesus did not possess complete self-knowledge. His works, and the works of fruitcakes like him, were very popular in seminaries over the last forty years. Indeed, in some of the less competent seminaries, his work is still studied as if it were somehow of importance.

It isn't.

But, a lot of priests, and consequently a lot of lay people, including Mark Shea, are in unknowing rebellion against the constant teaching of the Church because they allow themselves to be confused by the likes of Karl Rahner, Hans Küng, Bozo the Clown and Britney Spears.

Mark really should know better. If God's self-knowledge was really just an "abstruse question," the Church wouldn't have bothered to answer it, as She hasn't bothered to answer the question, "Does Limbo exist?"

The fact that She did answer the question of Christ's self-knowledge, and the circumstances in which She rather vehemently insisted on it, indicate that the question is anything but abstruse, and the answer is anything but murky.

Mark ends by complaining that he's never heard a sermon preached on the consciousness of Christ, therefore it can't be that important. The reasoning is ludicrous.

I've known a lot of most excellent priests, but I've personally heard a sermon preaching against contraception only once in my adult life. Does this mean contraception isn't really a serious sin? Does it mean the problem of contracepting Catholics is just an "abstruse question"?

I'm asking because I know the answer.
I hope the rest of you know it too.

Lynch mobs

The pagan Chinese remind us that lynch mobs aren't just driven by Christian sentiments, but by sentiments of natural law written on our stony hearts. They remind us that even people who have no understanding of Christ do understand that some attitudes are simply too selfish to be permitted.

On the other hand, the individual the great mass of Chinese have chosen to attack, a person who feels no empathy for thousands dead and tens of thousands injured, wasn't created ex nihilo. The atheistic culture of China - a culture our parasitic elites want us to emulate - helped produce her and many more like her.

The wish that the old would simply die and get out of the way, that the injured would shut up and quit moaning, that the bereaved would be quiet and quit mourning, these ideas are enshrined in both capitalist and communist cultures.

In both cases, the sorrow and pain serve "no useful purpose".
Indeed, without the Cross, neither sorrow nor pain can make sense to anyone.

Yet, like every pagan religion, Confucius and his descendants understood that the inability to fully understand something didn't strip that something of its power to awe. They acknowledged a need to stand or kneel in silence before the mystery of suffering and death.

This silence before the mystery, this is what both capitalism and communism abhor. It implies that there are things outside of human control, that we are more than the sum total of our chemical constituents. This silence cannot be borne.

Christians aren't abhorred because our faith makes no sense.
Rather, we are abhorred precisely because our Faith does make sense.

But the understanding it brings, the facts it supplies, are at variance with the illusions the elites would prefer, whether those illusions be the phantasms of our favorite television shows or our favorite sins.

The television shows us a lot of little pictures, and through its lens it is easy to mistake Hollywood's creation from God's creation or our own.

God creates the good, we create the suffering.

Through the lens of the television set, we compare the glory of Hollywood's creations to the reality of our own.

We see the suffering we created and reject it.
"That has nought to do with me," we insist.

And in that moment, when our defiant voices ring defensively around our illusions, in that moment the stones themselves cry out for justice.

Solving the Problem

If America just permitted public school teachers to get married, this kind of thing wouldn't happen.

I blame the women-only priesthood of middle school teachers.

Best Laid Plans

As regular readers know, I'm a nut about doing restored order for the sacraments, i.e., trying to get Confirmation done before First Eucharist, and for adult catechesis.

This story describes a diocese in which the bishop has restored the order of the sacraments and insisted that parents undergo formation at the same time as their children. They call it "family catechesis," other dioceses refer to it as "whole community catechesis."

Great idea, right?

Well, yes, the idea was great.
The execution....

As the reporter unwittingly illustrates, even when a bishop does the right thing, if the parish catechists are clueless, nothing really gets better.

"Parents at St. Thomas More attend separate formation sessions for part of each class. They learn the same topic as their children and then prepare a skit or poster for the young learners.

[Editorial Note: Nice that parents and kids learn the same topic at the same time, but why force adults to do childish things like "skits" and "posters"? Posters are so out of date. Maybe if parents created web pages... I'm kidding. How about we just let the parents interact with their own children naturally? Why force them through these stupid kindergarten exercises? But wait. It gets worse.]

....The older students are staying involved in the parish, too.

Alexis LaBenz, a seventh-grader at St. Andrew the Apostle Parish in Chandler, said her family has become more active. She began liturgical dance and will be confirmed later this year. [liturgical dance? Is this some sort of sick joke?]

“It’s kind of nice that you get to do it now and be a member of the Church earlier,” she said. (emphasis added) [Oh, glad to see she has been reading the Catechism. And here I thought that BAPTISM made you a member of the Church...]

“We’re lucky,” said St. Theresa sixth-grader Jared Wagner about being confirmed now.

Barb Lishko, coordinator of youth ministry at St. Andrew the Apostle, fosters continued parish involvement. She already asked the youth what ministries they are interested in and will hold training during confirmation class later this month."

Sigh. The article even started with commentary from the diocesan spokesman emphasizing that Confirmation is not a sacrament of maturity, but no one at this parish seems to have gotten the word.

So, what's the lesson here?

When the catechists are uncatechized and/or idiots, it doesn't matter where you have moved the deck chairs. The ship is still going down.

Einstein's Error

I have been searching for quotes from scientists in support of faith. During the course of this search, I've run into quite a few misunderstandings about how the two interact, but the subtlest of the errors was here:

However, according to Christianity, the purpose of the universe is not to be morally or physically perfect, but to provide a place where spiritual creatures can choose to love or reject God - to live with Him forever in a new, perfect universe, or reject Him and live apart from Him for eternity. It would not be possible to make this choice in a universe in which all moral choices are restricted to only good choices. Einstein didn't seem to understand that one could not choose between good and bad if bad did not exist. It's amazing that such a brilliant man could not understand such a simple logical principle.

That's not quite right.

God did not put us in this universe in order to choose between good and bad. He put us in this universe so that we might grow. We were never meant to choose evil, evil was never meant to be part of this universe.

God created everything.
God created everything good.

Evil is, therefore, not a created thing - it is a distortion or twisting of the good, an absence of the good.

Evil does not have its own existence because God didn't create it and nothing else has the power to bring existence out of nothing. Thus evil cannot have its own existence. At best, it is something that is less good than it should be, sometimes radically less good. Evil is that which lacks the good it should have.

In short, evil is illusion, it is the illusion that something exists where nothing actually exists.

That's why Aquinas said the doing of evil is the choice of the good instead of the best. When we mistake the good for the best, when we choose the good instead of the best because we have confused the two, we have committed evil. When we confuse ourselves deliberately, we commit sin.

To say that God created the universe so that we had to choose implies that evil MUST exist alongside good.

This is the heresy of the Manichees: the idea that evil is necessary to the universe.
It isn't.

The purpose of the universe is, indeed, to be morally, physically perfect, but that perfection is something we are meant to attain through growth in our knowledge and understanding of God. As we grow in our intimacy with God, we are supposed to train creation to attune itself more and more towards God.

Our knowledge of God is supposed to make our faith, our trust in Him, grow, mature, become unshakeable. We do not grow through choice, we grow through delving ever deeper into intimate communion with the Persons of God.

It isn't choosing the good over the best, but choosing the best over and over again, and learning something new each time we do it - that is what we were originally meant to do.
It is what we are still meant to do.

In heaven, we cannot choose evil.
But that is not because evil doesn't exist, rather it is because our knowledge, our understanding, our communion with God has expanded to such an enormous degree that it overflows the full capacity of who we are.

In heaven, I have such an enormous understanding of God's goodness, it is so immediate, so pure, so powerful, that there is no more room for the illusion that anything else approaches His goodness.

I can't choose evil anymore because there is no room in me to be fooled anymore. My growth is complete, my knowledge has reached its zenith, my understanding has reached its depth, my intimacy has reached its perfection.

It isn't about choice.
It never has been.

A tough question

For all those people who already know the difference between a terrorist and a liturgist (you can negotiate with a terrorist), I have written this new and deeper contemplation:

What's the difference between a suicide bomber and a liturgist?


A suicide bomber only ruins your day once.

I am waiting for the day when someone repeats this joke back to me...

Silver Lining

The Huffington Post, Camille Paglia and Lifesite News are all in agreement: Barack Obama might choose Governor Sebelius as his vice presidential candidate.

While the successful election of an Obama/Sebelius ticket would be an absolute disaster for the United States, such an election would hold out real potential to force the Catholic Church in the United States to become faithful again.

If nothing else, such a win would have ENORMOUS potential to embarrass Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington DC.

The good Archbishop has said that any decision to deny the Eucharist belongs to the bishops of the dioceses from which a pro-abortion politician hails, not to him. Given that a bishop has the duty to teach to the Church universal, with a particular stress on safeguarding the reception of sacraments within his own diocese, this has been a very convenient, if not entirely truthful, way to pass the buck. None of the local bishops with such publicly heretical Catholics have had the guts to do their job in this regard.

But what if Obama won with Sebelius at his side?
The very possibility would give Archbishop Wuerl nightmares.

After all, Arcbhishop Naumann of Kansas City has already publicly told Governor Sebelius that she is not to approach for reception of the Eucharist.

If Obama/Sebelius win the election, Archbishop Wuerl would be in the peculiar situation of denying the Vice President of the United States the Eucharist, while giving Jesus to Ted Kennedy, who is incidentally dying from a brain tumor in no small part because of his insistence on receiving the Eucharist during a papal Mass.


Archbishop Wuerl would be hoist by his own petard into highlighting the absolute rank stupidity of the current USCCB policy on Eucharistic reception and the de facto schism it has already wreaked upon the Catholic Church in the United States.

The USCCB policy could not long endure such a public spectacle.

Either all pro-abortion politicians would begin to be denied, or the entire hierarchy of the United States bishops who espouse giving the Eucharist to men like Kennedy and women like Pelosi would have to make plain their schism from the Church.

And we know which way that will go.

Men who don't have the guts to stare down Kennedy and Pelosi certainly don't have the guts to stare down Pope Benedict XVI. They would toe the line, even if they didn't believe it. And, as Pascal's Wager made plain, if you live the Faith for a year, you start to understand in your bones how to believe the Faith and accept it in your life. Such a public spectacle could force our bishops back to orthodoxy.

So, there is a possible silver lining even to the Obama cloud.

But, sadly, this is why Sebelius probably won't be chosen as the VP candidate. If she is, the USCCB will have an extremely vested interest in making sure Obama is NOT elected. Not because Obama is pro-abort, but because Sebelius is sanctioned, and it could get publicly messy for the bishops if she got in, therefore Obama has to be kept out.

Angels and Monkeys

You know, I have heard endless numbers of atheists make fun of the Middle Ages because philosophers debated how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

Today, we are much more sophisticated.

We argue about how many monkeys it would take to type a legible sentence on a typewriter.

Which just goes to show that technology DOES transform discussions.

Right?

Scripture Alive Today

In April, Ted Kennedy receives the Eucharist at a Papal Mass.

In May, Ted Kennedy has a stroke and is diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.

Is there a connection?
Some would point out that engaging in Ted Kennedy's kind of behaviour is explicitly warned against by several leading experts. For instance, St. Paul points out:

Now in the following instructions, I do not commend you, because when you come together, it is not for the better, but for the worse. For first of all I hear that when you come together in the church, there are schisms among you. And in part I believe it. For there must be heresies among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized....

For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, And giving thanks, broke and said: Take ye and eat: This is my body, which shall be delivered for you. This do for the commemoration of me. In like manner also the chalice, after he had supped, saying: This chalice is the new testament in my blood. This do ye, as often as you shall drink, for the commemoration of me. For as often as you shall eat this bread and drink the chalice, you shall show the death of the Lord, until he come.

Therefore, whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself and so eat of that bread and drink of the chalice. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.

1 Corinthians 11:17-30

But several pro-abortion, schismatic, heretical politicians received communion, only one is dying.
Why is it only Kennedy got the terminally malignant brain tumor, when Giuliani, Dodd, Pelosi and Kerry all appear to be equally culpable, that is, each also received while in a state of grave sin? Jesus explains that in the Gospel of Luke:

"Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:4-5)

But surely the Catholic Church doesn't believe in or teach this kind of thing anymore, does She? Well, let's find out by looking in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

CCC 1385 To respond to this invitation we must prepare ourselves for so great and so holy a moment. St. Paul urges us to examine our conscience: "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself." (1 Cor 11:27-29) Anyone conscious of a grave sin must receive the sacrament of Reconciliation before coming to communion.

CCC 1509: "Heal the sick!" The Church has received this charge from the Lord and strives to carry it out by taking care of the sick as well as by accompanying them with her prayer of intercession. She believes in the life-giving presence of Christ, the physician of souls and bodies. This presence is particularly active through the sacraments, and in an altogether special way through the Eucharist, the bread that gives eternal life and that St. Paul suggests is connected with bodily health. (cf. John 6:54, 1 Cor 11:30) (emphasis added)

Pray for Senator Kennedy, that he might repent of his heresies before his death.

Then go ye, and tell the Good News: Scripture is alive today "living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword..." (Heb 4:12)

The high praise of God shall be in their mouth: and two-edged swords in their hands:
To execute vengeance upon the nations, chastisements among the people:
To bind their kings with fetters, and their nobles with manacles of iron.
To execute upon them the judgment that is written: this glory is to all his saints. Alleluia.
(Psalm 149:6-10, Liturgy of the Hours)

Crush the Infamy!

If we support the separation of Church and state because Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802, then what do we do with these quotes?

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs. ~Thomas Jefferson

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their
children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. ~Thomas Jefferson

The system of banking [is] a blot left in all our Constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction... I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity ... is but swindling futurity on a large scale. ~Thomas Jefferson

The central bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the principles and form of our Constitution. I am an enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but coin. If the American people allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered ~ Thomas Jefferson

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws our country". ~ Thomas Jefferson, letter to George Logan, Nov. 12th, 1816.

New Plenary indulgence

Thanks to Fr. Z over at www.wdtprs.com/blog

VATICAN CITY, 10 MAY 2008 (VIS) – According to a decree made public today and signed by Cardinal James Francis Stafford and Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, O.F.M. Conv., respectively penitentiary major and regent of the Apostolic Penitentiary, Benedict XVI will grant the faithful Plenary Indulgence for the occasion of the two-thousandth anniversary of the birth of the Apostle Paul. The Plenary Indulgence will be valid throughout the Pauline Year which is due to run from 28 June 2008 to 29 June 2009.

"With the imminence of the liturgical Solemnity of the Prince of the Apostles", says the decree, "the Supreme Pontiff … wishes, in good time, to provide for the faithful with spiritual treasures for their own sanctification, that they may renew and reinforce … their purpose of supernatural salvation from the moment of the First Vespers of the aforementioned Solemnity, principally in honour of the Apostle of the Gentiles the two-thousandth anniversary of whose earthly birth is now approaching.

"In fact, the gift of indulgences which the Roman Pontiff offers the Universal Church, facilitates the way to interior purification which, while rendering honour to the Blessed Apostle Paul, exalts supernatural life in the hearts of the faithful and spurs them on … to produce fruits of good works".

The means to obtain the Plenary Indulgence are as follows:

"All Christian faithful – truly repentant, duly purified by the Sacrament of Penance and restored with Holy Communion – who undertake a pious visit in the form of a pilgrimage to the papal basilica of St. Paul on Rome’s Via Ostiense and pray in accordance with the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff, are granted and imparted Plenary Indulgence for the temporal punishment of their sins, once they have obtained sacramental remission and forgiveness for their shortcomings.

"Plenary Indulgence may be gained by the Christian faithful, either for themselves or for the deceased, as many times as the aforementioned acts are undertaken; it remains the case, however, that Plenary Indulgence may be obtained only once a day.

"In order that the prayers pronounced on these holy visits may lead and draw the souls of the faithful to a more intense veneration of the memory of St. Paul, the following conditions are laid down: the faithful, apart from pronouncing their own prayers before the altar of the Blessed Sacrament, ... must go to the altar of the Confession and pray the ‘Our Father’ and the ‘Creed’, adding pious invocations in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Paul; and such acts of devotion must remain closely linked to the memory of the Prince of the Apostles St. Peter".

"Christian faithful from the various local Churches, under the usual conditions (sacramental Confession, Eucharistic communion, prayer in keeping with the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff) and completely unattached to any form of sin, may still obtain the Plenary Indulgence if they participate devotedly in a religious function or in a pious exercise held publicly in honour of the Apostle of the Gentiles: on the days of the solemn opening and closing of the Pauline Year in any place of worship; on other days determined by the local ordinary, in holy places named for St. Paul and, for the good of the faithful, in other places designated by the ordinary". [May bishops everywhere, please God, take note!]

The document concludes by recalling how the faithful who, "through sickness or other legitimate or important reason", are unable to leave their homes, may still obtain the Plenary Indulgence if, with the soul completely removed from attachment to any form of sin and with the intention of observing, as soon as they can, the usual three conditions, "spiritually unite themselves to a Jubilee celebration in honour of St. Paul, offering their prayers and suffering to God for the unity of Christians".

Coincidence?

Curiouser and curiouser.

Prior to Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States, the Pope had made clear that he was very much opposed to pro-abortion Catholic politicians receiving the Eucharist.

Despite this, several Catholic pro-aborts received the Eucharist during the papal Masses: Giuliani, Kennedy, Pelosi and Kerry all violated the sanctity of the sacrament so they could win votes by eating and drinking judgment on themselves.

Now, this would not normally be a huge news item, except....

Last week, Rome approved a Marian apparition from 1666. In that year, seventeen year old Benoite Rencurel was tending sheep in the high mountains of the southern French Alps. While among the high mountain caves, she began to receive visions of a beautiful lady who commanded her to build a church.

This by itself is not unusual, but it seems the Blessed Virgin also told the visionary to get a little cheeky with the local Vicar General (the bishop's second-in-command in a diocese). It seems he disliked the visions and planned to close the local chapel entirely rather than expand it as Mary desired. Benoite did exactly as the Virgin instructed and chastised the Vicar General for daring to try to interfere with the Blessed Mother's wishes. She won.

But there's still more.

Benoite was also given the ability to see souls. For the rest of her life (she died at the age of seventy-one) she frequently approached men and women already on their knees at the altar rail during Mass, tapped them on the shoulder and said, "Not today. Go to confession first."

Now, we could say that is was mere coincidence that Rome would approve such a visionary and such a vision just a few short days after American bishops dissed the Pope by refusing to have "a fight at the altar rail" except...

Just eight hours after the news of Giuliani's blasphemous communion hit the pages of the Washington Post, Cardinal Egan specifically and publicly told an unrepentant Rudy that he should not have done such a thing. And, while he could have said this was not acceptable because of Mr. Giuliani's sinful marriage situation, he didn't.

Instead, he told Mr. Giuliani, now a private citizen, that this was blasphemy precisely because of Rudy's unrepentant endorsement of abortion. In short, a man who was no longer in a position of public policy making was told that his support for abortion should have kept him from the communion line.

Now we hear that Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann has directed Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius to step aside as well, and for the same reason. She publicly supports abortion.

The disrespect paid to the Pope, the approval of Laus, the reaction of Cardinal Egan and Archbishop Naumann to their local scandals: are these all coincidences?

Perhaps.

But we must remember: God writes the world like men writes words.
Let's just hope the rest of the American episcopate can read the signs of the times.

Update: May 14, 2008 - for the first time in 35 years, a sitting Canadian archbishop has spoken publicly against contraception and specifically told his priests to preach against it.

May Pope Benedict live 100 years!

Catholic Church Right Again

I've spent the last couple of days reading through the papal speeches made last week. Pope Benedict consistently drove home the message:
a) the individual is in the image and likeness of God,
b) the family is the necessary context in which the individual is formed into this image and likeness, and
c) the Faith is the only thing which can effectively enable the family to do its task.

Oddly enough, social science confirms every one of those assertions. As both my book and
George Will's latest column point out, the family is the single best predictor for success in education. On average, if a child comes from a stable, husband-wife family, that child will learn better than children who don't.

This family effect is greater than all other influences combined. Class size, dollar expenditure, socio-economic class, education level of the teacher - all of it pales in comparison to family influence.

Home schooling works primarily because only stable families can do it.
Unstable families don't have the emotional resources, the willingness and ability to sacrifice and to make culturally unpopular decisions, that is necessary to handle the task.

Support for the family has to be paramount. The school, the parish, the diocese exists to serve and sanctify the family - that's how the Catholic Faith survives.

Fallow Land

Thomas Sowell has just written an interesting column on the problem created by government subsidy of higher education. I greatly respect Sowell, but I think his column can be extended just a tad.

Why does the government waste national resources by subsidizing a kind of higher education that results in politically correct drones? If the question is framed in the right way, it answers itself.

Perhaps the government pays people to go to college for the same reason it pays farmers NOT to till their land. It is a subsidy to assure non-production.

If people are trained in non-production, they will more easily be rendered into indentured servants. And what is someone who owes tens of thousands to the banks if not an indentured servant of those same banks?

Indentured servants used to be tied to the land, because the land was the primary means by which to generate income. Now that income is no longer agriculturally based, but service based, getting people to sell themselves into servitude requires only control of what people know.

This is best managed by keeping them away from real knowledge and feeding them pablum instead: thus the modern liberal "curriculum." And - for bonus points - you get them to pay you for the privilege of being intellectually castrated.

It's a sweet system, if you own the means of production.

Seen in this light, the government subsidies to higher education make a ton of economic sense. Corporations get indentured servants who are made psychologically subservient, forced to pay off huge debts, and are thus unable to start businesses which might otherwise compete directly with the existing corporations.

It is no coincidence that a great number of the multi-millionaires in the nation today are college dropouts.

Update
Walter Williams, one of the leading economists in the nation, wrote a column this week (two months later) that paraphases my point above.

Pope Benedict's address to Catholic Educators

I haven't found much on what the Pope had to say on this subject, apart from this story from Catholic News Service.

I found three aspects of the excerpts I was able to find rather significant.

1) The first involves the Pope's reference to the reputation of Catholic schools in the United States:

"I know from my own days as a professor, and I have heard from your bishops and officials of the Congregation for Catholic Education, that the reputation of Catholic institutes of learning in this country is largely due to yourselves and your predecessors," he said.

Notice what he doesn't say. He doesn't say if that reputation was good or bad. He just said that the current instructors and their predecessors are responsible for the reputation Catholic education has now. That's quite a bit less of a statement than one might hope for.

2) President Lazarus, president of the University of Dallas, is reported to have been happy that the Pope emphasized the importance of academic freedom.

Those of you who heard the Guadalupe Radio Network broadcast on the blasphemy permitted on UD campus might recall that President Lazarus hid behind academic freedom. You might think I have egg on my face. Read the excerpt below and decide for yourself how accurate President Lazarus' summary of that portion of the speech seems to be:

He made one specific reference to Catholic college presidents, near the end of his address, telling them he wished to "reaffirm the great value of academic freedom." He also noted that any appeals to academic freedom "to justify positions that contradict the faith and teaching of the church would obstruct or even betray the university's identity and mission."

3) The Pope seems to have read my book (or I seem to have read Catholic documents fairly accurately - take your pick):

"Catholic identity is not simply a question of the number of Catholic students," he said. It also is not "dependent upon statistics" nor can it be "equated simply with orthodoxy of course content." Instead, he stressed that the Catholic identity of a school or religious education program "demands and inspires much more: namely that each and every aspect of your learning communities reverberates within the ecclesial life of faith."

I look forward to reading the whole speech when it is made available.

Living Like Animals

Alright, I don't get it.

According to all the experts,:

• single moms make great parents,
• homosexuals make great parents (remember Heather Has Two Mommies?),
• it takes a village to raise a child,
• rape of underage girls is ok as long as it is an alcohol-fueled lesbian rape (ala Vagina Monologues),
• and we have to be accepting of alternate family arrangements.

But when a village actually tries to raise the children (as in the FLDS Church in Texas), suddenly everyone gets upset. Some of the kids identified multiple women as their mother. And, until 2005, the age of consent in the Lone Star State for a girl to get married with her parents' permission was: 14.

We saw a similar situation play out with the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. The priests implicated in the scandal were simply living a vibrant and active homosexual lifestyle, but the press got upset about it. Now, the lifestyle they were living was, in this case, in direct opposition to the theology they claimed to espouse, but the media outrage was identical.

Why are the same news media who are so insistent on everyone accepting the bulleted principles above now so outraged when they find people living according to the very principles they espouse (pardon the pun)?

Because secular humanists are allowed to live this way, but people who profess belief in this Christ guy are NOT allowed to live this way, even if their distorted version of Christian theology teaches that they SHOULD live this way.

So, the next question is obvious.

Assume we had exactly the same situation, with one difference.

Assume everyone on the Texas compound prayed five times a day, gave alms, and made the hajj to Mecca. That is, imagine an identical situation, the only difference being that the deity references were all to Allah, the women all dressed in burquas, and the men all sported a fistful of beard.

Would a convoy of armed Texas deputies have come after them, separated husbands from their (underage) wives, and shipped 400 children away?

And if they had, who would be yelling the loudest about discrimination, racism, etc.?


Polygamy and pedophilia are crimes against humanity. But no one points out that the FLDS are hardly unique practitioners of these abuses. Over a billion people around the world engage in identical activity. Why doesn't anyone in the media point this out?

Has America Lost Her Salt?

In his most recent column for Catholic Exchange, Mark Shea makes much of the fact that the press has, for the last three years, been intolerably cruel to Pope Benedict XVI. He uses as evidence word searches on Google.

“Benedict XVI” rigid – 52,800
“Benedict XVI” hardliner – 27,100
“Benedict XVI” inflexible – 10,300
“Benedict XVI” dominating – 290,000
“Benedict XVI” ruthless – 126,000
“Benedict XVI” enforcer – 28,800
“Benedict XVI” archaic – 22,400
“Benedict XVI” medieval – 169,000
“Benedict XVI” intolerant – 148,000
“Benedict XVI” backward – 122,000
“Benedict XVI” “Hitler Youth” – 30,700
“pope cracks down” – 1,080,000

The conclusion we're supposed to draw is that all of those terms are being attributed to the Pope. Well, let's test that assumption. We'll compare the Pope's hit count with someone that the press might not be so adversarial towards: Hillary Clinton. The Pope's numbers are in parentheses for ease of comparison.

“Hillary Clinton” rigid – 102,000 (52,800)
“Hillary Clinton” hardliner – 26,100 (27,100)
“Hillary Clinton” inflexible – 31,400 (10,300)
“Hillary Clinton” dominating – 215,000 (290,000)
“Hillary Clinton” ruthless – 125,000 (126,000 )
“Hillary Clinton” enforcer – 47,600 (22,800)
“Hillary Clinton” archaic – 53,300 (22,400)
“Hillary Clinton” medieval – 126,000 (169,000)
“Hillary Clinton” intolerant – 614,000 (148,000)
“Hillary Clinton” backward – 267,000 (122,000)
“Hillary Clinton” “Hitler Youth” – 11,700 (30,700)
“Hillary Clinton cracks down” – 426,000 (1,080,000)

Hmmm... Judging by the numbers, the press is roughly twice as hard on Hillary as it is on the Pope in every area except the Hitler Youth connection and "cracking down".

But maybe everyone hates Hillary. Let's pick someone who has only been in the news for about three or four years, someone not quite so divisive... Hmmm... who could we pick?

“Barack Obama" rigid – 103,000 (Clinton: 102,000, Pope: 52,800)
“Barack Obama” hardliner – 24,500 (Clinton 26,100, Pope: 27,100)
“Barack Obama” inflexible – 37,800 (Clinton: 31,400, Pope: 10,300)
“Barack Obama” dominating – 247,000 (Clinton: 215,000, Pope: 290,000)
“Barack Obama” ruthless – 354,000 (Clinton: 125,000, Pope: 126,000 )
“Barack Obama” enforcer – 93,800 (Clinton: 47,600, Pope: 22,800)
“Barack Obama” archaic – 105,000 (Clinton: 53,300, Pope: 22,400)
“Barack Obama” medieval – 131,000 (Clinton: 126,000, Pope: 169,000)
“Barack Obama” intolerant – 616,000 (Clinton: 614,000, Pope: 148,000)
“Barack Obama” backward – 272,000 (Clinton: 267,000, Pope: (122,000)
“Barack Obama” “Hitler Youth” – 8,500 (Clinton: 11,700, Pope: 30,700)
“Barack Obama cracks down” – 364,000 (Clinton: 426,000, Pope: 1,080,000)

Wow! And that's even without the "Hussein." When it comes to press coverage, it looks like Barack has a lot more to complain about than the Pope does on most scores.

Why the nasty numbers? Because Google counts a "hit" for every page that has those words, regardless of how the content is arranged. A news page may be talking about two dozen entirely different things (think the Washington Post or Drudgereport web pages), but that doesn't matter to the search engine. It doesn't distinguish between the appearance of Benedict's name in a religion lead and the appearance of the word "rigid" in a story about a new kind of plastic. As long as both words appeared on the same page, Google counts a hit.

The numbers are nonsense. But Mark Shea and Catholic Exchange apparently don't realize that, so they draw conclusions based on essentially no evidence at all.

Now, it may well be the case that the press is opposed to all things orthodox - in fact, I personally I don't doubt that it is. But we should be careful not to take scandal without good reason.

Quite frankly, the press doesn't know much about Pope Benedict, and probably never will. The man bemuses them, as did John Paul II, as does every Pope. In order to hate someone, you have to know them at least moderately well. There has to be a substance to hatred just as there is a substance to love. The press lacks substance, so it really isn't capable of hate or even strong dislike. It can manage only a puzzled shrug.

In times past, the Catholic Faith was, indeed, hated, but no more. Today, orthodox Catholicism is neither known nor considered enough of a threat to merit strong emotions. The elites literally don't know enough about real Catholics to care.

Perhaps we would like them to hate us, if only because that would make us more relevant in their world. We should recognize our desire to be hated as a perverse form of pride. After all, if they hated us, we must matter enough to them, we must hinder them enough, to make us a hated minority.

But what if we don't matter enough to them?
What if we aren't hindering them in any significant way?
That would mean we weren't living the Gospel very well.

Jesus made people angry enough to merit his execution.
Peter managed to proclaim the Gospel so effectively he got himself crucified upside down.
Paul started a fight in every town he entered, got scourged, beaten with rods, stoned and finally beheaded, martyred just like every one of the original apostles. Even John, the apostle of love who died a natural death, managed to make it to old age only by dint of miraculously surviving an attempt to boil him alive.

But when was the last time the holy example and sacred preaching of Catholics in America made our fellow Americans angry enough to burn down a convent, smash up a school or demolish church? When has our witness to the truth been so strong that those who follow demons ground their teeth at us, writhed in frustration, and ultimately martyred one or more of us?

The culture clearly doesn't love Catholics, for the conversion rate is not high enough to indicate that they treasure who we are or how we live. They aren't hot about us.

But at this point, it's not clear they really hate us. They aren't in a cold rage about us either.

Shouldn't we find that a little disconcerting?

Update: The latest Pew Forum survey (released two days after this blog entry) shows fully 32% of Americans know so little about the Pope that they are unable to form an opinion about him.

Third World Thinking

Science News has published the results of a new study on market economies in its March 15, 2008 issue. Economist Benedikt Herrmann of the University of Nottingham, England studied the difference between college students from 15 countries in a "public goods" game.

Students were broken up into groups of four and each were asked to contribute up to 20 tokens to a common pot. The pot total was multiplied by 1.6 and the resulting tokens distributed to the students. This was repeated 10 times, then the students were allowed to exchange their tokens for cash.

After each round, everyone's contribution was revealed. The members of each group could punish each other by paying a token to get the ability to take three tokens from some other group member.

Volunteers from democratic, market-based societies like the UK, the US, Germany, etc., uniformly punished low contributors for their lack of generosity. These low contributors would then contribute more on subsequent iterations of the game.

Volunteers from non-democratic societies such as Saudi Arabia, Greece, and Russia generally punished the high contributors for having the temerity to make the rest look bad. This led to a general drying up of contributions to the general pot.

The results of the experiment seem to have some bearing on various subpopulations in the United States. Where have we seen groups who like to tax high contributors versus groups who like to tax low contributors?

Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and their confreres love to strip money from those with lots of it. Of course, they would argue that they are taxing people who don't contribute to the general good at all, and thus the comparison is really not fair. Still, it is interesting to see the parallels.

But couldn't we make the same assertion about Rush Limbaugh and company? After all, if tokens are merely representative of the amount of contribution, then why couldn't we argue that immigrants - who give their entire working lives to this country for a period of weeks, months or years - are making a larger contribution to the general public than people who merely convince others to make contributions on their behalf?

Now, one could argue that the head of a multi-billion dollar corporation is not only giving his time and money to the general public, he is also talking others into giving their time and talent, and putting part of it in his own name, as it were. Instead of simply taxing non-contributors, he is enticing non-contributors to make contributions for him by paying them to do so.

And what do we say of Rush and company when they want to strengthen immigration laws, on the grounds that Mexico's immigration laws are quite harsh, therefore ours should be as well?

They give all they have - themselves - and we punish them because it isn't enough? Isn't this identical to the kind of third-world thinking Barack Hussein Obama and Billary Clinton regularly display in the world of finance? After all, why would we want to emulate any aspect of a third-world country's laws, given that it may very well be this strict immigration policy that, at least in part, makes them a third world country?

There are several ways to argue this, depending upon which economic theory strikes your fancy and how you want to classify the contributions being made. But it is interesting that the very states with the highest tax rates - which tend to be the coastal states - are the states whose economies most closely align to the third-world worldview that Herrmann discovered.

Radio Show

Because I'm not too bright, it failed to occur to me that some people may want to listen to the weekly radio show I do.

The Soundbites program airs from noon to 1 pm every Friday on Guadalupe Radio Network, the Catholic radio station in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Although we are off the air on Good Friday, our most recent controversy involved a piece of scatalogical artwork which depicted Our Lady of Guadalupe as a stripper. It was displayed at the University of Dallas. It was also removed by an unknown gallery patron and not returned.

The president of the University of Dallas called it theft.
We called it virtue.