Michael Voris and Catholic Answers

I have been asked my opinion on the Michael Voris-Catholic Answers dust-up.

Everyone seems to have an opinion about Catholic Answers, from Kathy Schiffer (who did not mention Michael Voris) to Dave Armstrong and Fr. Dwight Longenecker (both of whom most certainly did).

In order to be fully clear about my history with both, I have during the last 20 years applied for employment to Catholic Answers and been rejected. On numerous occasions I have proposed doing business with Catholic Answers on various things and been roundly rejected in the few instances when I have not been entirely ignored, which latter was much more frequent. Truth to tell, I almost never managed to get those guys to even return a phone call or an e-mail. It was worse than trying to work with EWTN, and attaining THAT level of inscrutable weirdness is really an accomplishment.

On the other hand, I have worked with Michael Voris and found him quite easy to get along with, extremely responsive and quite open to discussion. In fact, apart from one other individual who shall remain nameless, he's the only public Catholic I've had consistently positive experiences with. This is no small statement. I've worked with a lot of the big Catholic names, I've worked with some quite closely. Most of the "public Catholics", including myself, have some kind of ego problem - that's why we're interested in being in the spotlight, after all. And that undoubtedly plays into this whole kerfuffle.

Now, that having been said, I have benefited greatly from the work of Catholic Answers in general and Karl Keating's in particular. In fact, his work inspired my own first book.

I like both organizations and I see them both as having done great work.

All that having been said, the Catholic Answers supporters seem to be beating Voris up in a way that does not comport with the reality on the ground. I don't know why they are doing this.

Catholic Answers has obviously been around a lot longer, and perhaps that is why it has gone begging for money a lot more often than Voris' operation has. Does it need more money? I don't know. Certainly it is begging for money now.

So, what is my opinion?

I think Connecticut Catholic Blogger has done a MUCH better job of addressing this situation than I could. Given the evidence laid out there, I concur with Connecticut Catholic's most excellent assessment.

Voris hasn't said what most people attribute to him.
Catholic Answers and their supporters for some reason seem to want to make him their enemy.
And St. Jerome didn't get on very well with St. Augustine.

But I guess it generates website hits.
Whatever.

UPDATE:
I just noticed this passage in Fr. Longeneckar's post:

"The next problem with Voris’ attack is that his method is unscriptural. The Sacred Scriptures teach us that if you have a problem with your brother you are to go to them first in private. Did Voris sit down in a meeting with Keating, Kresta, Keck and the others? If he thought it was his business did he make an appointment and say, “Fellas, there are some criticisms about the level of your salaries, could we gather some more information?” I don’t know, maybe he did or maybe he simply got in front of the camera and started blasting away. "

Maybe? MAYBE? You mean, Father, that you DID NOT contact Michael Voris to find out?
Pot, meet kettle...

Hope and Change

"Do you know that Negroes are 10 percent of the population of St. Louis and are responsible for 58% of its crimes? We've got to face that. And we've got to do something about our moral standards.....We know that there are many things wrong in the white world, but there are many things wrong in the black world, too. We can't keep on blaming the white man. There are things we must do for ourselves." 
 
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 1961, quoted in the WSJ from a 1961 Harper's Magazine profile on MLK.

"...in 2006, blacks were 37.5% of all state and federal prisoners, though they’re under 13% of the national population. About one in 33 black men was in prison in 2006, compared with one in 205 white men and one in 79 Hispanic men. Eleven percent of all black males between the ages of 20 and 34 are in prison or jail.
From 1976 to 2005, blacks committed more than 52% of all murders in America. In 2006, the black arrest rate for most crimes was two to nearly three times blacks’ representation in the population. Blacks constituted 39.3% of all violent-crime arrests, including 56.3% of all robbery and 34.5% of all aggravated-assault arrests, and 29.4% of all property-crime arrests."

Manhattan Institute, 2008

Modern Poverty

As little as two hundred years ago, most of the people in the world lived in grinding poverty, bone-crushing, mind-numbing, earth-shattering poverty. At least by today's standards. Yet for almost two thousand years, those same bone-crushingly poor people built some of the most beautiful buildings the world has ever seen. They were physically poor but spiritually rich.

Today, there is no such thing as a poor person, at least not by the standards of the 1800s. Every person today is richer than ANY person was in 1800 - more physically comfortable, better medical care, better food and lodging, longer life, healthier.

Today's population are physically rich, but poor in spirit. Today, we can't design a church that looks better than the average gymnasium. Don't WANT a church that looks better than a supermarket.

And the bishops, by and large, have decided that the traditional understanding of beauty is not the way to evangelize these spiritually poor people. They believe that well-stocked supermarkets and gymnasiums will work better. So, they fund social justice instead of encouraging beauty. They won't pay for beauty, you see, because it doesn't "feed the poor."

Which is kind of ironic, given that today's poor are much less likely to be hungry or naked or homeless or ill than any previous generation of poor in the history of the world.

It's a conundrum. Back when you would expect bishops to be worried about feeding the poor, they spent decades building cathedrals. Now, when feeding the poor is something the government does, and does pretty well, actually, the bishops change their tune. Now, exactly when most people don't really need the physical assistance, the bishops stop worrying about beautiful cathedrals and start worrying about feeding the poor.

It's pretty remarkable, when you think about it.

Zimmerman's City of Refuge

This essay at First Things highlights a substantial and basic difference between Jewish and Christian theology. In the Torah, any man who killed another was required to flee to a city of refuge in order to avoid being killed according to the "eye for an eye" principle. But why cities of refuge? Why couldn't the family sinned against simply forgive the murderer?

In Jewish theology, only the one sinned against can forgive. If I sin against another man, God cannot forgive that sin, only the man who I sinned against can forgive it. If I murder him, there can be no complete forgiveness because (1) he is no longer here to forgive me and (2) God can't forgive it because the sin wasn't against God, or at least, it wasn't JUST against God.

Christian theology views the entire situation differently.

According to Christian theology, the cities of refuge solution was necessary because mankind was not yet endowed with the ability to love as God loves. Before Christ, we had no access to the full grace of God.

Once Christ comes, He provides for the forgiveness of sin in every situation. That's what the sacrament of confession is about: "Whose sins you retain are retained, what sins you forgive are forgiven." Christ not only insists that God can forgive ANY sin regardless of origin or object, He also insists that this divine power to forgive sins devolves upon His apostles. The divine power to forgive can be wielded by men.

As a result, in Christian society, cities of refuge are no longer necessary, or, perhaps, it is better to say that they have been transformed. Whereas before we fled to a city of refuge, now we flee to the confessional of refuge. Those who have sinned can be really and fully forgiven in every circumstance. Those sinned against are required and empowered by God to forgive. Both sides need only ask for the grace, the power, and it will be received.

Thus, from the Christian perspective, the fact that Zimmerman appears today to need a city of refuge merely demonstrates how far America has wandered from Christian ideals and perspectives.

The Math of Pornography and Rape

In First Things today, Bishop James D. Conley tries to make the case that pornography is fueling a culture of rape, based in large part on an NPR article authored by someone named ANONYMOUS.

I understand his interest in doing this. Rape is a mortal sin, pornography use is a mortal sin. They both revolve around sex, so it would be pleasant if we could show a correlation, or, better yet, a causation in one or the other direction.

The problem, of course, is that the incidence of rape has fallen more than 60% since 1993. In fact, reported rapes hit a 20 year low in 2009. Meanwhile, porn addiction is INCREASING. And I don't even know why I bothered to link that last fact, since anyone familiar with the growth of the Internet over the last 20 years is also familiar with the fact that porn is a significant subset of that use, making up around 13% of Internet searches each year. In fact, male porn use is so common that one 2009 study which needed to find a control group of men in their 20s who had never seen an X-rated flick literally couldn't find any. Another group tried in 2013, and ran into exactly the same problem. Female porn stars themselves have about the same history of abuse as accountants, though they definitely use more drugs.

The bishop is assuming causality where there is, at best, only correlation, and not even much of that. This is a common logical fallacy. For instance, it is well-known that ice cream sales on the beach are correlated with increased drowning. Does eating ice cream make one more likely to drown?

Well, obviously not. Both increases are driven by a third factor - when it gets hot, there are  more people on the beach, more people in the water, and more people eating ice cream.  More people in the water means more people likely to drown.

So, even if we COULD prove a correlation between rape and porn (which we can't), how do we know that one causes the other? It could be an "ice cream/drowning" trick, where some unmentioned third factor is actually causing both.

And relying on the testimony of the near-drowning victims isn't going to help much. Some of them WOULD refer to their ice cream consumption after their near drownings. When you were growing up, didn't your parents tell you not to go swimming for an hour after you ate?

It's a common old wives' tale in the United States.
There's actually no correlation between eating and drowning.
But a lot of people THINK there is, so they blame one on the other.

The same is true with porn - a lot of people THINK there is a connection, so they'll make the connection consciously in their personal testimony, especially because it makes them feel innocent. "It wasn't may fault, it was the porn's fault." That's why we can't necessarily trust their testimony.

Given the abundant evidence to the contrary, we can certainly be concerned about the possibility that the single sociological study he refers to, like most published studies, is wrong. Some (female) sociologist wants there to be a correlation between rape and porn, so she "finds" one in her studies. Pornography is obviously a mortal sin, but there isn't much hard evidence linking it to other sexual mortal sins like rape.

As Catholics, we are supposed to witness the truth.
Bishop Conley's errors in quoting sociologists on the make are understandable, but they are errors.

TLDR:

Number of rapes:

• 19 - 35 per 100,000 in the 1970s (rising - no computer tech) 
• 33 - 38 per 100,000 in the 1980s (steady - PC revolution)
• 32 - 41 per 100,000 in the 1990s (falling - Internet starts)
• 29 - 33 per 100,000 in the 2000s (falling) - smart phones)
• 25 - 28 per 100,000 in the 2010s (steady - no significant tech change)

Looks like the availability of porn dropped the rape rate. For the year 2016 and beyond the FBI report includes all genders of rape in the Forcible Rape category.  Prior to 2016 rape reports counted were by females only.

When they added men in, the per capita rape rate popped back up to the worst of the 1990s, which is why people are decrying the "rise" of the rape rate. It's an artifact of counting differently. 

https://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

The Math of Martyrdom

It has been said, correctly, that the 20th century produced more Christian martyrs than any previous century, and probably more than several previous centuries combined.

It is also said that the attacks on Christians are increasing.

Both statements are undoubtedly true.

But, to be fair, let's consider the math for just a moment and consider carefully what we mean by "increasing."

There were 1 billion people in the world in 1804.
There are 7 billion people in the world today.
So, do the math.

Even if Christian persecution dropped by 50% since 1800, such persecution would STILL produce many more individual martyrs today than it had in 1800, if only because there are a lot more Christians today than there was then. In order to show that the rate of martyrdom were increasing, we would have to measure martyrdom on a per capita level, rather than simply a raw numbers level. I've never seen anyone make such a measurement.

This doesn't make the sacrifice of any individual martyr less important, nor is it any less sad that someone would see fit to kill a Christian simply because that person is a Christian.

It's just that we can't very well say, "Ah! Three hundred Christians were killed this year while only 200 Christians were killed in 1913, therefore persecution is 30% worse today than in 1913!" nor can we say with complete certainty, "Oh, Christian persecution is increasing because the number of martyrs this century is so much higher than in the previous century!"

Christians are supposed to be deeply devoted to the truth. Thus, we need to keep these facts in mind when we discuss persecution and martyrdom.

Pope Francis, Women and Homosexuals

There's been a huge brouhaha over the Pope's recent remarks following WYD 2013. Many bloggers have already thrown their two cents into the ring, but I have held off for quite some time because it wasn't clear to me I had anything interesting to say on the subject.

What there is to say now isn't new, but I think it sheds light on exactly how the Pope is refusing the media's narrative.

According to the MSM, the Pope's remark may signal a shift in the Church's attitude towards homosexuals. Catholics know that isn't true, but they have a tough time articulating why they know this. I was even interviewed on Fox News, and failed to make the necessary connection.

Although the questions directed at the Pope were unscripted, and the MSM reporters appeared to be asking questions about a variety of subjects, only two subjects are really being reported in headlines: homosexuals as priests and women as priests. And, as I am thick-headed, I failed to recognize how similar the two questions were.

Now, keep in mind that, to my knowledge, there is no complete transcript of the conversation between the Pope and the reporters - this is just a bunch of reporters writing down what they remembered him saying. As far as I know, no one has a complete recording of his 80 minutes' worth of remarks, so there's no way to verify that everyone is remembering correctly. It's quite possible they garbled some aspect of what he said.

Now, that having been said, here's a full quote of the headline the reporters say they got:

"If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge? The catechism of the Catholic Church explains this very well. It says they should not be marginalised because of this [orientation] but that they must be integrated into society.... The problem is not having this [homosexual] orientation. We must be brothers. The problem is lobbying by this orientation, or lobbies of greedy people, political lobbies, Masonic lobbies, so many lobbies. This is the worse problem." [Editor's Note: Those of Traditionalist Catholic bent, notice that he is concerned about Masonic lobbies within the Vatican. Make of that what you will.]

Assuming the quote is correct, clearly, he's not saying homosexual activity is acceptable. From the remarks ("he searches for the Lord, and has goodwill"), Francis clearly assumes the homosexual priest is not acting upon his inclinations.

But notice how he talks about integrating them into society. While he attributes this language to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, that was a mis-statement on his part, because the relevant articles of the CCC nowhere use that word. Instead, the language of "integration" is taken straight from a 1975 document on sexual ethics, Persona Humanae. The distinctions he make in this interview seem to echo the ideas found in that document.

So, is Pope Francis in favor of homosexual priests? Well, an Argentinian priest, Fr. Alessio, was defrocked just three months ago (April 10, 2013) - with Pope Francis' knowledge and assent - after that priest had begun promoting homosexual marriage and transgenders in the diocese of Cordoba. Cordoba is only about a two-hour drive from Buenos Ares, so it's quite possible Pope Francis even personally knew this priest. The man lost all his priestly faculties with Pope Francis' full knowledge and consent. I don't remember either JP II or Benedict breaking a priest for simple agitation like this. Francis broke him.

Again, this shouldn't be a surprise. In a July, 2010 statement, Bergoglio essentially called the homosexual marriage movement satanic:

“In the coming weeks, the Argentine people will face a situation whose outcome can seriously harm the family... At stake is the identity and survival of the family: father, mother and children... At stake are the lives of many children who will be discriminated against in advance, and deprived of their human development given by a father and a mother and willed by God. At stake is the total rejection of God’s law engraved in our hearts....Let us not be naive: This is not simply a political struggle, but it is an attempt to destroy God’s plan... It is not just a bill (a mere instrument) but a ‘move’ of the father of lies who seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God.” 

Conclusion A: He's not a fan of homosexuals in the priesthood, but he recognizes that some of his priests and bishops are homosexual, so as long as they don't sin, he knows he's stuck with them.

Conclusion B: He doesn't like homosexual lobbying. AT ALL.

Now, notice something else. Francis said absolutely nothing about whether such a man should have been ordained to begin with. The press completely ignored this aspect of the question.

Again, let's get some context. There is a 1961 directive forbidding the ordination of known homosexuals. This was reiterated in 2002 and again in 2005. It is obliquely referenced in Persona Humanae. That teaching is well-known to Pope Francis and is certainly not changing anytime soon.

All Pope Francis told the reporters is, if he discovered a homosexual had been ordained, but the man wasn't actively sinning, he wasn't going to do anything about it. This is not a surprise. The man would have canonical rights at that point, and those rights can't be violated. As long as the priest was not doing anything in violation of the Faith, the Pope COULDN'T do anything about it.

Is he willing to accept homosexual ordination? Well, he signalled that he was not at all in favor of it. How? By the question on whether women can be ordained.

When asked if women could be ordained, he firmly denied that they could. He's all in favor of giving women a greater role, but ordination was out of the question.

A church without women would be like the apostolic college without Mary. The Madonna is more important than the apostles, and the church herself is feminine, the spouse of Christ and a mother. The role of women doesn’t end just with being a mother and with housework …we don’t yet have a truly deep theology of women in the church. We talk about whether they can do this or that, can they be altar boys, can they be lectors, about a woman as president of Caritas, but we don’t have a deep theology of women in the Church. On the ordination of women, the church has spoken and said no. John Paul II, in a definitive formulation, said that door is closed.

The Church has many reasons She can put forward for why that is the case, but I will restrict myself to only one, a point Pope Francis made very subtly and obliquely, yet he still made it. The Church is the Bride of Christ and a mother. The relationship between the priest and the Church is the relationship between Christ and His Bride, the New Adam and the New Eve. The liturgy is a sacred action between the Man and the Woman, not two people of the same sex.

Christ was not a woman.
Catholics are not lesbians.
That's one reason women cannot be ordained.

So, when MSM reporters ask about homosexual priests and women priests, they are subtly asking two different forms of a very similar question. Pope Francis answered the second question definitively, but was not really asked the first question. Given the evidence, we have no reason to think he would be anything but opposed to the ordination of active homosexuals.

The Role of the Extraordinary Form

I get into all kinds of arguments. Some people think I'm antagonistic because I'm a jerk, and they are correct about that. But argument, sometimes quite vociferous argument, is the way I integrate information. By arguing about something, often with extremely annoying tenacity, I figure out what the limits of the idea are, what its strengths are, what its weaknesses are. By bluntly questioning the people who advocate it, I find out what kind of people support it.

Over the last several years, I've had many arguments about the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the Mass, over proper dress at Mass, over private devotions, private revelations, the whole life that adheres to one form versus the other form.

Recently, all of this came to a head with Pope Francis' decision that the Franciscans of the Immaculata would no longer be permitted to celebrate the EF form of the Mass unless the priests requested special permission. This ruling seemed to contravene both the letter and the spirit of Summorum Pontificum, which explicitly permits any priest to celebrate the EF without asking permission from his bishop.

A lot of people in the EF community were upset by that. But that argument, along with another argument I had been in about whether men should be wearing suits to Mass, crystallized something for me.

When Pope Francis made this ruling, he ruled in favor of the ORDINARY FORM. Given that it's the ORDINARY form, this is not really a surprise, right? Ordinarily, you do the ordinary thing.

If you are doing extraordinary and ordinary things, and some odd problem pops up, you revert to the ordinary thing to see if the odd problem goes away. This is probably why Francis ruled as he did on that particular religious order.

Benedict created this situation by naming the forms "Ordinary" and "Extraordinary" instead of "Form 1" and "Form 2".

If Benedict wanted equivalence between the forms, he could have named the two forms so that they would have been equivalent. But he deliberately named them in such a way that it recalls the difference between the Ordinary infallible Magisterium and the Extraordinary infallible Magisterium.

We've only had 21 Ecumenical Councils in the history of the Church - they don't happen very often. Same goes for ex cathedra statements - they are really unusual.

So, when he named these two forms the way he did, he seems to have been envisioning precisely that the EF would NOT be commonly celebrated. Even though SP talks about letting any priest do it on his own authority, the naming conventions undercut the words. Benedict really didn't expect it to be commonly asked for or all that popular.

In that sense, the Church seems to be envisioning traditionalists as just one more religious group in the Church, like Franciscans or Dominicans or Jesuits.

Traditionalism via SP (like Anglicanism) is apparently meant to be a kindness for people who tend to like that sort of thing, but even Benedict never meant this to be the first step towards a universal return of the EF. The EF is not coming back as the normal form because it DIDN'T come back as the normal form.

Dominicans aren't required to do the Spiritual Exercises, Franciscans aren't required to visit a Carmel, and ordinary Catholics aren't expected to have more than a passing interest in the EF.

If he HAD meant it to be otherwise, he wouldn't have named it the EF.

If I'm right, then a lot of people haven't figured this out yet. All those bishops calling EF trads dangerous and stupid, etc., they don't realize that they are calling a religious order those names. All the EF trads who think the EF is where the Church is headed, and who get really, really defensive and angry when anything happens that indicates the Church isn't headed that way... they haven't realized it yet either.

So, if everyone would just recognize the EF for what Popes JP II and Benedict and Francis seem to think it is, a lot of the antagonism and theater would go away. EF trads are a legitimate spiritual strand in the vine of the Catholic Church, but a strand that is not going to become kudzu, it isn't going to take over the entire life of the Church again. It's not meant to. And that's ok for everyone involved.

The different spiritualities preserve different kinds of memories. The Franciscans preserve the memory of how to treat the poor, the Jesuits preserve the memory of how to handle human knowledge, the Dominicans preserve the memory of preaching, the EF trads preserve the memory of a specific kind of prayer/liturgy. Every one of the memories is important to the Church. But none of them are the future of the Church. God is doing something new - we don't know what it is yet, so we have to hold onto what we remember, in order to be prepared to handle the new thing that God is preparing and incorporate it into the life of the Church.

The Day the Sun (ahem) the Bishops Danced

When those who were carrying the ark of the Lord had taken six steps, he sacrificed a bull and a fattened calf. Wearing a linen ephod, David was dancing before the Lord with all his might, while he and all Israel were bringing up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets.

As the ark of the Lord was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart....

When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, going around half-naked in full view of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!”David said to Michal, “It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord’s people Israel—I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.”

And Michal daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death. (2 Samuel 6)

Now, some people are upset about this video:

In fact, one famous Catholic "conservative" blogger priest whose name begins with Z specifically and visually compared the bishops who participated to Nazis. Imagine - a priest of God calling Catholic bishops "Nazis". Reminds one of... oh, maybe the leftist heretics who do the same thing, doesn't it?

In reply to the incredible amount of criticism unleashed against the bishops, one commentator (Henry Babek) on Rorate Caeli blog had this to say:

The young people participating at WYD are planning on doing the largest organized flash mob skit in history. What you see in the video is the bishops simply watching them practice and participating. They will not be participating during the actual skit and this is not for a mass or spiritual gathering. It'll be a small show for the pope done by the youth only. Unless you know the full details, then do not criticize. 

Finally, I absolutely love how many of you come and rush to comment on the critical articles of HH Pope Francis while lovely articles such as "Stat crux dum volvitur orbis" or the "Juventutem" articles only get about 10-20 comments. 

I truly cry when I see how easy it is for soo many of you to criticize or attack instead of commend or love.

Now, I'm not a dancer, I don't like to dance, etc. But calling bishops "Nazis" for emulating King David seems untoward. Having lay people, or worse, ordained men, chastising bishops for emulating King David seems downright evil. 

These "orthodox" people don't mind a bit if the sun dances, but may the Lord have mercy on us all if a bishop does the same! Celebrate Fatima, castigate bishops! 

If anyone wonders why the kind of people who get upset with this can't seem to grow their parishes much... well, ask Michal. 

UPDATE:

Everybody thinks scenes like this are cute.
Nuns can do it, but bishops can't?
Double standards abound.

Why Penn Jillette May Go To Heaven

Penn Jillette is a famous magician, atheist and debunker whose anger and hatred towards religion are legendary. Despite this, he demonstrates an outstanding Christian understanding of the universe.

“Nobody that has seen a baby born can believe in god for a second. When you see your child born, and the panic, and the amount of technology that is saving the life of the two people you love most in the world, when you see how much stainless steel and money it takes to fight off the fact that god wants both those people dead, no one, no one can look into the eyes of a newborn baby and say there's a god, because I'll tell ya, if we were squatting in the woods, the two people I love most would be dead. There's just no way around that. If I were in charge, no way. We need technology to fight against nature; nature so wants us dead. Nature is trying to kill us.”  ~ Penn Jillette

Exactly. Perfect! He understands that Nature is out of harmony with man. He knows it is fallen. That's the beginning of understanding the Fall.

“Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around” ~ Penn Jillette

There is much to laud in this paragraph. He is correct - none of us can be forgiven except by one of two things - either kindness or a faulty memory. And the conclusion is superb - I have to try to treat people right the first time around. Yes. Exactly. 

“Love and respect all people. Hate and destroy all faith.” ~ Penn Jillette

“We all have friends we love dearly that couldn't pass for human in a strict Turing test.”  

Each one of these sentences contradicts the other one, of course, but he doesn't know what faith is, so he can hardly be faulted for that error. Faith is trusting other people, respecting what they have seen, felt, heard, witnessed. That's all there is to it. I trust my butcher because he has given me reason to trust him over the historical course of our relationship and because I should love and respect all people.  So, if I love and respect all persons, I cannot possibly hate and destroy all faith. My faith in my butcher, that he will sell me only good pieces of meat and not misrepresent his product to me, is based on my love and respect for him, and on my history with him. 

Faith in God is faith in persons. The power to have faith in God is, of course, a power that comes from God Himself. It is superior to faith in other kinds of persons because God is a superior being. The power He gives me to trust Him derives from His perfection and from a much longer history He has maintained with all mankind. It is therefore more perfect in origin, more extensive in content, than the faith I have in my butcher. 

“Exploration of space is worth it because humans need to explore. Knowledge is always good, and it's a really cool thing to see.” 

No Christian could say it better. That's why we taught the world to do science - God is Truth, and we must explore Truth, seek it out, both in spirit and in the physical world. 

“The word “holiday” comes from “holy day” and holy means “exalted and worthy of complete devotion.” By that definition, all days are holy. Life is holy. Atheists have joy every day of the year, every holy day. We have the wonder and glory of life. We have joy in the world before the lord is come. We’re not going for the promise of life after death; we’re celebrating life before death. The smiles of children. The screaming, the bitching, the horrific whining of one’s own children. The glory of giving or receiving a blow job. Sunsets, rock and roll, bebop, Jell-O, stinky cheese, and offensive jokes.For atheists, everything in the world is enough and every day is holy. Every day is an atheist holiday. It’s a day that we’re alive.” 

Indeed true. Life is holy. We should be celebrating every day of life. If more Christians acted this way, this man might not be an atheist.

“If there's something you really want to believe, that's what you should question the most.” 

Yes, Penn Jillette. This applies to atheists most of all. This man could be Christian, if it weren't for the bad example we Christians set. 

Of Contraceptives and Colt .45s

It has recently occurred to me that the discussion about gun control parallels the Catholic discussion on contraception. 

Consider: how do liberals and the USCCB (but I repeat myself) deal with the problem of social violence? They all insist that the best way to stop violence is to remove the tool - outlaw guns.

"Oh, if you just stop using guns, if we could outlaw guns, we would stop murder!"

Yes. 
Well. (cough)

But isn't that the exact same argument we make about contraception? 

"Oh, if you just stop using contraception, if we could outlaw contraception, we would stop abortion!"

Both a Colt .45 and a condom are tools, manufactured to answer a perceived need. It is the perceived need which brought about the research that developed the tools. We had the need, then we created the tool.

When Margaret Sanger gave the Catholic physician John Rock the money to research hormonal contraceptives, he took on the task because he perceived a need for contraception. The contraceptive mentality preceded the production of the contraceptive. 

Everyone keeps talking about the contraception problem as if it arose out Minerva's head in the 1950s. It didn't. The demographic transition, the decline in family size in the Western world, began way back around 1800. It began back when contraceptives were universally condemned by all Christians as deadly sin. It began back when the use of contraceptives was absolutely socially unacceptable. 

In short, most modern contraceptives were invented when social stigma was much, much worse than it is today. Even if we got everyone to stigmatize and deride contraception in the same way that it had been in the 1800s, we wouldn't solve the problem.

The Comstock Laws which rendered contraceptive advertising and sale illegal were passed in 1873 by a Protestant Congress. The fact that the laws were passed indicates that America, for the first time, saw itself as losing the battle against contraception. It had to pass laws in order to stop the social evil because social stigma and promise of hellfire was no longer enough to keep people away from contraceptive use. Those laws were overthrown in the 1965 Griswold vs. Connecticut case, but they had already been functionally rendered useless by 1915, when Margaret Sanger got her arrest and conviction overturned on appeal. The Pill isn't a cause, it's a consequence.

We can't get rid of contraception anymore than we can get rid of guns. It isn't because anyone has a constitutional right to contraception. Rather, it's because a large proportion of the population sees an economic need for contraception. 

Precisely because sexual activity is no longer linked to procreation, it has now become linked to social status. How a person uses their sexuality - who they sleep with, what acts of sexual congress they allow themselves to engage in - defines their status. Tom Wolfe researched and wrote an entire novel explaining this new conceptual meaning and language. 

Because we are soul-body composites, sex has always, and will always be, a language. For the person who associates sex with biology and babies, sex will be the language of love. For the individual seeking sterility, however, sex is no longer the language of love, but of social standing. How else can we explain the insanity of women who happily go on "slut walks" but then denounce anyone who calls a contracepting woman a slut?  They aren't arguing against the word, they're arguing against the cognitive dissonance created by two languages clashing in the night.   

The Church denounced jousting and its cousin duelling for a solid millennium before dueling finally ended in the West. Duelling didn't end because the Church denounced it. Duelling ended because social values changed - money replaced honor as the most important social value. The language of sterile sex has been coalescing for over two centuries. It isn't at all clear how that language can be overthrown, nor is it clear that its replacement, whatever that may be, will be any less morally heinous.

But perhaps we should rethink how we approach the conversation on contraception control. It seems unlikely that we can succeed by using the same approach we already know is failing with gun control.

On Martyrdom and Zimmerman

A lot of people are questioning George Zimmerman's use of force against Trayvon Martin.

According to the law, that use of force was legitimate because Zimmerman feared for his own life. 

But in Christian ethics, this isn't sufficient. Indeed, we aren't even supposed to consider whether someone fears for his life. That is irrelevant. As Christians, we must be concerned with our divinely delegated duty to protect innocent life. We are required to protect all innocent life, even if that innocent life happens to be our own.

"But what of martyrdom?" I hear you ask.

Martyrdom is the result of a prudential judgement, in which you willingly suffer the loss of your own life because you have good reason to believe that your death will bring about someone else’s conversion. Martyrdom is never a duty, but it is always an opportunity to embrace a greater good.

George Zimmerman had not only the right, but the divinely delegated duty to protect an innocent life (his own) from harm. Because this innocent life happened to be his own, he had a choice to make. The only way he could surrender his duty to protect his own life is by embracing the even greater good of martyrdom.

However, since his death would not have happened within a religious context, it is hard to see how he could have snatched martyrdom out of this situation. Thus, he chose correctly in defending his own life.

For all of those who dislike his choice, and think he should have chosen otherwise, consider: you can choose martyrdom for yourself.  You cannot choose that someone else be martyred. 

Thus, we don’t have a right to second-guess George Zimmerman’s execution of his divine duty to protect innocent life. He did the right thing. 

2264 Love toward oneself remains a fundamental principle of morality. Therefore it is legitimate to insist on respect for one's own right to life. Someone who defends his life is not guilty of murder even if he is forced to deal his aggressor a lethal blow:
If a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repels force with moderation, his defense will be lawful. . . . Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one's own life than of another's.⁶⁶ 

2265 Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.

How To Bring Eucharistic Adoration Into Public School

According to a California court, as long as we rename Eucharistic Adoration something adorably cute, we can train public school students to do it without violating the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.

I recommend we call it "Apple Peel Kneel" - an innocuous connection to the Fall. Tell them to clear their minds in the manner of the French peasant... "I look at Him, He looks at me."... and we should be good.

Homosexuality, Pedophilia and Virtus

For those who have to attend Virtus CRAP sessions (Children Really Are Protected). Keep in mind that Virtus is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the USCCB. Thus, the propaganda it spews that homosexuality and pedophilia are not linked is straight from the USCCB. Here is a short demonstration debunking the USCCB line.An amicus curiae brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court on March 26, 2003, in the Lawrence vs. Texas case (commonly known as the Texas sodomy case) tells the real story. Page 16, footnote 42 of this legal brief revealed that 31 homosexual and pro-homosexual groups (including the Human Rights Campaign, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and the Gay and; Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) admitted the following:

"The most widely accepted study of sexual practices in the United States is the National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS). The NHSLS found that 2.8% of the male, and 1.4% of the female population identify themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual (Laumann, et al., 1994)."

Thus, according to homosexual groups themselves, the ratio of heterosexual to homosexual population is something like 97:3, or roughly 32:1. But, according to the National Institute of Health, the rate of heterosexual to homosexual pedophilia is only 11:1.  See: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1556756

That is, homosexuals represent a segment of the pedophile population THREE TIMES HIGHER than they should on a per capita basis. This is further confirmed even by people who deny the link. For instance, Glennda Testone, northern regional media manager for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), tried refuting the clear link between homosexuality and child abuse by saying:

"The incorrect stereotype of the gay man as a pedophile is one that has been medically and scientifically debunked. Heterosexual men were responsible for 74 percent of assaults on male victims and 77 percent of assaults on female victims, according to an American Academy of Pediatrics study (July 1994)."

So, heterosexual men make up 98% of the population, but are only responsible for about 75% of the assaults. Anecdotal evidence also confirms that homosexuality is strongly linked to pedophilia. Meanwhile, homosexuals make up only 1-3% of the population while making nearly one-quarter of the pedophilia assaults.

For instance, NAMBLA - the North American Man-Boy Love Association - is a strictly male-male association, that is, it is a strictly homosexual pedophile organization (NAMBLA.org). They were part of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) until ILGA kicked NAMBLA out in order to secure UN funding. Upon that happening, several leading lights in the ILGA, including Harry Hay, one of the founders, resigned in protest, saying that we have no right to impose our views of sexuality on NAMBLA members.

Does the homosexual lifestyle generate unusually negative health consequences? 
Yes.

The Canadian Rainbow Health Coalition (CRHC) makes a summary list of the increased health risks associated with homosexual activity: http://www.xtra.ca/BinaryContent/pdf/human%20rights%20complaint.pdf

And here is fully footnoted summary of current research by the Catholic Medical Association. It not only confirms everything the CRHC mentioned in their legal brief against the Canadian Government, it provides additional information, plus a complete list of footnotes and references, which the CRHC brief fails to provide: http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/homosexuality/ho0075.html

Print this off and take it to your Virtus meetings.
The presenter will LOVE you for it.

UPDATE
You can also take this along:

NAMBLA said, "man/boy love is by definition homosexual", that "the Western homosexual tradition from Socrates to Wilde to Gide ... [and] many non Western homo sexualities from New Guinea and Persia to the Zulu and the Japanese" were formed by pederasty, that "man/boy lovers are part of the gay movement and central to gay history and culture", and that "homosexuals denying that it is 'not gay' to be attracted to adolescent boys are just as ludicrous as heterosexuals saying it's 'not heterosexual' to be attracted to adolescent girls"

No one is allowed to question sexual minorities, right?

The Bible As Science Text

Many people, even many Catholics, have an incoherent desire to treat the Bible as a science textbook. Let's examine how well that works out.

1) The Earth is Flat: Most of the Old Testament was written by about 400 BC. Unfortunately, Eratosthenes of Cyrene didn't demonstrate that the earth was round until about 200 BC.

So, the Old Testament assumes that the earth is a flat disc, hanging in space and immoveable. The sky is a dome, and above the sky are the waters. When doors in the sky open up, the waters fall: this is called rain.

Now, when the ancient Hebrews heard about Eratosthenes' work, they undoubtedly said that his proposal was just an unproven theory, and that there was a lot of evidence against this novel and un-Biblical idea of sphericity. But, if the Bible is a science textbook, then we must assume that the sphericity of the earth is unproven (although it is the case that almost all the Church Fathers ignored the Scripture's teachings on this point, and instead taught a spherical earth).

And, indeed, you might even point out that the earth is not actually a sphere. Most modern geographers insist it is actually pear-shaped, with the Northern Hemisphere pinched slightly inward in comparison to the Southern Hemisphere. Because there are competing theories - perfect sphere versus slight pear-shape - we can argue there is no consensus about the earth's sphericity and thus the world must, indeed, be flat.

2) The Earth is Young: Of course, the same arguments are used to hold to the idea that both the earth and the universe it inhabits are around 6000 years old. When confronted with the evidence to the contrary, Young Earthers have even been known to say that God is not bound by the laws of logic! This is a much stronger argument for Muslims than it is for Christians, since Muslims teach exactly this: God is SO powerful that he is not bound by the laws of logic. He can make a square circle. He can make a rock so big He can't lift it. Except He could, because He's God and can do whatever He wants, even to the point of wanting or doing logically contradictory/impossible things.

Sadly, most Young Earthers are Christians who don't appear to realize that Christianity has always taught God to be pure rationality. Not only is God bound by the laws of rationality, He IS rationality itself. All that is rational is a reflection of His perfect nature, all that is irrational is a distortion of who God is. God is rational for His own Name's sake, because to do that which is irrational would be to violate his own divinity.

The problem here is clear. People who insist on Intelligent Design when it comes to the creation of life apparently want to insist on Inscrutable Design when it comes to the creation of the physical universe.

If we accept that God is rational and that the heavens are telling the glory of God and all creation shows forth His handiwork, then we must accept that rational evidence is to be accepted as part of nature's testimony about God.  Robert Bellarmine, one of the 35 Doctors of the Church, wrote to Galileo explaining precisely this:

I say that if there were a true demonstration that the sun was in the center of the universe and the earth in the third sphere, and that the sun did not travel around the earth but the earth circled the sun, then it would be necessary to proceed with great caution in explaining the passages of Scripture which seemed contrary, and we would rather have to say that we did not understand them (the Scriptures) than to say that something was false which has been demonstrated.

Catholics, did you catch that? According to Bellarmine, the mute testimony of nature actually trumps the literary communications of Scripture! Why? Because nature can speak with only one voice, while literary works can be interpreted in multiple ways. Since truth cannot contradict truth, if something is demonstrated in nature, the truth that has many levels of interpretation must be interpreted in such a way that the truth with more limited levels of interpretation coincide.

Now, does the Catholic Church require Young Earthism? A lot of traditionalist Catholics would insist that She does. I would disagree. Neither the Catechism of Trent nor the Universal Catechism teaches Young Earth, nor do any of the Councils require it. The Church doesn't forbid Catholics believing it, but She doesn't encourage it.

3) The Earth is the center of the Universe: The great irony of "Bible as science textbook" lies in the assertion of geocentrism. Of all the things you can say about the Bible as science, geocentrism is the one experimentally demonstrably provable tenet. Despite this, almost no one who wants to make the Bible a science textbook insists publicly on this point.

Now, I am not a geocentrist, but I am fairly well-acquainted with someone who is: Robert Sungenis of Catholic Apologetics International and the Bellarmine Report.

And here's the mystery: while most Young Earthers would reject geocentrism, the idea that the earth is at the center of the universe, it is the only proposition which is undeniably true. Well, given certain caveats. Let me explain.

From the beginning of human history until about the time of the Greeks, everyone thought the earth was the center of the universe. About 270 BC, a Greek, Aristarchus of Samos, proposed that the sun was actually at the center of the universe. Seleucus of Seleucia (190 BC) agreed with him and used a theory of tides to support the idea. While many Greeks accepted this idea, Ptolemy (90-168 AD) did not. Ptolemy taught what had always been taught: the earth is at the center of the universe.

In the 1500s, Copernicus ran across Aristarchus' idea and revived it. Galileo adopted Seleucus' tidal argument to support Copernicus. The heliocentric theory, the idea that the sun is at the center of the universe, was gradually adopted throughout the civilized world. Now, that version of heliocentrism is just as wrong as geocentrism, in the sense that the sun is not the center of the universe, merely of the solar system. But we'll let that pass. The point is, at least one version of heliocentrism was so universally accepted that, today, even Young Earthers swallow it without question.

Which just goes to show that Young Earthers don't understand physics. When Einstein came along, he pointed out that what was considered the center of any system depended entirely on one's frame of reference. With appropriate modifications, math equations can be used which allow *ANY* given body to be considered the center of the universe without doing any harm to the observational results obtained from the system.

So, from:

• the dawn of time to Copernicus, the earth was considered the center of the universe,
• Copernicus to Einstein, the sun was considered the center of the universe,
• Einstein to today, we recognize that anything can be considered the center. Using one point instead of another might make the calculations easier, but there really isn't any difference.

Now, does the Church require Catholics to hold a geocentric position?

Bob Sungenis, who is a wonderful Catholic apologist in most respects, says "YES! It's DOCTRINE that the earth is the center of the universe. Given that anything can be center, Catholics are required to hold that the earth is the most appropriate center."

I say "I sincerely doubt that it is doctrine."

What I can't understand is this: if the Church requires us to hold to Young Earth Creationism, why aren't Young Earthers logically consistent? Why don't they ALSO hold to geocentrism, which is a lot easier to defend than Young Earthism is? This is a mystery to me.

4) Beginning of Life: According to traditionalists, God had to create everything through special creation because the Bible would have it so. Holding to special creation - the theory that God created everything fully formed and immediately - is the only way to fight perfidious evolution!

Except perfidious evolution doesn't even address how or when life begins. The origin of life is not part of any evolutionary theory. All evolutionary theories (and there are lots of them, many of them mutually exclusive), begin by assuming life already exists. Furthermore, the Church is quite clear that how life gets on in the world, whether by evolution or no, is not a point of doctrine. If you want to believe in special creation, have at it. If you want to believe in evolution, enjoy yourself. As long as you acknowledge God as the Lord and Giver of Life, it makes no difference to the Church.

So, the whole argument about how life begins is a pure strawman on the part of the anti-evolutionist Young Earther traditionalists. They argue that evolutionary theory takes a position on when/how life begins when it takes no position on that issue whatsoever.

Personally, I find creationism absurd and evolutionary theories, at best, woefully inadequate. I don't think anyone has a real handle on how life began or how we got to the point of having had all the species to which archeology provides witness. 95% of all the species that have ever lived are now extinct, and almost all of them went extinct well before human beings walked the planet. Why is that? How is that? No one really seems to have a decent explanation of the mechanics. The only people who seem to have a decent explanation of the "why" are monotheists, and even there, it isn't clear why so many species went belly up before God brought us into the picture.

So, if you want to use the Bible as a science text, I ask only that you be consistent. If you are a Young Earther, you really should promote geocentrism as well. Stop attributing to evolution that which evolution doesn't even address: the beginning of life. Seriously consider joining the Flat Earth Society.

Be consistent.

UPDATE:
Apparently, Saint Augustine said the word firmament was used "to indicate not that it is motionless but that it is solid and that it constitutes an impassable boundary between the waters above and the waters below" (The Literal Meaning of Genesis, ACW 41.1.61). So, it's not clear if Augustine supported the flat earth or not.

Boy Scouts and Sodomy

A lot of ink has been spilled about the BSA's recent decision to allow avowedly homosexual Boy Scouts to serve.

Upon reflection, this is not that big a deal.

After all, the BSA has allowed Muslims to be part of its organization since 1982. Both Sunni and Shia Islam insist that it is virtuous for an adult man to marry and have sex with any female between the ages of birth and death. A Muslim proverb is that a woman should have her first menstrual period in her husband's house.

So, the BSA has been admitting and promoting scouts who advocate adult-child sex for a long, long time. Over thirty years, in fact. With this latest ruling, they have just opened themselves up to the same kind of advocacy for male-male sex.

And notice, it isn't just male-male sex they are permitting. The exact wording is that they "remove the restriction denying membership to youth on the basis of sexual orientation alone."

So, adult-child sex, same-sex, human-animal, man-corpse sex... whatever you want to advocate, all of it is now legitimate for the BSA. Theoretically, the promotion of any of these orientations/predilections would be a legitimate focus for an Eagle Scout project. A scout couldn't engage in any of these activities directly, but any scout could certainly encourage and support such activities among others and demand respect from the BSA for such advocacy.

You see?
In that sense, the proponents of the change are correct. The change is not as bad as we thought, if only because we didn't understand how bad it was before.

Child Arrested for Poem

"We only wish they'd bomb the school,
We're awfully tired of studies."

Those two lines got an 8th-grader, Nina Peregud, arrested and thrown into prison. The horrible sacrilege of these lines, in a schoolgirl's handwriting, demonstrated a clear and present danger of terrorist attack.

As a result of having composed those lines, her bedroom was searched. Arresting officers discovered her 6th grade diaries and immediately confiscated them.

And it was a good thing they did. Within those diaries, the arresting officers found a photograph of a church that had been destroyed. This was taken as proof of her dangerous Christian fundamentalist leanings and used as evidence against her. As she was being processed, officers discovered that she wore a crucifix around her neck. Understandably, they demanded she remove it. She refused - her mother had given to her on the morning of the arrest. For this offense, the courts separated her from her parents and placed her into foster care, specifically, into an orphanage, to assure her own safety and the safety of others.

Now, can you guess where it happened?

Sweden?
Finland?
Germany?
Massachusetts?
California?
Chicago?

All very good guesses.
Indeed, anyone today would believe me if I were to name any of those locations.

But, the actual location was Stalinist Russia during World War II.
The account is taken from the Gulag Archipelago, Volume II, p. 465-466.

Good thing the West, especially America, are countries of freedom under the rule of law, eh?

Memorial Day - The American Children's War

This Memorial Day, remember the Unknown Soldiers.

Remember the children who died so that their parents might be free.

Over the last forty years, millions of American children sacrificed their lives so that their parents could be free... free from responsibility, free from maturity, free from the duty to care for another person.

These children died so that their parents might be free to engage their lust without fear or concern.

These are the little soldiers without uniforms, the guerilla warriors who sneak quietly into the lives of their parents and remind those adults of American values: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Peace, love, care for the smallest and the poorest. Generosity, kindness. These great American values are what those smallest of children stand for, fighting for sanctuary and life in what has become an embattled trench: their mother's womb.

These little soldiers endure knives and chemical weapons. They endure the whirring blade, the sucking chest wound, the arms and legs ripped from the torso, the decapitations and the scalpel in the base of the skull. They died like the British soldier of Wellington Street, and their murderers righteously defend the violence wreaked upon the bodies. The killers do not flee, but rather bask in the glow of video and television, they accept the adulation they have so meritoriously earned, they explain the philosophy which allows, nay demands, the violence that has been wreaked.

These children stand for America, they are our future. And for this, we, their parents use the cleaving knife to brutally slaughter them, we use the chemical weapon to obliterate them, we praise the men and women who snuff out their lives. These are the little guerilla warriors, the inconvenient reminders that we should do what a virtuous and free people are supposed to do, the unfortunate silent voices encouraging us to be what we are supposed to be. The children die free and proud, dismembered by the hands of those who hate their own future, disembowelled by those who hate their own children, decapitated by those who hate the very country which nurtured them but failed to impress them with its values. These children are killed, and with them America's future dies.

And so it is that these young men and women died in the battleground of the womb, so that we might be freed from children, safe from love, preserved for the terror of a lonely death. They died to keep us safe from the pursuit of life and liberty. They died so that we might no longer be happy, but rather live as slaves to the lusts of this world, live hungering after the promise of 72 virgins here and now, live thirsting for the guarantees of political cant. By their deaths we hope to guarantee our own futures, bright with high incomes. We gain the promise of futures washed clean of posterity. We wash our futures clean with the blood of our own children.

No longer do we pursue liberty, we cleave instead to license.
No longer do we hold fast to life, we cleave instead to slaughter, to senseless death and carnage.

We slaughter America's future so that we might live the life the our leaders and the world's Muslims call us to live. We must obey the peaceful Muslims, the jihadists our owners demand we work with and respect, the glorious Muslims who we must never judge or hate or even speak a word against. Both our owners and these Muslims agree: the future cannot belong to our children.

Yes, these children, our children, died in service to America's highest principles.
And we killed them.

That is what we should recall on Memorial Day: the soldiers, the children, who gave their lives so that we might not be burdened with their presence. Let their deaths for these principles wring tears from even the stoniest heart!

Lift your glasses over their graves!
Weep your tears over the sewers which run with their blood!
Justice demands witness to their lives' sacrifice and to our own.
This is Memorial Day.

Why Bishops Don't Like The EF

When asked what they don't like about the Church, a lot of traditionalists will respond,

"Vatican II destroyed the Church. We used to have high Mass attendance, schools overflowing with children, lots of priests and nuns, but now look at us!

Catechesis is destroyed! No one goes to Mass! The Catholic schools are falling apart! There aren't any vocations! This is the "fruits" of Vatican II!"

I grew up in the 1970's. I personally experienced the crap that passed for catechesis during those years. So, for years I found this a very compelling argument. I couldn't figure out why so many priests and bishops shuddered when faced with the thought of returning to the older form of Mass.

The first time I attended a traditional Mass, I hated it.
Absolutely hated it.

The second time, I read through the English prayers and found the prayers very beautiful. A few years later,  for reasons beyond the scope of this article, I found myself attending a traditional Mass every weekend.

Now, I have been very happy about the beautiful music and the opportunity to receive Jesus at the communion rail. While the EF prayers of consecration are more beautiful, I have continued to dislike what passes for a cycle of readings in the EF form. The Novus Ordo cycle Liturgy of the Word is simply superior to the EF version - anyone who follows the four senses of Scripture will find this ancient method of reading Scripture a lot more accessible in the OF than in the EF.  Similarly, the EF liturgical year is just terminally screwed up when compared to the beautifully rational OF liturgical year.

I say all of this because the comparison of the two forms and the constant whining of various "experts" blinded me to a specific truth: Vatican II and the OF was created by the traditional Latin Mass and the nuns and priests of the Catholic schools.

If we are going to blame poor post-conciliar catechesis on the Second Vatican Council, then we have to blame the existence of the Second Vatican Council on the pre-Vatican II Missal and the pre-Vatican II catechesis (school system).

Everyone who participated in VC II was formed by the EF and pre-conciliar Catholic schools. Everyone who implemented VC II reforms was formed was formed by the EF and pre-conciliar Catholic schools.

If we hate the current situation because it was created by VC II, then we must also hate the EF and the parochial school system, because that is what brought us to call VC II.

Now, if the Second Vatican Council had been foisted upon us by outsiders and enemies of the Church, then we wouldn't have to accept that line of argument. This is why so many traditionalists are fixated on the existence of Freemasons or Jews or Protestants or whoever "infiltrating" Vatican II.

VC II *HAD* to have been a betrayal by enemies, because anyone formed by the ancient Missal would never have done such a thing. It's the same line the Germans used when they lost WW I. They couldn't bear to blame it on themselves, so they decided the Jews/Socialists/Communists/Democracies stabbed them in the back.

Unfortunately, that's the one line of argument a Catholic cannot use. It is a point of Catholic doctrine that it doesn't matter who matters to "infiltrate" a council or a papal throne. God will get His work done regardless. He draws a straight line, regardless of how crooked the sinner.

So, the argument works as well for us as it did for the Germans. The Catholics who espouse it become increasingly paranoid. So, the council was infiltrated. If the council wasn't infiltrated, then we have a fall-back position - it wasn't a true council. Yet the Pope ratified it, which would make it a true council. Then, obviously, he can't have been the true Pope. If he isn't the true Pope, then the chair of Peter is empty and it has been empty since Paul VI or John XXIII or Pius XII or Pius XI or no, wait, Pius X. But the new Mass changed the way sacraments are administered, so the sacraments are no longer valid, so there are no more valid priests. Which means there are no valid bishops. Which means there are no valid cardinals. That means we are waiting for the true Pope to re-emerge, except he can't because the rules of election must be followed   by cardinals which we ain't got any more - all the valid ones are dead.. So the Church failed. But it can't. But it has to have. But it can't so God will save it in a miraculous fashion which was never revealed during the fullness of public revelation, so we must pay constant attention to private revelation. This visionary, that visionary, the one over here. Our Lady of the Recent Moment said...

Sigh.

You can't start down that road.
That way lies madness.

We have to accept the facts. We did this to ourselves. The bishops and priests who wanted to reform what is now the Extraordinary Form of the Mass wanted to do so for a very good reason: the EF sucked wind. It stank. It was at least sub-optimal. In fact, it was so substantially flawed that it required reform.

And the proof is clearly present. If the liturgy is really the best thing the Church has to offer, then the men and women formed by the pre-conciliar Missal demonstrated how lousy their formation was when most of them accepted any of a number of post-conciliar heresies. They swallowed heresies almost immediately and nearly universally, heresies the council never taught but those formed by the pre-conciliar liturgy thought the council taught.

That's why the bishops don't want to return to the pre-conciliar liturgy.
They know it won't work because it already proved that it didn't work.

I haven't quite figured out why these same bishops continue to insist on parochial schools that also didn't work. Perhaps they insist on them because they know so little about how the schools operate. Or maybe they're just a different version of traditionalist - bitterly clinging to their schools because they don't know what else to do, blaming the manifest failures of the parochial schools on "the Catholic ghetto" or the Catholic lay adult.

It's a sad problem, but rather ironic.
The bishops see the EF liturgy as irredeemable, but they cling to Catholic schools, which job of educating children is pre-eminently the job of the parents. The traditionalists see Catholic schools as irredeemable (thus they homeschool), but they cling to the EF liturgy when liturgy is pre-eminently the responsibility of the ordained man.

Again, sigh.
The fault lies not in the council, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

A Defense of Live Action

Some people have a problem with Lila Rose and Live Action videos.
They claim she and her compatriots are lying when they enter abortion clinics and present themselves as interested in abortion. In fact, the primary interest Lila Rose and company has is in filming the abortionists and their spokespeople as the latter produce the hackneyed spiel they actually give their abortion patients.

The claim is that Lila Rose (a) lies, which is a sin and (b) leads others into sin by encouraging abortion clinic workers to commit abortion.

I've been thinking of a possibly novel defense for this.

As we know, most non-liturgical Christians don't like the idea that Jesus is substantially present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist. "The Eucharist is just a symbol," they say. When He said, "This is My Body", he didn't MEAN that "is" meant "is". Rather, He intended us to know that "is" meant "symbolize."

Now, I've never heard the following argument made against the Eucharist, but it is certainly a logically possible argument: "You say Jesus presents Himself under the appearance of bread and wine. But God is pure Truth, He is the One Who is neither deceived nor does He deceive. Yet if He is presenting Himself as bread and wine, is that not a deception? It looks like bread, it tastes like wine, you say, but it is really His flesh and blood. If it were Him, why would He deceive us?"

And it is certainly the case that many who met Jesus never realized He was God, just as many who perceive the Eucharist fail to recognize who He is.

And does not Lila Rose present the same deception to the abortion clinics?
Indeed, the abortion clinics have wanted posters on her - they are constantly looking for her.
But they do not find her.

Those who know her, recognize her.
Those who do not know her, do not recognize her.

Since the abortionists would present the same talking points to any patient who walks through the door, she is not tempting them to sin any more than Christ tempts an unrepentant sinner to consume His flesh and blood in the Eucharist. She gives them an opportunity to choose: this is your chance to throw away the talking points, turn from your sin and leave.

By engaging them in conversation that covers every point of what they believe, she forces them to walk through their beliefs in the most neutral way possible - she shows absolutely no judgement while they lay out their plans. She merely asks them to contemplate and explain their plans in detail, giving them the opportunity to go through their own logic, giving them the opportunity to find the flaws in their own arguments themselves. Precisely because she questions every aspect of their operation, they have the opportunity to name and claim the problems in their own logic.

In that respect, if you want ecumenical dialogue, Lila Rose is the best in the business.