Thursday, December 31, 2009
Can Science Explain Religion? - The New York Review of Books
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Jesus "the myth"
Read his piece Jesus "the myth"
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Pope Benedict's Advent Talk to University Students
At this point I cannot omit to reflect on something a bit disquieting but nevertheless useful for us here who belong to the academic world. Let us ask ourselves: who was present on Christmas night at the grotto in Bethlehem? Who welcomed Wisdom when he was born? Who hurried to see him, to recognize him and adore him? They were not doctors of law, scribes or sages. There were Mary and Joseph, and then the shepherds. What does this mean?
Jesus was one day to say: "Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will" (Mt 11: 26); you revealed your mystery to the little ones (cf. Mt 11: 25). But then is there no use in studying? Or is it even harmful counterproductive in understanding the truth?
The two thousand-year-old history of Christianity excludes the latter hypothesis, and suggests to us the correct one: studying entails deepening one's knowledge while maintaining a spirit similar to the "little ones," an ever humble and simple spirit, like that of Mary, the "Seat of Wisdom". How often have we been afraid to draw near to the Grotto in Bethlehem for fear that doing so would be an obstacle to our critical sense and to our "modernity"!
Rather, in that Grotto, each of us can discover the truth about God and about humanity, about ourselves. In that Child, born of the Virgin, the two came together: mankind's longing for eternal life softened the heart of God, who was not ashamed to assume the human condition.
Carrón: That Nostalgia for the Infinite
Dear Editor,
There is a phrase of Dostoevsky that accompanies me these days, when I have to speak of Christianity to all kinds of people in Italy and abroad: “Can an educated man, a European of our time, believe—truly believe—in the divinity of the Son of God, Jesus Christ?” This question rings like a challenge for all of us. It is precisely on the answer to this question that the success of the faith depends today. In an address given in 1996, the then cardinal Ratzinger answered that faith can have this hope “because it finds a correspondence in human nature. In man there is a nostalgic hope for the infinite that cannot be extinguished.” In this phrase he indicated the condition necessary: that Christianity needs to find the humanity that pulsates in each of us in order to show all the greatness of its claim.
Yet how many times are we tempted to look at the concrete humanity in which we find ourselves—for example the unease, the dissatisfaction, the sadness, the boredom—as an obstacle, a complication, an impediment to the realization of what we desire. Thus we get angry with ourselves and with reality, succumbing to the weight of circumstances, in the illusion of going ahead by cutting away a piece of ourselves. But unease, dissatisfaction, sadness, and boredom are not symptoms of a illness to treat with medicines; this happens more and more often in a society that mistakes disquiet of the heart for panic and anxiety. They are rather signs of what the nature of the “I” is. Our desire is greater than the whole universe. The perception of emptiness in us and around us of which Leopardi speaks (“want and emptiness”), and the boredom of which Heidegger speaks, are the proof of the inexorable nature of our heart, of the boundless character of our desire—nothing is able to give us satisfaction and peace. We can forget it, betray it, or even deceive it, but we cannot shuffle it off.
So the real obstacle on our journey is not our concrete humanity, but disregard for it. Everything in us cries out the need for something to fill the void. Even Nietzsche perceived this; he could not but address the “unknown god” that makes all things. “Left alone, I raise my hands/ … to the unknown god / I want to know you, you the Unknown,/ Who penetrate deep into my soul, / Shake up my life like a storm,/ Beyond my grasp and yet so close to me!” (1864).
Christmas is the announcement that this unknown Mystery has become a familiar presence, without which none of us could remain a man for long, but would end up overwhelmed by confusion, seeing his own face decompose, because “only the divine can ‘save’ man, that is to say, the true and essential dimensions of the human figure and his destiny” (Fr. Giussani).
The most convincing sign that Christ is God, the greatest miracle that astonished everyone—even more than the healing of cripples and the curing of the blind—was an incomparable gaze. The sign that Christ is not a theory or a set of rules is that look, which is found throughout the Gospel: His way of dealing with humanity, of forming relationships with those He met on His way. Think of Zacchaeus and of Magdalene: He didn’t ask them to change, but embraced them, just as He found them, in their wounded, bleeding humanity, needful of everything. And their life, embraced, re-awoke in that moment in all its original profundity.
Who would not want to be reached by such a look now? For “one cannot keep on living unless Christ is a presence like a mother is a presence for her child, unless Christ is a presence now – now! –I cannot love myself now and I cannot love you now” (Fr. Giussani). This is the only way, as men of our time, reasonably and critically, to answer Dostoevsky’s question.
But how do we know that Christ is alive now? Because his gaze is not a fact of the past, but is still present in the world just as it was before. Since the day of His resurrection, the Church exists only in order to make God’s affection an experience, through people who are His mysterious Body, witnesses in history today of that gaze capable of embracing all that is human.
Thank you.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Peggy Noonan on the Adam Lambert Problem
America is good at making practical compromises, and one of the compromises we've made in the area of arts and entertainment is captured in the words, "We don't care what you do in New York." That was said to me years ago by a social conservative who was explaining that he and his friends don't wish to impose their cultural sensibilities on a city that is uninterested in them, and that the city, in turn, shouldn't impose its cultural sensibilities on them. He was speaking metaphorically; "New York" meant "wherever the cultural left happily lives."
For years now, without anyone declaring it or even noticing it, we've had a compromise on television. Do you want, or will you allow into your home, dramas and comedies that, however good or bad, are graphically violent, highly sexualized, or reflective of cultural messages that you believe may be destructive? Fine, get cable. Pay for it. Buy your premium package, it's your money, spend it as you like.
But the big broadcast networks are for everyone. They are free, they are available on every television set in the nation, and we watch them with our children. The whole family's watching. Higher, stricter standards must maintain.
Read it all.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
The News Not To Hush
At Christmas let's talk about Christmas.
This is a simple little rule, to strengthen brains and souls, if one still has them and they're not in a comatose state. Because at Christmas almost no one speaks of Christmas.
Priests in church do a little, but often one wishes they didn't, because it might be better. But, in the end, it's better than nothing.
Let's speak of Christmas, at Christmas, maybe while drinking something, or better, while eating among friends and relatives. Let's speak of Him, of Jesus. As if we were talking about soccer. Or movies. Or better, not as if you were talking about soccer or movies: but as if we were talking about what makes soccer and movies beautiful. Of what gives pleasure to the being here and now.
Because without Christmas, life where we are would be only "a little vessel of sadness sailing in this muffled silence through the autumn dark" as the great Irish writer John Banville wrote. Instead no, life is no longer "a little vessel of sadness". The news is not a news made of words, or thoughts. It is a news in flesh and bones, a present news.
Without Jesus, Christmas could be the saddest holiday in the world, and for many it is. Let's speak of Him, then, in His holiday. Let's speak of Him, of the captain that has inverted the route of the little vessel.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Question on the Economy
Here was my response:
Do you remember people claiming that this recession was the worst since the Great Depression? There is a reason this claim is being made. Last year we were asked to bail out banks by literally giving them hundreds of billions of dollars to prevent them from closing, something that took place during the Great Depression. This means we are experiencing a crisis of the same magnitude that caused the depression, but we have taken preventative actions to reduce or delay the negative consequences. This action consisted of the government giving banks over $2,000 for every American citizen. If we had failed to act, the consequences would have been grave. The banks would have shut down and people would have had a difficult time getting cash… While this may not sound like much, there are serious consequences as the economy would have come to a stand-still. People would not have been able to do simple things like buy gas or groceries. When you hear the comparison to the Great Depression you have to acknowledge that without the first bailout we would be in the same circumstance today. While this may sound bad, it gets worse.
The U.S. has lost control of the dollar and given China and other Asian states the responsibility to maintain its value. We have officially given up trying to maintain our currency's value and have passed the responsibility to countries of the East who have a lot of positive investments in the dollar. Our official policy is to tax Asian states to keep our government open and financially solvent. Well, eventually China and other states will get sick of this and do something. It is clear that this cannot go on for the long-term. No one knows how they will react, but they will not continue to allow this indefinitely. We are so broke that we are literally resorting to the policies of the Weimar Republic. The only thing is that we are not forced into this by another country, we have chosen it for ourselves.
What really concerns me is the call to form a new international order, one that would allow global governance. It may address some irregularities, but overall it would only serve to reduce democratic governance in the world and would create larger institutions. To solve one problem, we would create a larger one. The larger the institution, the greater its potential for evil. My fear is that our action in response to this crisis could put into place an institution that, in trying to do good, would bring about harm on a greater scale than humanity has witnessed. The warning of Orwell is growing more relevant every day. A new global government would have power so great that it would be incomparable to anything we currently have. And, given our past, we have to be concerned with the lessons of history. Human persons have not changed. Larger institutions create the opportunity for bad things to be done on a greater scale than ever. The largest political sovereign should be the state. Many would consider this statement passé, but I am a realist. Human beings working with the best of intentions can rarely produce a world that is better; often our good ideas only make things worse. Do you remember Flannery O’Connor and have you ever heard of Walker Percy? In different works, these Southern writers wrote the same sentence, “tenderness deprived of the source of tenderness leads to the gas chamber.” These global institutions have every intention of improving the world, but I worry that they will do the opposite.
I also fear to see how democratic states will react to this depression. The risk to the U.S. is that people will be willing to give up individual liberties in order to eat. We have already given up our privacy as a people and consented to domestic surveillance. What else will we give up to survive? Increasing governmental power always comes with a price. Democracy becomes very vulnerable when the economy weakens. Think about what the Great Depression did to the states of Europe…
The world needs a strong U.S. and this economic crisis is only serving to facilitate the transfer of power in the international system to Asia. I fear for the world that will emerge in the wake of our decline. The United States will not be the only country in the world to suffer. A new, Orwellian world may fill the gap. Let's hope and pray that the U.S. is able to make the difficult adjustments and survive as a great power. Freedom will suffer globally if we decline. What does this mean for the future of our country and the world? We shall soon find out.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Canadian Journalist Looks to Expand China's One-Child Policy
If you want to see the Diane Francis interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox, Francis appears to wish to help people and believes that her intentions are good, but is willing to commit murder to carry out her agenda. It is shocking that this person has been able to gain such a high position in the Canadian press. She also has a poor understanding of the foreign policy of Western states.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Aesop on pop-culture
A Wolf hung about near a flock of sheep for a long time, but made no attempt to molest them. The Shepherd at first kept a sharp eye on him, for he naturally thought he meant mischief: but as time went by and the Wolf showed no inclination to meddle with the flock, he began to look upon him more as a protector than as an enemy: and when one day some errand took him to the city, he felt no uneasiness at leaving the Wolf with the sheep. But as soon as his back was turned the Wolf attacked them and killed the greater number. When the Shepherd returned and saw the havoc he had wrought, he cried, "It serves me right for trusting my flock to a Wolf."
Aesop
G. K. CHESTERTON on Aesop
The historical Aesop, in so far as he was historical, would seem to have been a Phrygian slave, or at least one not to be specially and symbolically adorned with the Phrygian cap of liberty. He lived, if he did live, about the sixth century before Christ, in the time of that Croesus whose story we love and suspect like everything else in Herodotus. There are also stories of deformity of feature and a ready ribaldry of tongue: stories which (as the celebrated Cardinal said) explain, though they do not excuse, his having been hurled over a high precipice at Delphi. It is for those who read the Fables to judge whether he was really thrown over the cliff for being ugly and offensive, or rather for being highly moral and correct. But there is no kind of doubt that the general legend of him may justly rank him with a race too easily forgotten in our modern comparisons: the race of the great philosophic slaves. Aesop may have been a fiction like Uncle Remus: he was also, like Uncle Remus, a fact. It is a fact that slaves in the old world could be worshipped like Aesop, or loved like Uncle Remus. It is odd to note that both the great slaves told their best stories about beasts and birds.
But whatever be fairly due to Aesop, the human tradition called Fables is not due to him. This had gone on long before any sarcastic freedman from Phrygia had or had not been flung off a precipice; this has remained long after. It is to our advantage, indeed, to realise the distinction; because it makes Aesop more obviously effective than any other fabulist. Grimm's Tales, glorious as they are, were collected by two German students. And if we find it hard to be certain of a German student, at least we know more about him than We know about a Phrygian slave. The truth is, of course, that Aesop's Fables are not Aesop's fables, any more than Grimm's Fairy Tales were ever Grimm's fairy tales. But the fable and the fairy tale are things utterly distinct. There are many elements of difference; but the plainest is plain enough. There can be no good fable with human beings in it. There can be no good fairy tale without them.
Aesop, or Babrius (or whatever his name was), understood that, for a fable, all the persons must be impersonal. They must be like abstractions in algebra, or like pieces in chess. The lion must always be stronger than the wolf, just as four is always double of two. The fox in a fable must move crooked, as the knight in chess must move crooked. The sheep in a fable must march on, as the pawn in chess must march on. The fable must not allow for the crooked captures of the pawn; it must not allow for what Balzac called "the revolt of a sheep" The fairy tale, on the other hand, absolutely revolves on the pivot of human personality. If no hero were there to fight the dragons, we should not even know that they were dragons. If no adventurer were cast on the undiscovered island—it would remain undiscovered. If the miller's third son does not find the enchanted garden where the seven princesses stand white and frozen—why, then, they will remain white and frozen and enchanted. If there is no personal prince to find the Sleeping Beauty she will simply sleep. Fables repose upon quite the opposite idea; that everything is itself, and will in any case speak for itself. The wolf will be always wolfish; the fox will be always foxy. Something of the same sort may have been meant by the animal worship, in which Egyptian and Indian and many other great peoples have combined. Men do not, I think, love beetles or cats or crocodiles with a wholly personal love; they salute them as expressions of that abstract and anonymous energy in nature which to any one is awful, and to an atheist must be frightful. So in all the fables that are or are not Aesop's all the animal forces drive like inanimate forces, like great rivers or growing trees. It is the limit and the loss of all such things that they cannot be anything but themselves: it is their tragedy that they could not lose their souls.
This is the immortal justification of the Fable: that we could not teach the plainest truths so simply without turning men into chessmen. We cannot talk of such simple things without using animals that do not talk at all. Suppose, for a moment, that you turn the wolf into a wolfish baron, or the fox into a foxy diplomatist. You will at once remember that even barons are human, you will be unable to forget that even diplomatists are men. You will always be looking for that accidental good-humour that should go with the brutality of any brutal man; for that allowance for all delicate things, including virtue, that should exist in any good diplomatist. Once put a thing on two legs instead of four and pluck it of feathers and you cannot help asking for a human being, either heroic, as in the fairy tales, or un-heroic, as in the modern novels.
But by using animals in this austere and arbitrary style as they are used on the shields of heraldry or the hieroglyphics of the ancients, men have really succeeded in handing down those tremendous truths that are called truisms. If the chivalric lion be red and rampant, it is rigidly red and rampant; if the sacred ibis stands anywhere on one leg, it stands on one leg for ever. In this language, like a large animal alphabet, are written some of the first philosophic certainties of men. As the child learns A for Ass or B for Bull or C for Cow, so man has learnt here to connect the simpler and stronger creatures with the simpler and stronger truths. That a flowing stream cannot befoul its own fountain, and that any one who says it does is a tyrant and a liar; that a mouse is too weak to fight a lion, but too strong for the cords that can hold a lion; that a fox who gets most out of a flat dish may easily get least out of a deep dish; that the crow whom the gods forbid to sing, the gods nevertheless provide with cheese; that when the goat insults from a mountain-top it is not the goat that insults, but the mountain: all these are deep truths deeply graven on the rocks wherever men have passed. It matters nothing how old they are, or how new; they are the alphabet of humanity, which like so many forms of primitive picture-writing employs any living symbol in preference to man. These ancient and universal tales are all of animals; as the latest discoveries in the oldest pre-historic caverns are all of animals. Man, in his simpler states, always felt that he himself was something too mysterious to be drawn. But the legend he carved under these cruder symbols was everywhere the same; and whether fables began with Aesop or began with Adam, whether they were German and mediAeval as Reynard the Fox, or as French and Renaissance as La Fontaine, the upshot is everywhere essentially the same: that superiority is always insolent, because it is always accidental; that pride goes before a fall; and that there is such a thing as being too clever by half. You will not find any other legend but this written upon the rocks by any hand of man. There is every type and time of fable: but there is only one moral to the fable; because there is only one moral to everything.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Bishops, Healthcare, Compromise, and Truth
By their short-sighted approach, our bishops may have inadvertently made it possible for the national health care bill to be passed without the elements that protect life and conscience. Once the Stupak amendment was included, the bishops gave their approval to the House version of the bill. A critical threshold was met through this support that allowed the bill to clear the first hurdle and move to the second stage where it will be transformed by the Senate. It is very unlikely that this version will contain the pro-life provision. The danger is that after the Senate changes the bill, the House may reconsider it without the pro-life amendment. While the outcome is unknown, it is possible that the bishop’s initial support may come back to haunt them. They permitted the bill to advance and this may eventually allow it to pass without pro-life amendments. If this happens, the bishops may have given their blessing to a bill that may advance the culture of death.
Our bishops' actions suggest a profound political naiveté. When the bill was being considered in the House, the bishops advised cooperation with political adversaries that do not recognize the intrinsic worth of every human life. We cooperated with those who would temporarily use us and then dismiss our concerns at a later time. We can honestly say that our bishops may have hurt the cause for life by failing to recognize our cultural and political reality. Their failure allowed the House to pass the first draft with the Churches blessing and this gave momentum to a bill that may ultimately become law without the provisions that protect life. In retrospect, you should never make a deal with those advocating a culture of death in hopes of defending life. This seems obvious and let’s hope it is not too late… If so, we must give our bishops the credit they have unfortunately earned. Their good intentions may make abortion easier and for this they deserve criticism.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Father Giussani's Writings Available Free Online
The English books include: The Psalms, At the Origin of the Christian Claim, Is It Possible to Live this Way (v1 Faith), The Religious Sense, The Risk of Education, The Work of the Movement: The Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, and Why the Church.
The website is http://scritti.luigigiussani.org/main/index.aspx.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Obama, Relativism, and the Concentration Camp
Many people laughed when President Bush labeled Iraq, North Korea, and Iran the ‘axis of evil’. Although this statement may have been a foreign policy disaster, the problem is that this criticism fails to realize that there is a real evil we must confront as individuals and as a civilization. When we fail to see this reality, we open ourselves to a grave threat. Yet, there is a real danger that in a post-holocaust civilization we will fail to recognize the existence of evil. Culturally, we are embracing relativistic positions that deny the reality and danger of evil. We are naïve to hold to this idea when we have seen the concentration camp and the dangers this institution poses even today. An honest assessment of recent history compels us to change our position and to hold a more realistic understanding of the potential dangers to our humanity and our society. By denying evil we open ourselves to its emergence.
We are endangering our future by following policies that bring us closer to the country that has murdered more of its citizens than any other state in world history. China has killed more people than the Nazis or Soviets combined, and we are becoming subservient to a regime with blood on its hands. In Solzhenitsyn’s commencement address at Harvard, he warned the U.S. of the deadly consequences of this relationship:
At present, some Western voices already have spoken of obtaining protection from a third power against aggression in the next world conflict, if there is one; in this case the shield would be China. But I would not wish such an outcome to any country in the world. First of all, it is again a doomed alliance with Evil; also, it would grant the United States a respite, but when at a later date China with its billion people would turn around armed with American weapons, America itself would fall prey to a genocide similar to the one perpetrated in Cambodia in our days.
I hope that Solzhenitsyn was wrong about where we will end up, but we must acknowledge that a friendship with China opens us to grave dangers and as they gain additional economic, and eventually military, leverage over the United States, it will be more difficult for us to resist their advances.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Pope Benedict’s Meeting with Artists
{Italian}
Here are some portions of his speech:
Indeed, an essential function of genuine beauty, as emphasized by Plato, is that it gives man a healthy “shock”, it draws him out of himself, wrenches him away from resignation and from being content with the humdrum – it even makes him suffer, piercing him like a dart, but in so doing it “reawakens” him, opening afresh the eyes of his heart and mind, giving him wings, carrying him aloft. Dostoevsky’s words that I am about to quote are bold and paradoxical, but they invite reflection. He says this: “Man can live without science, he can live without bread, but without beauty he could no longer live, because there would no longer be anything to do to the world. The whole secret is here, the whole of history is here.” The painter Georges Braque echoes this sentiment: “Art is meant to disturb, science reassures.” Beauty pulls us up short, but in so doing it reminds us of our final destiny, it sets us back on our path, fills us with new hope, gives us the courage to live to the full the unique gift of life. The quest for beauty that I am describing here is clearly not about escaping into the irrational or into mere aestheticism.
These ideas impel us to take a further step in our reflection. Beauty, whether that of the natural universe or that expressed in art, precisely because it opens up and broadens the horizons of human awareness, pointing us beyond ourselves, bringing us face to face with the abyss of Infinity, can become a path towards the transcendent, towards the ultimate Mystery, towards God. Art, in all its forms, at the point where it encounters the great questions of our existence, the fundamental themes that give life its meaning, can take on a religious quality, thereby turning into a path of profound inner reflection and spirituality.
In this regard, one may speak of a via pulchritudinis, a path of beauty which is at the same time an artistic and aesthetic journey, a journey of faith, of theological enquiry. The theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar begins his great work entitled The Glory of the Lord – a Theological Aesthetics with these telling observations: “Beauty is the word with which we shall begin. Beauty is the last word that the thinking intellect dares to speak, because it simply forms a halo, an untouchable crown around the double constellation of the true and the good and their inseparable relation to one another.” He then adds: “Beauty is the disinterested one, without which the ancient world refused to understand itself, a word which both imperceptibly and yet unmistakably has bid farewell to our new world, a world of interests, leaving it to its own avarice and sadness. It is no longer loved or fostered even by religion.” And he concludes: “We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past – whether he admits it or not – can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love.” The way of beauty leads us, then, to grasp the Whole in the fragment, the Infinite in the finite, God in the history of humanity. Simone Weil wrote in this regard: “In all that awakens within us the pure and authentic sentiment of beauty, there, truly, is the presence of God. There is a kind of incarnation of God in the world, of which beauty is the sign. Beauty is the experimental proof that incarnation is possible. For this reason all art of the first order is, by its nature, religious.” Hermann Hesse makes the point even more graphically: “Art means: revealing God in everything that exists.”
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Ralph Wood (Author of Flannery O'Connor and the Christ-Haunted South) Interviewed in Religion and Ethics Newsweekly
There can be a kind of reductionism and too quick reading of her in Christian terms. She, by the way, did not want to be known as a Catholic writer; she wanted to be known as a writer, that is to say as a woman whose work had its own excellence, that could stand on its own legs, that did not have to be propped up with the crutches of her faith as if it would crumble without it, so in that sense she is not a Catholic writer, and those that say there’s more to her than simply finding Christ figures—there really are almost none, or of tracing down Christian themes—is to misread her, I think they have a point, and she would agree to that point insofar as she said this: remember that reading literature is not like algebra, it is not a matter of finding x, that is to say the kind of extractable meaning that you can lift out of the text—that’s an Enlightenment notion by the way. Instead, she said once you find x you can forget it. A literary text is the embodiment of a whole way of experiencing the world, and therefore it’s going to have depth after depth, layer after layer, but for O’Connor there is nothing larger than the Gospel, nothing larger than the faith, so that those who say you must not reduce her to her faith are engaged in a fundamental category mistake. When you’ve got, as the Book of Colossians says, Christ present in the presence of the cosmos, then in a real sense the Gospel is larger than the universe, so there’s nothing outside it, grander than it, larger than it, and therefore she could encompass all that counts against it. There’s nihilism running rife through her stories. If you don’t pick up that nihilism, you’ve missed it. If you make a kind of sweet, easy Christian reading of her, you’ve missed it. But you can’t get to the core of her apart from her Christianity.
Read the whole thing (well worth your time!!)
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Janet Smith and the Sociology of Contraception
See also: Overpopulation
Monday, November 16, 2009
Catholic Church Under Attack by The State (Again), This Time in Our Nation's Capital
"Without the exemption, says the archdiocese, the Church would be required to do such things as extend marriage benefits to same-sex couples, in violation of its core teachings.
Religious groups and churches, including the Catholic archdiocese and its affiliates, would also have to open up their services to homosexual couples, including adoption and foster-care services, "spousal" benefits for same-sex couples, and church halls requested for non-marriage functions.
It is also important to note that DC's new law "could mean that individuals - from wedding photographers to caterers - will face charges of unlawful discrimination if they refuse their services to same-sex couples for reasons of conscience."
The District will effectively force the Archdiocese either to violate the law or to abandon charitable practice like caring for the poor, hungry and homeless, things that are fundamental to the practice of Catholic social teaching.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Kissinger, U.S. Foreign Policy, and the Culture of Death
Our federal government failed to see the intrinsic worth of the person and created policies to destroy life in third world countries; we formally consented to distinction between foreign and domestic citizens and thereby devalued the human person. We allowed the poor and powerless to be destroyed so that developed countries could maintain their standard of living. It is particularly painful to see the economic justification for destroying human life in our country's foreign policy. Please read the document, the links are available below.
National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM 200) (pdf version from Government Website)
National Security Council Summary
White House Summary
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Communion and Liberation's Judgment on European Court Ruling
Regarding the European Court’s ruling over crucifixes
AN IRREDUCIBLE PRESENCE
The ruling of the European Court of Human Rights against crucifixes in public school classrooms has generated a vast echo of protests: rightly almost all Italians, 84% according to a poll by Corriere della Sera, were shocked by the decision.
“And you, who do say I am?” This question of Jesus to the disciples reaches us from the past and challenges us now.
That Christ on the crucifix is not a memorabilia of popular piety for which we can nurture, at most, a devout memory.
It is neither a generic symbol of our social and cultural tradition.
Christ is a living man, who has brought into the world a judgment, a new experience that deals with everything: with study and work, with affections and desires, with life and death. An experience of a fulfilled humanity.
Crucifixes can be removed, but the reality of a living man cannot be. Unless he is killed, as it happened: but then, he is more alive than before!
All those who want to remove crucifixes deceive themselves, if they think of contributing in this way to delete Christianity as an experience and a judgment from the “public sphere”: if it is in their power –and everything still needs to be proven and we trust they will be belied –to abolish crucifixes, it is not in their hands to remove living Christians from reality.
But there is an inconvenience: that we Christians might not be ourselves, forgetting what Christianity is; then, defending the crucifix would be a lost battle, because that man would not mean anything to our life.
The European ruling is a challenge for our faith. For this reason, we cannot go back with tranquility to the usual things, after having protested with shock, avoiding the fundamental question: crucifix yes, crucifix no, where is the event of Christ today? Or, said in Dostoevsky’s words: “Can an educated man, a European of our days believe, really believe, in the divinity of the son of God, Jesus Christ?”
Communion and Liberation
November 2009.
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This decision could lead to the removal of all public displays of Christianity in Europe.
Read Joseph Weiler's article on this ruling.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
The Bishop of Providence, R.I. Writes to Congresman Patrick Kennedy
Bishop Tobin responded. And we are glad he did!
Read Bishop Tobin's letter here.
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Bishop Tobin Lashes Out At Rep. Kennedy for Going Public on Communion Decision
O'Reilly interviews Bishop Tobin
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
The Ambiguity of Islam
Russian Priest who Brought Muslims to Christ Killed
George Weigel on Fort Hood
The Cross, the Pope and the Fall of Communism
“Nine Days that Changed the World is a story of human liberation. It reveals how Pope John Paul II’s historic visit helped the Poles not only find their courage, but also reclaim their culture. This film presents the Pope’s message -- that after the lies of Nazism and Communism, authentic human freedom is only possible through a true understanding of our humanity.”
The documentary comes out in January of 2010.
Congressman Bart Stupak: A Hero for Our Day
"Before the determined and courageous efforts of Congressman Bart Stupak, a Pro-Life Catholic Democrat whose name along with Republican Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania of the 16th District of Pennsylvania is on the now historic amendment, the legislation would have funded more abortions with tax dollars."
Click here to read more from Catholic Online.
Whither Catholic Charities in an Aggressively Secular Culture?
"Catholic charities, then, belong to a varied and energetic civil society in America—a sphere that the nation’s founders meant to remain distinct from the realms of government, industry, and purely private life.
"Two points are vital here. First, the American proposition presumes that large areas of our common life as a nation exist where government has no special competence and no business intruding. Second, self-government means exactly that: self-government. The solutions to problems in American society are mainly the duty of individuals working together in associations. Government involvement is never the first, and usually not the preferred, course of action. The genius of the American system is that government has found ways to work fruitfully with mediating institutions like the Church to solve problems and deliver key social services.
"To put it another way, American civic institutions have always been nonsectarian, but they have never been hostile to religion. Although the Constitution forbids the establishment of a state-sponsored religion, historically, no constitutional problem has been seen in directing public monies to religious charities that serve legitimate public-policy objectives—so long as these religious groups do not use public funds to proselytize.
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"In Boston, the local archdiocese ran one of the nation’s oldest, most respected adoption agencies. Nonetheless, the Church was forced to shut down her adoption ministry. Why? Because the state demanded that the Church begin placing orphans for adoption with homosexual couples—a demand that violates Catholic moral beliefs that children have the right to grow up in a stable family with a married mother and father. Boston’s archbishop, Seán Cardinal O’Malley, sought a conscience clause to exempt the Church from the requirement. State lawmakers refused. The result was the end of more than a century of excellent child-adoption services to the general public.
"This case embodied the 'grave inconsistency' that Benedict XVI writes about in his encyclical, Caritas in Veritate. A small social subgroup—for example, active homosexuals and supporters of homosexual-related issues—demands that the government defend their right to a controversial lifestyle, a right that is 'alleged, . . . arbitrary, and nonessential in nature,' as Benedict puts it. To meet this demand and promote this ambiguous right, public officials attack the 'elementary and basic rights' of defenseless children without parents.
"When we look closely at Church–state conflicts in America, we see that they now often center on a group of behaviors—homosexual activity, contraception, abortion, and the like—that the state in recent years has redefined as essential and nonnegotiable rights. Critics rarely dispute the Church’s work fighting injustice, helping community development, or serving persons in need. But that’s no longer enough. Now they demand that the Church must submit her identity and mission to the state’s promotion of these newly alleged rights—despite the constant Catholic teaching that these behaviors are personal moral tragedies that can lead to deep social injustices.
"As a result, the original links between freedom and truth, and between individual rights and moral duties, are disappearing in the United States. In the name of advancing the rights of the individual, other basic rights—the rights of religious believers, communities, and institutions—and key truths about the human person, are denied.
Read the whole thing here. It's well worth the time.
Maine Votes to Protect Marriage
Enough about me. In addition to last week's elections in NJ, VA, NY (23rd) and CA (10th) was the vote in Maine over the sanctity of marriage. Voters in Maine voted to protect traditional marriage by a margin of 53-47. Despite being outspent 2:1 by those who would redefine marriage, supporters of traditional marriage have won an important victory. Supporters of traditional marriage can now say that every single time the question has been put to voters, the people have chosen to affirm and protect this most sacred institution. A crucial victory, but the fight will go on.
http://www.portlanddiocese.net/info.php?info_id=205
Monday, November 9, 2009
One More Reason to Drink Guiness
UK Courts Crossing new Threshold
This is not merely an illustration of the growth of secularism but a dangerous precedent where the state takes upon itself questions of religious truth. All religious authority is threatened. This may create a precedent for the government to intervene in matters of morality and force churches to recognize illicit forms of marriage.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Who's in Big Brother's Database?
Victory in Maine Against Gay Marriage Legislation
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Marriage according to Tyra
The first time the topic of the day was ‘open marriage’ and the guest was woman who authored a book about this (you can look it up if you want, I am not going to waste my time doing that). She was saying how she has been married for 10 years, 6 of which were open, which means that she and her husband had the mutual agreement that they could have extra-marital affairs while still living as husband and wife. Thanks to this, she said, their marriage worked perfectly, because there were no secrets, no cheating (I don’t know how extra-marital affairs don’t count as cheating!), and ultimately no need for divorce. Bottom line: we should all have open marriages so that divorce rate will decrease.
As I listened to this absurd reasoning I though: well then, why did she get married in the first place? Because of the pretty white dress and the scent of the flowers in the air? Because it is the next thing to do on her list after they have lived together for a couple of years? Because the big diamond ring wasn’t enough and she needed a platinum one to complete her collection?
The sad thing is that people today get married because of these reasons, because it’s the next thing to do after years of cohabitation, because the ceremony looks good in pictures you can hang on your walls, and so on. Many people do not get married because they want to give themselves fully to the other for the rest of their lives, or help each other walk toward God, or be open to the possibility of being co-creators of new lives. On the contrary, marriage is a convenient state, and ultimately all about the individual and what he/she wants; the other, the spouse simply becomes an object that can be used at one’s convenience or left behind for another when tired of it.
And when you do get tired of him or her, don’t worry, cheating agencies can help you find a cheating partner. The second show I briefly saw was exactly about this, a man who started a cheating agency that connects married people to other married people who want to have an affair or for that matter, more than one. Simply disgusting. I wonder how his wife (whom was never cheated on as he claims) can even live with such a man and his perverse ideas.
Unfortunately, wherever we turn, whether it is TV, magazines at the checkout line at the grocery store, movies, politics, this is the message we are bombarded with: marriage, in the end, is just a legal contract that does not imply any lifelong commitment, fidelity, sacrifice or openness to life on the part of those who enter this agreement. If it works, good for you, if not, you can find alternatives that can make you ‘happy’.
This is not what God intended for marriage and it’s not what we are to live if called to this vocation. Marriage is a covenant between a husband, a wife, and God, and it is the total giving of self to the other. It has to be exclusive, unitive, and procreative. Anything else is simply not marriage and can’t be called such.
Read this before you get married.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Richard Dawkins on What He Really Thinks of the Catholic Church
Interviewed in Newsweek
For a good fisking of this interview, see Know-Nothings by Christopher Johnson.
Obama-Themed Abortion Displays at UC Berkeley
Law & Order's "Dignity"
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Hate Crime Signed into Law
Massachusetts and the Pandemic Control Bill
Friday, October 23, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
What Outsourcing Has Done to the U.S. High Tech Manufacturing Infrastructure
Outsourcing Is High Tech's Subprime-Mortgage Fiasco by Robert H. Hayes, The U.S. Is Outsourcing Away Its Competitive Edge by Gary P. Pisano, and The U.S. Can't Manufacture the Kindle and That's a Problem by Willy C. Shih.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
The Economist as Official Spokesman for the Culture of Death
The Economist is published in the UK and is a willing participant in the marketing of the culture of death. Life is to be discarded if it interferes with economic efficiency. To the extent that we have accepted abortion, our culture endorses this world view. Our culture looks down on those who choose to have large families and find themselves struggling with poverty. It is considered virtuous to be selfish and have smaller families so that more stuff can be consumed. Culturally, we have integrated this economic worldview that subverts everything in our civilization to efficiency and selfishness. Adam Smith in A Theory of Moral Sentiments observes that maximizing wealth cannot produce happiness. Chesterton offers a similar warning in Brave New Family where he notes that he does not trust the support economists and conservative parties offer the family. He recognized early on that the Enlightenment world view cannot be relied on and economists would support the family’s destruction or impoverishment if this leads to greater profitability.
American society shares a legacy with British philosophy and also serves to advance the culture of death. Our new administration’s foreign policy seeks to expand abortion rights in developing countries. We are offering the very same argument as the Economist and are now marketing death to the poor. Our culture argues for less people to improve financial viability but we have made authentic happiness more difficult to achieve. The human heart can never find fulfillment in materialist logic or economic thought.
Friday, October 9, 2009
President Obama Wins the Nobel Peace Prize
The press release also reads that "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."
What greatest value is there, shared by the majority of the world's population, if not life itself?
And what has Obama done in his 37 weeks as President? Rescinded the Mexico City Policy, assured his continual support for China's one-child policy, confirmed his never-ending promises to Planned Parenthood and the alike, and proposed a national health care system that would fund abortion.
There cannot be any world diplomacy or international understanding without respect for human life from conception to natural death. There cannot be true peace without a commitment to life. President Obama is certainly not a champion of this and should not have been awarded a peace prize.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Review - David Harvey's The New Imperialism
Perhaps it is a little strange to review the work of a historical materialist on a blog focusing on Catholic culture. David Harvey, although a Marxist, is one of the most important contemporary social theorists and has written The Limits to Capital, The Condition of Postmodernity, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, and all of these books are thoughtful, well-written, and interesting. The New Imperialism is a brief historical account of
The answer,
Tragically, this account tells only half of the story. Within the
The title of this book accuses the
This work provides some insight into the negative consequences of
Monday, October 5, 2009
McLouvre
According to the Daily Telegraph, "The Louvre has the right to protest against boutiques it considers fail to meet such criteria. However, the museum told the Daily Telegraph it had agreed to a "quality" McCafé and a McDonald's in place by the end of the year, which it said was "in line with the museum's image"". French culture is really going down the toilet if the Louvre's image is in line with McDonald's! I still have to see the day when this corporation produces 'quality' food and who knows, maybe someday soon we will see the Egyptian mummies dressed up as Ronald McDonald!
This is clearly a sign of the decline of France and what we call civilization.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Feast of the Chinese Martyrs
While the Chinese communist government is celebrating its 60th anniversary today, we remember St. Augustine Zhao Rong and his 119 companions who were canonized nine years ago today. Today is their feast day. We ask these martyrs to remember the people of China, who suffer under a regime that has taken more innocent human life than any other regime in world history.
The Dollar
It is also important to note that the U.S. dollar is in relative trouble globally and there may be increased pressure to replace it with the Euro, Yuan, or a new currency. Jeffrey Sachs observed that the U.S. has already passed on the "baton" to the G-20 as our economy is becoming less important globally.
This is bad new for families in the United States. Even our economic recovery may make life more difficult. Fortunately, we do not hope in economics or the dollar which, even in the best times, cannot answer the needs of the heart.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Discussion of Catholic-Russian Orthodox Unity
NC Register: Is Catholic-Orthodox Unity in Sight?
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Quebec: A Story in Lost Parental Rights
"...the Drummondville judge ruled that 'parents do not have ultimate authority over the moral or religious education of their children, and that the state can impose a curriculum that conflicts with the moral codes parents strive to instill.'"
Horowitz Plays Chopin
Vladimir Horowitz is recognized as a legendary pianists and perhaps one of the greatest players of all times. He performs Chopin's Ballade in G Minor (Opus 23).
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Angelo Scola
A Non-Triumphant European History
The New Totalitarianism, "hate crime," and same-sex "marriage"
"The totalitarian begins with a seemingly benign re-education, but as he extends his grasp into more and more aspects of human life he gradually becomes hostile to everything outside of his own will."
"No grotesque executions. In some cases there may even be no visible dictator, only a system or a social philosophy which permeates and controls everything. Indeed, the world may appear to be perfectly normal. The philosopher Josef Pieper points out that this is the most dangerous form of totalitarianism of all, almost impossible to throw off, because it never appears to be what, in fact, it is."
"How long will it take for our people to understand that when humanist sentiments replace moral absolutes, it is not long before very idealistic people begin to invade human families in the name of the family, and destroy human lives in the name of humanity?"
"... in the modern age it takes little more than one generation to turn a war crime into an “act of compassion."
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Democracy and European Institutions
How the Irish Can Save Civilization (Again)
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Sarah Palin on Healthcare
The Irony of "Constitution Day"
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Radiation of Fatherhood: Play by Karol Wojtyla
John Paul II's plays are beautiful and we are lucky to have this available online.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Bishop D'Arcy's reflections on Notre Dame
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Two wonderful documentaries!
The second documentary, "Blood Money," is still in the production phase but will be available in theaters in late September if it finds a distributor. Go to their website to watch the trailer. This is another movie really worth seeing and promoting.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Alas, That I So Late Have Known Thee
Thou, above all, the loveliest,
Ah, that I did not sooner own Thee,
Thou greatest good and final rest!
It grieves me, I am sore reproved
That I so late have loved.
But I was blind and went astray,
I sought and sought and was not sated;
from Thee, alas, I turned away
To love the things Thou hast created.
I want to love Thee, O my Lord,
I want to love Thee, O my crown,
To love Thee, yea, without reward
Though in dire need I be cast down;
Fair Light, I'll love Thee for Thy sake
Until my heart shall break!
Angelus Silesius (1624-1677)
German poet
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Mother Teresa of Calcutta National Prayer Breakfast Speech
"But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts.
By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And, by abortion, that father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. The father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion."
"Many people are very, very concerned with the children of India, with the children of Africa where quite a few die of hunger, and so on. Many people are also concerned about all the violence in this great country of the United States. These concerns are very good. But often these same people are not concerned with the millions who are being killed by the deliberate decision of their own mothers. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today - abortion which brings people to such blindness."
"And also I offer you--our Sisters are here--anybody who doesn't want the child, please give it to me. I want the child."
Link to speech transcript.
Free Speech?
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Quote of the Day: Karol Wojtyla On Our Times
Karol Wojtyla, Philadelphia, 1976, printed on November 9, 1978 in the Wall Street Journal
Life, See the Potential!
Catholic Digest reports that once, in school, a young Patrick said out loud "I can do anything I set my mind to!" One of his classmates, apparently trying to make fun of him, then said "If you can do anything you set your mind to, you can set your mind to seeing and walking. Why can't you do that?" Patrick replied, "Well, why can't you fly like Superman?" We can only learn from people like Patrick!
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
The Nuremberg Judgment (The Economist 1946)
The conclusion of the attached article is noteworthy because it looks at the consequences to the West if we take the judgement as a measure of our own history.
Shared via NewCatholicCulture
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See David Broder's Our New Medical Judges
Saturday, August 8, 2009
An Official Appeal to Help "Big Brother"
Since friends and family members are normally the ones who forward emails, does this mean that the White House is really asking American citizens to betray those they love who disagree with the administration's proposal? Granted, there has been little intelligent discussion on health care reform in the mainstream media and almost nothing thoughtful on the internet. This request indicates that emails against the health care reforms appear to be working and what is the best way to curb the flow of these messages: to scare individuals from exercising their first amendment rights and challenging the 'proposal' coming from our governmental leadership. The request to betray friends and forward their messages to the White House is a violation of our constitutional order. This precedent should concern all Americans. It is something that was common in the Soviet Union where individuals were in constant fear of being betrayed. The problem is that no one knows what the government will do with the names and other information it collects.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Consumerism, Box-Mart, and Outsourcing: A Comic Look
Thought Police in the UK
The government announced 24 hour surveillence of bad parents to guard against bed-time infractions and other 'crimes'.
The British police interfere with the thoughts of children and have effectively removed the right of free association in the classroom (a fundamental democratic right).
{Original News Report}
Monday, August 3, 2009
Saturday, August 1, 2009
The 'Children of Men' Warning
Children of Men Trailer