Linked: Newman and Rameses

Disparate things occasionally form tenuous links. George Weigel has a piece On the Square today in which he waxes over the recently beatified John Henry Newman. He quotes a prayer by Newman:

God has created me to do him some definite service. He has committed some work for me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons….

The prayer continues, but that idea of being a link in a chain is striking. It is so easy to slip into a mode of thinking in which we exist in spiritual isolation to the extent that our sins and weaknesses are private. They are not, as Paul makes all too clear in his first letter to the Corinthians. A soul’s private sins affect the whole body.

The sudden recognition of interconnectedness is enough to make an individual vow, “I will not be the weak link!” That, in turns brings to mind the scene from the Dreamworks film Prince of Egypt, in which Rameses, rebuked by his father, vows that he will not be the weak link in the line of Egyptian kings. The vow hardens his heart and turns him into an autocratic dictator.

The analogy limps more than a bit. If we all form a single chain, then any one person would only need to ensure that he is not the weakest link – as long as another link fails first, the whole chain fails because of someone else – and we can all look around us and see folks that we believe are weaker links than we are. Nonetheless, it helps to be reminded that we are all joined together. Life is a team sport.

Newman was a historical figure of greatness. The Rameses of film was a fictional character based on a historical figure. It is a good thing for us to be determined not to fail in our obligations to God, but we must always remember that the obligation is manifested in love – both of God and of our fellow man created in God’s image.

Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for us, that we might each fulfill our mission with fidelity and love.

The Number of Sts Simon and Jude

I like to read the Bible with the Church by following the Lectionary readings and trying to fill in the gaps when the readings skip chapters. Last week, for example, the Lectionary skipped its way through the book of Job in six days, five if you exclude Wednesday, when the readings for the Feast of the Archangels superceded those for the 26th Week of Ordinary Time. Once a month, I’ll chart the readings for the month, print the chart, and tuck it into my Bible for reference.

Two things struck me as I prepared my chart for October. The first is that, although we aren’t numerologically superstitious, I couldn’t help but notice that the Lectionary entry for the Feast of Sts. Simon and Jude on October 28 is 666. That also happens to be Beggar’s Night (aka Trick or Treat) in our little village. All Saints Day (November 1) uses Lectionary entry 667, making 666 the last fixed entry before Halloween. I’m sure that it means nothing, but it’s still interesting to note.

The second striking thing is the entry for All Souls Day, November 2. There are three options for the first reading, three options for the responsorial psalm, 13 options for the second reading, and 12 options for the gospel. That’s 1,404 different possible combinations! I think that I’ll just default to whichever four are featured on the USCCB site for that day.

Note: I don’t have my own copy of the Lectionary. I use this site as a reference, with little recourse other than to trust in its accuracy.

Redemption Road?

Toyota gave us the swagger wagon with their Sienna commercials, but just what is it that Honda’s trying to sell us in their latest Odyssey commercial? A heavy metal minivan with the path to Redemption Road pre-programmed into the GPS? Redemption from what? The horror of having to buy a gallon of milk? The only thing missing from this commercial is a tramp in fishnet stockings!

I think I’m supposed to be the target consumer for this product, but this marketing offends me. Is this how they think men in the minivan market need to be appealed to? The type of man likely to be swayed by this type of commercial is not going to be caught dead in a minivan, no matter how many fireworks are going off behind it.

Instead, I would have emphasized the cross-platform utility and elegance of the vehicle. Scene 1: transporting a baseball team in the morning. Scene 2: fold down the seats and transport lumber and tools for home projects in the afternoon. Scene 3: a tuxedo and evening gown affair with the wife, complete with valet parking. Leave the heavy metal fantasies to the childish childless.

1994 Redux

Remember how, in 1994, a wave of conservative legislators were swept into office on the promise of the Contract With America? It’s hard to believe that was 16 years ago. That year coincided with my own spiritual and political awakening. As I came to recognize and embrace the truths of the Catholic faith, I also moved toward political principles that favored subsidiarity, family values, and economic opportunity. 1994 was an exciting year.

I cannot adequately describe the disappointment that I felt when, two years later, the Republicans nominated Bob Dole to be their presidential candidate. I was pleased with the platform written by the Republican delegates at their 1996 convention, but Dole distanced himself from the document, declining even to read it. I took it like a thumb in the eye, and decided that he wasn’t going to get my vote. I wasn’t about to punch the chad for Bill Clinton, so my protest vote that year went to Howard Phillips.

This year, 2010, looks like it will be as big a year for conservative Republicans as 1994 was, and we look forward to evicting President Obama from the White House in 2012. However, I worry that when it comes time to pick a candidate to run against the incumbent, the Republican Party, hot on the heels of a 1994 redux, will end up with a 1996 redux.

Going Easy

The end of my running season is approaching. I could run in a local non-tour 5K this Saturday, but I’m choosing not to. That leaves two races on my calendar. The big annual event in our little village is the Oktoberfest, and it has a 10K (6.2 miles) race associated with it. Lots of locals who don’t run at all the rest of the year will lace up their shoes to run in the Oktoberfest 10K. I join them because a) it’s kind of a big deal; b) a group of my fellow employees enters as a team (we took second place last year); and c) the race features weight divisions (I took first place in the over-220 lb division last year). Therefore, I have to run, if only to defend my fatso class title. That race is a week away. The other race is two weeks after the Oktoberfest, and is the final race in the Shelby County 5K Tour. I haven’t done as well in the tour this year – my times are slower, and I’m out of the running for first place in my age group, but I could still place second, and I have yet to win a door prize this year.

I’ve been averaging about 20-25 miles of training per week, since early April. For serious runners, that doesn’t sound like much, but I’m over forty years old now and over 220 pounds. These days, when I go out for a run, I feel it in my knees. I find myself trying to balance my need to train for the last two races against the need to maintain the integrity of my knees. Once we enter the off-season, I’m going to have to find a lower-impact form of exercise to engage in for a while.

The thought occurred to me this week: I don’t need to run those last two races. That’s certainly true. I’m not a professional athlete. Nothing requires that I maintain a minimum level of physical fitness. I could begin my off-season today. As usual, however, I immediately reminded myself of the spiritual analogy. Nothing requires me to do anything more than comply with the precepts of the Church: attend mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation; fast and abstain on prescribed days; confess mortal sins once a year; receive Communion once a year; and contribute financially to the support of the Church. Nothing requires me to pray Morning Prayer or Evening Prayer (lauds or vespers). After all, I’m not a priest, deacon, or vowed religious. I don’t have to pray the rosary, or make a holy hour, or read the Bible.

It’s not really good to think in terms of only what’s required, though, is it? There are folks who trudge off to the gym to “workout” with the least possible effort. You see them in the cardio room, putting in their allotted time on the stair climber, but supporting themselves the whole time on the rails, with their arms extended and their elbows locked. They do it out of a sense of duty, or to be able to say that they do it, but their heart isn’t really into it. That’s not how I want to exercise. That’s not how I want to pray, either.

I want my prayer to be motivated by love, even if the love has to be willed because the emotion is absent. As for my exercise, well, that’s as close as I get to penitential self-flagellation. It is a training of my self-discipline as much as anything else. “I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave….” (1 Cor 9:26-27)

Unwanted

The video below was featured at Catholic Exchange and conveys a beautiful pro-life message. The video is part of a collection of videos at Too Many Aborted.com, a site that seeks to educate the public about the impact of abortion on the African-American community.

Getting the Headline Wrong

I checked the Dayton Daily News headline this morning, and was shocked to see this: “Local economy gets a boost from increased tax revenue collections.” That sounds completely backwards. Are we to believe that increased tax collection actually led to an improved economy? That’s not what the body of the story actually says. According to Dayton’s City Manager, “It’s hard to pinpoint why we are doing a little better on the income tax side, but I think it’s generally because the economy has gotten a little bit better.”

That makes a little more sense. Tax revenues are up because the economy has improved. The headline, however, completely reverses the cause and the effect. This should serve as a warning to any who get their news by scanning the DDN headlines.

On a Dry Plateau

How long does it go on?

All summer long, it seems, I’ve been running, and every 5K that I run finds me struggling to finish with about the same time (and that time being about a minute slower than last year). All of my effort seems to be just for maintenance, without any improvement. Shouldn’t I at least be losing weight? Nope. I’m stuck.

I experienced the same thing when I was lifting weights. You hit a plateau where all of the effort in the gym only goes to keep from losing the progress you’ve made. Your muscles aren’t getting any bigger, and the weight you’re moving just isn’t getting any heavier.

The same applies to my spiritual life. I have prayed the Liturgy of the Hours every morning and every evening (along with spontaneous prayers offered throughout the day), and yet nothing seems to change. I ditched the i-pod for a finger rosary when pounding out the miles, but there has still been no closer communion with God. Every confession seems to be a replay of the twenty previous confessions. There is no progress. I’m on a plateau.

But what happens if I stop running, stop lifting, or stop praying? I gain weight, lose aerobic capacity, get weak, and grow distant from God. There are things an athlete can do to break out of a rut. Runners can incorporate interval training, improve nutrition, or take supplements. It might not be as easy to overcome a period of spiritual dryness, as anyone who has read the correspondence of Mother Teresa is aware. In that case, all that we can do is trust in God’s providential love.

So I’m in a rut (or on a plateau), and it’s frustrating, but I don’t dare stop what I’ve been doing. (Actually, I do dare, occasionally, much to my detriment.) What I’m doing now might be the best I can manage, given the circumstances. Even so, I can make adjustments to my physical training or pious practices. The important thing is to hold on to what I’ve worked so hard to achieve (while at the same time remaining detached from the physical and acknowledging that the spiritual is more of a gratuitous gift) without despairing that this just might be as good as it gets.

Fatherless Connection - Contraception and the Church

A recent blog post or column or whatever by Sandro Magister (and highlighted by Catholic News Agency) commented on a topic that was featured in Brian Gail’s novel Fatherless. In Fatherless, the characters of Joe Delgado and Fr. John Sweeney have to confront the failure of the Catholic Church to stand against the cultural forces pushing contraception on society.

What Magister notes (citing a book by a professor of demography at the University of Padua) is that the problem did not suddenly appear out of nowhere in the 1960’s, but goes much further back. Priests were advised, when hearing confessions, not to ask questions. There was no preaching on contraception, so many of the laity were unaware of the moral issues involved and therefore did not consider it something that needed to be confessed in the sacrament of penance. As a result, it’s use became widespread among the Catholic population, even though it was never accepted by the Church.

The distance between Church teaching and the use of contraceptives continues to be perceived by most of the population as neither a sin nor a rebellion.

Even afterward – and this brings us up to today – the condemnation of contraceptives would be the subject of papal documents, but already at the level of the bishops it would hardly appear in preaching. The clergy, for their part, would be almost completely silent on it. And would continue to be very understanding and indulgent in the confessional.

Fatherless Connection - The Priority of Cable

In Brian Gail’s novel Fatherless, Michael Burns takes a job at an advertising firm responsible for marketing cable television. He eventually finds that the content of the cable channel programming leads to moral dilemmas, and he tries to argue for programming that is friendlier to family values.

In the course of his market research, Michael discovers that men are overwhelmingly behind families’ decisions to purchase cable service and women are responsible for the decision to cancel cable subscriptions. I thought of that the other day as I listened to a C-SPAN interview with financial analyst Meredith Whitney. During the course of the interview, the discussion turns to credit card lending and legal changes to the way the credit card issuers set rates. In the past, credit card companies would adjust rates for customers depending upon risk. If customers started missing payments, not just on their credit cards, but on other bills, they were viewed as greater risks, and their rates would be raised.

What I found interesting, in relation to the story told in Fatherless, was that what really set off warning bells at credit card companies was when a man started to miss payments on his cable bill. In other words, men apparently place a high priority on their access to cable programming. They will let other bills go unpaid before they give up their cable. By the time they start missing cable payments, they are in serious financial difficulties.

Something tells me that it isn’t EWTN that these men are clinging to.

Triumph of the Cross

As Christians, we believe that God, in his unity, has a trinitarian nature. We further believe that the second person of the Holy Trinity, God the Son, having no less of the nature of God than God the Father or God the Holy Spirit, entered time and took on the nature of man.

These two sentences alone are extremely hard to fathom. But consider that God not only assumed our nature, he did so in order to die, so that our nature might be redeemed. The instrument of our redemption was the cross. Every year, on the fourteenth of September (as well as on Good Friday), we remember in a special way the cross upon which the salvation of the world was accomplished through the sacrifice of God himself.

Who are we, that our creator should shower us with such incomprehensible love?

O glorious cross, your arms upheld the priceless ransom of captive mankind.
- Through you the world has been saved by the blood of the Lord.

Hail, O cross, consecrated by the body of Christ;
his members have made you wood more noble than precious pearls.
- Through you the world has been saved by the blood of the Lord

Fatherless Connection - Semantic Definitions

In the novel Fatherless, by Brian Gail, the character Joe Delgado is shocked to learn that oral contraceptives have an abortifacient effect. Most oral contraceptives work primarily by suppressing ovulation, but breakthrough ovulations still occur in approximately one of every six months. If the breakthrough ovulation results in a fertilized egg (i.e., conception), then the secondary effect kicks in. The hormones in the pill make the womb inhospitable to the newly conceived human life by preventing implantation.

Medical ethicists avoided the question of when life begins by positing that pregnancy begins with implantation. Therefore, the pill prevents pregnancy. The fact that the termination of a human life is the necessary result was (and is) completely sidestepped.

This aspect of the novel continues to be current news. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration recently approved the drug “ella.” Ella is described as “emergency contraception” that can be taken up to five days after sexual intercourse. Ella works not only to prevent implantation, but to cause the body to reject an already implanted embryo.

There is some additional semantic obfuscation going on here. By classifying the drug as a contraceptive, the FDA opens the door for the federal government to fund use of the drug through Medicaid, Title X, and international family planning programs. If the drug were properly classified as an abortifacient, then laws barring the federal government from funding abortion would apply.

Words mean things, and in this case, loosely defined or even misused labels can literally be a matter of life and death.

Pushback

I am not generally inclined to burn books of any sort (although, when I was a lad, my friends and I thought it was great fun to burn our school notebooks after the last day of classes), especially those considered sacred by major world religions. However (you knew a “but” was coming, didn’t you?), nothing makes me want to do it quite as much as all the hyperventilating in response to the threat of an inconsequential fringe pastor in Florida to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Seeing effigies and American flags burned while crowds shout “Death to Christians” makes me want to push back in some way.

If we can’t burn their book in a quid pro quo fashion (don’t pretend that you didn’t know Bibles are routinely confiscated and destroyed in Muslim countries) or draw cartoons mocking their prophet, what does that leave us? Yes, I know about Luke 6: 27-38. I also know that it has to be read in continuity with the rest of scripture, including the Old Testament. It really doesn’t do any good to say, “My, how uncivilized!” or “That’s not really my cup of tea” or “Can’t we all just get along?” when even quoting a historical figure who was suggesting that Islam is prone to violence and opposed to reason, as Pope Benedict XVI did at his Regensburg lecture, is likely to cause violent, unreasoning mobs throughout the Muslim world.

How ‘bout if I draw a cartoon mocking Mohammed for freaking out about some no-name threatening to burn his book and then burn my crude cartoon? I don’t even need to do it, I can just announce that I’m thinking about planning to do it. As a Catholic, though, that approach might be a little too confrontational and in-your-face. We are supposed to be more affirming of what is good and true and just.

So let’s have a full-on celebration on October 7 of the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, raising our voices in prayerful thanksgiving for the destruction of the Turkish fleet at Lepanto. Would that be a sufficiently Catholic response, or is our own calendar now too confrontational?

Booming Business

On the drive in to work this morning, I caught a bit of the business news on NPR’s Morning Edition. The news was, I think, meant to be upbeat, about small businesses that were opening or expanding in defiance of the slow economy. Normally, I would cheer such news, but this report did nothing to lift my outlook.

It was the types of businesses profiled that dampened my cheer: a tanning salon, a wine bar, a cupcake store. Economic growth and prosperity is not going to happen on the basis of frivolities like these. The image that came to my mind was the scene from Peter Jackson’s Return of the King, wherein Denethor, the Steward of Gondor, feasts while his knights, led by his son Faramir, execute a doomed attack on Osgiliath.

We find ourselves engaged in a twilight struggle of civilizations, with our brave soldiers fighting and dying on foreign fields to secure a future worthy of our past and traditions. With our economy tottering weakly, we turn our attention to tans, wine, and cupcakes? Who the heck are we?

First Assessment for 2012

The 2008 presidential campaign started early and seemed to last forever. Part of that was probably due to the ineligibility of the incumbent to run for reelection and the disinterest of the incumbent Vice President in seeking a promotion. We currently find ourselves closing in on the 2010 mid-term elections, and there’s already considerable buzz about who will be battling for the Republican nomination in 2012. There’s even been some suggestion that President Obama could face a primary challenge for the Democratic nomination. I expect that the Battle of 2012 will start to heat up around January of 2011, if not sooner. Don’t the next two years sound like fun?

Unfortunately, I live in Ohio. We have a relatively late (May) primary, so by the time we get to vote, the candidates that I really liked have been eliminated. If I learned anything from the 2008 election results, it is this: Never judge a politician by what he or she says during a campaign. Rather, judge them by their votes on legislation and/or actions as an executive to measure their governing philosophy. It’s not what they say, but what they do that defines who they are.

My tentative support at this point is split between three governors: Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Haley Barbour of Mississippi, and Mitch Daniels of Indiana. Mitt Romney says all the right things, but I have trouble reconciling what he says with what he did as Governor of Massachusetts. The one thing that Romney clearly seems capable of is surrounding himself with competent people and coordinating their actions. If, after four years of Obama governance, the country needs to be rescued, Romney may very well be the best man for the job. I like Sarah Palin, but I have a hard time getting past the way she abandoned her post as Governor of Alaska. Mike Huckabee turned me off with the way he teamed up with John McCain against Romney in 2008, and I never quite felt comfortable with his positions on taxation, crime, and foreign policy. That leaves a pair of legislators on my early list: Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. Gingrich was the architect of the 1994 Republican Congress, but he quickly become a lightning rod of negatives, with every Democratic candidate in 1998 morphing pictures of their opponents into a picture of Gingrich. As for Santorum, he seems nice enough and says the right things, but he endorsed Arlen Specter over Pat Twomey, and I am loathe to turn the reins of government over to another Senator.

So there you have my very early assessment. We’ll see whether any of my top three is still around by the time that May 2012 rolls ‘round.

The Language of the Missal

The new English translation of the Roman missal has been approved and is scheduled to enter use 15 months from now in Advent of 2011. Over at Headline Bistro, Cale Clarke highlights four places where the English text has been changed to more closely match the normative Latin text and notes that the new verbiage draws closer connections to important biblical passages.

But there are two basic reasons the new English translation will make the greatest thing on Earth even greater. First, the new translation conveys a better sense of what the official Latin text actually says. Second, the new translation highlights the biblical background of the Mass texts in profound ways.

This will be the biggest change to the mass that I’ve seen in my adult lifetime, even though the changes are fairly minor. It will be interesting to see how our parish implements the new translation. My guess is that it won’t be well.

A Clear Conscience

I have, on a few occasions, found myself involved in discussions of Christian morality, and I often hear two assertions that frustrate me greatly. The first is that conscience is the ultimate moral authority. The ultimate moral authority is actually God. We are, however, bound to act in accord with our conscience, and no individual should be forced to act contrary to their conscience. However, one’s conscience has to be properly formed, and it is possible for an improperly formed conscience to demand an immoral act. Following an improperly formed conscience cannot make an immoral act moral.

The second assertion is similar: that if a person doesn’t know that an act is a sin, then that act isn’t sinful for that person. I certainly agree that knowledge is a prerequisite for mortal sin, but, as in the case of an improperly formed conscience, ignorance of the immorality or sinfulness of an act does not make the act moral.

I was reminded of this today when I read today’s non-Gospel reading from the Lectionary. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote, “My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.” (1 Cor 5:4, NIV translation) Paul, it seems, has made every human effort to comply with the will of God, and yet he acknowledges that he might have judged wrongly, and that his honest mistakes will not be without consequence when he is judged.

Ignorance is not bliss, because it is not an excuse. We should seek to form our consciences so that a clear conscience becomes a sign of innocence.

Fatherless Connection - Pushing the Pill

In the Joe Delgado story arc of Fatherless, author Brian Gail asserts that the government was complicit in promoting oral contraceptives as a means of population control, in spite of evidence that they might be harmful to the health of women. In the Michael Burns story arc, Gail notes the role played by marketing campaigns in creating demand for a cable television product that the public appeared to be rejecting. We all know how pervasive both the pill and the cable networks have become in our country.

The Phillippine Daily Inquirer reports that the government of the United States, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is actively promoting contraceptive use in other countries, and that they appear to be using the same kind of marketing ploys that the cable executives used in Fatherless.

In a 37-page report, titled “Family Planning Behavior Change Communication Strategy,” the NCHP said: “The strategy builds on the understanding that encouraging individuals or couples to use family planning is a process, involving distinct audiences that need different messages and approaches.”

“Information alone is not enough to bring about behavior change among any audience. Instead, the strategy is based on a multilevel, synchronized and holistic marketing approach to family planning.”

The same report said “the approach is unique in that it focuses on increasing modern contraceptive use through demand generation, or increasing knowledge and forming positive attitudes toward contraceptive use and birth spacing; social marketing, or repackaging or selling the concept of family planning as a lifestyle that contributes to better quality of life; and service marketing, or building capacity of family-planning service providers and promoting model providers.”

So it is a goal of our government to create demand for contraceptives in other countries around the world. Our government is actively seeking to export the hedonistic and libidinous aspects of our culture.

Tell me again how we in America are the good guys.

Fatherless Connection - Cable Content

In one of the Fatherless story arcs, a Catholic husband and father, Michael Burns, takes a job as an executive with a New York advertising agency where he becomes responsible for promoting the fictional Home Show Network (HSN). The events of the novel cover a period from about 1985 t o1995, when cable television and premium cable networks like HBO, Showtime, and Cinemax were aggressively expanding their market penetration.

What Michael recognized was that the product HSN was selling to American families contained increasing levels of sex and violence and that, while many households signed up to see the latest Hollywood blockbusters, they cancelled when they found the content either objectionable or not worth the cost. The cable channel executives, however, were convinced that the content of their programming was not the problem. If anything, they seemed determined to bet the future of their network on an increasing demand for even more salacious content.

I thought of that recently while listening to a Ricochet podcast in which contributor James Lileks shared how sick and tired he is “of freakin’ vampires. And not just vampire love and vampire fascination, but SEXY vampires.” What got his ire up was the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.

Rob Long, playing the straight man, goads Lileks, “Yeah, yeah. It’s a big thing, James. The kids all love the vampires. What’s wrong with YOU?” The subtle implication (with some sarcasm by Rob Long) being that if a person is troubled by the popular culture, the problem is not with the culture but with the person who just doesn’t get it.

Lileks continues his rant, “Kids are loving that – yeah. Well, it’s (the cover of Rolling Stone) got the main characters from True Blood, which is an HBO show, and, you know, people love the True Blood because it’s just got SEX wall-to-wall all over the place.” This is where the popular culture is. James continues, in a sarcastic aside, “It’s not porn if there’s an HBO logo at the end of it. HUMM, like all HBO shows end.” The normalization of the disordered that Brian Gail’s HSN executives were pushing in Fatherless appears to be very nearly accomplished. Lileks continues, “So they like it for that, and they like it ‘cause everybody’s good looking, and they kill each other in the middle of things, and isn’t that just erotic and dangerous and dark and gothic and romantic, and on the cover of Rolling Stone, they’re all spattered in blood. I mean, they’re just hosed down with blood, and I’m thinking, you know, it’s one thing to have that sort of quasi-romantic tingling of danger fascination that Bela Lugosi was able to bring to the role or subsequent vampires, but when you actually have a popular culture that suggests that we should find erotic the idea of being sprayed with arterial blood in the middle of sexual congress, I think something is askew.” Right. Our popular culture is just slightly askew.

The podcast crew then goes on to compare James Bond, as a popular icon of the past, to the current fascination with vampires. Lileks remains unhappy that today’s zeitgeist finds its expression in “the undead glorifying in all of this animalistic copulation”. I join him in his unhappiness.

Was it inevitable that we end up here, or, as is suggested in Fatherless, were we pushed, prodded, and pulled into this cultural morass by amoral programmers at the media conglomerates providing our “entertainment?” Of course there was, and is, resistance, but we now find ourselves surrounded by the stuff, and the constant barrage slowly erodes our ability to be shocked by that which should shock us. In many ways, our culture has lost, or is losing, the essential elements that made Western Civilization great, and I find myself torn between the desire to see it reformed, if necessary, through tribulation, and the desire to see it spared. I want my country to be a source of goodness; it isn’t always.

As individuals, maybe we can’t move the culture much. We do, however, exert no small influence over our own lives. We can and must resist the temptation to allow smut into our homes through the television and the internet. We can and must intercede and make atonement not just for our own failings, but for the sins of our neighbors. And we must pray that there are enough good folk left to stay the hand of God’s just wrath.

Fatherless Connection - The Danger of Oral Contraceptives

One of the themes of Brian Gail’s novel, Fatherless, was the damage done by oral contraceptives to the health of the women who take them. In the novel, a pharmaceutical executive becomes aware of the link and worries about an eventual class-action lawsuit and even the potential for criminal investigations. For those who have paid attention, the side effects of oral contraceptives should be serious enough to cause any woman to resist taking the drugs, and yet the population at large seems either ignorant or remarkably apathetic about the dangers.

I was a little surprised last week, when a story on the health risks of contraceptives aired on, of all places, National Public Radio. The story, by NPR’s Richard Knox, focused primarily on problems associated with Yaz, an oral contraceptive produced by Bayer Healthcare.

First, Yaz was marketed as being more than just an oral contraceptive. Commercials for Yaz suggested that the drug, in addition to acting as a contraceptive, would also help to improve other symptoms like moodiness, fatigue, headaches, and acne. The marketing campaign worked – women (and teenage girls) specifically requested Yaz from their doctors. However, the marketing claims were misleading, and the FDA ordered Bayer to run a corrective commercial.

All oral contraceptives have accompanying health risks, but those risks are even greater with especially strong drugs like Yaz. One 16-year-old user, profiled by Mr. Knox, suffered a blood clot in her leg that resulted in a pulmonary embolism. After being misdiagnosed by one doctor, another doctor noted the patient’s blue leg and immediately diagnosed the blood clot and the connection to birth control pills. That, in and of itself, says something about the frequency of serious side effects to contraceptive drugs. Richard Knox notes, “The link between birth control pills and blood clots isn’t new. It’s been known for decades. Every year a few thousand women suffer clots because they’re on the pill. But it’s possible that Yaz and Yasmin, a similar pill, carry a higher risk of clotting.” The increase in risk has been estimated to be somewhere between 64 and 100 percent. In other words, if a given number of Yaz users resulted in 1000 blood clots, an equal number of users of the “safer” oral contraceptives would still result in 500 to 610 blood clots.

In Fatherless, Joe Delgado worried about a class action lawsuit. According to NPR’s Knox, there are now 2700 women suing Bayer over Yaz. Even so, Bayer is going to market with another new contraceptive, in spite of the potential health risks. They are, no doubt, confident that women will buy the new alternative. Contraceptives are big business – NPR reports that just last year, Bayer earned $800 million through sales of Yaz. I can’t help but wonder whether somebody at Bayer has already calculatied how many blood clot victims can be compensated before that kind of revenue ceases to generate a profit?

Fatherless

I recently read Fatherless, a novel written by Brian Gail and published by One More Soul. (Interestingly, the book doesn’t appear to be available for purchase from One More Soul.) I found the book to be a fairly easy and compelling read. I had no trouble completing the 500+ pages in about a week. I joined a few other men for a discussion of the book and the issues raised by it.

The story looks at the moral dilemmas facing three Catholic families who seek guidance from a young associate pastor. One case explores the way in which the pharmaceutical industry achieved cultural and governmental approval of oral contraceptives in spite of the serious medical risks to women. The second case follows the marketing of premium cable channels and the infiltration of smut as entertainment into the homes of unsuspecting families.

The third case is a little less clear. I suspect that Gail wanted to show that contraceptive use undermines marriage, but he also pulls in themes of clerical pedophilia, mental disorder, and demonic oppression without ever providing a satisfactory resolution. Thus, it becomes unclear what drives the actions of the third family’s father. Take away the extraordinary circumstances of his daughter’s behavior, and things might well have turned out differently. Of the three families in the novel, the plot for the third was the least satisfying for me as a reader.

The three plots are woven together into a fourth story line that follows the ministry of a priest who, at the beginning of the tale is just entering his second year after ordination. The over-arching theme of Gail’s novel might be the way in which the Catholic Church lost its moral voice in the ‘60s and ‘70s and only started to recover that voice under the leadership of Pope John Paul II. The bishops and dissenting theologians are particularly singled out for their sins of omission (for the bishops) and commission (for the theologians).

Overall, the book provides an important focus for discussion, even if it does fall short in some areas. I will certainly recommend it to anyone interested in the threat posed to the family by the prevailing American culture.

Race Pace

Race pace. That’s what I used to call it those many years ago when I ran high school cross country, and ran it pretty well. My race pace was a long, relatively efficient stride that, as a high school senior, I could hold for the entirety of a 5K race.

Nowadays, I slip into the middle-aged version of that stride only on the last quarter mile or so of my training runs. It feels good, and the dream is that I somehow manage to convince myself that I can once again start a race with that pace and hold if for a full five kilometers (that’s 3.1 miles for those of you in Rio Linda). Running is as much a mental sport as it is a physical one. I often find myself at the starting line asking whether I want to run or race. If I’m running, then I set the fastest pace that I’m confident will still enable me to cover the distance. If I were to race, then I would try to slip into the longer stride, hoping and praying that the greater efficiency will still allow me to make it to the finish line without collapsing from exhaustion. Racing entails risk, and I almost always opt for the safer strategy.

I wrote a bit last year about the intersection of running and spirituality. There are a lot of aspects of running that are analogous to the inner life of the soul. St. Paul counsels us to “run in such a way as to get the prize.” (1 Cor 9:24) In light of my running experience, I’m not sure how I should apply the advice of the Apostle.

In any given race, there is going to be a group of runners half my age against whom I cannot possibly compete. If I were to try to run with them, I would be completely spent before the first mile was passed. If I limit the competition to just my age group, the prospects become much better, but they still depend on who shows up to run against me. I could “run to win” by running in only small races with weak fields, but the spiritual analogy to doing that would seem to suggest the opposite of what Paul was getting at in his letter to the Corinthians. Paul’s analogy makes a little more sense if the award is not the award for any given race, but rather the “tour” award, in which there are a series of races where points are awarded and totaled at the end. The tour winner might not be the fastest runner, but rather the most consistent – the runner who showed up for every race, even though he knew he wouldn’t be receiving any glory for leading the pack across the finish line.

What, I wonder, would be the spiritual equivalent of my race pace, the sustainability of which I doubt every time I start a race? Likewise, what would be the equivalent of the fastest sustainable pace for which I invariably settle? Is there virtue in the recognition of my own limitations, or does it signal a fundamental lack of trust?

I read once (I forget where, so I can’t provide proper attribution) that there are two acceptable responses to the temptation to sin. The first is to throw yourself into fervent prayer and pious distractions. In running terms, this would probably be an all-out sprint. The second response is to recognize the temptation for what it is and wait it out. Temptations occur every day, and we need not be overly concerned about the temptation itself so long as we do not give in to it. In running terms, this would be a run-forever pace that might carry a runner in excess of ten miles (note that I don’t seem to possess a run-forever pace – regardless of how slowly I run, I max out at around 7-1/2 miles due to the repeated impacts on my knees; my forever pace is a walk). The race pace and the maximum sustainable pace for a 3-mile race are both significantly closer to a sprint than to a walk, especially when you consider that I’ve never been much of a sprinter.

I recently ran a race in which I tried the race pace approach. I made a conscious effort to stretch my stride and conserve energy. It turns out that race pace is not as fast as I thought it was. I had noticed this phenomenon before during my training runs. Sometimes, you feel like you’re plodding along, struggling through every step, only to discover at the end of your run that you made really good time. On other days, you feel like you’re running strong, but once you finish, you discover that your time is only mediocre.

Maybe the optimized race pace is a fantastic illusion. It ultimately boils down to knowing, through training, how fast you can run and being able to settle into the pace early in the race. It also means pushing yourself in training to improve that pace. Spiritually, Paul seems to be saying that, if we’re going to enter a race, we shouldn’t just jog through so that we finish having barely broken a sweat. Even if we know we aren’t going to win, we should put forth our best effort. Spiritually, that means that we can’t allow ourselves to become complacent and presume upon easy grace to carry us into the kingdom through the wide gate. Effort is a part of that equation, but certainly not the whole thing. Just as a runner needs to train if he expects to compete,

Blood Muslim and Blood Innocent

There’s a lot of buzz out there currently about plans to build an Islamic center two blocks away from the site of the World Trade Center – the twin towers that were brought down in a terrorist attack by Islamic jihadists on September 11, 2001. Most folks refer to the proposed center, to be built at the site of a former Burlington Coat Factory at 51 Park Avenue, as the Ground Zero Mosque, or GZM for short. The Associated Press doesn’t like the GZM terminology and has directed its reporters to use other phrases to emphasize that the location is near, but not at, the site of towers. Like most of those on the political right, I think the proposal is legal but betrays, at best, a tone-deafness on the part of the group that wants to build the Islamic center to the sensitivities of those who suffered an emotional trauma on that day in 2001. Others have made persuasive arguments that the intentions (real or perceived) could be significantly less ecumenical than those that have been proclaimed. It’s not my intention here to add to that discussion.

What I do want to highlight are the recently revealed comments of the main GZM backer, Imam Feisal Rauf, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Rauf stated in 2005, “We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaida has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims.” Many are interpreting this statement to mean that the Imam believes the United States is worse than Al Qaida. I only wish to point out that, if parsed, the statement is not surprising coming from a Muslim cleric, and probably true.

On the one hand, we have all Muslims killed by agents of the United States. We’re not just talking about innocent bystanders or devout practicing Muslims. It matters not that U.S. forces operate under constrictive rules of engagement that take extreme measures to avoid harming non-combatants. It matters not that weapons employed by the United States are precisely guided to minimize collateral damage. It matters not that the vast majority of the Muslim blood on the hands of the United States came from Muslims actively seeking to harm the United States.

On the Al Qaida side of the equation we have innocent non-Muslims. In the minds of at least some Muslims, the phrase is an oxymoron. To be a non-Muslim is to be an infidel, and no infidel is innocent; therefore, the entire population of innocent non-Muslims is precisely zero – it is a null set. It matters not that those in the World Trade Center that day were only going about their lives and their jobs. It matters not that Al Qaida kills Muslims who aren’t Muslim enough.

I have no doubt that Imam Rauf believes what he said. However, the terms of the equation are completely unreasonable and subject to bias. If this is the face of “moderate” Islam, how can we even conduct a conversation?

Little Faith

Today's Gospel (Mt 17:14-20) contains some of the most mis-applied words of Christ in the whole Bible, and begs for a canonical reading within the context of everything else that the Bible contains. In the passage, the disciples are unable to cast out a demon and ask our Lord why. "Because of your little faith. Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."

I know a woman who has lupus. Other members of her Pentecostal community have told her that if she just had enough faith, she wouldn't be sick. I know a man with hemophilia. He was told by a Catholic "evangelist" that if he asked to be healed with sufficient faith, that he would be healed. She still has lupus, and he still has hemophilia. I don't think that necessarily says anything about their faith or lack thereof.

There are counterexamples within the Bible indicating that those who read the passage this way are misinterpreting the text. Consider St. Paul. He wrote to the Corinthians, "Therefore, that I might not become too elated, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an Angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, be he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.'" (2 Cor 7-9)

Job was full of faith, and he was blessed by God with family and possessions. But God stripped them away. He loses his property and his children, and his body is stricken with disease. Yet, Job remains faithful.

Jesus himself offers the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, in which the faithful Lazarus dies as a diseased beggar (Luke 16:19-29).

So, while today's gospel does indeed emphasize the need for and the power of faith, it should not be read in isolation from the rest of the Bible. God wants us to accomplish great things, and we must trust that he will not abandon us. As St. Paul says in Romans 8:31, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" But God often chooses to work through weakness. His ways are not our ways, and we can't always understand what He's up to. If what we ask for isn't part of his plan, we won't get what we ask for. On the other hand, if our will is attuned to his and we have faith, then nothing can stop us.

Lex Credendi

Ever since earlier this year, when Pope Benedict XVI smoothed the path for Anglicans unhappy with the trajectory of their denomination to return to full communion with Rome, there has a been a steady trickle of stories about impending conversions. The latest story involves 15 Anglican bishops who acknowledge that many Anglicans appear ready to make the jump. For all those who come back across the Tiber I say, welcome home. We’re happy to have you back. However, there are some things that you’ll need to check at the door.

What bothers me is the possibility that this is all due solely to proposals by the Church of England to ordain women as bishops. These people stuck with the Anglicans through acceptance of contraception, divorce and remarriage, homosexual marriage, female priests, and openly homosexual priests and bishops, but female bishops are just too much for them? They didn’t have any problem rejecting papal authority or the invalidity of their ordinations or clerical celibacy before, but all that changes when a woman is named bishop?

Now, however, they can come home to Rome and still worship according to the Anglican rites and the Book of Common Prayer. Does that trump all of the doctrinal difficulties? There is a commonly cited Latin phrase, lex orandi, lex credendi, which is often translated as the law of prayer is the law of belief. For these converts, the orandi part is not changing. Is the credendi?

What I fear is that the new Catholics will have come for the wrong reasons. Rather than running to the bride of Christ, the will have been running away from some corrupted simulacrum of her. Rather than shedding their old, erroneous beliefs, they will try to bring them along. “Yes,” they will say, “I’m Catholic now, but I don’t really believe all of that medieval stuff.”

I sincerely hope that I’m wrong, and that we really do see an influx of souls entering into full communion, even if they do retain an attachment to the Book of Common Prayer.

Jonah's Idioms

I generally enjoy the writing of Jonah Goldberg of National Review and the American Enterprise Institute. He usually manages to mix irreverence with clear thinking in a humorous way that incorporates lots of elements of popular culture. He is also capable, when he wants to, of writing very seriously. I’m just now finally getting around to finishing his great book, Liberal Fascism.

A few years ago, Jonah wrote a column, The Tyranny of the Clichés, in which he argued that many members of the commentariat over-use the cliché. It has, he wrote, become a substitute for argument, and those who resort to them are taking a dangerous short-cut. I’m paraphrasing here, and it’s always possible that I’ve misunderstood what he was actually saying. We shouldn’t always assume that a cliché is true.

If clichés are subject to abuse, then surely metaphors and idioms are as well.

I’ve noticed that certain idioms seem to be getting used with increasing frequency by Mr. Goldberg. This was acceptable when the recurring term was “feckless crapweasel,” a phrase that was practically synonymous with those upon whom Jonah was heaping his duly-earned scorn. But he’s sprinkling other phrases into his columns that, frankly, are distracting me from whatever point it is that he’s trying to make. If another commentating is making an argument (or an assertion without an argument) based on faulty logic, it’s “nonsense on stilts.” If people are getting excited over what Jonah considers to be a minor matter, they’re “getting their dresses over their heads” over something that’s “not worth going to the mattresses” over. On the other hand, if Jonah thinks it is important, he’ll fight “hammer and tongs.”

I don’t mind idioms or memes. I use them myself, because they often evoke a complicated idea in a few brief words. But they only work for a targeted audience which is able to recognize and follow the reference. Since I write for myself, I don’t have to worry about whether anybody else can understand what I’m saying. As long as I understand it, my target audience is satisfied. Jonah’s audience, on the other hand, is huge, and just because he might know what he’s saying doesn’t mean that his audience does. And that’s just annoying.

The Zombie Within

Way back in my formative days, a zombie was a 2 HD undead creature easily turned by a mid-level cleric. If you understand that sentence AND you read my blog, then either you weren’t as damaged by the experiences of your formative years as many people warned or you picked up a helm of opposite alignment somewhere along the way. Since those years, zombies have arguably seen even more success in the popular culture than even vampires (which were also undead, but much harder to turn). All those other undead (skeletons, ghouls, ghasts, ghosts, specters, wraiths, and especially liches) must be terribly envious (at least the ones that can think).

Zombies have become so popular in film that they now have their own genre. The slow-moving, dim-witted animated corpses with a hunger for brains weren’t menacing enough, so Hollywood turned them into viral monsters, sometimes with the ability to jump and climb walls (I’m thinking here of Resident Evil and I Am Legend zombies). What is common to zombie movies is the massed horde nature of the zombie attack. No matter how many you drop, they just keep coming, threatening to overrun the entire planet and wipe out the human race. Discussions abound (seriously!) on how to survive the zombie apocalypse and defeat the zombie horde.

I am a zombie…

Whoa! Put down the shotgun! I’m only speaking metaphorically. Sort of.

St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him though baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father , we too may live a new life.” You know what I’m talking about: it’s the whole death to self and life in Christ thing. The zombie part comes in when my self won’t stay dead. Just like the worst of the horror movie villains (Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers – take your pick) I just won’t stay dead.

Every time I think I’ve finally put a stake through the heart of my selfish desires (I know, the stake through the heart isn’t zombies, it’s vampires) and can live happily every after as a good Christian, the beast that is me comes roaring back to life. I have discovered that the second rule of zombie combat is iterative. For the uninitiated, the second rule is double tap: if you shoot the monster, and it falls apparently dead at your feet, you don’t go over and poke it with your toe, and you definitely don’t drop the gun to embrace the helpless woman you’ve been protecting – you put another slug in it. The iterative part is that you can never stop putting slugs into it. If you understood the 2 HD zombie that I started the post with, then you’ll also understand that this is like the classic troll – it regenerates.

So maybe I’m really a troll.

Wait just a second, though. I said that the common element in the zombie movie genre was the massed attack by a horde. I’m not going to suggest anything like multiple personalities, but certainly there is a figurative horde of vices, sins, and imperfections that have to be dispatched one at a time, and sometimes it seems like there’s some double-teaming going on. You drop the zombie to your right, forget to double tap before turning to engage the zombie on your left, and before you know it, the zombie you thought was slain is on your back, trying to gnaw through your skull to the tasty brains within.

Oh, how I wish that it didn’t have to be this way. I wish that I could just nuke it from orbit (to switch metaphors yet again) and just incinerate the whole horde. I wish I could just set the fundamental option switch to “Christ” and live happily ever after rather than having to continually modulate frequencies ala Geordi La Forge. I don’t know whether everybody’s an undead troll at heart, or just me.

What I do know is that, although I might be splattered with zombie juice and occasionally lose my footing, I haven’t forgotten that I’m still human, and that my humanity has been redeemed by a perfect atoning sacrifice. A sacramental armory assures that I won’t run out of ammo, so that battle will continue as long as I have the will to fight.

Bring on the zombies!

Don't Do That!

Over at the First Thoughts blog, Joe Carter posted on Friday an admittedly subjective list of things a man should never do. I am guilty of some of them.

I admit that I enjoy playing video games. After a long day in the cubicle, it can be remarkably soothing to sit down to a good first-person shooter. It is necessary, however, to set time limits, because the temptation is always there to play just a little longer in order to complete the next objective. The real fun, as noted by one of Joe’s commenters, comes from playing with my kids. Split-screen co-operative or head-to-head play is a blast. I find these interactions to be much more enjoyable than board games.

I am also guilty of cutting my own hair, although I am at a complete loss as to why that’s on the list. I cut my own hair because (a) it saves money, and (b) nobody else does it right. This just might be the one thing that I can do for myself with more satisfaction in the result that if I had paid someone else to do it. Where is the shame in that?

As for the first item: I reluctantly agree. Ultimately, it’s hard to come up with any good that can come from it. It ranks right up there with watching television – including sports broadcasts.

Wearing the Collar

The Catholic Education Resource Center has posted an article that originally appeared in the June 1995 issue of Homiletic & Pastoral Review concerning the wearing (or not wearing, as the case may be) of clerical clothing by priests. After quoting the relevant sections of the 1994 Directory for the Ministry and Life of Priests, the authors (a monsignor and a priest) give 23 reasons why a priest should wear his collar. They then provide and rebut 14 common arguments against wearing the collar.

To priests who always wear the Roman collar we say: keep it up! To those who do not we say: take stock of the value which this seemingly insignificant piece of vesture possesses. Be aware that the priestly work you now do will not suffer but will be enhanced when you dress according to the venerable custom of the Church.

(H/T: Rich Leonardi)

Corapi in Cincy

A few people have asked me what I thought of Fr. John Corapi’s event in Cincinnati on Saturday. I don’t doubt that they expect me to say that it was great. The fact is, though, that I was disappointed. I fear that the man has become a rock star, throwing red meat to receptive audiences for the price of admission. From the moment he walked out on stage with a beard that was much too dark, I couldn’t help but think that something just wasn’t right. We were seated close enough to the stage that we didn’t need to rely on the jumbo-tron video displays, but his bald head and his black goatee kept making me think of his resemblance to Vladimir Lenin.

Fr. Corapi has evolved. In the older programs shown on EWTN, he is often seen wearing a gray habit, and as he speaks, you can see a twinkle in his eye. There was no twinkle in the eye of the hard man that spoke at the Cintas Center on Saturday. The gray habit was long ago replaced by a pressed black suit and French cuffs.

During the course of the day, we learned that Fr. Corapi owns a home in northwest Montana which he paid for with a million-dollar lawsuit settlement. He drives a fast car with lots of horsepower and keeps a loaded .45 in the glove compartment. He also rides a fat boy Harley Davidson motorcycle, owns a boat of unspecified size, and vacations in Key West. He works out six times a week, twice with a female physical trainer, and has lost seventy pounds and increased his strength by a hundred percent in the past year. The weight loss prompted him, at his charitable best, to donate two large bags of “fat clothes” to the local Salvation Army. I can only assume that the donated clothes did not consist of old habits and clericals. I don’t know why he chose to share these personal bits of information, but they did nothing to enhance his credibility as a witness to the gospel.

The four talks that he gave during the course of the day (which will probably be available for purchase at the discount rate of $99 from his website in a week or two) were based on the social teaching of the Catholic Church. He did touch on most of the principles of that teaching. Much of what he said, however, amounted to prudential judgments, and, while I agree with most of those judgments, he presented them as being what the Church teaches. It would have been great material at a TEA party event, but this was hardly billed as a political rally.

The crowd was enthusiastic, leaping to it’s feet whenever Corapi took the stage and cheering whenever he spoke of the disincentives of socialism and when he referred to the government in Washington as “the big drug dealer.” He seems to be fond of St. Paul’s exhortation in 2 Thessalonians 3:10, “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.” Completely unmentioned was the practice of the early Christians, as related in Acts 2:44-45, “All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.”

At one point, he recounted a meeting with Mother Teresa of Calcutta shortly before she died. She described to him all of her poverty, frailty, and dependence upon others. Then she described how God had established her order in over 500 houses and, through them, touched the lives of tens of thousands of dying and forgotten people in Calcutta alone. “Go”, she said, “and do the same!” Fr. Corapi seems to believe that he’s doing that through his preaching and his production company, but I can’t help but think that maybe he missed the point.

Unaffiliation

Patrick Madrid doesn’t seem to be holding anything back in expressing his disgust with the duplicitous life of Fr. Maciel, the posthumously disgraced founder of the Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi. I can remember attending a Regnum Christi retreat or conference around the year 2000 when Mr. Madrid was in attendance. Having recently published his second or third Surprised by Truth volume and having appeared on EWTN, he was a bit of a celebrity. The Legionary priest who was going to give him spiritual direction joked that Patrick was going to convert him and put his story in the next book. I relate this anecdote only to point out that Patrick hasn’t always been a critic of the Maciel legacy. Like many of us, he was, at least for a while, fooled by appearances.

The veil was torn, however, and now the whole Maciel affair constitutes a festering wound on the Body of Christ.

Accusations of misconduct by Maciel had been present for many years, but could not be proven. In the absence of indisputable evidence and in light of the apparent good fruits produced by the order and the movement that Maciel had founded, the accusations against him were dismissed as calumnies – baseless charges leveled by enemies of the gospel. The problem is, at least some of the allegations now appear to have been true, and it was the defenders of Maciel who were calumniating his accusers.

A year after Maciel’s death in 2008, it was revealed that he had lived a double life and had fathered at least one child. All those who had previously been encouraged to look to him as an example of holiness and tireless devotion to Christ were thrown into a state of spiritual turmoil and forced to re-evaluate everything that they thought they knew about their service to the Church through the Legion or Regnum Christi and everything upon which Maciel had left his mark. Some within the movement insisted that the approval of the order’s constitution by the Holy See was imbued with a degree of infallibility and that, as flawed a man as Maciel was, the Holy Spirit could still work through him to produce a great gift for the Church. Last year, the Vatican conducted an Apostolic Visitation of the Legionaries of Christ. A statement released by the Vatican at the conclusion of the Visitation noted that Maciel’s was “a life devoid of scruple and of genuine religious sentiment.”

I’ll leave it to others far more clear-thinking than I am to discuss what the future might hold for the Legionaries and Regnum Christi. George Weigel seems, to me, to be among the most lucid commentators on that front. However, over the last few weeks it became increasingly obvious to me that I needed to decide what, if anything, I would do. I found that I could not read the phrases “Maciel” or “Legionaries of Christ” or “Regnum Christi” without flinching.

The gospel reading from a few weeks ago was Matthew 7:15-20. When I read it, I was stunned into reflection upon the current mess. “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” Is this not an apt description of Maciel? “By their fruit you will recognize them.” When rotten fruit was presented to us, we denied it. We denied that it was rotten, or claimed that it came from some other tree. Then we pointed to the fruit that was still on the tree and claimed that it was beautiful and good to eat. Such good fruit couldn’t possibly come from a bad tree, could it? But Our Lord continues, “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.”

So there you have it. If I were speaking to any other person, I would advise him to steer clear of any fruit from a bad tree. It isn’t necessary. There are plenty of good trees to pick from, so why take a chance? Are you going to trust yourself to discern the goodness of the fruit when you and so many others were wrong about the tree?

So what stopped me? It can only be the thing that brought me into the Regnum Christi movement to begin with – the individual persons with whom I share a common theological perspective and a desire to see an authentic gospel proclaimed. They are my friends, and I want them to remain so. I very much enjoy our discussions, and I feared that if I were to leave the movement I would find myself – alone. (Except for my dear wife, of course, who is shackled to me for better or worse.) I already feel like an alien in my parish, and if I had to give this up, I would be completely on my own, or so it seemed.

What attracted me to the movement is not unique to the movement, but was largely borrowed from other sources and packaged together as a collection of best-practices. There is no other group in our area, as far as I am aware, that offers the kind of interaction that occurs at our Encounters (in which we reflect upon the Gospel and discuss a case of life) and Study Circles (currently Jesus of Nazareth, by Pope Benedict XVI) or the spiritual depth of the retreats (other retreats that I’ve attended have been distressingly shallow). However, I could not ignore the counsel of Christ. Whatever apostolic zeal I once had has already been greatly eroded by the scandal, and I didn’t see how it could return if I remained within a movement founded under such circumstances. There will forever be a cloud of uncertainty and doubt over the order and movement, thanks to the actions of the one who was called Nuestro Padre.

And so, what began with a letter requesting incorporation into the Regnum Christi Movement ends with a blog post announcing that I cannot, in good conscience, remain a member. I harbor no ill will toward other members, whom I still consider friends. Nor do I think any less of them for coming to a different conclusion than I regarding their own future in the Movement. Many of them have experienced the Movement as a vocation. I never have. I hope that they can understand and respect my decision.

Slinging Mud

My wife and I are going down to Cincinnati tomorrow for a conference being given by Fr. John Corapi, and somebody responsible for pulling off the even (the promoter?) is slinging mud. Is it too much to ask for a little class, charity, and authenticity from those claiming to be Catholic paragons?

Note that I am disappointed that it is virtually impossible to get material featuring Fr. Corapi without paying for it. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been spoiled by Catholic media outlets on the web that do not charge for their content, or at least offer some content free of charge (Mt 10:8).

The Rocks at the End of the Lake

Joseph Bottum, in Drifting Toward the Rocks, finds an interesting metaphor for life, and a lesson regarding complacence, in a trip to the lake with his daughter.

Then the man on the inner tube awoke with a shout as the rocks brushed his feet—sitting up suddenly, too hard and too fast, so the inner tube squirted out to flip up in the air behind him and dump him with a splash into the shallow water. I think it must have been painful—those broken stones down at the end of the lake are sharp—and he yowled, scrambling along on hands and knees after the inner tube, trying to stand up and stumbling each time as the rocks sliced at his tender feet, before he finally caught up with the spinning tube and surged across it, belly first, puffing like a loud and startled walrus.

Read the whole thing.

Allegorical Samaritans

The gospel for this Sunday (15th Sunday of Ordinary Time) was the Parable of the Good Samaritan. By happy coincidence, I just happened to be re-reading Chapter Seven: The Message of the Parables from Pope Benedict's book, Jesus of Nazareth. The Holy Father argues that we can't rule out reading the parables in an allegorical sense and we can't limit the meaning of the parable to just one salient point. He then goes on to give a more in-depth consideration to three parables, one of which is the Parable of the Good Samaritan. In an allegorical sense and Christological focus, the wounded man is humanity, and the Samaritan is Christ.

God himself, who for us is foreign and distant, has set out to take care of his wounded creature. God, though so remote from us, has made himself our neighbor in Jesus Christ. He pours oil and wine into our wounds, a gesture seen as an image of the healing gift of the sacraments, and he brings us to the inn, the Church, in which he arranges our care and also pays a deposit for the cost of that care.

It just so happened as well that our celebrant at mass today was a visiting Comboni missionary who spoke about the missions in Africa. Africa was also a subject of reflection in Benedict's comments on the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

The topical relevance of the parable is evident. When we transpose it into the dimensions of world society, we see how the peoples of Africa, lying robbed and plundered, matter to us. Then we see how deeply they are our neighbors; that our lifestyle, the history in which we are involved, has plundered them and continues to do so. This is true above all in the sense that we have wounded their souls. Instead of giving them God, the God who has come close to us in Christ, which would have integrated and brought to completion all that is precious and great in their own traditions, we have given them the cynicism of a world without God in which all that counts is power and profit, a world that destroys moral standards so that corruption and unscrupulous will to power are taken for granted. And that applies not only to Africa.

Atheists Don't Have No Songs

I stumbled upon this little gem over at the First Thoughts blog, and thought it was amusing enough to share. There is a line that goes "Catholics dress up for mass and listen to Gregorian chants / Atheists just take a pass, watch football in their underpants." Alas, they give us Catholics too much credit. Around here, most Catholics (or at least those in white collar professions) dress less formally for mass than they do Monday through Friday for work, and I think that I would have to drive at least 45 minutes to reach a parish that uses Gregorian chant.

The atheists, though, have rock and roll.



H/T Joseph Bottum

Hosea

The non-Gospel readings from the Lectionary this week have been from the book of the prophet Hosea. Many years ago, Fr. Mitch Pacwa, did a series on the Old Testament Prophets for EWTN, and like so many other EWTN programs, the audio is available in MP3 format. In four of the episodes (Hosea’s Marriage; Hosea Puts Israel on Trial; Sins of the Past, Sins of the Future; and Yaweh’s Tender Love), Fr. Pacwa discusses Hosea – its context, its historical references, and its application to us today.

I encourage you to give it a listen to enhance your appreciation of this week’s readings.

A Blogger's Aphorism

I was listening to a segment of Uncommon Knowledge this morning when I heard something remarkable (and hence, I am going to remark upon it). Guests Mark Steyn and Rob Long were discussing Ronald Reagan with host Peter Robinson. As President, Reagan made substantial hand-written revisions to the speeches that were prepared for him. Before becoming President, Reagan wrote his own speeches, and it is evident in his collection of letters that he devoted considerable thought to developing a coherent philosophical world view.

Rob Long, at one point, utters an aphorism: "How do I know what I think until I see what I write?" This aphorism, more than anything, sums up very handily why I bother with this blog.

An Island of Western Civilization

It’s always nice to see one of your own views expressed by somebody that lots of other people actually pay attention to. I have, in the past, expressed (even if only to my dear wife) some of the rough similarities between the modern state of Israel and the Crusader Kingdoms of the 12th and 13th centuries. Israel is, as the Crusader Kingdoms were, a relatively small island of western civilization surrounded by a sea of Middle Eastern Islam. The Crusader Kingdoms lasted a few generations before falling to the armies of Saladin. The state of Israel hasn’t been around that long yet.

Ross Douthat pointed to some of those same similarities recently in a column (“Israel and Outremer”) for the New York Times, although he prefers to use the French term Outremer. It was nice to be able to read his words and think to myself, “Yeah, I already though of that.” Now if only I could think of a way to communicate it as clearly as he does. Please note that, by most accounts, the eventual demise of the Crusader Kingdoms was not entirely unprovoked. The only provocation required of Israel, it would seem, is its existence.

Gnip-Gnop Snap

One of my most vivid childhood memories of my father is, sad to say, not a happy one. Nevertheless, I find in it a measure of my dad's love and the pressure that he must have felt in providing for us.

I was the baby of the family, with three older sisters, the closest of whom was nearly six years older than I was (and am - she will always be nearly six years older than I). For Christmas one year when I was a child somewhere under ten (I might have been five, or I might have been eight - the memory's not clear on the age), we received a Gnip-Gnop game. Gnip-Gnop is, of course, ping-pong spelled backwards. The game was basically a plastic box with a transparent top. A divider with three holes separated the box into two sides, each of which had three paddles for launching the ping-pong balls within the box toward the divider. The point of the game was, I think, to get all of the balls onto the other player's side of the box. As you can probably predict, the game pretty much amounted to two players pounding furiously on their paddles, and it must have made a terrible racket.

My dad, a carpenter by trade, worked hard, especially in the summer. Construction opportunities often dried up in the winter, leaving him under-employed. He would try to make up for it by working longer hours and additional independent jobs during the summer. His only relaxation would come in the evening after dinner, when he could read the newspaper and watch the news or listen to his beloved Reds on the radio.

In the evening of my memory, Dad was trying to relax on the couch. It must have been in the latter half of the 1970s, when the U.S. economy and the whole world seemed to be going to hell. And it must have been shortly after Christmas, when Dad wasn't making much money and he and Mom were pinching every penny to pay their bills and support their family. My sister and I were on the floor, pounding away on the Gnip-Gnop when Dad just snapped. He got up from the couch, walked over to where we were, and kicked the Gnip-Gnop against the wall, leaving me and my sister stunned.

I don't remember what happened next - whether Dad returned to the couch or left the room - but I don't think that any words were spoken.

Why, you might be wondering, would I bring up a memory like this on Fathers Day, and even claim that it is evidence of the depth of a father's love? First, because this is the only memory of this kind that I have. Second, Dad's anger and frustration was directed at the game, not at us kids. Third, the timing and circumstances of the event, in retrospect, make what happened understandable, if not excusable.

In today's gospel reading, Jesus tells his disciples that they must take up their crosses daily. As I drove to mass with my daughters this morning, I reflected that I good homily point for today would be the way in which fathers are called daily to take up their crosses and deny themselves for the sake of their families. I saw my parents do that, and Jesus never said that the cross would be easy. It's not. As a salaried engineer, I've never faced the kind of shortages that confronted Dad nearly every winter, and yet I still find myself pressured by feelings of inadequacy when the bills come due. I don't do it as well as my own dad did. I've snapped at my kids many times, and I can only hope that those aren't the times that form lasting memories for my children. It is in fatherhood that I've truly come to appreciate my own father.

Happy Fathers Day!

Elisha's Oxen

For some strange reason, I used to hear or read 1 Kings 19:19-21 and picture poor Elisha in a field by himself behind a plow pulled by a team of twelve oxen. Every time I heard the passage, I would think to myself, "That's a lot of oxen to be pulling a plow!" Now it seems clear to me that Elisha was out there with at least eleven other guys, each pushing a plow that was being pulled by a pair of oxen yoked together. Elisha, as the son of the owner of the field, was not only supervising the others, he was working alongside them.



The thought that Elisha would slaughter a whole team of twelve oxen always seemed exorbitant and, yes, a little wasteful, especially with property that probably was not his, but his father's. However, in my new understanding, when he slaughtered his yoke of oxen, it was one twelfth of the total that his father had commited to the working of the field, and the people that ate from the sacrifice were the servants that he was supervising.

Swagger Wagon

Toyota has a creative advertising series for their Siena minivan. I even saw one that featured Victoria Stillwell (the dog trainer) that aired on Animal Planet. I have mixed feelings about the Siena family. The mom and dad seem very obnoxious and self-centered, but I still thought that the video below was hilarious.

With the backing of Toyota, the productin values in this parody video are excellent. I wonder whether there's anything like it for the Chevy Express 3500 (15-passenger) van club.

Swagger Wagon

The Unbearable Cross

Please let me apologize now, for I'm about to get curmudgeonly for the second straight post.

I must have unreasonable expectations because, like Rich Leonardi, I tend to have preconceived notions regarding how priests ought to dress, and I prefer that my priest look like a priest. Unfortunately, I've grown accustomed to picking up our diocesan newspaper to see pictures of priests and religious who are indistinguishable from any common lay person (or even a mild-mannered atheist). A few years ago, I underwent a personality profile for the Archdiocese. I had to drive down to Cincinnati to meet with a Franciscan priest to discuss the results. I went to an office in a commercial park, where I met a man with short cropped hair who was dressing in loafers, khaki pants, and a polo shirt. I never would have guessed he was a priest if I hadn't been told before hand.

Is there a persecution going on, about which I am totally unaware? This isn't Elizabethan England or Soviet Russia. I've never worn a Roman collar - is it really so uncomfortable that men who are eager to take up their cross and earn the privilege to wear it now can't take it off fast enough?

Fr. Charles Conner records many programs on Church history for EWTN. I clearly remember one program on St. Charles Borromeo. When he became a bishop and was placed in his diocese, he found that the formation and conduct of his clergy was badly in need of reform. Among the faults listed was a fondness for secular clothing.

It doesn't seem like that long ago when vocations offices were including the simplicity of the wardrobe among the benefits of choosing the priesthood as a career (maybe that career option focus was part of the problem). As a priest, you'll never have to think about what you're going to wear! Unless, that is, you're off-duty. In that case, you'll need one closet for your clericals and another for your "normal" clothes. Fortunately, you won't have to share your closet with anybody else!

There is a T-Mobile commercial that asks what it's customers want. It shows a priest standing in front of a sausage stand. "Unlimited texting," he says. "Why, you think we don't text? We do." The commercial works because you can see that he's a priest, even though he's not engaged in any kind of priestly duty. Remove the collar, and the scene falls apart.

In the film Saint Ralph, there is a young Salesian priest who, before becoming a priest, was an olympic runner. When Ralph wants to know why he gave up running, he says it is because Salesians don't run - they'd look silly doing it in cassocks. The young man loved running, but he saw his vocation to the priesthood as being far greater in value. (Note: it's been years since I've seen this movie, and it's possible that I'm misremembering the scene.)

As I said, I'm probably being completely unreasonable in suggesting that priests ought to dress in a way that identifies them as priests. But what do the bishops of the United States say?

Complementary Norm: The National Conference of Catholic Bishops, in accord with the prescriptions of canon 284, hereby decrees that without prejudice to the provisions of canon 288, clerics are to dress in conformity with their sacred calling.

In liturgical rites, clerics shall wear the vesture prescribed in the proper liturgical books. Outside liturgical functions, a black suit and Roman collar are the usual attire for priests. The use of the cassock is at the discretion of the cleric.

In the case of religious clerics, the determinations of their proper institutes or societies are to be observed with regard to wearing the religious habit.

Canon 288 exempts permanent deacons from the clerical dress requirements of canon 284. The national norm cited above was promulgated on November 1, 1999, with an effective date one month later. The norm was signed by the President of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops as well as the General Secretary, who at the time was Reverend Monsignor Dennis M. Schnurr. Schnurr is now the Archbishop of Cincinnati. That's him, in the photo below, on the right with Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk.

Corpus Christi 2010

So how was your Corpus Christi celebration? Mine was, sadly, about what I’ve come to expect.

The celebration of Corpus Christi was established by Pope Urban IV via papal bull on September 8, 1264. It was to be celebrated annually on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. The feast was further ratified by Urban’s successor, Pope Clement V and at the General Council of Vienne in 1311. Corpus Christi was explicitly established to extol the love of Our Savior as expressed in the Holy Eucharist. In many places, the celebration was transferred from the Thursday after Trinity Sunday to the second Sunday after Pentecost, and in modern times, the name was changed to The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ to emphasize that both the body and the blood are present in the Eucharist.

Clearly, the emphasis is Eucharistic – the mystery of Christ’s presence in the Blessed Sacrament and the love with which Our Lord gave us that enduring presence for our food.

Good liturgy not only makes present to us and allows us to participate in the sacred mysteries, it also, through the many signs incorporated into the rite, edifies us. Immersion in good liturgy is a form of catechesis.

I have to preface my statements of disappointment by noting that I attended mass on Saturday evening because I wanted to run in a 10K on Sunday morning. It is possible, though I have my doubts, that the Sunday masses were different.

In lieu of Psalm 110, which is intimately tied to the first reading story of Melchizedek’s offering of bread and wine, our “sung Psalm response” was based on Psalm 40 (“Here I am, Lord, I come to do your will”). Not that there’s anything wrong with Psalm 40, but it doesn’t have the same clear connection to the readings.

The wonderful sequence before the Gospel was completely omitted. The missal even allows for a shorter form of the sequence, but even that was apparently too much for our celebrant. I raved about the sequence last year (when I attended at a different parish) and used it as an opportunity for catechizing my own children.

The closest we came to hearing a homiletic word about the Eucharist was a blessing of the (Extraordinary) Ministers of Communion. There was next to no emphasis on the transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. Rather, the emphasis was placed on our generosity and sharing (yes, there was even a suggestion that the multiplication of the loaves might have been a “miracle” of getting people to share what they had brought, rather than a foreshadowing of the generous outpouring of God’s grace in the Eucharist) and relaxing (because Jesus had the people sit down) with one another.

No processions. No hint of Thomistic theology regarding the Eucharist. Was it valid? Sure. Did it satisfy my Sunday commitment? Of course. Was I edified or inspired? Eh, not so much.