God Visits His People from a newish blog: Unborn Word of the Day.
May 2007 Archives
Another worthy piece from the June 05 Touchstone: Frederica Mathewes-Green on the natural meaning of human sexuality, including this nugget from what was probably a sidebar in the print issue but is tacked on to the end of the online article:
My generation somehow didn’t think that would happen. We thought we would always be the younger generation. We thought we’d always set the standard for what it means to be sexy and gorgeous. We made fun of old married people, the ones who got hitched, settled down, had kids, had mortgages, and thirty years later were having old-married-people sex with each other.
It turns out that, even if you make fun of people like that, you still get old anyway. The alternative is not staying young forever; the alternative is being just as old, and not having formed any lasting relationship, and going to bed most nights by yourself. You’re not having old-married-people sex; you’re not having sex with anybody.
Ouch!
Much was made the past few weeks about the decision by Francis Beckwith - philospher, professor at Baylor University and blogger at the excellent Right Reason blog - to convert to Catholicism. Beckwith, who was raised as a Catholic but left the faith long ago and was president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) when he decided to return to Catholicism (he has since resigned his post and left the ETS).
As inclined as I am to do back-flips or maybe a fancy end-zone dance at this victory for Christ and His Church, I also recognize that if we were to lose, say, Janet Smith to the Evangelicals, we wouldn't look on it very kindly if they were to gloat.
That said, it is a great thing and we Catholics should be happy.
My reason for blogging this belatedly is having stumbled across the June 2005 issue of Touchstone Magazine which contains an essay from Dr. Beckwith reflecting upon the teachings of then recently departed Pope John Paul II entitled, wait for it, "Vatican Bible School: What John Paul II Can Teach Evangelicals."
It would seem that he learned very much indeed.
Zenit has a brief biography of Charles of St. Andrew, who will be canonized on Sunday, making PF very happy.
*COUGH* TSO blogs about a couple of books I wouldn't mind seeing in a few weeks. *COUGH*
"For one thing, Catholics old enough to remember the pre-Vatican II Mass know that it’s as capable of being celebrated in drab, uninspiring fashion as any other rite." - John Allen
Allen does say something I agree with - namely that those anxious for the old rite will be disappointed when they see that it can be celebrated irreverently and abusively. I suppose some might say that at least there won't be any "hippie music", though I would caution them not to underestimate the lengths to which liturgists will go to undermine all things traditional.
Not that I'm against this motu proprio business, not at all. I think it's immensely important, just not in the way you might think. My hope is that a wider availability of the traditional rite will cause both to influence each other over the next few decades so that the next missal will preserve what is best from each of them and will be an elegant and organic development of traditional Catholic worship.
Hopefully I'll be alive to see it.
John Allen disappointingly plays to his audience in the NY TImes op-ed on the Pope's anticipated motu proprio loosening the restrictions on using the 1962 Missal for Mass.
This is shameful language. Not the long arc part - that's true and it's a good thing. I mean the part where he audibly exhales in exasperation and casts a pox upon both the Blefescuian trads and Lilliputian liberals.
He's right of course, in that most Catholics don't care, won't know what the motu proprio is (or even what that Latin phrase means) and won't notice anything different when it is released. What he doesn't address is whether those are good things. It is obviously not good and a sign of spiritual malaise that the average Catholic is ignorant about his spirtual patrimony, but Allen here laughs it off as a big-end/little-end squabble.
Is the Mass the source and summit of our Catholic lives? If so, is it a concern that many Catholics probably couldn't tell you what the Real Presence is? Or that others find the Mass at their local parish so spiritually uninspiring that they worship at schismatic traditionalist chapels? These are serious questions that touch on the center of the Catholic faith, not peripheral issues. What Allen dismisses as a food-fight between partisan "activists" is actually a discussion about the very substance of Catholicism. By liberalizing use of the old missal, the pope will be making an emphatic statement in that conversation.
Sure, Allen doesn't have to be an apologist, but with a slot in the NY Times, Allen had a teaching moment. He could have taken any number of angles that would have demonstrated the mystery and importance of the Eucharistic celebration in the Catholic life. Instead, he proudly proclaimed how embarrassed he is that his crazy uncles won't shut up.
Thanks for nothing.
Not that it's any of my business, but since Rick Garnett asked what we should think about the reunion of the Russian Orthodox Church with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, I thought I'd direct him to Daniel Larison, a convert to orthodoxy who was baptised in the ROCOR, who has unappreciative comments about the Nadia Kizenko article that sparked his question. Larison's blogging on the subject are here, here, here and here.
Since that's a lot to read, I'll summarize some of his key points: authentic communion is an unqualified good; the USSR is no more, so the issue of collaboration with the Soviets is moot; it's silly to think that Putin has gained any kind of control over ROCOR members (of whom there are really only about 150,000 worldwide); and finally, of course the process wasn't democratic (I add that as Catholics, we should see that as a good thing).
Listening to a talk show program discussing Rudy Giuliani, I hear a long-time NYC journalist describe Giulani as "very clear in his vision, very strong in his will... overly loyal to incompetent cronies and not very good about listening from below but imposing his own personal views down the line."
This is all strangely familiar...
Then I hear, "Donald Rumsfeld has nothing on Bernie Kerik."
Giulani '08: Like Bush, only worse!
They're coming in a little heavier now
- John Peter Pham, writing for PBS: The Key to the Keeper of the Keys - I haven't read this one yet, but it should be the most interesting of the bunch cited here.
- The UK Times is, with reservations, impressed, though the reviewer is for some reason astonished (astonished!) that Benedict to an extent accepts some of the results of modern exegesis.
- Time Magazine profiles a rabbi mentioned prominently in the book.
- John Allen had a review back when the Italian edition came out. This week, he blogs Cardinal Martini's warm comments at the release of the French edition.
- Reviewer for the UK Times online can't believe the Pope is Catholic.
Bloggers:
- Father Joseph O'Leary has a review too lengthy for me to read, but others may want to give it a shot. I'll give you a hint of his take: "One must declare groundless Benedict’s appeal to “canonical exegesis”, an exercise in biblical theology whereby any text from the Old or the New Testament can serve to explain any other biblical text."
- Zadok had Initial Thoughts when the Italian edition first came out and has blogged much since.
- At dotCommonweal, Lawrence Cunningham enjoyed the book and has several observations.
Synopses:
More to come, I'm sure!
"[L]ibertarians who actually begin to approach something recognisably like a libertarian view of politics (which might involve some reduction in the size and power of the state) are exceedingly few in number, while those who would like to unite the worst instincts of the parties of greed, sex and death are rather more numerous." - Daniel Larison
Shorter Peter Singer: Saving very premature babies only makes future retards. Let them die!
The anti-war Republican was profiled by the New Republic here. It's a decent intro if you don't know much about him, but the question I have to ask is: did Michael Crowley really have to waste Congressman Paul's lunch hour just to snare a whopping four quotes? Did Crowley forget to bring his notebook to lunch?
This is somewhat belated, but it just came online. The March issue of the Italian monthly 30 Days just came online, and the whole issue consists of tribute to Pope Benedict XVI on the occasion of his 80th birthday written by various cardinals from around the world.
Check it out here.
My wife and many others will surely appreciate this feature from the NY Journal News on Alice von Hildebrand.
This pretty much leaves me speechless.
Entropia Universe offers its players a debit card that can be used at real-world atms to withdraw up to $3,000 a month from their supply of virtual cash.
An estimated 500,000 Chinese gamers are "gold farmers" who perform menial tasks inside online worlds to create virtual goods to sell to players in the West.
A typical gold farmer earns $65 to $100 a month.
No pun intended, but some people inhabit a completely different world.
Wow. Since I forswore pro basketball several years ago, I'd forgotten what a pompous and ignorant man Bill Walton is. Back when my beloved Bullies were making their runs, he never missed an opportunity to bash Jordan and Pippen and to downplay the Bulls' dominance. EVERY GAME he announced, he found an opportunity to brag about how he was superior to MJ or really anybody else on the court.
For all that however, the most ludicrous thing he ever said was against Charles Barkley. I honestly don't remember the specific game, but it had to be the '97 playoffs. Charles got embarrased on D and Walton summoned all of his definitive false authority to proclaim that "Charles Barkley was rated the worst defender in the history of the NBA!"
Every single person in my dorm room (and there were probably a dozen of us crammed in there because my roommate had the biggest TV on our floor and we had a two-TV set-up so we could watch sports and play N-64 at the same time) uttered some version of "What the f*** is he talking about?" knowing that he was of course referring to no actually existing poll except maybe one he took of his three brain cells in the split second before he said that nonsense. My roommate, however, turned to me and deadpanned: "Has he never seen Dickie Simpkins play?"
Priceless
PS In other basketball-related bloggage, I think it's A-OK for whites to root for the few white boys there are in the NBA. The same year as the Walton incident, every black dude on my floor could tell you what Tiger Woods shot at the Masters. I conducted a poll: excluding mini-golf, not one of them had ever swung a golf club.* There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Even though I don't follow the game anymore, I'm happy deep down inside any time a Hispanic player makes it at any level.
*For the record, neither have I.
I haven't done one of these in a while:
Newer stuff:
- Two from the New York Times:
"My First Lesson in Motherhood" - A truly moving story about a woman and her husband, who upin arriving in China to pick up the baby girl they're adopting, find out they're getting more than they bargained for.
"Genetic Testing + Abortion = ???" - The practice of sex selection and aborting babies that have specific deformities makes even some ardent pro-choicers nervous. Unfortunately, the horse has already left the gate on this one since, as the author mentions, 90 % of Down Syndrome babies never get to breather their first breath. Still, it's nice to see people take notice even at this late hour.
- Two from City Journal:
"The Incredible Shrinking Father" - One of the more disturbing byproducts of the radical and near-uncontrolled rise of artificial reproduction is the disappearing father. (And given the tremendous amount of harmful byproducts of the rise, this is saying something.) I can look back over the people I've known in my life and it is simply true that the worst off on any number of indicators were the ones with dads who were absent or messed-up. Now we're intentionally starting kids off with this handicap.
"Save the Catholic Schools!" - A look at the immense good that urban Catholic schools do. I'm ambivalent about public funding of religious schools, but it's nice to see Catholic schools get props for the work they do in our nation's cities.
- "Atheists with Attitude" - A review of the New Atheists (with special emphasis on Christopher Hitchens). Confining his criticism to the typical hand-wringing over the in-your-face brashness of the NAs, Anthony Gottlieb wonders why they can't all be gentle and condescending to us stupid religious sheep, like David Hume.
Older stuff:
- Pope Benedict on the conversions of St. Augustine from his visit to Pavia last month. Does it get any better than that? Seriously, does it?
- "The Conservative Convert" - Eric Scheske gives us a spiritual sketch of Russell Kirk. It's about 4 years old, but I just discovered it and it's a fantastic read.
A blogger I'm not familiar with considers the danger of separating Maria Montessori's Catholic sensibility from her pedagogical method. From my limited readings, I understand his concerns, but I don't know enough about Montessori teaching in practice to say whether I agree or disagree.
And - shockingly! - approves.
The WaPo has a book review of a sympathetic treatment of the current reproduction scene.
While the two men are dashing across the country to attend their daughters' birth, Nelson starts hemorrhaging. Doctors race to stop the bleeding and ultimately perform an emergency hysterectomy to save her life. An unfortunate accident? Perhaps. But Nelson, we learn, was overweight. She had delivered her own children by Caesarean section and was at increased risk for uterine rupture. Yet the doctors and prospective fathers still agreed to transfer four embryos to her, creating a predictably dangerous pregnancy....
For this reader, the most poignant stories of Everything Conceivable concerned the peripheral players: David Nelson, Ann's husband, who stood photographing Okun and Ethington's newborn daughters while his wife lay nearly dying from their birth...
The reviewer's criticism is that "it is in not dwelling on these accidents-in-waiting that Mundy's book falls short." It seems inconceivable (ha!) that somebody could treat this subject without dwelling on the potential for real harm, but such is the case with unquestioning cheerleaders of reproductive technology.
If you want a serious look at the problems and complications brought about by the rapid change in this field, the Institute for American Values released a report last September entitled "The Revolution in Parenthood: The Emerging Global Clash Between Adult Rights and Children’s Needs." The report is an overview of what's happening (which, 8 months later is almost outdated due to the rapid speed of developments) and what's in store for the future.
The Holy Father held a rally with the youth of Brazil and Latin America on Friday. These addresses have a special place in my heart, so here's the whole English translation from Zenit:
My dear young friends!
"If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor … and come, follow me" (Mt 19:21).
1. I was particularly eager to include a meeting with you during this my first journey to Latin America. I have come to inaugurate the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America which, according to my wish, will take place at Aparecida, here in Brazil, at the Shrine of Our Lady. It is she who leads us to the feet of Jesus so that we can learn his teachings about the Kingdom, and it is she who stirs us up to be his missionaries so that the people of this "Continent of Hope" may have full life in him.
This made it's way around St. Blogs a week or so ago, but I just got to see it for the first time.
Wow.
His parents blog is here.
Atheist Mother Theresa-hater Christopher Hitchens debates Christian theologian Doug Wilson at the Christianity Today Website:
I actually think Hitch won the first round (form-wise, not content-wise of course), Wilson's response is pretty sloppy except for this section:
You conclude by objecting to the sovereignty of God, saying that the idea makes the whole world into a ghastly totalitarian state, where believers say that God (and who does He think He is?) runs everything. I would urge you to set aside for a moment the theology of the thing and try to summon up some gratitude for those who built our institutions of liberty. Many of them were actually inspired by the idea that since God is exhaustively sovereign, and because man is a sinner, it follows that all earthly power must be limited and bounded. The idea of checks and balances came from a worldview that you dismiss as inherently totalitarian. Why did those societies where this kind of theology predominated produce, as a direct result, our institutions of civil liberty?
Wilson takes the second round, though.
John Allen is traveling with the pope and seems to be live-blogging the trip. Good stuff as usual.
Of course you've mastered Sudoku. I mean, c'mon! The ones in the newspaper are so lame!
How about Kaukauro? Well, if you can even find one in your local paper, you're lucky. Even then, Kaukauro puzzles often have multiple possible answers and sometimes you simply HAVE to guess? Yuck!
Fear not, people with too much time on your hands! I present to you the Sudoku-Kaukauro hybrid!
Worldwide, traffic accidents are a leading cause of death for every age group from 5-24.
It doesn't get much press, because the case is so fundamentally stupid it should have ended decades ago and reporting honestly on it would pubicly shame NOW and other pro-choice groups. As Jill Stanek notes, "This has always been a free speech case." It's as simple as that.
Yet the charade went on. Early in the trial, they actually had a mafioso-style tree diagram with a picture of Joe Schiedler at the top and branches going down to hundreds of other pro-life activists. Schiedler, you see, was the don, controlling his foot soldiers and sending them out to strong-arm women entering clinics.
I call this a sort-of victory because it is a monumental injustice that good people trying to save the unborn have been subjected to 21 years of legal harrassment by deep-pocketed groups trying to lawyer them out of existence. Briefly put, this ruling says you can't treat sidewalk counselors like the mob. That's nice, but 21 years and three trips to the highest court in the land is overkill. Meantime, Joe Schiedler lost his house over this.
Congratulations to Joe, to the folks at Operation Rescue and to all other pro-life activists who now have a strong legal precedent to smack over the heads of abortion proponents who try to intimidate them.
For those wanting more details, here's a timeline of the case, found at Jill Stanek's page.
Meet the rising star of the Democratic Party:
At a Clinton victory dinner in Little Rock in 1992, Emanuel celebrated by reciting a hoped-for necrology of Democrats who had "f***ed" the president-elect. After every name, he stabbed a steak knife into a table and screamed, "Dead man!"
Lovely.
The review is interesting enough, and should give anybody with any convictions nightmares. We got rid of one Tom DeLay, and here comes another.
One qualm I have is the scapegoating of lefty bloggers for Democratic infighting, as in, "liberal bloggers... saw Emanuel as a triangulating sellout.." and, "after the election bloggers would point to a blue wave in state legislatures as an early sign of success."
That sentiment was undoubtedly expressed at the Daily Kos, but it's also the nub of a long-time issue between the "liberal" and "moderate" wings of the Democratic party.
The February English version of the Italian journal 30 Days has just come online and has five stoties on the plight of Iraqi Christians who have fled Iraq and have been taken in with open arms by Syria. It should shame us that the Baathist regime in Damascus is doing more for Iraqi Christians than the U.S.
Guy Sorman has a feature in the recent City Journal that claims the 21st century will not belong to China, as is widely believed. It's a great piece, with excellent reporting on the difficult lives of the Chinese, but his conclusion simply isn't supported by the facts he reports.
Here is an excerpt from his conclusion:
Of course, a fifth scenario is possible, the one that can’t be predicted. But those in the West who think that the future belongs to China should think again.
Why? China is growing economically as more and more Western businesses are sending manufacturing jobs over there, and Sorman himself points out that radical social upheaval isn't likely, which means there is a practically endless supply of cheap, docile labor (not to mention a source of military conscripts should they decide to do a little empire building). Meantime the other major powers (except, arguably, the U.S.) are waning. What's to stop China from dominance?
Our only hope is to make our one export to China our educational system.
The New York Times gives us booze and smokes to enjoy.
Oh and they also throw in a book review by Dave Barry.
Will Saletan of Slate is very hand-wringingly pro-choice.
Critics complain that these bills seek to "bias," "coerce," and "guilt-trip" women. Come on. Women aren't too weak to face the truth. If you don't want to look at the video, you don't have to. But you should look at it, and so should the guy who got you pregnant, because the decision you're about to make is as grave as it gets.
The lead-in to an eye-opening article about the war in Iraq. I remember thinking when Woodward's last book came out that finding Kissinger's fingerprints on the war was the worst news for this country in the 6 1/2 years of Bush's presidency. Didn't work out so well for Iraq either.
I'm not too personally invested in the French elections, but the cartoon at the top of this story is too good to ignore.
One new, two old from Touchstone.
New, from the May 2007, Allan Carlson takes us on a brief tour of 400 years of Protestant history on the question of artificial contraception.
Old, from May 2005, but available online for the first time now, John F. Kippley addresses illegitimacy and Anthony Esolen turns the Good Samaritan around: how we can treat people like they are our neighbor when we don't have any?
But now the culture of personal achievement and illusory autonomy—which is to say, the culture of total work, that has turned Sunday into at best a brief restorative for the infinitely more important Monday, if Sunday is not already Monday along with all the other days of the week—this paltry culture, I say, has atoned for removing the father from the home by removing the mother, too. The results are ghost towns, rich in things (and not even so dreadfully rich in those, either, once the unnecessary bills and the taxes are paid) and poor in soul.
No children crisscross the backyards of their playmates, because they have no playmates, nor do they even know the names of the people who own the yards. Nor are there the shouts of children to cheer the heart; those who have been graciously allowed to live, live under a sort of parole, whereby they are trucked before breakfast far away to a gaily postered miserable asylum, and then are trucked back to the groomed lawn and flophouse just before sundown.
If some delinquent child should venture onto the street before his male or female parent has returned from the commissariat, and bust up his knees by falling from his bicycle, he can cry all he wants. Nobody will hear him. The society of women is no more. There are no mothers who are not your own mother, and your own mother is not around, and, if she is around (let the truth be told), often enough she is no great shakes either. You are an appendage, or appendix, to her career, and you know it.
Jim McGreevey considering Episcopal priesthood.
As far as I can tell, this is not a hoax.
During May, Fides News is going to celebrate by publishing a series of 18 articles on Mary's apparitions at Lourdes followed by 6 articles on Marian shrines in Africa.
Is there anything left to be said about any of the evangelical atheists?
At this crucial moment in American history, we should all stand by our president.