The Man with the Knife

Tom, over at Disputations, has done a post against the war with Iraq quoting Cardinal McCarrick. The argument is that it is immoral to kill a man with a knife in his pocket.

Now, it is hard to argue with this line of reasoning. A man walking down the street with a knife in his pocket has a useful tool available to him. Depending on his talents and natural proclivities he can use that knife as an implement to whittle a stick of wood. He can use it to skin a deer if he is a hunter. He can use it to trim a piece of rope or the branch of a tree. As a last resort he can use it to defend himself, or, if his intent is evil, he can use it as an offensive weapon. The reason it is immoral to kill the man carrying a knife is that, unless he does, in fact, use it as an offensive weapon, there is no reason to think that his intentions in carrying it are evil.

The analogy is a poor one, however, when used in the case of Saddam Hussein for a very simple reason. Nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons have only one use, which is to kill people. There are no peaceful, innocent uses, for these weapons; there is no reason to have them unless you either intend them to be a threat or you intend to use them for the purpose for which they were designed.

To return to the analogy of the man with the knife it might be useful to note that a man carrying a knife is generally free to carry it in his pocket wherever he goes. However, there are certain cases in which that knife becomes a threat and has been determined to be illegal, at an airport for example. If he takes that knife into an airport and refuses to either leave or surrender the knife the lawful authorities will use force, even deadly force, if it is necessary to disarm him.

In the case of Saddam Hussein, he has been ordered, by legitimate international authority, to disarm and has substantially refused to do so. Holding the weapons that he has, and given his proven history of having used them, and his threats to use them again, it is legitimate for the international authorities to use force, even deadly force, to disarm him.

Sorry for the lack of posts in the past few days. I've had to work some overtime and feel like I'm trying to catch a cold.

Steven, your comment is correct and when I get back on my feet I will post a clarifying comment. I'm not discouraged about my writing at all and thanks for your encouragement.

Paz y bien to all

Originality

Steven posted a comment (see below) that something I had posted made points similar to that made by deCaussade in Abandonment to Divine Providence. At first I was slightly upset (only slightly) that I might have written something that could be interpreted as plagiarism. As I began to think this over, though, I realized that trying to do an orthodox Catholic blog means that nothing I write will be entirely original.

You see, trying to write from an orthodox Catholic position means that nothing I write will be original. Revelation ceased with the Apostles and it is the task of the Church only to interpret what has already been revealed. Anyone trying to write in accordance with the teaching of the Church cannot be inventive, there is nothing new to invent.

This is the problem for those who wish that the Church to be more "progressive." The notion of progress is a human idea and applies to human activity; it signifies movement toward a goal or objective. If we believe that the Church is a divine institution, the Body of Christ on earth, and if we believe that God is infinite, eternal and perfect in all his attributes, then the Church cannot be "progressive" -- there is nothing to progress towards. The Church is already what God intends it to be. To wish otherwise is an instance of both human error and human pride.

So I, and all who wish to remain in communion with the Church, have to face the fact that the work we do as writers is inevitably going to lack originality, we can do no less.

Wonderful News from Associated Press (and the Supreme Court)

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a federal racketeering law was improperly used to punish aggressive anti-abortion protesters, a major victory for people who regularly block clinic doors.
The court's 8-1 ruling applies to protests of all sorts, not just at clinics.
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, writing for the majority, said that when protesters do not "obtain" property, they cannot be punished for civil disobedience with the federal Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act, an anti-racketeering law.
The court's ruling is a victory for Operation Rescue, anti-abortion leader Joseph Scheidler and others who were ordered to pay damages to abortion clinics and barred from interfering with their businesses for 10 years.
Rehnquist said that their political activity did not qualify as extortion.
That outcome had been sought by activists like actor Martin Sheen, animal rights groups and even some organizations that support abortion rights. They argued that protesters of all types could face harsher penalties for demonstrating, if the court ruled otherwise.

Time Management

Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical Fides et Ratio wrote:

"God's Revelation is therefore immersed in time and history. Jesus Christ took flesh in the “fullness of time” (Gal 4:4); and two thousand years later, I feel bound to restate forcefully “in Christianity time has a fundamental importance”. It is within time that the whole work of creation and salvation comes to light; and it emerges clearly above all that, with the Incarnation of the Son of God, our life is even now a foretaste of the fulfillment of time which is to come (cf. Heb 1:2)."

The phrase “in Christianity time has a fundamental importance” struck me as a remarkable statement. We human beings live in time, we are obsessed with time, we try to manage time, and we worry about wasting time. God, on the other hand is eternal. God does not exist in time even though he created time, God does not have to worry about the passage of time. However, God entered time when Jesus Christ came to live among men, thus, he became a historical figure; we can fix in history, at least within a couple of years, when he was born and when he died. We have the records made by other human beings of the events of his life and his death. We know what happened on earth as a result of his death -- the Church came into existence and spread throughout the world. For a brief period here on earth, eternity and time were commingled.

If time is that important to God, then perhaps we might want to learn how God used time here on earth. We can get some idea from a passage in chapter 5 of the Gospel of Mark:

And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him; and he was beside the sea. Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Ja'irus by name; and seeing him, he fell at his feet, and besought him, saying, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live." And he went with him. (Mark 5:21-24) (RSV)

Now, I don't know about you, but my reaction to Jairus, if I had been in Jesus place, would have been different. I probably would have said something like, "Gee, Jairus, I know your daughter is sick, but can you wait an hour or so. See, I've got this huge crowd here waiting for me to speak and I've got this important lesson I've prepared to teach them. This stuff is going into Scripture, you know. Just give me an hour or so and I'll see what I can do." Or else, I might have said, "Okay Jairus, just go home, I'm busy here, you're daughter is healed. Now, buzz off." That is not what Jesus did in response to Jairus request though, Mark says "And he went with him." That simple. Jesus left the crowd and went with Jairus. Why? We don't know why, we can only assume that somehow this was part of the Father's plan and worked to his glory. That is the way Jesus wanted to use his time here on earth -- to bring glory to his Father. You might say that since Jesus was God that he would naturally use his time differently than any of us regular human beings. But Jesus was human and if there was anyone on earth who had a right to feel pressed for time it was Jesus. He had only three years in which to complete his earthly ministry. And yet there is no hint in Scripture that Jesus ever felt hurried. He is never bothered by interruptions. Jesus lived in time as if it were eternity.

I, on the other hand, seem to be constantly preoccupied with efficiency and planning in order to achieve the best use of my time. And I hate others to interrupt me and spoil my plans. Perhaps there is a better way. Our Lord did not have interruptions, he simply did the next thing that was at hand and he did it for his Father's greater glory. In Matthew 6:34 Jesus said, “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. (RSV) Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.” I think this is the heart of Jesus’ teaching on time management.

Today is The Chair of St. Peter

The Authority of Peter

"What can your piety decree that is more commendable, more religious, than that in the future no one be permitted to attack decrees established not so much through human as through divine decisions? Otherwise, those who dared to have doubts about God's truth may really deserve to lose so great a gift of God.

The universal Church has become rock through the erection of that original rock, and the first of the apostles, the most blessed Peter, heard the voice of the Lord saying: 'You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church." Hence, who would dare beat against this impregnable solidarity, except either antichrist or the devil? It is he who, persevering unconverted in his malice, seeks to plant lies, using instruments suited to his wrath and falseness, while under the false label of carefulness he feigns to be seeking the truth. His unrestrained fury and blind impiety have deservedly marked out for themselves a reputation to be despised and shunned...

I use the freedom of the Catholic faith and without fear exhort you to be on the side of the apostles and prophets."

Pope St. Leo the Great

This was written eleven hundred years before the Protestant Reformation.

Academia nuts, cont'd

This morning while I was sitting in my phrontistery I came upon an interesting, almost incredible, article by Joe Klein on the Time website. The article is on George Bush's confident approach to the coming war with Iraq.

I find the article interesting because it clearly proves something that many of us have long suspected: those in the "intellectual elite" in this country have no clue what religious faith is about. In this article Klein shows that he thinks that religious faith is little more than an emotional security blanket. To Klein faith is perhaps comforting to some folks but not real, not "scientific" and therefore, not to be taken seriously by intelligent, mature folks. This is bad enough, but Klein goes on to further silliness.

"There are religious traditions — the Jesuits, the Jews, the Shi'ites, certain suffering segments of Protestantism — for which grace is a constant anguish, a goal never quite attained but approached through learning or good works. "The Evangelicals take their marching orders from Paul, who said you have to 'work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,'" Martin E. Marty, the University of Chicago theologian, told me last week. "The implication is that once you've worked it out, once you've been born again, you don't have to be fearful or tremble so much anymore."

To Klein faith should, apparently, lead those who hold to it to doubt, to an ever-present emotional angst. When we come to accept Christian faith we become neurotics, it makes us more thoughtful. Piffle. I would like to present here a description of faith from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

"Faith is certain. It is more certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very word of God who cannot lie. To be sure, revealed truths can seem obscure to human reason and experience, but "the certainty that the divine light gives is greater than that which the light of natural reason gives." ‘Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.’ "

"Faith is certain." As I have written in another post, faith differs from knowledge but that does not mean it is not certain. After all, we believe that having faith involves accepting God's word as truth. It seems to me that any Christian who is in a "constant anguish" over grace is not living in faith; he or she has not accepted God at his word. Faith should lead us to a quiet confidence in God's providence in our lives and in his mercy when our days on earth are over, it should not lead us to become emotional wrecks.

I do not mean to say that because President Bush is a Christian that plays any part in his absolute certainty about the war. I do say that the President's faith should inform his decision-making decisions about the war. I would say that if President Bush is not confident that he is taking the right approach to the Iraq situation, then the country is in deep trouble. However, his confidence should not come about because of his faith in God but because of his confidence that he has a clear understanding of the situation and that what he is doing is right. In times like this we do not want a neurotic, angst-ridden President, no matter what his religious belief.

Lord, Liar, Lunatic
There appears to be some discussion going on around blogdom concerning the argument advanced in proof of Jesus's divinity: "If Jesus was not who he claimed to be, he was either a liar or lunatic of the first order." As far as I know this argument has been advanced by many apologists including C. S. Lewis.

On thinking about this line of reasoning it appears to me that it is equivalent to those statements made by many modern, sophisticated, and educated Catholics who are troubled by the idea of miracles. In their concern they make great efforts to explain them away. You have all heard the statement: "Well, when Jesus fed the 5,000, you know, really, they all had fish sandwichs with them (all having just stopped at McDonalds' before the rally.), he didn't really multiply the loaves as it says there."

We desperately want to explain things, to reduce them to terms we can understand.

In Fides et Ratio #9, our Holy Father tells us where the fallacy of this thinking lies:

The First Vatican Council teaches, then, that the truth attained by philosophy and the truth of Revelation are neither identical nor mutually exclusive: “There exists a twofold order of knowledge, distinct not only as regards their source, but also as regards their object. With regard to the source, because we know in one by natural reason, in the other by divine faith. With regard to the object, because besides those things which natural reason can attain, there are proposed for our belief mysteries hidden in God which, unless they are divinely revealed, cannot be known”. Based upon God's testimony and enjoying the supernatural assistance of grace, faith is of an order other than philosophical knowledge which depends upon sense perception and experience and which advances by the light of the intellect alone. Philosophy and the sciences function within the order of natural reason; while faith, enlightened and guided by the Spirit, recognizes in the message of salvation the “fullness of grace and truth” (cf. Jn 1:14) which God has willed to reveal in history and definitively through his Son, Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Jn 5:9; Jn 5:31-32)."

As human beings we have the ability to reason and to love -- to make choices. There are, however, things that cannot be known by human reason. God through Scripture and Tradition has revealed these things to us. To try to conflate the two types of reason, or to try to deny one or the other type, is to reduce our humanity. There comes a point at which we must agree with the sentiment expressed on the old bumper sticker: "God said it, I believe it, that settles it." We have to choose to believe or not to believe.

When we give a very practical explanation as "proof" of something in Scripture we are, in effect, denying the necessity of faith. There are some things that we cannot explain or make sense of. All of Christianity hinges on one miracle, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Try to explain that one in nice, neat, scientific terms. And if we try to deny the "lesser" miracles, how can we accept the "greatest" miracle?

Also, if we say that something in Scripture is not true, say that Jesus did not multiply the loaves and fishes but the crowd brought all that stuff with them, what do we finally accept as true? The Bible says Jesus performed a miracle, it does not say the crowed brought the groceries. The Bible says that Jesus suffered, died, and was buried and that he rose on the third day. Do we question that?

As an apologist it is tempting to try to explain, and reduce, the faith for the uninitiated. We fall into the trap of thinking that we have to tie it up for our brother or sister into a nice neat package and say, "See, it all really makes sense after all." To do this, though, is simply to do a disservice to the one being evangelized. At some point the unexplainable must be faced, the leap of faith must be made, otherwise there will never be faith. Christianity, in that case, becomes another intellectual adventure, pablum for the mind.

Just War

Tom, over at Disputations, has posted a quote from Peter Nixon's blog which reads as follows:

"That we can even speak seriously of the concept of a "just war" should remind us that we are the reason that Christ was crucified. Ever bullet, every bomb, every death is one more nail in His hand, one more spear in His side, one more thorn on His brow. If a Christian has a duty to pick up the sword, then let it be a grim duty, and when it is done let us clothe ourselves in sackcloth and ashes and repent of what we have made of the world God has given us."

In response I would like to post the following quotes from a couple of our Islamic brothers:

"If one allows the infidels to continue playing their role of corrupters on earth, their eventual moral punishment will be all the stronger. Thus, if we kill the infidels in order to put a stop to their activities, we have indeed done them a service.... To kill them is a surgical operation commanded by Allah the Creator... Those who follow the rules of the Koran are aware that we have to apply the laws of retribution and that we have to kill.... War is a blessing for the world and for every nation. It is Allah himself who commands men to wage war and to kill. The Koran commands: "Wage war until all corruption and all disobedience are wiped out!"
Ayatolla Khomeni

"What worries me is this: One would have thought that the rapidity with which the FBI cracked the World Trade Center bombing case would have sent a powerful message to terrorists that the United States is a tough place to operate in. Rather, it has done the opposite. The people arrested last week used it as an excuse to carry an even more audacious terrorist campaign. They have gone from killing a handful of people at the World Trade Center to contemplating mass wanton murder, such as the destruction of two tunnels. One can only shudder to think what the next group is going to contemplate."
Interview with Bruce Hoffman Director of Strategy,
Rand Institute
International Herald Tribune June 28, 1993

"We must reject democracy in favor of Islam, which is the unique political system worked out by the Almighty ... Our march has just begun and Islam will end up conquering Europe and America.... For Islam is the only salvation left for this world in despair."
Sheikb Saeed Shaban Leader of the Sunni majority in Tripoli, Lebanon

We American Christians seem to have arrived at the conclusion that to fight for what we believe is somehow sinful. We seem to think that if we are challenged it is automatically against God’s will that we respond to the challenge. We want to be nice. The rest of the world has the advantage over us in this regard -- they are not afraid to fight and kill for what they believe in. They know full well that if there is nothing worth dying for, there is nothing much worth living for. I agree that we must make even this response out of love, as C.S. Lewis said it may be necessary to pray for your enemy while you are killing him. But it seems clear that the response must be made – unless, of course, we are all willing to convert to Islam at the point of the sword.

Blogdom

I wonder if there is an epidemic in blogdom. Steven at Flos Carmeli and then
Robert at Classic Catholic have both remarked about the lack of comments they are receiving. The same thought has crossed my mind. Are we experiencing the general "malaise" Jimmy Carter once spoke about?

On the Journey - II

Craig has posted a comment about his journey and made a couple of good points. I am a little surprised at his description of the “worship experience” at one or more Catholic parish he has attended, but still good comments.

He writes:
"My visits to Catholic parishes (aside from touristing in famous European cathedrals) have been a trip into kum-ba-yah land, with sixties-modern architecture, folkie music, and lots of Euro-leftist "social justice" talk from the pulpit that frankly inspires nausea in a conservative like myself. As far as I can tell, they aren't teaching heresies from the Catholic faith, but what I hear there doesn't inspire me to reverence. On the theory that "by their fruits ye shall know them", all this tends to make me doubt."

Except for the architecture, I didn't know there was much of this silliness left in the land and it saddens me to hear that there may be. Craig is right to be put off by it. My conversion to Catholicism was instigated by a preacher who had lost sight of God in favor of 'sixties 'feel-good" religion. The question my wife asked after one of these sermons was "Would we be willing to die for this kind of faith?" The answer was no. I think if our first experience at Mass had been as Craig described we would never have gone any further in our conversion process. That too would not be worth dying for. But then again, it would not be Catholic. Craig, or any one of us, would be right to reject it out of hand. However, I do believe (or hope) these parishes in which the focus is not on Jesus Christ and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass but rather on the "community" are becoming fewer and farther between. I encourage Craig to try to find an orthodox Catholic parish before making a final judgment about the Church.

I said in my last post on this topic, that Protestantism tends toward emotionalism. Craig correctly points out that there is considerable intellectual activity, at times perhaps too much, that is also part of Protestantism. The point I was trying to make is that there is an emphasis on feelings that tends to be part of the typical Protestant worship experience. There is a different spirituality here than in the Church and this is not all bad. Catholics tend to go to the opposite extreme and try to avoid all emotion; in fact they tend to distrust emotion at worship or at prayer. It would be good to have the two extremes meet somewhere in the middle.

Craig also says that he doesn't feel called to the Church because he sees no sign, “intellectual or emotional, that the Church possesses the fullness of truth”. Of course, in the end there is nothing that I am aware of that can guarantee us that the Church does indeed possess the fullness of truth. If there were such a thing our trust in the Church as the Body of Christ would be a matter of knowledge, not of faith.

Unless, that is, there is some basis to believe the Church is right when she proclaims that she has the fullness of truth. This was a central issue for me in my conversion and the way I approached it was to follow the famous maxim of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes said that if there were several theories of the “crime” in order to solve it one had to eliminate those theories that were impossible and the truth was likely to be whatever was left. My conversion process began when I realized there was a flaw in Protestant Christianity, which is that there is no magisterium, no central teaching authority. It is possible to say definitively what the Church teaches on any particular aspect of the Christian faith, just look in the Catechism. This is impossible on the Protestant side. To see what the Protestant view is on any particular aspect of the Christian faith you must ask each church, sometimes each Protestant. Sometimes congregations within the same denomination will not believe the same thing on any given subject. There is no single Protestant teaching on, say, baptism, communion, even salvation; the field is terribly fractured. Even the long-established, main line, Protestant denominations have abandoned their traditional Confessions of Faith in favor of the latest social fetishes, including homosexual ordination, the results of which are plaguing the Church right now. Truth is subject to a vote and, I believe, to act as if it were, is a logical impossibility. Truth is neither a function of time or of public opinion. Jesus is the Truth and he cannot be divided, there is One Truth. That leaves us with a few possibilities, the Mormons, the Jehovah Witnesses, the Muslims or other eastern religions, or the Catholic Church.

As I write all of this it comes to me that perhaps one possible “sign” that the Church has the fullness of truth is the Catechism. There is nothing comparable on the Protestant side and if there were it would not be binding. Individual Catholic parishes may go off in their own direction but when they do they are no longer Catholic; their actions do nothing to change the teaching of the Church. These activities are merely symptoms of the individual failings of sinful individuals. When Protestants do that they do influence the belief of the individual congregation, there is no safeguard of truth to which anyone can appeal, nothing like the Catechism exists for Protestants.

Nihil Obstat

I have received my first notice on the site of the official St. Blog’s proofreader - Nihil Obstat. Said blogger has pointed out "5 Hiccups on the 7 Habitus" which, with one possible exception constitute silly spelling and/or typographical errors made by yours truly.

I have made it clear here that my primary purpose in doing this blog is to learn to write and to do so by regularly doing posts for this blog. The idea is that this effort will help me discipline myself to write regularly and will constitute a sort of writing practice. I think I have become more enthralled with the practice than with the writing.

So I think Nihil Obstat performs a valuable service both for those of us who are regular bloggers and for you the reader. One of the things I have already learned here is that writing is hard work and the technicalities involved are somewhat intimidating to me. It's not all glamour, fame and fortune. But you, the reader of this blog, deserve the best I can give you. Due to certain deficiencies in character and mental ability that may not always be up to the level of a high school sophomore, but you at least deserve to have me make the effort. So that means posts should be proofread for correct spelling and proper grammar. It means they should make at least some sense and be on topics of at least some importance and interest to you, the reader. It means they should be as in accordance with Truth and Church teaching as I can make them. And we can all be thankful that when I fail there is Nihil Obstat looking over my shoulder.

Nunc Dimitis

I have promised myself that I would not delete a blog once it is posted here. This promise has created a problem for me because there are already a few posts that I would like to revise and/or correct. It seems that re-posting the revisions could easily become quite cumbersome, even confusing, after a while. The solution I have hit upon is to create a "back up" blog to which I could post the revised posts from this site. Thus Nunc Dimitis is born. There is no need to regularly visit Nunc Dimitis unless you are overcome by curiosity as to what I might be revising or correcting from this site. If you do feel such a need it is there.

Purpose

One of the reasons I thought to begin this blog was to work out certain ideas I had concerning the practical application of the virtues. To date I have hardly approached the topic so this is a first, feeble attempt to do so.

Virtue is an idea that has practically disappeared from our lives these days. Yet, many very popular books, best sellers, especially in the area of "time-management" rely heavily on what might be termed the practical application of the virtues. They will explicitly deny any religious foundation to what they teach and yet their ideas would certainly be familiar to St. Thomas Aquinas and many others prominent in Christian Tradition. I would suggest, though, that because of their secular orientation that these books are flawed.

I would suggest that these books fail because their emphasis is focused on helping the individual achieve worldly success. Success seems, to most of these folks, to be defined in terms of the person achieving his worldly goals and objectives: successful career, lots of toys, and eternal youth. To the Catholic mind this is putting the focus on matters of secondary importance.

The two facts that have been lost today are that 1) everything that exists exists because God created it and, 2) God created everyone and everything for a purpose. God acted with purpose and created us to do so also. The central purpose God has for our life is that when we shuffle off this mortal coil we spend the rest of our eternal life with him in heaven. He intends each of us to enjoy eternal beatitude with Him. Any attempt to define success as anything other than achieving this goal is futile, at best. This is so because it involves building our lives on the wrong premise. The focus found in the "success" books is on the human person, not the human person's creator. God is not required.

Religious faith, of almost any kind but certainly of the Christian variety has been almost eliminated from the public mind. It is no longer the central, defining theme of many, if not most American's lives. It is not even considered a subject for polite discussion in many circles. Yet, I think it fairly obvious to the Catholics among us that Christian teaching on the nature of man and God's creative action is the only possible source of real meaning and purpose for our lives. We don't define our own purposes, but we do define how we work out God's purpose for our lives. The focus on planners and calendars and PDAs to help us achieve our own selfish goals will never lead to personal "success". Only orienting our lives to achieve God's purpose will lead us to true human success. This certainly involves planning and consideration on our part, but If we do not keep in mind that our purpose is to fulfill God's will for our lives our planning and goal setting will be futile.

One question that I think most Modern, scientific materialist Americans would ask at this point is, "what makes you think this is true?" Many of the most educated Americans would say that human beings are the product of an evolutionary accident, that there is no real purpose in life other than obtaining the greatest degree of "personal fulfillment" and that when we die that is the end of the joyride (if you doubt this, please review this week's Publisher's Weekly Top 10 hardcover non-fiction best sellers listing). But there is a contradiction to be found here; they will say this and yet spend all kinds of money and effort to set themselves goals and define the purpose of their lives. We humans intuitively know that without purpose and direction we become frustrated, even neurotic, but we deceive ourselves as to where that purpose can be found. We are too proud to submit ourselves to God's will. This is why St. Francis was able to say that the second death is easy, the first, dying to self, is the hardest.

So, you are asking, where does the concept of virtue fit into all of this? That will be discussed in posts to follow. So, we have the famous "To be continued."


© 2003 Ronald L. Moffat

On the Journey

I have not posted much this week. Between a heavy workload and the near blizzard conditions here in "the Springs" the week has gotten away from me.

Steven at Flos Carmeli has pointed me to the blog of a gentleman who is discerning (I think) his Christian faith and the form that faith should take. Craig (the gentleman in question) has written several perceptive posts that give a picture of one on the journey from, perhaps a very weak faith, to a growing and increasingly discerning faith. I would like to elaborate my own reactions to some of the things he has written and I encourage you to visit his site and read these posts yourself.

Craig is not Catholic but is not, I would say, anti-Catholic either. So it might be interesting to try to elucidate the Catholic position on some of his musings.

Now I have to decide how we know what we know about the faith, and what that implies; whether there are zero sacraments, two, or seven; what constitutes a "legitimate" church, and so on.

The Catechism says this about faith

#(155). "In FAITH, the human intellect and will co-operate with divine grace: 'Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace.'[St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II, 2, 9; cf Dei Filius 3; DS 3010.]"

The point being here is that faith involves both the intellect and will cooperating with God. It is not something we achieve through our own efforts. The way we cooperate with God is to know his will and we know that through one or both of two sources, first Scripture then Tradition. The Church believes that these two sources constitute God's revelation of himself; we take God at his word and accept his teaching. This is the virtue of faith.

Scripture is not, in itself, all we need to have to know God's plan for our lives. It should be clear from the myriad of Protestant denominations today that "sola scriptura" at best leads to chaos. How can there be even 20,000 Protestant denominations as varied as say the Presbyterians to the Jehovah's Witnesses, each asserting in the strongest possible terms that they have only the Bible as their source of truth in matters of faith and morals? The Bible does not teach confusion, nor does it teach multiple truths, there is no such thing. It would seem to follow that there must be some other authority, the Church believes this authority is the Holy Spirit, to guarantee that what is written in the Bible is interpreted properly.

If all of this is true then we can decide "what we know about the faith" by studying both Scripture and Tradition. This is, I think, a synopsis of the Catholic position on faith and what we know to be true.

Craig goes on to make an interesting point:

"Now, I have learned a lot just through the rest of the blogosphere; a majority of the Christian bloggers are Catholic, or so it seems, and they explain their faith better than the official channels in my opinion. But I don't feel any particular call to be Catholic, and I am distinctly an outsider reading their posts. There's a wide cultural divide between Catholics and Protestants even on the Internet, and the Catholics are feeling embattled these days for obvious reasons."

He notices that Catholics, at least some of those of us who are making the feeble effort to blog, seem to have at least some idea of what the faith is. This is the core of the cultural difference between Protestantism and Catholicism -- as a Protestant it is not crucial what exactly the individual believes. In fact, in most cases the Protestant will not be able to clearly state a basis for his faith other than that he believes Jesus Christ to be his personal Lord and Savior and that the Bible is God's word and his only authority for matters of faith. Now this is a very good start but when you get down to it it's pretty thing gruel. It is sufficient for most Protestants (this is not universally true, obviously) because Protestant spirituality tends to be based more on emotion and excitement than Catholicism. This is, I think, at least part of the basis for the cultural divide that he so correctly describes.

However, Craig says he feels no call to be Catholic. He says he feels an outsider when reading Catholic blogs. I know what he means. When I was a Presbyterian and first looking into the Catholic Church it all seemed incredibly impenetrable to me. How could one ever learn all that one had to know just to be comfortable attending Mass? This feeling of separation gradually disappeared as I made the effort to learn what the Church was all about. This, I think, is a common experience for all who first come into contact with the Church. I would urge Craig, first of all, to be Christian. If he is open to the Spirit working, as the Catechism calls for, in his life and if it is the Spirit's will for him to come into the Church eventually then it will happen. The key point is that first step, the rest will fall into place.

One final point. Craig seems to perceive that most Catholics feel embattled because of the recent scandals in the Church. I do not believe this is at all true, at least among Orthodox Catholics. I think we recognize that the scandals are a prime example of the consequences of ignoring the long-held teachings of the Church in matters of human sexuality and reproduction. It is an almost inevitable consequence of the open dissent that has become so widespread in the Church in the last 20-30 years. I think we also recognize that these priests are sinners, as we all are, and we pray that they will repent of what they have done. I don't think any of us would want any of these priests to resume their priestly ministry ever, but I think we all pray for their reconciliation to the Church, which is open to all Catholics who have strayed. We may be disgusted but we are not, I think, embattled.

Travels with Charley

I just finished rereading John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley in Search of America. The book is a description of a trip Steinbeck took across America and back again in a pick up truck equipped with a camper. His French Poodle Charley was his only companion. This, I think, is the the third or fourth time I have read the book, the first time being when the it was first published in 1962 or '63.

At that time I was a kid living in Detroit attending high school and I was reading a book written by a man considerably older than myself; it was also a book that described a country I was familiar with.

Reading Travels with Charley now I am a man about the age Steinbeck was in 1960 and I am reading about an America that no longer exists. I am struck by the paradox. Steinbeck, in the pages of his book, is no older than he was 41 years ago, I have gone from a boy of 15 or 16 to a man approaching (at least in a couple more years) the age Steinbeck was when he wrote the book.

When I first read the book I thought it would be wonderful to have an adventure like that and, until this last reading, I think that idea never left me. When I read it now I wonder how in the world he could possibly have done it. Age is not always kind, if not to spirit, at least to body. The idea of spending three or four months couped up in the cab of a 1960 pickup truck is almost more than I can bear. I currently have a fairly new pick up truck with all the luxuries and creature comforts that can be put into a truck and I don't think I would contemplate a trip of more than 1 or 2 days journey from Colorado Springs. Pick up trucks in 1960 were work vehicles and primitive by any current standard, I marvel at his stamina and endurance.

But, if age is not always kind to body perhaps it compensates for it with kindness to spirit. I have seen many parts of the world from the North American continent, east to west, north to south, to Asia and at least parts of Europe. I guess some would say I have traveled widely and I would say that for a great part of my life I travelled joyfully. I don't regret all the travelling I have done. In fact, I have benefited greatly from my travels -- I now know I no longer need to travel. My desires have simplified.

I think one of the objectives I had when I traveled, even when I was in the military was not so much to see places but to see people and to get an idea for how they lived their lives. It was a restless curiosity that I could not then, nor can I now, explain. Yet, because of it I have come to see that whether they are Vietnamese, Koreans, Austrailians, French, Scottish or Saudis or Mexicans, while the particulars may vary, the essentials do not. Each is capable of great dignity and each is capable of great mischief. My task now is to understand how I am called to live out my life unaided by foreign example. I am called to do that wherever I am located. It seems that travel is now unnecessary, if not disruptive of the process. The value that travel has had for me is that I have come to see that the lessons to be learned are learned here, wherever I am, because that is where God can be found. It is, I think, one of life's important lessons and I think it is a lesson that Steinbeck did not learn from his journey.

The Joy of St. Francis

The joy of St. Francis does not stem from the fact that he loved animals; the joy of St. Francis stems from the fact that he loved the Gospel of John. In his constant immersion in and love of that Gospel St. Francis learned the every created thing comes from God. He saw everything in creation as a pure, gracious gift from a loving Creator. Thus, everything in creation was to be treasured, not for itself, but for its Divine Providence. Yet there was a second, and more important, lesson that St. Francis learned from the Gospel of John. From John St. Francis learned that everything was destined to return to God. This, for Francis, gave everything meaning and purpose. It gave him an even greater reason to treasure not only the beauty of creation, but also the final dignity of every human person. He saw, simply and clearly, that through His Son, Jesus Christ, it was God's purpose to draw everyone and everything to Himself. That vision inspired the tremendous joy that St. Francis is known for.

IN MEMORIUM - STS 107

High Flight

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds-and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of-wheeled and soared and
swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark, or even eagle, flew;
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.


John Gillespie McGee

The Bishop's Problem

Catholic World News Service reported the following today:

WASHINGTON, DC, Jan 31, 03 (CWNews.com) - A judge in Washington declined to sentence three gay activists for disrupting a meeting of the US bishops' conference last November, saying that the Church had done "tremendous violence" to them by denying them the Eucharist.
The three activists from the group Soulforce said they went to hotel in the District of Columbia where the bishops were meeting on November 12 to demand that they be given Communion and an explanation of why they were refused Communion the day before during Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. They were arrested for refusing to leave the private building.

In the nonjury trial, Judge Mildred Edwards, who identified herself as Catholic, agreed that the activists had broken the law by refusing to leave the hotel's lobby when requested by police and hotel officials. Although prosecutors had requested a sentence of time served-- the 30 hours they spend in jail-- Edwards said even that sentence was too harsh and did something she said hadn't done in 15 years on the bench: she dispensed with a sentence.

"Tremendous violence was done to you . . . when the Body of Christ was denied to you," Edwards said, referring to the contention of the three that refusal of Communion had prompted their actions. "As a member of your Church, I ask you to forgive the Church."

A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Washington said the three activists were denied the Eucharist at the November 11 Mass because they were misidentified as members of the Rainbow Sash movement, a group of gay activists who had said they were planning to receive Communion as a form of protest against the Church's teaching on homosexuality. "The Eucharist is the core of our faith and a sign of our unity," spokesman Susan Gibbs said. "It is very rare to deny Communion, but since it was publicly announced it would be a protest and not a sign of faith, the Rainbow Sash group was denied the sacrament."

All three defendants, Ken Einhaus of Arlington, Virginia, Mike Perez of Seattle, and Kara Speltz of Oakland, California, said they were emotionally shattered by the refusal of Communion at Mass and went to the hotel to "find healing among the people who caused me so much suffering," Einhaus said. Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit flew into Washington to testify on their behalf.

Now there are a number of points that could be made about this action by Judge Mildred Edwards and over the next day or so I will probably end up saying them. But can anyone explain to me why a BISHOP would fly from Detroit to Washington to testify on behalf of the three offenders? How clueless can you get???

Deleting Blogs

A week or two ago I made a sincere attempt to delete a couple of blog postings I had just done. I deleted them twice and each time they appeared to be gone. Each time they reappeared for no reason I can determine. The reason I wanted to delete them is that they were such twaddle I was ashamed of having written them. I have since convinced myself that for some reason the Holy Spirit is working to keep those blogs in place, so they will stay. I don't necessarily, however, have to point them out and draw your attention to them. The reside in well deserved obscurity.

Karen Marie Knapp did a post a few days ago on this very topic which I thought was quite insightful. One passage I would like to quote:

But embarrassment never killed anyone; actually it liberates in the long term. It's secrets that bind and kill.

I think I would phrase this a little differently, but I wish I had written it. As you may have guessed, I am stuck on the idea that what we are missing most in our culture today is truth. Thus, I might have said that it is the truth that sets us free and lies that bind and kill us. It would have been a denial of reality, a lie, to have deleted those blogs. As Ms. Knapp said (sort of) elsewhere in her post, I wrote the damn things so I might as well live with having done so.

On my trip to Alaska I came face to face with this issue on a bit larger scale. I happened to have the opportunity to meet with a Dept of Defense photographer and, since we had some time, he took to showing me all the newest and latest gadgets that he gets to work with in the course of his labors. The gear looked somewhat familiar to me but then I realized that he was holding a digital camera and that his "film" would be processed and the shots printed on a computer. Being a mid-twentieth century kind of guy I was duly impressed and amazed. That is until he started telling me how this new fangeled gear had changed the way he works.

You see, the problem is that with digital photography you can no longer be certain that what is printed out as a photograph is indeed the subject that was photographed. There are so many ways that pictures can be digitally edited and enhanced that there is no way to ensure that the photographs represent the reality of the event. This is a huge problem for our Government and they are having to institute all kinds of procedures and measures to ensure that the photograph are reliable. But he was smart enough to know that they weren't really enough. He said, "It all comes down to the integrity of the photographer."

Isn't that kind of the problem we all face these days? It is so easy to abandon reality that we are no longer sure there is any such thing as reality. If we take a picture and we don't like all the gray hair and wrinkles we just push a button and "delete" them. There we have a picture of ourselves that looks great, but we deceive ourselves if we think that we have changed the reality of our being.

In the same way, we can delete a blog post, but the reality is that our stupidity was there, at least for a while for all to see. On the other hand, maybe I'll buy a digital camera.

Welcome Bishop Sheridan

Today the Diocese of Colorado Springs has a new bishop, Bishop Michael Sheridan succeeds Bishop Richard Hanifan who is retiring. We forward our best wishes to Bishop Hanifan and offer a warm welcome to Bishop Sheridan.

Dissent - Final Word
I would like to do another short post to summarize my previous two posts regarding dissent in the Church. I'm doing this because I thought that, between my two previous posts, there might be some confusion as to what I was saying. I think this will be the last one on this topic.

First, I view dissent as the willful not acceptance of Church teaching in matters of faith and morals. It is an active disregard of God's will as expressed through the constant and clearly defined dogma of the Church. (Sen John Kerry yesterday gave a perfect example of this when he said that he could not be bound by Church teaching in his political career. He reasoning is that he, as President, would represent a broad range of Americans, many of whom are not Catholic. Enough said.)

This dissent can take many forms, the most common being that which arises from ignorance of true Church teaching. Many people will openly state that they do not agree with Church teaching on abortion or adultery or contraception who have no real idea what these teachings are. The reason I call this dissent is that they make no effort, in fact, they have no interest in learning the truth, they simply persist in their ignorance year after year. This form of dissent is due, I think mainly, to poor catechesis. That is, catechesis that was insufficient either due to the ignorance of the instructor or the willful dissent of the instructors themselves.

Then there is the more active version of dissent in which the subject knows precisely what the teaching of the Church is in the areas in question and willfully refuses to accept them. Think certain prominent politicians who support issues which are inimical to Church teaching and yet continue to proclaim themselves Catholic. I sometimes think, especially in light of the recent scandals in the Church that these prominent public personalities do more to affect the teaching of the Church, and the conduct of the faithful, than the bishops do. I might point out, their teaching is not for the good of the Church.

Neither of these versions of dissent is to be confused with simple and honest misunderstanding of Church doctrine. I have been accused, in a comment below, of picking on RCIA students. Nothing could be farther from the truth and if anything I have written gives that impression I hereby withdraw it. None of us who have gone through the RCIA process could ever hold that someone new to the Church would come in knowing and accepting everything there is to know. That is simply impossible; I know it was not true in my own case. What I do say is that, whether an RCIA student or a cradle Catholic, we all have an obligation to honestly seek the truth, where ever that leads us. We are on a journey to union with God and that journey necessarily involves personal and spiritual growth. Anyone honestly engaged in this process is not in dissent from the Church.

I do believe that anyone who is thinking of coming into the Church who is not willing to study, pray about and seek Gods grace in understanding the difficult doctrines of the faith should think twice before taking the final step of accepting the sacraments of the Church. I believe that anyone in the Church, say for example, the Governor of California, should think carefully about taking Communion if they are not willing to accept the Church's teaching on such issues as abortion. It is this kind of close minded obstinence that I think is contrary to God's will for our lives.

I hope this is an adequate summary of what I have written in my two previous posts on the subject of dissent.

Dissent - II
Steven, at Flos Carmeli, has written an excellent post that describes at least one aspect of the process of adult initiation into the Church.

I think all of us who have converted and come into the Church have not come in with complete understanding and acceptance of all the Church teaches. Who of us in the Church today can claim to be in that position? I share the experience of Steven that as I came into the Church I had difficulties. However, as John Henry Newman wrote: ten thousand difficulties do not make a single doubt. But those who come into the Church honestly willing to admit our failings and willing to make the effort to understand what the Church's position is on any given issue is an honest seeking after the truth. I do not consider this to be dissent from Church teaching.

I consider dissent to be present in the case of someone who says, in effect, "I know what the Church's teaching is on this issue, I do not accept it and I never will accept it. Furthermore, I will do my best to make sure everyone I come into contact with knows how I feel on this issue." This is an attitude of rejection of the truth, a rejection of Christ. Anyone who is an adult and holds this position and is thinking of coming into the Church, in my opinion, should delay his or her reception of the sacraments. These folks are not in communion with the Church and would put their eternal destinies in serious jeopardy by accepting the Eucharist. Again, to use a more mundane example, would you join the Kiwanis Club if you rejected all or part of what the Kiwanis Club stood for? If not, then why would you join the Catholic Church under similar circumstances?

I think this is the point made so forcefully by Bishop Weigand of Sacramento last week in the case of Grey Davis. Here is a governor of a large state who holds himself out to be Catholic and yet rejects Church teachings that are central to its understanding of how we as human beings are to live. This, it seems to me, is an intolerable situation, both for the Church and for the governor. It is open, outright, dissent. And this is exactly the type of thing I am referring to when I speak of dissent.

This type of dissent is also practiced by catechists (commonly, I might add) who know well Church teaching, reject it, and teach their own view to their hapless students.

Steven describes an honest, open search for the truth, and even if he felt at the time that he was in a dissenting situation I do not believe he was. The difference is that he was willing to be lead by God's grace and the work of the Holy Spirit to the Truth. You can't ask more than that of anyone.

A final note. All of the above having been said, those who are in a position of dissent are still children of God. They must be treated in every way as a human person, worthy of respect, created in the image and likeness of God. We should pray for them, argue with them, love them. Where we see what we believe to be error we should point it out to them, forcefully if necessary, but do so as Christ would do so.

Dissent
Steven over at Flos Carmeli has posted a comment on a post by Tom at Disputations and I feel the need to put in my two cents worth.

Steven is correct when he says that we should always treat those who proclaim themselves to be in dissent with civility, in short we should treat all with charity. These folks are not our enemies and very often they are operating out of sincere, but confused, motives. Yet there is a problem that is common among most of those who proclaim themselves in disagreement with Church teachings. That is a lack of real understanding of not only what those teachings are but why there are what they are. They simply have not been taught what the Church believes.

Since coming into the Church nearly 8 years ago I have noticed the almost incredibly poor quality of catechesis available to most Catholics. As a result, most people in the pews simply do not understand their faith. It's little wonder that they don't believe that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist; they don't believe the Church's teaching on abortion and contraception, and so on. For most of them it is not their fault, they have been taught that there is little, if anything, of any substance to understand and believe.

But, in the case of some of these folks their ignorance is intentional, they want things to be as they want them and nothing will change that. The young lady at Not for Sheep has more or less stated this outright. This is a serious error. It usually results from a willful decision not to teach the true teaching of the Church but to teach one’s own view of what they want that teaching to be. I know that I sat in classes during and shortly after my journey into the Church in which this was the case. This is, at best, a serious disservice to the Catechumen; it deprives them of the opportunity to truly understand what they are committing themselves to by becoming Catholic.

I think all of us, to the extent that we are able, have a duty to explore the depths of our faith. After all, every Sunday we profess our faith and acceptance of all that the Church teaches. To come to Communion while not accepting Church teaching is a serious problem.

We also have an obligation, in love and with respect, where we think we see others either in dissent from or confused about Church teaching to point out the difficulty and try to suggest the correct teaching. We should always try to do this with honey but there may be times when a 2x4 is required. Their eternal destiny may be at stake.

Technical Assistance

I was wondering if someone could tell me how to link, within a post, to a post in another blog and or to my own blog?

I'm gradually learning some of this stuff but have not cracked the code on this particular procedure. I would appreciate any help.


Paz y bien

Doubts
When I taught RCIA I faced a common question. The question typically came from folks who were coming into the Church but were either new to Christian belief or had not been seriously committed to the faith in the past. The question they had arose generally after a period of spiritual growth and after they had developed a desire to go more deeply into their new found faith. They were troubled because they had assumed that as they become more "religious" doubts or questions about their faith would disappear. Of course, it didn't. I would point out to them that if their belief in Jesus Christ amounted to an absolute certainty it would not be faith, it would be knowledge.

Cardinal Ratzinger points out in his Introduction to Christianity that these doubts are common among believers in moments of temptation. He also points out that similar doubts are also common among unbelievers. He writes:
". . . the non-believer is troubled by doubts about his unbelief, about the real totality of the world he has made up his mind to explain as a self-contained whole.. He can never be absolutely certain of the autonomy of what he has seen and interpreted as a whole, he remains threatened by the question whether belief is not after all the reality which it claims to be."

I have a license plate from on my truck that reads: "If you're living like there is no God, you'd better be right." Faith is a gamble, there is no such thing as certainty concerning the ultimate questions. Christians know that applies to them and they take up the challenge daily. I think they sometimes forget it doesn't apply only to them.

A Thank You

I would like to thank any and all of you who kept me in your prayers during my trip to Alaska. I was very conscious of your prayers. A trip that could have been very difficult and stressful was much easier than expected. I am grateful.

The Case of the Running Partridge

I have learned something in the process of trying to become a writer. I have learned that I can always find a ready source of inspiration for my musings. All I have to do is simply check on the activities of some of our prominent university professors.

Take for example Dr. Kenneth P. Dial. Dr. Dial is head of a biological flight laboratory at the University of Montana. Dr. Dial has spent a great deal of time and money, as reported by Newsweek magazine, studying the activities of young birds, members of the partridge, turkey, and quail family to be exact. The fruit of this effort is that Dr. Dial has learned that within days after hatching, these young birds, will use their tiny wings to assist them to climb steep slopes and trees to escape from predators. In essence, they use their wings to give them traction. Once these young birds have done this, it appears that they are not far from developing the ability to fly. So far, so good. We now know one mechanism used by young birds to escape predators and, at the same time, learn to fly. (By the way, pity the poor birds born in Kansas; Thanksgiving dinner for them.)

However, from this study, Dr. Dial has concluded that this is the same mechanism used by “feathered” dinosaurs to learn to fly (and by implication) in the process develop the evolutionary traits that lead to the modern birds we know and love. Dr. Dial draws his conclusion in very carefully phrased language, but it is there nonetheless.

I guess I’m one of the duller members of society. Can anyone tell me how the study of the process used by turkeys to escape predators and thereby learn to fly tells us anything about where the stupid turkey came from in the first place? How does Dr. Dial have any hope of establishing, in a truly scientific manner, that so called “feathered” dinosaurs did exactly the same thing. Even better, can anyone explain to me how learning to fly influenced the genetic makeup of their turkey off spring? I learned to fly and I hope and pray that none of my progeny will ever develop feathers and live in nests as a result.

My question to Dr. Dial concerning his dinosaur theory would be: “You were there?” Short of that, there is no hope of establishing any of this as fact; it is only another dose of modern scientific-materialist theology.

The sad thing is, that this study and these conclusions have been reported in a major national magazine as another bit of “scientific” proof for the theory of evolution. Even sadder, many people reading it will accept it as fact. The only thing I see here is wishful thinking. As G.K. Chesterton said, “The only thing we know for sure about the missing link, is that it is still missing.”

A Prayer of St. Francis

"Almighty, eternal, just, and merciful God, give to us wretches to do for you what we know you to will, and to will always that which is pleasing to you; so that inwardly purified, inwardly illumined and kindled by the flame of the Holy Spirit, we may be able to follow in the footsteps of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and by your grace alone come to you the Most High, who in perfect Trinity and simple Unity lives and reigns and glories God Almighty forever and ever. Amen."


This is one of my favorite prayers of St. Francis. This, to me, is St. Francis speaking, it is so simply stated. He knows who God is – Almighty, eternal, just and merciful. He also knows who we are -- “wretches”. I think when St. Francis says that though, he is speaking in true humility. He is acknowledging the simple truth of the matter, before God we are, indeed, wretches. But I think he also knows that we are destined to become God’s children, members of his adopted family. In light of this, his prayer is simply to do God’s will and to do it gladly and lovingly.

I will be praying and meditating on this prayer this week while I’m gone.

North to Alaska
I'll be heading north to Alaska tomorrow and won't be back til late Friday night. I ask you if you would pray for me on this trip. It will be difficult since I have to cover a lot of territory in a short time. I would greatly appreciate your prayers.

I am trying to get a post done to "time release" while I'm gone since I do not anticipate that I will have access to a computer, much less the internet during the trip. If this doesn't work my next post will likely be on the weekend.

In Christ

Stacey Question – Part II

I think the comment made to Stacey by her friend is telling in that it assumes that fiction will not be as good, as worthwhile to read, as non-fiction. I think we come to accept this idea almost out of hand these days because there is such a dearth of good fiction being written. This is true, I think, of both Catholic and non-Catholic writers. But, why should we make that assumption? Why should fiction be any less important to us, or of any less quality, than any other form of literature? Why should we expect any less of fiction writers than others?

Human beings have always told stories, either to convey their history, to entertain, to inform. Think of the Iliad, the Odyssey, the book of Genesis, the great poetry and literature of the last two or three thousand years. These are not factual, footnoted, research papers, -- they are art. All of this is very much a part of our cultural heritage. Where would we be without them?

Society today exalts our own knowledge, we only value what we can measure or quantify or verify in some way. I think this is a distorted view of the world. As Josef Pieper points out, if the only valid knowledge or learning is that which we acquire by our own effort then there is no such thing as objective truth, truth is limited to that knowledge which we acquire by our own effort. It eliminates the possibility of revelation, and cuts us off from a facet of our human existence.

The result is, I think, that we are not producing great works of art. This is true of literature, art and sculpture, all phases of creative effort. I can’t think of one really good writer of fiction working today. I think this is at least partly attributable to the scientific-materialistic bent of the culture in which we live.

One of the goals I have set for myself this year is to read more fiction and poetry because in recent years I too have fallen into the trap of reading only non-fiction. I will be taking a business trip this week and hope to read two books while traveling; one is Ron Hansen’s Mariette in Ecstacy, (sp??) the other is Joel Rosenburg’s The Last Jihad. I’ll let you know how it goes. I wonder if anyone would like to suggest other books that have been written, say, in the last 40-50 years (fiction or poetry) that they consider worthwhile reading?

Stacey posted a question in the Catholic Writers Association chat group which reads as follows:

“I recently read a book. The author is a Catholic, who, based on credentials, I would assume to be reasonably orthodox in belief. (Yes, I'm being deliberately vague.) Frankly, I disliked the book very much, but I'm wondering how other writers feel about a few issues that were raised in my mind regarding the book. It is a work of fiction (and one of my friends informed me that "that's what you get when you read fiction" and perhaps she's right), so it's not like I would have the same expectations of it as I would of a non-fiction book, but having read a fair amount of Catholic fiction, I was surprised at this book. Ordinarily, I quite enjoy good Catholic fiction. The Red Hat, for example, I thought was a wonderful book, and I've thoroughly enjoyed all of Michael O'Brien's books, so I was really looking forward to this particular book and was terribly disappointed.

One concern that I had would be over "colorful" language. I'm sure that the author felt that it was "in character," but I found the taking of the Lord's name in vain to be disturbing. I would have been bothered much less by other sorts of vulgarities, which were much less frequent.

The other concern was the conclusion that was arrived at by the protagonist of the story. That character decided, at the end of the story, that Jesus matters because His message causes us to live good lives, but that if the story of the Resurrection is somewhat mythologized, that doesn't matter.

Obviously, such a conclusion is totally at odds with the truths of our faith, but I'm wondering if I am being naive in expecting an author who is represented as a faithful Catholic to have the characters of the book end up defending truth rather than giving a defense of heresy. Should I expect such a thing and be surprised when it doesn't happen, or is my friend correct in her "that's what you get when you read fiction"?”

Frank Sheed wrote that most Catholics go about their daily routine with no noticeable difference between their activities and those of their pagan neighbors. Their Christianity and Catholicism is nothing more than a patch on the same suit worn by all of their contemporaries. I think Stacey’s question highlights the problem in the world of modern literature. It sounds like the book that Stacey read is no different from so much popular fiction that is being written today. And from that perspective I don’t think that such a book can be called “Catholic”.

It seems to me that if a writer is writing from a Catholic-Christian perspective, that perspective will inform his or her writing. It will not, in the name of art, take the name of God in vain, since that is a violation of the 2nd commandment and at least borders on mortal sin. I also don’t think that it is Christian by any stretch of the imagination to portray Jesus as nothing more than a “nice guy” and the truth of his resurrection is anything more than a myth. This is New Age skepticism, not Christian faith and teaching.

As in any other area of life, if we proclaim ourselves to be Christians and Catholics and yet in our actions, or work or our art, do nothing that conforms to our beliefs, we are living a hopeless contradiction that we would tolerate in no other area of our lives. If we proclaimed ourselves to be Rock Ribbed Republicans and yet voted only for Democrat or Libertarian candidates and issues we would quickly see the inconsistency. If we claimed to be opposed to abortion and yet contributed large sums of money to Planned Parenthood I would hope that we would recognize the hypocrisy. How then, can a writer claim to be Catholic and not have his or her writing informed by her faith? Why do we accept the nonsensical in the area of our religious belief when we would accept it in no other area of our lives?

I don’t mean that a writer, or any artist, has to hit the reader over the head with his religion. J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis, among others, demonstrated beautifully that writing can be “Catholic” or “Christian” and still be quality literature. To be Catholic, I think, it should first of all be good. I think there is precious little being written today that qualifies. I think Stacey’s friend’s comment highlights this point as another aspect of the problem. I will continue this in another posting.

Headline in the Sunday Colorado Springs Gazette

Iguanas Threaten US Virgins

Gee, I didn't know there were any left.

Actually, I now have two rants and raves coming this weekend.

Keep in touch.

I have had a lapse in posts due to a suddenly overwhelming work schedule. Being an accountant and it being January, I guess I should have expected it.

I am reading two or three books at the moment, they are:

John Paul II - Fides et Ratio
Willa Cather - Death Comes for the Archbishop (This for variety in my reading and out of love of the Southwest)
Josef Pieper - Leisure the Basis of Culture (Fides et Ratio led me to this, indirectly anyway)

And in the midst of all of this I feel a rant and rave coming on, this on the basis of an article in Newseek on the web. Hope you'll stay tuned.

Paz y bien

Circulating on the Internet - With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person that lmost went un-noticed last week. Larry La Prise, the man who wrote "The Hokey Pokey" died peacefully at age 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in... and then the trouble started.

Beauty - For the past week or so there has been a lively discussion taking place on the pages of Flos Carmeli and Disputations on the nature of beauty. I have wanted to take part in this but, to be honest, did not believe I could contribute much, if anything to the discussion. I feel the topic is over my head, at least a bit. I'm sure the rest of this post will prove my point.

I do believe that there is such a thing as objective beauty. Things that bring us joy and uplift us can, I think, be called objectively beautiful. Beauty is joyful, true and enduring whether expressed in words, letters, paint or sculpture. The classics in literature are classics because they have endured, they have had something to say to many generations of men. The Old Masters are enduring, not because they are old but because they have something to tell all people something about themselves. Beauty brings joy because it tells us something true about ourselves. I think we sense this instinctively when we struggle to understand a difficult concept, say a math problem. After we have struggled long and hard and we finally "get-it" we get a little rush of excitement and satisfaction. I think that is one example of the type of joy that truth, and beauty, bring us.

So much of what is called "art" today is not meant to be true, or uplifting but merely shocking. It is created for no other reason and, a fearless prediction, it will not endure.

The problem I have is that there are elements of ourselves that treat beauty subjectively. I know that I certainly experience this. I like rock and roll music and especially the Beatles. But I don't believe that rock and roll can be considered objectively beautiful. Yet, I get some of the same rush listening to it as I get looking at a Rembrandt painting. I don't understand it.

In any case, this is only meant to be my own musings on the nature of beauty.

Faith and Reason -- I had lunch with Craig, my neighbor, today. Craig is an evangelical guy who is seriously devoted to Christ but he made a comment that is somewhat uncharacteristic for an evangelical guy to make. He said, “The Bible is not the source of truth.” (I’m quoting him from memory, which, in my case, is not as good as it used to be, so if I’m mistaken, and if he happens to read this, I hope he will correct me.) I guess I’m getting so accustomed to being a Catholic, having converted seven or eight years ago, that the comment didn’t register with me as anything unusual. Of course, he is right, but his comment got me thinking about the topic of some of the original posts on this blogsite – the relationship of truth and faith and the role our intellect plays in connection with our faith. This has brought me face to face with a task I had been deferring for a while but feel I can no longer put off, that is a study of our Holy Father’s encyclical – Fides et Ratio. And, of course, if I study it I’ll have to write about it. So perhaps this will be the first installment of a series on Faith and Reason.

Craig was right when he said the Bible is not the source of truth, God is the source of truth; God, in fact, is truth. The Bible is inspired by God, inerrant and the source of God’s revelation of himself to us, but on it’s own, it is not the source of truth. As John Paul II put it in his introduction to the encyclical Fides et Ratio “God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth” and gave us faith and our ability to reason to discern truth so that we could come know God and thereby come to know ourselves. The full introduction is probably worth repeating here to see the Holy Father’s line of reasoning
“Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves (cf. Ex 33:18; Ps 27:8-9; 63:2-3; Jn 14:8; 1 Jn 3:2).”
According to the Holy Father, we must come to know ourselves so that we can understand the reality of our human situation, so that we can know the world we live in and, again, ultimately come to an intimate knowledge of God himself. We are here to come to a fuller knowledge of the true meaning of our lives and to make that knowledge a part of, and a guide for, everything that we do. Without truth we are simply unable to function properly as human beings.
Now this may seem somewhat ethereal or pie in the sky, and to have nothing to do with live in modern society. But, if what John Paul II is saying is itself true, then this is the most practical activity we could engage in – it would improve our ability to do almost anything else because we would have a fuller understanding of reality. In other words, we would have a better roadmap to follow on the journey of our lives.
Stay tuned for further meditations on Fides et Ratio.

Sign on a gas pump at a local station:

Please prepay in advance.

I wonder if you have to pay twice?


Headline in the National Catholic Register:

Miracle Clears Way to Mother Theresa’s Beatification

Gee, and all this time I thought she was pretty much a shoo-in.

Alien Abduction?
Dr. John Mack is a psychiatrist and member of the faculty of the Harvard Medical School. Dr. Mack’s claim to fame is that he has a fairly substantial number of patients whom, he is convinced, have been abducted by aliens. How does he know this? Well, they woke up one morning and their pajamas were on backwards. Now, in my younger, wilder days, I can think of a number of occasions when, upon arriving home late in the evening I probably managed to get my pajamas on backwards, not really caring if they were on front wards, back wards or on at all. I can also state that it is likely that when I woke up the next morning I wasn’t all that sure that it was odd if they happened to be on backwards. Many of you have perhaps shared that experience and might be wondering, then, how one might come to the conclusion that they were the victims of alien abduction if they woke up with their pajamas on back wards.

It seems that, in the course of the alien abduction these folks underwent a fairly thorough medical exam conducted by the aliens. The aliens, upon completing their exam and not being familiar with pajamas screwed up and, in every case, managed to get the PJs on backwards. And this is how we know they were abducted by aliens.

Now, there are a couple of points that might be made about this theory. The first is that, is it not likely that we might question the credibility, at least a little bit, of someone seeking psychiatric care? Another point is that, in every case, the abduction victims describe their captors as possessing vastly superior intelligence to that of the human race. It seems to me that if that were the case, and given that the doctor claims there have been a fairly large number of abductions that have occurred in recent years, that these aliens would eventually be able to figure out how to put on a pair of pajamas and thus conceal the fact of the abduction. In fact, it seems that, the odds being 50-50 of getting the pajamas on right in the first place, just by sheer luck they might get it right and least some of the time. But no, these aliens, who possess the intelligence and equipment and skill to conduct extensive medical exams on human victims, not to mention travel vast distances through outer space to get here, are complete failures at getting their victims pajamas back on them in the proper order. It might be mentioned that, after an academic review by his colleagues at Harvard it was suggested that Dr. Mack get away from the office a bit more often and meet some folks off campus, vary his routine a bit, you know -- get a life.

Be that as it may, there is another interesting point about Dr. Mack and the way he views these abductions. In an interview for the PBS Television show Nova conducted a few years ago, he made the following statement:

“Now, the effect of that is -- or what seems to be going on there, in a number of abductees -- not just people I see, but the ones Budd Hopkins and other people see -- is to produce some kind of new species to bring us together to produce a hybrid species which -- the abductees are sometimes told -- will populate the earth or will be there to carry evolution forward, after the human race has completed what it is now doing, namely the destruction of the earth as a living system. So it's a kind of later form. It's an awkward coming together of a less embodied species than we are, and us, for this evolutionary purpose.

However, that might not be literally true. It might be that that this is a communication to us. That perhaps we need to change our ways. It may not be that these are literally our babies. It may be a kind of expression of images of babies; or it may be that these hybrids we're told is what will have to be. It's a kind of insurance policy if the earth continues to be subjected to the exploitation of its living environment to the point where it can't sustain human and other life as it's now occurring. But it may not be literally what is going to happen. So that's one area.

Another area is the whole visual environmental and informational aspect of this in which people are shown on television screens a huge variety of scenes of environmental destruction of the earth polluted; of a kind of post-apocalyptic scene in which even the spirits have been routed from their environment because they live in the same physical and spiritual environment that we do; and canyons are shown with trees destroyed; pieces of the earth are seen as breaking away -- portions of the East Coast or West Coast.”

This statement strikes me as a bit odd in a number of ways. The most obvious is that it sounds to me like these aliens who are doing the abducting have been reading the New York Times or Washington Post, or some other material written by some of the more liberal elements of the American Democratic Party. But there is another element. It sounds vaguely religious.

Note that what we have here is an, albeit half-baked, leftist version of the creation story – we are clones of aliens who are trying to create a superior human/alien species to populate the earth after the coming environmental apocalypse. (At least he thinks the West Coast might break away, if it hasn’t already.) Also, note the phrase “perhaps we need to change our ways”, sounds like a call to repentance. Now, perhaps I’m the one who needs to see a psychiatrist, but I think all of this goes to prove one or both of two points. The first, made by St. Augustine – our hearts are restless until they rest in God. The second by G. K. Chesterton – Those who do not believe in the Christian God will not believe in nothing, they will believe in anything.

Conversion

Over the last few days both Steven Riddle at Flos Carmeli and Christopher Cuddy at The Directed Path have been writing about conversion and they made a couple of interesting points that may not be so obvious to a “cradle” Catholic.

The first point that both make, although in very different ways, is that for someone who has undergone the process of coming home to the Church, it is very apparent that the process is and must be very much at the direction of the Holy Spirit. In my own case, coming from a Scots/Calvinist/Presbyterian background, coming into the church is not anything I would have done on my own.

For many years I would have very little to do with “organized” religion (in my experience another one of the great oxymorons of all time, along with Microsoft Works) and it was only by a very strange set of circumstances that I was led to come back to my Presbyterian roots. And then an off hand remark by the pastor of the church I was attending led me, ultimately, to the Catholic Church. The remark was – “If you don’t know what you believe, how do you know you believe it?” I had to know what I believed. After 5 years or more of investigation I realized to my horror that what I believed was likely more consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church than with Presbyterianism.

When I began seriously looking into the Church I still didn’t know for sure that the Church was Christian, if the Pope was the anti-Christ, or what I was getting myself into. But I had to investigate in the name of seeking the Truth. Steven Riddle had a similar experience, his problem was with Mary, and he describes his approach to solving the problem in this way:

"An example from my life: I was raised a Baptist and entered the Catholic Church not fully in tune with all aspects of Catholic Doctrine. Most particularly, I was virulently anti-Marian. Through time, I came to be cooly neutral but said to myself, "This is not enough." So I took up the practice of praying to God to reveal to me what He would have me know of His Mother and I bowed before her statue with an "I salute you, even if I am unsure of you." Through time the "I salute you" became, "I love you." And, of course, the other half of the phrase vanished entirely. I did nothing myself to encourage that love, but now I have an image of Mary in nearly every room of my house and feel that those places lacking Marian presence are somehow empty. I went through the outward motions--obedience, after a fashion--and God did as He would with the interior. We must act on belief and pray for the interior change that makes that out action more real. We are finite--as much as we like to think we know it all, we do not--and there is no shame in not knowing. The shame comes from insisting upon our ignorance and acting upon it in such a way as to cause scandal and division."

In my case I didn’t now if anything the Church taught was true and it was only when I realized that the Church taught that the Bible was the foundation of all that it knew about God could I relax and really begin the journey home. I prayed for understanding since, if the Church taught what was in the Bible, then either I didn’t understand the Bible properly or I didn’t understand the Church’s teaching properly. In either case, the problem was mine, not the Church’s. I had to pray and hope that the Holy Spirit would enlighten my mind and heart if it was God’s will that I come into the Church.

Christopher Cuddy says much the same thing when he writes:
“Conversion is not a matter of “joining a team,” or of adding more names to a roster. It is not a popularity contest. Conversion is about following the Truth of God no matter where it leads or how much it costs. Conversion, as with all things, is ultimately about Christ—for it is only within the fraternal arms of our Lord and Savior that we can ever hope of finding true peace and joy.
Salvation is not a matter of faith in a doctrine—whether it be sola scriptura or the perpetual virginity of Mary. Salvation is about Christ. As St. Paul states in his letter to the Galatians, salvation is a matter of ‘faith working through love.’”

To come to this realization requires the work of the Holy Spirit. It is a work that anyone seriously contemplating the “Journey Home” into the Church finds him or herself allowing to go on in their lives.

Venerable Bede

Before the unavoidable journey there, no one becomes
wiser in thought than him who, by need,
ponders, before his going hence,
what good and evil within his soul,
after his day of death, will be judged.

The Venerable Bede

Conversion

Christopher at The Directed Path has posted about as good an explanation of conversion as I have seen. This is right on the mark and most of us who have found ourselves coming into the Church know what he means.

Conversion is not a matter of “joining a team,” or of adding more names to a roster. It is not a popularity contest. Conversion is about following the Truth of God no matter where it leads or how much it costs. Conversion, as with all things, is ultimately about Christ—for it is only within the fraternal arms of our Lord and Savior that we can ever hope of finding true peace and joy.

Winter Moonlight

Silver birches in the winter moonlight
Shining in their bark-armor bright.
Ghosts of soldiers who
Died in a Fall now so long ago.
Life is hidden here, unseen,
Yet present, nevertheless,
Awaiting the Resurrection of Spring.

Ron Moffat

Media Review

The latest issue of Crisis magazine has a 6 page article on a new book by one Daniel Joseph Goldhagen that rehashes all the old slanders about the role of the Church and especially Pope Pius XII in World War II. The most disturbing thing about the appearance of another book on this topic is that the truth about what Pius XII did to help the Jews is so well documented in the press and statements of Jews made during the war. The Chief Rabbi of Rome was so grateful for Pius XII activities that he converted to Catholicism. Yet there continues to be a steady stream of these books that manage to find a publisher. It seems to me that publishers have at least some responsibility to investigate the truth of claims made in books by prospective authors. It seems to me that it is part of a dangerous trend in our society that we no longer believe it is important to write, speak or seek the truth; the only important thing is what advantage can we gain by pursuing any particular course of action – “What’s in it for me?” Pretty soon we will lose sight of the truth entirely and we won’t be able to rely on any fact published in a book or newspaper, we’ll be forced to investigate facts for ourselves which, in most cases will be difficult or impossible.

I also have mixed feelings at the six-page spread given to this book by Crisis. On the one hand I know it is important to refute these things as forcefully as possible. On the other hand, could Daniel Joseph Goldhagen afford to buy six full-page ads in Crisis magazine? Could this rather extensive coverage have the perverse effect of increasing sales of a slanderous, malicious book by say 5-15 thousand copies? I’ve debated buying a copy of this book myself, just to be better able to understand and refute the lies it contains. But, on further reflection, I won’t.

Who can you share the Good News of Jesus Christ with today? There must be someone.

The Birds

The Birds- Hillaire Belloc

When Jesus Christ was four years old,
The angels brought him toys of gold,
Which no man had ever bought or sold.

And yet with these He would not play.
He made Him small fowl out of clay,
And blessed them til they flew away,
Tu creasti Domine.

Jesus Christ, thou child so wise,
Bless mine hands and fill my eyes,
And bring my soul to Paradise.

Off my chest

I am probably going way out on a limb with this post, and cutting it off behind me, but I guess I’m used to that. In addition, there probably won’t be all that many folks reading this so perhaps I won’t be drawn and quartered and run out of town on a rail. As Abraham Lincoln said of the fellow who was tarred and feathered: “If it weren’t for the honor of the thing, I’d just as soon avoid it.”

Tim Drake wrote a column in the latest edition of the National Catholic Register on the Prayer of Jabez vs. the Rosary. I wish he hadn’t written it. In it he seems to belittle the recent Evangelical phenomenon of the book The Prayer of Jabez, which he refers to as “an almost selfish prayer” and which he goes on to contrast with the Rosary. He almost seems to be saying “Nah, Nah, our prayer is better than your prayer.” It seems to me that this is not really a wise course of action.

First, while it is true that some of the promotion behind the Prayer of Jabez seems to smack of the so-called “health and wealth” doctrine that is not entirely true. There are many sincere evangelicals who are praying that prayer so that God might expand their ministries, in other words, to help them further the spread of the word of God in modern society. How many Catholics pray that they might be more effective evangelicals? Second, it seems to me that we do not do well to judge another’s prayer. It is fair and proper that, if we see difficulties in another’s spiritual life, we point them out in loving charity. But Tim Drake’s column seems much too judgmental. For example, there is this paragraph:
“The popularity of the Prayer of Jabez says a lot about evangelical’s doctrinal vacuum. On the one hand, they attack Catholics for what they describe as their ‘vain repetitious’ praying of the Hail Mary – a prayer taken from Scripture which reflects upon Christ. Then, some take an obscure prayer from the Old Testament, seemingly disconnected from Christ, and encourage people to pray it daily for material wealth.”
Are we going to say that one scriptural prayer is better than another? Is one part of scripture more valuable than another? It seems to me that Dei Verbum is quite clear when it says that the New Testament is hidden in the Old and the Old is made manifest in the New. You can’t have one without the other. Also, as pointed out above the prayer is not solely for material wealth. The prayer states that Jabez asked for a blessing and God granted his request – God did not reject this prayer, should we?

My point in all of this is that I wish Christians would stop picking on other Christians. I agree with Archbishop Fulton Sheen when he said that, as Catholics, our argument is not with our Protestant brothers and sisters. We share a common, and increasingly powerful enemy in our modern, relativistic, scientific materialistic and pagan society. Now, more than ever we need to try to find common ground with our evangelical brothers and sisters in Christ, we need the Christian unity that Christ himself prayed for. Many evangelical folks are sincere, Christ loving people that are living devoted and holy lives and seeking the truth of the faith. They do not deserve to be belittled and, in fact, would bring a great deal of new life to the Church if they could be brought to understand it’s truth and beauty.

I would suggest a different approach to our evangelical friends who have discovered the prayer of Jabez as an effective scripture based prayer. I would say to them, “Could I suggest another prayer you might find even more useful? The one I am thinking of is steeped in Christian tradition and in scripture and I have found that it has brought me immeasurably closer to Christ, perhaps you’d like to give it a try?”

Instead of belittling their devotion it might behoove us to share ours with them, explaining the value and peace it has brought us. This is what it means to be a “witness” or, to put it differently, to be a martyr.