I’m Baaack

I haven’t posted here in nearly 7 years, so it seems fitting to come back to The 7 Habitus.  I stopped writing here because I felt I was unable to write many things without being more caustic, one way to put it, than necessary.  Perhaps, now, I feel I’ve calmed down a little, or perhaps watching events of the last couple of weeks, I see more than ever, the need for some rational discourse.

I’m referring, of course, to the Bill O’Reilly appearance on The View, last week, and the somewhat related event of NPR firing Juan Williams for commenting on feeling nervous when he saw Muslims in full Muslim garb in an airport. 

I have to admit, I thought The View episode last week was a rather trivial event, not deserving of the attention it was getting.  First of all, it was a given that the majority of females on the show would not like Bill O’Reilly, or come close to agreeing with him.  It was only mildly surprising that, at some point, one or more of those women would walk out on him.  Liberals don’t like being disagreed with, period.  Besides, who really cares what Whoopi Goldberg or Joyce Behar think about any topic?  They’re entertainers, obviously not thinkers.  I really can’t understand why, when someone appears in one or more movies, they are suddenly experts in a wide range of subjects, many of which they haven’t the foggiest notion about.

But then came the firing of Juan Williams, who was fired for commenting on what O’Reilly said on The View. 

Many commentators have looked at the Williams episode as a matter of the right to free speech, and to some extent it is.  Still, in the end, NPR has a right to fire anyone they please, for whatever reason, as long as they are acting in accord with the terms of any existing contracts between employee and employer.  Juan Williams pissed them off, so they fired him.

Yet, taken together, both episodes offer the American public of a severe problem in our country.  The problem is the inability to tolerate ideas contrary to one’s own.  I’ll have to say, the problem appears to be much more severe among those who take the “liberal” point of view.  Whoopi Goldberg and Joyce Behar disagreed with Bill O’Reilly.  Rather than calmly discussing the question he raised, whether or not Muslims attacked the U.S. on 9/11 or not, they got mad and stormed out.  They simply could either not come up with valid reasons why they opposed his thinking and that left no recourse but to curse him and walk out.  It was a very childish, immature display.

In William’s case, NPR, a network that supports so called “tolerance” and “diversity”, couldn’t handle someone who doesn’t agree with them 100% down the line.  It may have been that, a factor in that intolerance was that Fox News reaches, by far, a much bigger audience than NPR ever will, but for whatever reason, they couldn’t tolerate dissent, even from one of their own.  Even when he wasn’t really dissenting.

Don’t misunderstand, I’ve seen this intolerance from some on the right, but the tendency is much more pronounced on the left.

The thing that concerns me is that we are facing very important issues, the outcome of which will affect us and our descendants for many generations.  We face mounting financial difficulties, growing threats from, frankly, Muslims, overseas, and we seem unable to find the wherewithal to sit down and discuss these matters intelligently.  Instead, we have to resort to anger and revenge.  It’s not a prospect that offers a lot of hope.

The New 7 Habitus

The set up of the new 7 Habitus site has gone so well, there is no reason to delay the permanent change over any longer than necessary, so after 15 September, I will no longer post to this site. I will leave this up and running but all posts will be at the new location.

The New 7 Habitus Site

I now have the new 7 Habitus Site set up and it looks like there is no reason to defer the permanent transfer beyond 15 September. I will, for no good reason, continue to dual post anything I have to post until then, then I will only post on the new site.

Please feel free to check out the other blogs at St. Blogs.org

Flos Carmeli
Fructus Ventris
The 7 Habitus
Caritate Dei
Catholic Light
Eternal Rebels

and again, of course, St. Blogs.org

Pax et bonum

St. Blogs.org

It appears that, rather than switching to Typepad, The 7 Habitus has found a home at St. Blogs.org. The new address will be http:7habitus.stblogs.org. I plan to make the final change by 1 October in order to give me time to get the blog template set up and get used to working in a new format. Until then I will continue primarily to post here. I apologize for the confusion, but I just learned about St. Blogs.org late this past week and think it a wonderful idea.

I am making this change primarily for the reason that I like the idea of "one stop shopping" for St. Blogs member blogs. Just think, if all St. Blogs blogs were on one domain (Richard probably just had a heart attack) what that would mean. Instead of the interminable lists on each individual blog we could post just one reference :St. Blogs.org and easily be able to find any Catholic blog. Also, there are the advantages that Moveable Type offers, such as categories for blogs, Track Back, and numerous others.

My only reservation is that I am not a programmer and will have to spend a bit of time learning to work with Moveable Type. Oh well, who said an old dog can't learn new tricks?

RCIA

It appears that I will be participating, at least to some limited extent, in the RCIA program in my parish this year. We have a new DRE in the parish and except for me and one other, there’s an entirely new team. I am looking forward to it, although I will not be able to be involved every week between now and Easter Vigil.

The groups in the past year or two come to the Church as the result of a conversion, although not from having been Protestant. In other words, they are not necessarily Protestants who have come to a conversion experience; they are coming to the Church with little, if any, previous exposure to the faith. This is not the typical background for an RCIA candidate. I wonder if this new way of coming to the faith represents a trend around the country, but I think it somewhat remarkable. It seems that, with the cultural environment being what it is, especially here in Colorado Springs, that most people would take the easier approach and join an evangelical Christian church, of which there are many here in the Springs. Catholics are not known for their evangelization skills. Make no mistake, I think this is a wonderful and heartening trend, but it strikes me as a bit odd.

Around this time of year, as RCIA begins in most parishes (will we ever get away from the "school year" model?), I think back to my own conversion to the Church. It was, in many ways serendipitous and, I am convinced, that it was the work of the Holy Spirit. Left to my own devices, I would never have found my way to Rome; I simply could not have done it on my own. It was really rather easy, I didn’t really even begin learning Church doctrine until after I had received the Sacraments; I just knew God was leading me to the Church. There were a few difficult times, times when I thought I must be crazy, my coming from a Scots Presbyterian background and all. But, I pressed on, and as I look back, I realize it could only have been the Spirit at work.

So, I guess, in some ways, my own experience is not all that much different from that of most RCIA "classes". Perhaps, the Holy Spirit is working to build His Church and we all need to be reminded that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it -- even with the likes of me among its members.
While ile the trial period continues this post also appears at The 7 Habitus on Typepad.

A short post tonight.

Over the last couple of months I've been very frustrated with my writing and have not done a lot of posting. I picked up a book this past weekend that explained that what I was going through was relatively common and that the best cure was to "just do it." I thought it fair to warn you that I have been just writing and probably not much of whatever I have written should be taken very seriously. I promise, over the next week or so I will try picking some topics in a lighter vein. I'm trying to find my purpose in life again -- at least as far as blogdom goes, and I guess there are times that I let the rant and rave come on too easily. Steven recently wrote that his blog had not turned out exactly as he had hoped it would. I know the feeling and trying to get back on track is even harder.

Paz y bien

While the trial period continues this post also appears at The 7 Habitus on Typepad.

The Ten Commandments

Lately there has been quite a brouhaha over a statue, or monument, or something weighing several tons, inscribed with the 10 Commandments, firmly planted on the grounds of the Alabama Supreme Court. The furor has degenerated, properly or improperly, to an argument between Christians and non-Christians over the role of religion in public life.

Cal Thomas wrote a column that appeared in our local newspaper today in which he generally berates Christians for taking an active part in this drama. He claims that the only real reason many Christians/conservatives are wrapped up in this debate is that it is useful as a political fund-raising ploy and that it serves as nothing more than a distraction for Christians from their real task (which he does not clearly define).

To be honest I am of two minds over this drama playing out in the Deep South. I do not believe there is any way to say that this monument, placed on government property, is an attempt by the state to "make any law regarding the establishment of religion." If it serves any purpose, it is a reminder of the root of our entire concept of law -- the 10 Commandments, and more broadly, God's law written on our hearts. Thomas denies that the 10 commandments, other than the two dealing with the prohibition of murder and theft, have anything to do with secular law. He says "The rest are about relationships between God and man and between human beings." What is law if it does not involve prescriptions concerning the relationship between human beings? I would remind Thomas' readers that this country, until recently, had laws against adultery, sodomy, and even doing business on the Sabbath (long-time Texas residents will remember the famous "blue-laws").

Beyond specifics, however, the 10 Commandments prescribe a general norm of moral conduct for human beings -- love of God with heart, mind and strength, and love of neighbor as oneself. Today, in even so-called civilized discourse, both of these ideas have been lost. God has become an outlaw, and our neighbor is more often looked upon as an obstacle to our own freedom, rather that a human person created in the image of God. In many cases, we have even lost respect for, not only ourselves, but anything that might be considered worthy of respect or reverence. We do what we can to debunk whatever is sacred, or even respectable. A female religious, for example, can write of the Virgin Mary that she was really an early feminist and some fantasy figure invented by the early Church to replace the goddess Isis!

On the other hand, I can see the point that would cause someone to say this fight was much ado about nothing. The change that needs to be made needs to be made within the court house, not on the lawn in front of the court house. In the interest of pushing a secular materialist agenda, the courts have taken upon themselves far more authority than they really have. They have injected themselves into every aspect of our lives, even our spiritual lives, and they are not interested in promoting anything but their own agenda. This is the pattern that must be changed.

I think the ferocity of Christian support for the Alabama justice showed that Christians are aware of what has been going on, that they are not a small and ever dwindling minority, and that they are willing to take a stand against the trend to outlaw religion from public life. This idea would have been abhorrent to the founding fathers of this country. Christians have taken this stand, perhaps, out of a feeling of powerlessness, but it is one point that needs to be made whenever and wherever it can.


While the trial period continues this post also appears at The 7 Habitus on Typepad.

A Fine Mess

There was an interesting article on the front page of my local newspaper today -- it seems the Archbishop of Canterbury sees difficulties ahead for his church. "The question is not whether we can avoid mess, but whether we can hang on to common convictions about divine grace and initiative” This in an article by the archbishop in New Directions magazine. He is, of course, referring to the recent ordination of Bishop Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, in New Hampshire. This vote this past summer has presented the ECUSA with the very real possibility of schism, not only within the ECUSA, but within the Anglican communion as a whole. It seems the Archbishop's solution is reorganization.

Williams writes that this might be "worth looking at structures in Anglicanism that don't either commit us to a meaningless structural uniformity or leave us in mutual isolation."

I'm not sure exactly what the archbishop means, but he seems to be saying, "well fellas, instead of splitting in a nasty schism, lets split officially. Let's just put a wall between the liberals and conservatives so they don't have to get together too often, but we can all still call ourselves Episcopalians (and keeping those funds coming in)." It seems to be this is not an entirely satisfactory solution.

On the one hand, it represents a failure to face the problem, and a severe problem it is, of whether the Bible is to be believed or not by Episcopalians. It ignores the question of whether or not there are any limits to human moral conduct. It seems to be a sort of sweeping the problem under the rug. The problem for the Episcopalians is not in the organization, it is with some of those within the organization. It seems to me that simply creating more structures within the Anglican community now presents large difficulties in the future. What do they do when some small minority within the church decides it is fitting and proper to ordain practicing pedophiles to the priesthood? Do they then create yet another reorganization, made up of yet smaller groups? And what of the issue after that? Can they become cell-like and divide infinitely?

On the other hand, it seems to me that a real solution is structurally almost beyond reach of the ECUSA. The solution would be that the Archbishop of Canterbury, assuming he were so inclined, step in and nullify the silliness that took place in the United States this summer. He should step up and insist that what happened at the ECUSA convention goes beyond all known Biblical norms and is, therefore, invalid. The problem is, though, that he has no power to do this -- there is no final teaching authority within the Anglican Communion. In effect, they lack adult supervision, and thus are doomed to an endless cycle of child like self-indulgence on whatever happens to be the latest social trend. There's no stopping them.

All of which reminds me of the profound sense of gratitude Catholics should bear to our Holy Father and the Magisterium of the Church. This represents, not a "meaningless structural uniformity", but the guaranty by the Holy Spirit that the gates of hell shall not prevail against Jesus' Church.

Typepad
Well, since everyone seems to be talking about it I decided to try it. Effective today, I am taking advantage of the 30 day free trial offer on Typepad and have set up a 7 Habitus blog over there. For the next 30 days I will post all posts to both sites and let you know the result.

I am already somewhat pleased with the initial ease of set up and layout options, etc. Let me know what you think.

Paz y bien

In the Beginning

Paul almost invariably starts his letters with some variation on the words "Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle . . .” James begins his letter in almost the same way, as does Peter. I have begun noticing these introductions lately and wondering about them. Why do these writers seem to think it so important to begin a letter stating who they are, what they are about, especially since those who originally received these letters probably knew very well who the writers were? Why did Paul think it so important that he declare it over and over again that he was "called" to be an apostle?

I've thought about what would happen if I began every one of my blog posts in this manner -- "Ron, a slave of Jesus Christ, called to write silly things on the Internet." I guess this might accomplish a couple of things. First, it would remind me exactly what my priorities for this blog should be -- to serve Christ in everything I write. It would set the tone for each post and help write things that built up the Church and those in it, rather than anything that would tear it down. It might also remind me that whatever talent or ability I may have, I have through no fault of my own. I might also remember that any talent I have was given to me for use in furthering the Kingdom of God.

I have also tended to think of these introductions as being intended to remind the reader that he or she too is "called" to some specific role in the Kingdom. Perhaps there is something to this. We all need to be reminded of these things. But these formulaic introductions have become so familiar that we glance over them in order to get on to the real meat of the letter. However, the writers of the Epistles began those letters in this way for a reason, and no part of Scripture is meaningless. Perhaps this is the most important reminder of all.

Some Assistance Please

Can someone please tell me how to change the color of the font, or a section thereof, within a post? Would be nice to do this once in a while.

A Feminist Mary

The following is from a review of the book Our Sister, published in the July 18 issue of Commonweal.

Elizabeth A. Johnson, C.S.J., has been thinking about such questions for a long time. She has now published a major theological study on Mary, and it is a very impressive work—comprehensive, erudite, critical, and passionate. Truly Our Sister does not begin, as do so many theological treatises, with scriptural foundations, followed by sections on patristic literature, medieval theologies, Reformation controversies, and modern developments. For Johnson, there is too much ambiguity in the history of Marian devotion for this approach to make sense; ineluctably we stand in a broken relationship with the whole tradition. Instead, she begins with “fragments in the rubble,” salvageable elements from the past, and then turns to what, in Johnson’s view, is the key event of the theological development: the emergence of women’s voices in theology, and especially the voices of women in poor countries and marginalized minorities. Her goal is to develop “a Marian theology rooted in Scripture read through women’s eyes with feminist hermeneutical methods.”


Wouldn't you just know it. Now Mary is not our Mother, she is Our Sister!

An Update

A few weeks ago I wrote that I am now using an AlphaSmart Dana to do these blog posts. At first the change from the Palm disconcerted me a bit, perhaps that is one reason I haven't done as many posts as I had prior to making this change. One difficulty is that, since the Dana does not have a color screen, at night if the light is not really good it is very hard for me to see anything I try to type. During daylight hours this is no problem whatsoever and I find the Dana an almost perfect tool to write with -- it is light, compact, and the screen is a nice size, even if it is not a color monitor. I have now found a solution to the problem of working at night, I purchased a small, battery powered book light which gives just enough light to make night time typing possible. So, in short, the AlphaSmart is going to be around for a good long time.

+ + +
Steven over at Flos Carmeli has been doing a series of posts on Phillip Yancy's book Soul Survior, and is starting another series on another of Yancy's books. I was quite interested in this since Yancy is, I think, a Protestant. The reason I have been following Steven's posts is my own uncertainty about reading Protestant authors. I should explain.

About 6 months or so prior to my reception into the Church, I swore off reading anything Protestant, almost to include C. S. Lewis. This continued until about 3 years after my coming into the Church when I took a philosophy course through Franciscan University at Steubenville. One of the texts was Lewis' The Abolition of Man and also parts of Mere Christianity. I softened and have read some things by a few Protestant authors over the last few years. Then, this summer, the Episcopal Church went through its meltdown, and as I posted a week or two ago, I was reminded of the real problems with Protestantism and thought I should return to strictly Catholic reading and thought.

Then, along comes Steven with his Soul Survivor series. What to make of this? Much of what Steven quoted, and certainly his comments on those passages, was at least interesting, if not thought provoking. My wife made the point, which I think Steven has also made recently, that it is always appropriate to read good writing. So, I went out tonight at bought two Phillip Yancy books -- Soul Survivor and The Jesus I Never Knew. I bought these two because they were the only Yancy books that I could find at our local bookstore. I may offer some comments of my own on these as I read them, not to copy Steven nor to compete with him, but to see if, after reading them, I am convinced one way or the other about the propriety of Catholics reading books by Protestant authors.

It’s Getting Hairy

The headline of an article, apparently supplied by the New York Times, in our local newspaper this week caught my eye, it read: “Hair: It separates us from the apes.” Of course, I found this idea immediately intriguing since I am a kind and optimistic fellow and bear a rather high view of my fellow human beings. I had not thought of hair as being one of the primary factors separating them from apes, in fact, if asked, I would have made a number of other more important distinctions. For example, I don’t know of any blogs published by monkeys. I know of no great works of art produced by apes in the last few centuries, nor have I seen any chimps driving on the Interstate to work each morning (well, maybe one or two but that is beside the point). As for science, I know of no great contributions to the field by apes other than substantial confusion.

In any case, our author very confidently asserts that it is precisely at the point at which we humans started losing our body hair that we parted company with our simian ancestors, this based on a study of the subject done by a group of professors in England. The article is remarkable on a number of different levels. First is the rather blind acceptance of the “fact” of evolution that underlies much of the nonsense in the rest of the article. I’m sure the possibility that the theory of evolution itself might be questionable never crossed the authors mind, judging by the pap found in the rest of the article, perhaps there is good reason for this – personal experience may be at work here.

In any case, it seems that the great question left unanswered by this scholarly study is why humans should have lost their hair as part of the evolutionary process. The article points out that this is “a question that long has been beyond the reach of archeology and paleontology.” Little wonder, judging by the results of this study. Among the possible reasons for hair loss is that we humans, in the process of transitioning from ape to human, went through a semi-aquatic stage (the webbing in our hands provides the evidence for this idea) and shed hair in order to improve speed under water. Have you ever seen an ape go for a swim? Another theory is that loss of hair helped our ancestors keep cool as they “ventured beyond the forest’s shade and across the hot African savannah – though naked skin absorbs more energy during the day and loses more during the night.” Lets see, we left the forest and decided to go bare so we could burn to a crisp in the hot sun and find no relief at night. Ummmm.

Another researcher poses another possible solution – we lost our body hair to free ourselves from external parasites, this trait becoming subject to sexual selection. “Among newly furless humans, bare skin would have served as a signal of fitness. The pains women take to keep their bodies free from hair may be no mere fashion statement but the latest echo of an ancient instinct.” I get it, we decided to go “furless” so we could be sexy and girls would look good in Playboy.

I guess I’d like to know just how our ancient ancestors decided to lose their hair. It seems that no other animal on earth (except for the Cornish Rex which, I believe, is the work of a deranged ape) has gone through the same transformation because there are more advantages to having fur than not having fur. Why would some fool ape have made such a decision? A more important question, though, is how we can reverse the situation. As I grow older that question becomes more critical day by day.

Who's Right?

The following is excerpted from an Associated Press report posted on the web:

“Until very recently, all Christian branches agreed that same-sex activity was immoral because of their age-old understanding of God's will taught in the Scriptures.
Most of the world's Christian bodies maintain that belief. But in the last quarter-century, liberal scholars from some so-called "mainline" Protestant denominations in Europe and North America have argued against traditional Bible interpretations, often in books from church publishing houses. They say the Bible's overwhelming overall message is loving acceptance and justice for all people.
This has gradually influenced leadership circles in the Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and United Methodist Church. Yet the new biblical theories have failed to convince legions of rank and file American churchgoers.
To go to the source of the argument, two biblical passages are crucial:
- "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination" (Leviticus 18:22, an Old Testament law repeated with the death penalty in Leviticus 20:13).
- "God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error" (the Apostle Paul in Romans 1:26-27).
Conservatives say God fixed the sexual pattern in Genesis 2:24: "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh." Jesus repeated that teaching twice in the Gospels: Matthew 19:4-6 and Mark 10:6-9.
At the Episcopal convention, the Rev. Kendall Harmon of South Carolina said that the Old and New Testaments send the same message that sex is limited to a woman and a man. "There is no tension, no qualification, no development and no equivocation," he said.
Another conservative point: No biblical verse hints at approval for same-sex activity.
Liberal authors commonly say Leviticus 18 was part of a Jewish purity code that barred practices associated with paganism, including many laws Christianity eliminated, for instance the kosher rules in Leviticus 17. Conservatives reply that the gay ban is embedded alongside laws against adultery, incest, bestiality and child sacrifice that Christianity kept.
Regarding Romans 1 and other New Testament passages, liberals often say these were merely meant to oppose same-sex activity that was exploitative (using slaves or boys). A related argument: Paul thought men were heterosexual in nature and should shun homosexual acts, but some today believe people are born with a disposition toward being gay.
In the heftiest conservative book on the subject in recent years, "The Bible and Homosexual Practice" (Abingdon), Robert A. J. Gagnon of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary argues in detail that all same-sex variants were well known in the ancient world - so it's obvious the Bible opposed same-sex activity across the board, not just certain types.
But the Rev. Walter Wink of New York's Auburn Theological Seminary, a United Methodist clergyman, disagrees with Presbyterian Gagnon's reading of Scripture.
"The Bible has no sex ethic," Wink says. "It only knows a communal love ethic" exemplified by Jesus' command to love your neighbor as yourself, which requires Christians to understand gays' experiences.
Societies' changing codes of sexual conduct should be assessed against that standard and in light of modern knowledge, he says.
Wink acknowledges that "a lot of churches are not going to change" for the present, but he's convinced they will eventually shed old Bible interpretations that are "life-denying and intellectually dishonest."
"In 50 years most of us will look back and say, 'Why were we so slow? Why was this so difficult?'" he said.
Bishop-elect Robinson believes biblical conservatives will "come to know that they are wrong, in this life or the next one."
Gagnon agrees that the traditional view is not popular in universities or the media. But he insists that the Bible's entire authority is under threat. If people can deny such a clear and specific scriptural teaching, he says, it raises questions about the point of adhering to the faith in the first place.
Says Gagnon: "When we reach the point where it is no longer the word of God for us in any meaningful sense, there is no more reason to be part of organized Christianity."”

There are several interesting points that this story brings to mind.

First, the story points out the central problem faced by our Protestant brothers and sisters – no final teaching authority, no way to define doctrine. Here we have folks on two very different sides of an issue, and both claiming to rest their views on the authority of Scripture. It should be clear that the idea of sola scriptura is flawed. Obviously both sides to the debate on human sexual conduct can’t be right; Scripture does not contradict itself. But where can Protestants turn for a final authority? It seems that without the authority of a teaching Magisterium it is almost impossible not to slip into the fog of error.
A second point comes to mind and is found in the quote: “They say the Bible's overwhelming overall message is loving acceptance and justice for all people.” Our liberal friends seem to think that it is God’s nature to accept whatever we happen to want to do, whenever we want to do it. They appear to believe that God is just sitting around in heaven loving us and approving of everything we do. They also seem to think that God’s nature is capable of changing with the times. The problem with this idea, of course, is that is defines away the problem of sin; if whatever we do is “okay” then no mode of human conduct can be considered sinful. Of course, if there is no sin there is little need for redemption, or for God for that matter. God does love us, but as the above quote points out, God is also just. As Paul wrote in the book of Romans, he gives us what we deserve. He also measures what we deserve by an absolute standard – truth and good do not change with the times. There is nothing is Scripture that would lead us to think otherwise.
It is also interesting that it appears to be the goal of the “liberals” here to simply wait out those more orthodox Christians. It seems clear that the majority of folks in the pew do not wish to sanction “same-sex” marriage. It doesn’t matter to those leading their churches though. Their strategy is not to appeal to truth but finally to simply wear down the opposition. This has been the strategy of “liberals” for a long time. It began with the 1930s Lambeth Conference that sanctioned divorce among Christians, and continues to this day. We are allowing the erosion, perhaps the destruction, of a Christian civilization bit by bit, one brick at a time. It’s like the apocryphal frog placed in a pan of cold water on top of a stove. As the heat is turned on he is oblivious to his predicament until he is boiled alive. I believe we Catholics are called to try to oppose this effort wherever and whenever we can. It seems clear that most of the mainline Protestant denominations are being slowly dismantled from within and will not long be around to help us. I believe that, in the long run, it won’t work because the liberals are forgetting one thing, the victory against evil has already been won and there is one Church that will not be worn down. I think this is one thing that Catholics can give thanks for at all times.

The Assumption

Today is the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We are celebrating today the fact that the Blessed Virgin was assumed into heaven, body and soul. I think the importance of today for me is that it is a reminder of what we all have to look forward to.

Today's first reading for Mass is from Revelation:


God's temple in heaven was opened,
and the ark of his covenant could be seen in the temple.

A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun,
with the moon under her feet,
and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth.
Then another sign appeared in the sky;
it was a huge red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns,
and on its heads were seven diadems.
Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky
and hurled them down to the earth.
Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth,
to devour her child when she gave birth.
She gave birth to a son, a male child,
destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod.
Her child was caught up to God and his throne.
The woman herself fled into the desert
where she had a place prepared by God.

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
"Now have salvation and power come,
and the Kingdom of our God
and the authority of his Anointed One."

A Miscellany

Since my trip to Alaska my whole routine has been disrupted and I've been reading other blogs and not getting much posted on my own. To get back into the routine I offer a few thoughts on a couple of different topics.

Luther

Christine over at Christus Victor has done a couple of posts on Luther and the difficulties one encounters when delving very deeply into both his personal life and his theology. Coming from a Protestant background Luther has been a figure of interest to me but I must confess that he remains an enigma.

Luther was an Augustinian priest - he studied and taught theology at the university level, and yet it seems he was unable to understand the most basic of the Church's teaching on justification. The source of his difficulties seem to lie more in personal and psychological problems rather than theological differences with the Church. He seems, in fact, to have been somewhat ignorant of theology. Here lies the enigma: what drove Luther to do what he did? I have never read a satisfactory explanation of Luther's motivation in tacking in 95 theses on the door. I wonder of anyone out there can "splain me, Lucy?"

Faith

We are confronted every day with those who wish us to water down our faith. The ECUSA has just elected a bishop who is living in an openly homosexual relationship and has voted to bless gay unions. A US senator, a practicing Catholic I believe, has stated publically that he thinks there are many "good" Catholics who practice contraception and support abortion. But, I believe it is intellectually and morally impossible to proclaim oneself a Christian and live a life contrary to God's expressed will.

To proclaim that one is a Christian and yet deny central teachings of the Christian faith is to proclaim a contradiction, it's nonsense. This is the issue that brought about my conversion to the Church. The pastor of my church was preaching something totally contradictory to what I understood Scripture to be clearly saying. I knew we couldn't both be right while at the same time basing our understanding only on Scripture. There are many who support homosexual clergy who would also say sucth things as, for example, that we shouldn't take Jesus' miracles quite so seriously. Many people today seem to accept it as truth when someone says "Well, you know, when Jesus fed the 5,000 he didn't do a miracle, everyone had fish sandwiches with them and he just encouraged them to bring them out and share." It never occurs to them that, one, if that were indeed what happened, it would hardly be remarkable and no one writing of the event later would have even bother to write down a brief description, much less the detailed account of the event we find in Scripture. They also seem to have little idea what damage they are doing to their faith. Fr. Thomas DuBay writes:

". . . we need to bear in mind that the virtue of faith is total. According to St. Thomas the person who embraces heresy regarding one article of faith has regarding the other articles not faith but only 'an opinion according to his own will.'" What is going on with the Episcopal bishops and the U.S. senator is an acceptance of personal opinion regarding human sexuality, not traditional Christian teaching and practice. For a Catholic this is morally impossible - you can't have just a piece of the pie, the one you like, you have to have the whole pie. To say one part is wrong is to say the whole thing is false.

Steven (at Flos Carmeli) has been writing about seeking the truth lately and I agree with him on the importance of doing so. Without truth we are lost in a fog of unreality - we are insane. The problem our ECUSA friends have is that they have become accustomed, even sought, to live without a teaching authority, a Magisterium. They deny the very validity of such a thing. It seems the only refuge for those who wish to sincerely seek the truth is Rome.

Error

On Tuesday of this week, our Episcopal brothers and sisters in Christ did a remarkable thing: they appointed a bishop of their church someone whose life is a repudiation of what a Christian life is supposed to be. Not only is the new bishop an openly practicing homosexual, he is a man who some years back abandoned his wife and children in order to pursue his willful lifestyle. It is indeed remarkable that such a man should be considered fit to serve as a Christian bishop of any denomination.

Josef Pieper wrote that man is a creature capable of self-destruction by failing to control excess in his life. He also noted that these self-destructive excesses typically are found to be of a sexual nature. Here we have an instance of an entire Protestant denomination engaging is self-destruction by embracing the self-indulgent excess of one individual. The Episcopal church has abandoned truth in the name of diversity. It really does not matter if further schism takes place as a result of the election of "Bishop" Robinson; the ECUSA has left the Body of Christ.

In the last couple of years I have, perhaps in reaction to experiencing the excessive zeal of a convert, tried to find an intellectually honest way of relating to our separated brothers and sisters in Christ. Recognizing the critical importance of keeping alive a dying Christian culture, I have looked for things that we share rather than things that separate us.

There is a major stumbling block to my ecumenical desires, however. It seems that, cut loose from the anchor of truth, our Protestant brothers and sisters are cutting themselves off from the heart of Christianity. The problems in the ECUSA are a graphic example of this occurring; it shows what can happen when truth is denied and placed second to human self-centeredness and sinfulness.

In a way, though, our separated brothers and sisters can do nothing else. Without a teaching Magisterium it is in the nature of Protestantism to drift in skepticism and relativism. To be Protestant is to believe that there is no final authority on matters of faith and morals but the self. This is clearly demonstrated by the actions of the ECUSA, they are simply ignoring whatever authority Scripture may possess in this matter in favor of their own agendas. The Bible has clearly been rejected in favor of a majority vote and this, without the authority of a teaching Magisterium, is almost to be expected. Truth can never be made subject to a vote. Yet, as I said, our separated brothers and sisters in Christ, having rejected the teaching authority of the Church, are almost destined to this kind of error. This makes them, as allies in the struggle against an increasingly pagan and hostile culture to Christianity weak and wounded allies at best, if not opponents. By elevating self above the authority of the Body, they have already met the culture half-way.

I know there are many sincere Protestants who love Christ and are willing to make any sacrifice for Him. But until they are ready to sacrifice their own authority for His, they can never fully succeed. There is little to prevent them from following their own desires wherever it may lead them; even to the embrace of a sinful, self-destructive lifestyle.

North to Alaska
I will be travelling to Alaska later today and will be back on Friday. I ask your prayers for me while I'm travelling.

Paz y bien

Old Books

I have come to like old books. If I have a choice between ordering a new edition of a book and combing the used book websites, its Alibris every time. I have acquired this strange matter of taste since coming into the Church in 1995; there are many classics of Catholic spiritual literature that are out of print and cannot be obtained except through web sites like Alibris. After I ordered the first couple of these books I noticed something that made me a fanatic for these books -- there is almost always something about the book, either what the author wrote or some indication in the physical appearance of the book, that reminds me that 30 years ago or more there was such a thing as a Catholic culture.

First, as I said, I am a convert; I did not grow up as a Catholic. I did grow up in a neighborhood with many Catholic families, not a few of whom I was friends with. I remember going out with these friends in high school and having to accommodate their meatless Friday observance. I remember their desire to eat out late on Saturday night and rise early for Mass on Sunday morning, to observe the rule that one ate nothing after midnight on Saturday night until one had attended Mass sometime on Sunday. It behooved one to go to Mass early. I remember all of that but was not a part of it. I say this because I may be mistaken in what follows and if I am, I ask forgiveness and understanding for my ignorance.

My friends took their religion seriously. They would not think of not going to Mass on Sunday, of having anything to eat before Mass, of not eating fish on Friday -- it just wasn't done. Their faith made a difference in their lives. For me, growing up Presbyterian, there was no such visible difference made in my life by my so-called faith; there were no rules of religious practice that had any effect on my day to day existence. That is the difference I noticed in the old books by Catholic spiritual writers -- they were Catholic and took it as a matter of course that Catholic readers spoke their language. It set one a bit apart to be Catholic and their Catholicism shows through in their writings. Just one minor example, one writer invokes St. Benedict and St. Bruno without bothering to explain who St. Bruno is; he takes it for granted that everyone knows who St. Bruno is. I've never heard of St. Bruno. Most of these authors refer to saints, as well as, customs and practices that were obviously familiar to any Catholic living 50 or 100 years ago that are now perhaps practiced by Catholics but not commonly written about. They talk about a person making regular acts of faith, acts of sorrow and resignation, acts of the will, etc. How often are these things spoken of today as if they were common practice in the spiritual life of most Catholics?

The difference also often shows in the things the former owners of these books did to the books. For example, one of the books I bought was from the library of Mary Manse College in Toledo. Inside the front cover there is a book plate with the library catalog information on it. The book plate is a black and white engraving of a nun holding a book in her hands surrounded by three or four young ladies, wearing what appears to be something akin to togas, sitting at her feet, on the floor, in rapt attention. One girl is sewing something, the others, if I remember correctly, are holding books or note books and are obviously enthralled with what the nun is saying. The library catalog info was handwritten on this book plate, in a nice lady's hand, with a fountain pen. Today we would think this kind of thing hokey, in fact, totally unsophisticated. Yet, there must have been a time when people took something like this seriously, or at least did not think it laughable. The book I am referring to was published in 1969, not that long ago.

I don't know if our times are better than those of, say, the 1950s or even late '60's, but they are different. Today, the lives of most Catholics are indistinguishable from those of their pagan neighbors; they often do not observe the Friday fast, seldom go to Confession, may have something to eat right before and/or right after Mass (sometimes something provided by the parish!), and may have no idea what an act of the will is. Josef Pieper, in the 1970s could write "Every child knows that in the list of the cardinal virtues fortitude comes third." Can we so easily toss off that kind of statement today? The loss of a Catholic culture means, I think, a loss of faith. I wish we could recover both.

In the mean time, I will continue to order old books.