A Crisis of Concepts

The family reunion went very well. It was great to see so many show up. It had been 16 years since our last reunion so a lot had changed and there was a lot to catch up on. Family events like these remind me of the truth that God created us as gifts to one another. But that is a topic for another time. A couple of days ago I mentioned that I thought John Paul the Great’s apparent neglect of men and fatherhood in his papal writings was just that, apparent. Rather, that he implicitly addressed men in his writing on women and motherhood. In fact, in some of his writings on women, he directly addresses men. So why would he talk to men about men and fatherhood so obliquely? Kate (see comments on previous post) is correct that in his theology of the body catecheses, JP the Great did give balanced treatment to men and women. I was in fact tempted, when I first engaged this issue, to give him a pass based upon his theology of the body. However, I soon realized that even in those catecheses he did not treat the issue of men and fathers in the explicit way that he did women and mothers, especially in Mulieris dignitatem. Still, I believe that he was not oblivious to the crisis of fatherhood and the problems of the absentee father. He makes mention of this problem in Mulieris dignitatem. Rather, I think that he finds the crisis of fatherhood to be a symptom with deeper roots than men just starting to abandon their vocation as husbands and fathers. The clue, I suspect, is given in Gratissimam sane (Letter to Families). In it, he says that the problem of the modern age is a crisis of truth manifested primarily in a crisis of concepts about the human person. This evokes Lumen gentium which says that when God is forgotten man turns against himself. I believe that men and fathers abandoning their roles is, for JP the Great, further down in the line of dominos. The collapse of family life (and therefore society) which we are experiencing begins with all of us forgetting who we are as human persons. It is clear to most commentators that JP the Great indeed, spent much time discussing the truth of the human person and especially the human person as a sexual being. In his book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, he provides further insights about what he sees affected first by this loss of understanding of the human person. In Threshold, he says that women in particular have been the victims of thinking which has turned people into utilitarian means; means of economic production but also for pleasure. Now it is not that modernity is the first time that this has ever happened, but it does seem that it is only recently that pornography has become “mainstream.” You no longer have to sneak out to the seedy adult bookstore to get it. The internet and cable TV bring it to your home; what used to be very close to pornography is even on broadcast TV nowadays. Unfortunately, with our distorted sense of freedom, women choosing to subject themselves to pornography is seen as an exercise of rights. But even the widespread acceptance of pornography and the blind eye turned by many governments to sexual trafficking and slavery, even of young girls and boys, are later manifestations of the loss of sense of the dignity of the human person. While there are many other reasons for this loss of the sense of human dignity, what has made it so critical for the family begins with the oppression of women and the response by many feminists who have rejected their femininity as a weakness which can be exploited. This has had a widespread affect on the way that women and the vocation to motherhood is now perceived. It is no longer a sacred vocation but a source of oppression, or at least a necessary evil which threatens to take women away from their real fulfillment in public life. In Mulieris dignitatem, the late Holy Father emphasized the danger associated with women trying to imitate masculine modes of being. He recognized that this could deform and damage a woman. But he did not say that the public sphere belonged to men; far from it. Rather, he said that women’s gifts are needed in the public sphere, but society needs to be able to accommodate this while at the same time allow women to devote themselves to being mothers.

So what does this have to do with men flying to coop? While he does not make the tie explicit, again in Mulieris dignitatem he discusses the fact that men learn their fatherhood from their wives. In a broader sense, they learn to be men from their wives and mothers who show them feminine love. David Blankenhorn, in his book, Fatherless America, presents sociological data which suggests this is in fact the case. Men are essentially being allowed to be cads by women who allow them to use them as sexual objects, many times in the mistaken notion that sex before marriage will draw the man closer when in fact it does the exact opposite. Of course this is a necessary simplification but the problem starts here. John Paul, in Mulieris dignitatem, does explicitly say that women have the primary role in demanding that men recognize them and their feminine gifts for what they are—necessary complements to men’s gifts for a healthily functioning family and society. Thus, the late Pope’s writings seem focused at helping us to see the inherent dignity of the human person as made in the image of God. Next to see that our sex, as female and male, are integral to our dignity and our identity as human persons. Also we must recognize that the gift of sex is just that, a gift, not a toy to be used for selfish or profane purposes. I believe that his point is that to fix the problem of wayward men is for women to recognize their unique role as mothers (including spiritual mothers) and their special gift of femininity, as their unique genius in participating with God in creation and His plan of salvation. They must demand that men recognize and respect this dignity and not follow us into the lie that sex is just another form of recreation. This is something that men are more prone to promote than are women, by the way. However, I must point out that in giving women the leading role he does not say that the current state of affairs (pun intended) is entirely their fault. Perhaps it is even more the fault of men than women. But that does not matter. What does is the road to recovery and that must start with recognizing who we are and why we are here. But, perhaps JP the Great does give too much credit to us men in supposing that we might get the point without things being laid out explicitly for us . . . after all we are largely to blame for letting things get this bad . . .

Nature or Nurture?

Work on the farm house up here in Saranac is an ongoing effort. We made a lot of progress yesterday; most notably by not falling off the roof while trying to affix a zinc strip to try to beat a moss problem. Moss seems to be a popular roofing challenge up here. I have to admit that the falling option was in the forefront of my mind for much of the effort because: a) when you need a rope to get up a 4x1 incline to get to the 40 ft peak, falling seems a distinct possibility; b) letting gravity do the work was the trick I chose the last time I was up on a roof. Any way, the roof work was uneventful. I can't say the same about our drive back to the farm house after setting up for today's Delaney family reunion. We happened upon the local deer crossing during a rain storm. Yep, we got ourselves a deer. Luckily it was my brother's rental; though I don't suppose it made much difference to the poor deer. But what about nature and nurture? There has been a long and ongoing debate about whether nature or nurture is responsible for everything from a child’s behavior to homosexuality. Well a couple of years ago the Institute for American Values published a report from the Commission on Children at Risk entitled, Hardwired to Connect which describes findings they say makes this debate obsolete. In fact, what they have found “by looking at, well, rats” (their prose not mine, but it sounds bloggish doesn’t it?) is that the nurturing environment actually affects gene transcription. What this means is that rats who were given “good mothering” experienced measurably greater emotional and psychological resilience. I know; how do you figure out whether a rat is emotionally resilient or not? Any way, the study group apparently did. The point was that this resilience could be passed on to subsequent generations by modifications in the rats’ DNA. The similarities of the relevant rat and human hormonal systems together with the available human data led these researchers to conclude that these finding are applicable to human children. The ability of the genetic code in DNA to be corrupted by the environment is well known (for example with cancer). However, the ability for constructive changes of the DNA via the environment in this manner was previously unknown. Note that these changes are not random constructive changes but they are directly related to the nurturing environment. This amazing finding correlates very well with John Paul the Great’s anthropology. This is how it would work. The unity of body and soul (called hylomorphism which comes from Aristotle through St. Thomas Aquinas) is such that the soul gives the body its shape. The body expresses the soul and is the mechanism by which the soul interacts with the world. But physical changes to the body also then necessarily modify the soul in some way (since the soul gives shape to the body). It is a two way street. So when a baby or young child is affected by the environment in some way; this affect can permanently change the child; this is especially true with nurturing the child. A young child must be loved and nurtured. If it is not, the affect is more than just psychological; it affects the way the genes transcribe themselves and so the effects can be passed on to its children. In other words, the environment can permanently modify the soul in such a way that it seems the soul records this change via the DNA. Thus nurture changes nature. One ramification: even if a so called “gay” gene is ever found one still cannot eliminate the possibility that it was a mistranscription due to a defective nurturing environment. In a wholly unrelated, but still very interesting, finding: back at the turn of the millennia Zenit ran an article about a paper to be delivered at a Jubilee congress held at the Vatican entitled "At the Dawn of Human Life," organized by the Institute of Gynecology and Obstetrics of the Catholic University of Rome. The paper reported that: Mothers undergo permanent changes during pregnancy, in which they "inherit" some characteristics of the child they carry and, through the child, also receive some characteristics of the father. [I wonder if this is scary to any moms?] This “communication” between the baby and mother occurs via stem cells, which have been found in the mothers 30 years after birth. These are believed to be permanent changes to the mother via her baby. There are many interesting ramifications for this, including the fact that so called “surrogate mothers” who “rent” their wombs will be “modified” for the rest of her life, by a being who is 100% genetically foreign to her. Does anyone find this stuff as fascinating as I do?

The Great Mystery

It is Christian marriage of course. First, I suppose that I should explain what I mean by “mystery.” Perhaps one could term it a mystery how my blushing bride has put up with me for the last 21+ years. But that would not be the Christian sense of mystery. Christian mystery is not a problem to be solved. Rather, Christian mystery is an excess of meaning; rather than darkness it is an excess of light. Thus, when we say that some aspect of the faith is a mystery; it does not mean we know nothing about it. Rather, it means that there is too much about it to know. This makes perfect sense when we realize that the faith is ultimately an expression of who and what God is. Since God is infinite and our minds are finite, logic dictates that there will always be mystery. We will never exhaust all there is to know about God. So what is the Great Mystery and what does it have to do with Christian marriage. John Paul the Great always emphasized that this term, from chapter 5 of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, is fundamental for Christian marriage. Paul reveals that Christ’s relationship to the Church and Christian marriage are both part of the same mystery. Both sets of relationships are mutually illuminative but JP the Great provides some insights from Christ’s relationship to the Church for Christian marriage, which I think are fascinating. Here are my top ten: 1. Christ’s irrevocable union with His Church helps us understand the irrevocable sacramental union of husband and wife in Holy Matrimony. 2. Husbands and wives are complementary; neither alone has all of the gifts necessary for a healthy marriage and family. Therefore, they must mutually subject themselves, one to another out of reverence for Christ (some have called this a development of doctrine). 3. Husbands must love their wives/families like Christ loved the Church; desiring their sanctification to the point of husbands giving up their lives for their family’s salvation (notice the primary goal is salvation, not houses, cars, diamonds, vacations, Gameboys, etc.). 4. The grace of the Sacrament, due to the Great Mystery, is what allows the spouses to overcome concupiscence and to love one another as persons rather than treating each other as objects (but it still takes work). 5. Authentic Christian marriage originates in the Great Mystery; it is a sharing in Christ’s desire that His love be fruitful and salvific. 6. The husband’s goal must be to imitate Christ in loving His wife/family such that they see Christ’s love and solicitude for them in the husband. 7. The wife’s goal in marriage must be to reveal to her husband/family the total gift of self which Mary, the Model of the Church/Bride, gave to God such that they what they must imitate in their relationships with God. 8. Marital intercourse is a foretaste of the perfect union we will have with Christ and the Church in heaven and so it is analogous to the union we have with Christ and the Church in the Eucharist. 9. To be authentic, marital intercourse must reflect Christ’s Total Gift of Himself which He gave on the Cross; nothing can be held back (including fertility). 10. Marital intercourse participates in the fusion of the spousal and redemptive love of Christ for His Church. In other words, (paraphrasing Scott Hahn) sex is not Campbell’s Soup . . . it is not um, um good; sex is not Frosted Flakes . . . it is not grrrrreat; sex is holy for through authentic marital intercourse, the spouses mediate sacramental grace to one another!

Did John Paul the Great Hate Men?

Actually, I recall reading something along those lines from a certain feminist writer. Her point was that he seemed to idealize women into something they could never be but he completely ignored men or at most made them into creatures somehow less than human. That made him both a man hater and a misogynist. While some feminists have a hard time being objective in addressing matters in which they perceive a threat to their agenda, it is not just these writers who have noticed that the late Holy Father did not seem to write about men as much as he did about women. Many of those who traditionally agree with him also criticized him for this. Looking for myself at his writings the most that I could come up with which was exclusively directed to men was a paragraph on men in the apostolic exhortation Familiaris consortio (“On the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World”) and an apostolic letter on St. Joseph obliquely focusing on men—Redemptoris custos (“Guardian Of The Redeemer”). When one looks at the crisis of fatherhood in the West and the resulting dissolution of family life, it seems that perhaps there might be something to this criticism. I have looked at this argument and, trying not to idolize a mortal but still great man, I tried to consider the possibility that he did ignore men and concentrated his whole thought on women. However, I also decided that perhaps he didn’t ignore men at all but addressed them implicitly for some reason. I found that the latter was the case. But then came the question as to why. Before saying what I came up with, I wonder if any one else has thought about this issue and what you may have come up with? I suppose you could answer: A. No, and I don’t care. B. Yes, but I don’t care. C. No, but let me hear what you found out. D. Yes, ______________ (fill in the blank).

E. No response (likely to be the most popular I suppose).

Are You Liberal or Conservative?

Well we made it to Saranac from Rochester. Everything went as planned with our trip but my brother's, well, that was another matter. Short story long, when it comes to my brothers lately, it seems they have me racing the weather for some reason or another. I had to take the ferry over to pick him up along with his family at the Burlington airport and try to catch the ferry back before the big storm hit . . . we made it. At least this time it was not a hurricane (see 7 July post). Any time I go to Vermont, for some reason, the trip has me thinking about politics. I'm not exactly sure why, the first strike in the same sex union war perhaps; but in that vein . . .

I recognize that many a keyboard has been burnt up with this issue but the nice thing about a blog is that you can always throw in your two cents and you don’t have to know that you are being ignored. So here go mine . . . Now I understand the desire to know where someone is coming from and the convenience of placing him or her into an intellectual box. However, it seems to me that the importation of the “liberal” and “conservative” classification schemes, by those trying to classify any particular Catholic, is problematic for various reasons. First, there is more often than not a lack of clarity as to what the user intends by the terms. For example, neoconservatives claim that they are more in line with classical liberalism and that today’s neo-liberals actually espouse many liberty depriving policies, through government interference especially in the economic sphere, that would be anathema to classical liberalism. That is not to mention that these terms can mean different things in the political, economic, fiscal, and social spheres. Beyond that, it is sometimes difficult to know what is really intended when they are applied to Catholics in terms of Church teaching. Is it their ecclesiology, their Christology, their understanding of Catholic social doctrine, their anthropology . . . ? Secondly, the classifications are overly simplistic and fail to take into account that many Catholics do not submit to particular, secular ideologies. Along these lines, a further problem is that it seems to me that once classified, there is a tendency by some to dismiss someone with whom they disagree without actually listening to what is said or engaging his arguments. Thirdly, unfortunately, too often the term “liberal” is simply used as a euphemism by those who think that this ideology justifies their dissent from authoritative Church teaching. Fourthly, it exacerbates the problem that both conservatives and liberals can unthinkingly presume that their _________ (political, economic, fill in the blank) philosophy is foundational and that the Church must some how fit into it. This leads to an over self-identification with their respective ideologies and the tendency to view Church teaching through these ideological lenses. For example, many Catholics, who espouse social liberalism seem to conflate Catholic social doctrine with liberal social policies. On the other hand some Catholics, who consider themselves to be conservative, can often appear to dismiss out of hand consistent and repeated magisterial statements which appear to conflict with their conservative ideology. This is especially the case when these statements are a prudential application of Church teaching such as is the case with the death penalty (of course this is of a different character than dissent from the teachings themselves but that does not justify a casual dismissal of magisterial statements). I suggest that we call a spade a spade. If one is a dissenter from Church teaching, admit it. If accepts Church authority only when it aligns with their politically conservative ideology then don’t call yourself a conservative Catholic. Perhaps a Protestant conservative who happens to agree with much of what the Catholic Church teaches might be more fair. O.K., I’m done.

Will There Be Sex in Heaven?

As I was reading Walker Percy’s, Lost in the Cosmos a couple of weeks ago, his discussion of semiotics and the triadic character of symbol use brought this question to mind. How, you might ask? You more probably would ask what I am talking about with the mouthful: “the triadic character of symbol.” Essentially, that means only one creature, man, uses a sign/signifier to convey meaning about something else—the referent (I would recommend Percy’s book to learn more about this but I would warn that his measured use of profane sexual material to get his point across could legitimately offend some sensibilities which are aimed at purity). I don’t recall if Percy discusses the point but up until William of Ockham introduced the cancer of Nominalism in the 14th century, it was pretty much accepted that there was a real ontological (which means “the being” of something) relationship between the sign and its referent. Ockham insisted that what we called things is completely arbitrary. There is no deeper connection. This Nominalism, having been enhanced by Immanuel Kant at the beginning of the 19th century, is pretty much common thinking today. So how did I get to the topic of sex? It occurred to me that this Nominalism goes well beyond words and their referents. For anything which we symbolize, we do not think of the symbol as having a very deep, and certainly not an ontological, relationship to its referent. This is the case even for some Catholics with the Sacraments. For them, the sacramental symbols are just material reminders of something spiritual (for other confused souls they function purely on the psychological level). Well, that is not what Christians ever believed prior to Ockham. The Sacraments are symbols par excellence. They are what they symbolize and they convey what they symbolize. That is the case with the priest as a symbol of Christ, the Bridegroom, in Holy Orders. The dissenters against the Church’s dogmatic teaching that only men can be priests suffer from two problems. The first is this rejection of the idea that symbols have a real ontological relationship to their referents. The other is that they do not accept that sex differences are something ontological, that these differences go to the very heart of who the person really is. We are either a female or male person forever; we cannot change our sex without annihilating ourselves as persons (transgender operations are simply surface mutilations of the body and cannot change the sex of the person). This relationship between sex and symbol is cosmological. Sex is a form of relation; it establishes the structure by which we relate to others. What we see as sex differences in creatures is simply a biological (and spiritual) manifestation of the way God relates to His creation and the way other aspects of creation relate to one another and to God. Peter Kreeft has a masterful article (reading him I sometimes wonder why I bother writing anything) on sexual symbolism which explains this much more profoundly than I ever could. I would recommend reading this article before reading John Paul the Great’s theology of the body catecheses because in it Kreeft summarizes much of what JP the Great presupposes in his anthropology. So how about the answer to the question? You probably can figure out by now that it is yes and no. No, if you are thinking of corporal copulation. However, there will be sex differences in heaven. Our masculinity and femininity remain with us forever as part of who we are. Furthermore, if one recognizes that sexual copulation is intended not only as a way to reproduce the species but as a foretaste of the universal intersubjective unity we will have with God and every other person in heaven, then I suppose that one might consider that sex—though I restate that it will not be corporal! However, I for one would not use the term because this heavenly unity is so far beyond the intimacy of marital sexual union that using the term would mislead and distort the unimaginable joys which God has prepared for those who love Him.

Tracey Rowland on B16 and VII

I like the way this lady thinks. Tracey Rowland is the dean of the JPII Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family in Melbourne. Zenit is publishing a 2 part interview with her on the differences in approach to Lumen gentium and the Second Vatican Council than we saw with JP the Great. Here is part 1. I think that she has hit on some very important points and I suspect that she is right in what we will see coming out of B16. Well we are on the road again tomorrow morning. We are headed up to Rochester, NY to visit my wife's nephew, wife and new baby boy. Then on to Saranac (population 1003) and the ole family homestead. We stay in the old farm house which is a renovated log cabin, moved to its current location sometime before 1860 when William Delaney had saved up enough money after having arrived in the U.S. to escape the potato famine (but we have forgiven the Brits). It stands on the 20 acres that remain of the original Delaney family farm. I am hoping that the heat wave spares us 'cause even renovated log cabins come sans a/c. However, we do have a phone line and mom is there with her laptop so expect me to continue pontificating until no one cares to listen anymore . . .

Death’s Evangelist

A few days ago, in the context of the idolization of the will, I discussed Walker Percy’s observation that sometimes we love death more than life. Death is the “end game” so to speak, of our “right to choose”_________ (to prevent life during intercourse, to extinguish life already in the womb, to control our suffering, etc. . . . fill in the blank). I was rereading a magazine article this morning which seems closely related. Crisis runs an article in their July/August issue by Benjamin Wiker, on George Felos, which seems to illustrate another manifestation of this need to control our destinies, a control which ultimately ends in the pursuit of death. Felos, if you will recall, is the lawyer who helped Michael Schiavo snuff out the life of his wife in last Spring’s tragic “right-to-die” case in Florida. Wiker bases his article on Felos’s autobiography. Felos is a strange bird indeed but the common denominator in this man’s struggle with life seems to be a death wish, for himself and others. In fact, he seems to have found a philosophical system/religion which provides the framework for his worship of death. Felos rejected his Christianity for an Eastern religion which proposes the old duality between body and soul in which the body is an illusion to be jettisoned; the soul is the only reality. Rather, the soul is detached divinity waiting to be subsumed back into the ocean of impersonal divinity. Felos is now in control, having reached the Self-consciousness required for this "return" to the divine. It is not hard to see how this is a distortion of the real truth. We are made in the image of God, and when baptized, we are divinized. However, this is distorted in Eastern thought into our being divine ourselves. We are indeed, made God-like by our baptism but our nature never changes into the Uncreated God. We never lose our personhood; our ineffable unity with God and with others in heaven completes us as persons, it does not annihilate our unique identities. Death is in fact the door to eternal life but it is not ours to choose. God has given us our life with the mission to become perfect; to become as holy as He is Holy (cf. Matt 5:38). We are not divine in the Eastern sense and so Self-consciousness of our own divinity is not the source of our salvation. Rather, only in Christ will we be saved . . . but only if we endure to the end (cf. Matt 10:22). Felos’s satanic siren song plays on a desire to control one’s own destinies, to control even death by seeking it in a confused assumption that one can overcome it through his will.

As for Felos, he has reached his state of Self-consciousness and now seeks death for himself and others. In fact, he is Death’s evangelist helping others to die and hopefully reach this state of consciousness for themselves. If he is not always successful, well, at least he is well compensated for his efforts. Wiker reports that he made about a half a million dollars for his efforts in the Schiavo travesty. John Paul the Great wrote that ideas have consequences. He was thinking about the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century in this statement. We find the same is true today. When we exalt freedom and our will above “being” and life, like JP the Great saw in the century of tears, the result is always death.

It’s Not So “Gay” After All . . .

The National Catholic Register ran an article last week about a case decided by a New Jersey Appellate Court which declared that those with homosexual lifestyles do not have a right to marry. Of particular interest in the article are testimonies that we do not hear enough about. One is from a young woman with homosexual inclinations but who is trying to live a chaste life. She describes how difficult chastity is in today's environment when the media seems to extol the virtues of same sex relationships. Another is from a girl whose father is a practicing homosexual and the problems which she experienced due to his disorder. Her point that the disorder comes with selfishness and emotional immaturity making lasting relationships impossible, is borne out by the data. A 1994 "gay" census happily reports that 52% of gays are in relationships and of these 29% are in them for 8 years or more. How they picked 8 years seems to do more with monkeying the data than anything else, since 8 years is no where near a lifelong commitment. Further more, 29% of the little over half (52%) means that only 15% make it to 8 years or more. This is not the stability that children need. Homosexual relationships, because they are disordered, cannot be stable. A study based on the health records of young Dutch homosexuals by Dr. Maria Xiridou of the Amsterdam Municipal Health Service and published in the May 2003 issue of the journal AIDS found that men in homosexual “monogamous” relationships have an average of eight partners a year outside their main partnership, and that the main partnerships last only an average of a year and a half. Even in the age of throwaway marriages, according to the US National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), 67 percent of first heterosexual marriages last 10 years and 50 percent last 20 years. Besides stability, the homosexual lifestyle is unsafe for children. The disorder of ephebophilia (the attraction to post pubescent children which is different from pedophilia) is significantly higher in gays (as high as 620 times higher –see first study below) than in the normal population (less than 2%). In fact, homosexual activists Karla Jay and Allen Young revealed in their 1979 Gay Report that 73% of all homosexuals have acted as "chicken hawks" (i.e., they have preyed on adolescent or younger boys). The following studies support this.

Ray Blanchard, et al. "Fratemal Birth Order and Sexual Orientation in Pedophiles." Archives of Sexual Behavior, Volume 29, Number 5 (2000), pages 463 to 478. A. Zebulon, Z.A. Silverthorne and Vernon L. Quinsey. "Sexual Partner Age Preferences of Homosexual and Heterosexual Men and Women." Archives of Sexual Behavior, February 2000 [Volume 29, Number IJ, pages 67 to 76. 'Ray Blanchard, et. aI. "Pedophiles: Mental Retardation, Maternal Age, and Sexual Orientation." Archives of Sexual Behavior, Volume 28, Number 2,pages 111 to 127. Kurt Freund, Robin Watson and Douglas Rienzoo "Heterosexuality, Homosexuality, and Erotic Age Preference." Journal of Sex Research, February 1989 [Volume 26,Number 1), pages l(J7to 117. W.D. Erickson, et al. "Behavior Patterns of Child Molesters." 17 Archives of Sexual Behavior 77,83 (1988). IOJ{. Freund, G. Heasman, I.G. Racansky, and G. Glancy. "Pedophilia and Heterosexuality vs. Homosexuality." Journal of Sex andMarital Therapy, Fall 1984 [Volume 10, Number 3], pages 193 to 200. "Homosexual activists Karla Jay and Allen Young. The Gay Report: Lesbians and Gay Men Speak OutAbout Sexual Experiences and lifestyles [Simon and Schuster, 1979], page 275. K. Freund & R.I. Watson. "The Proportions of Heterosexual and Homosexual Pedophiles Among Sex Offenders Against Children: An Exploratory Study." 18 34, Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 34-43 (1992).

Neither is the lifestyle healthy for either children or gays themselves. For example, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), has shown that the life expectancy for homosexuals is about twenty years shorter than that of the general public. The study, entitled “Gay obituaries closely track officially reported deaths from AIDS”, has been published in Psychological Reports (2005;96:693-697). Another study in Vancouver British Columbia and published in 1997 in the International Journal of Epidemiology (Vol. 26, 657-61: http:/ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract...">http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/26/3/657) reveals almost the exact same findings.

However, the dangers are not solely associated with AIDS. Two studies appearing in the October 2000 issue of the American Medical Association's Archives of General Psychiatry show a strong link between homosexual sex and suicide, as well as a relationship between homosexuality and emotional and mental problems. One of the studies in the same journal (by David M. Ferguson et. al.) discovered that “gay, lesbian and bisexual young people are at increased risk of psychiatric disorder and suicidal behaviors.” A summary of other health problems associated with homosexual behavior can be found in the Catholic Medical Association’s (http://www.cathmed.org/) paper, “Homosexuality and Hope.” These include: homosexuals are four times as likely as their peers to suffer from major depression, almost three times as likely to suffer from generalized anxiety disorder, nearly four times as likely to experience conduct disorder, five times as likely to have nicotine dependence, six times as likely to suffer from multiple disorders, and over six times as likely to have attempted suicide (and it points out that an “extensive study in the Netherlands (published in the Archives of General Psychiatry) undermines the assumption that homophobia is the cause of increased psychiatric illness among gays and lesbians. The Dutch have been considerably more accepting of same-sex relationships than other Western countries -- in fact, same-sex couples now have the legal right to marry in the Netherlands”). Homosexuality and Hope also showed that “compared to controls who had no homosexual experience in the 12 months prior to the interview, males who had any homosexual contact within that time period were much more likely to experience major depression, bipolar disorder, panic disorder, agoraphobia and obsessive compulsive disorder. Females with any homosexual contact within the previous 12 months were more often diagnosed with major depression, social phobia or alcohol dependence. In fact, those with a history of homosexual contact had higher prevalence of nearly all psychiatric disorders measured in the study. Also, a recent study in the American Journal of Public Health has shown that 39% of males with same-sex attraction have been abused by other males with same-sex attraction.” The document also shows physical illnesses associated with homosexual sex: “the diseases found with extraordinary frequency among male homosexual practitioners as a result of abnormal homosexual behavior is alarming: anal cancer, chlamydia trachomatis, cryptosporidium, giardia lamblia, herpes simplex virus, human immunodeficiency virus or HIV, human papilloma virus -- HPV or genital warts -- isospora belli, microsporidia, gonorrhea, viral hepatitis types B and C, and syphilis. Sexual transmission of some of these diseases is so rare in the exclusively heterosexual population as to be virtually unknown. Others, while found among heterosexual and homosexual practitioners, are clearly predominated by those involved in homosexual activity. Men who have sex with men account for the lion's share of the increasing number of cases in America of sexually transmitted infections that are not generally spread through sexual contact. These diseases, with consequences that range from severe and even life-threatening to mere annoyances, include hepatitis A, giardia lamblia, entamoeba histolytica, Epstein-Barr virus, neisseria meningitides, shigellosis, salmonellosis, pediculosis, scabies and campylobacter." It seems that the media has turned a blind eye to the stories of those who have experienced the real horror of a homosexual lifestyle. However, fortunately there are good apostolates, such as Courage, which are available to help those who recognize that they have the disorder of same sex attraction and want help in overcoming it.

Kumbaya My Lord . . . May Be On The Way Out

I will admit that I go to our parish's 8am no music Mass on Sunday mornings because if there are going to be “innovations” it will usually be related in some way to the music. In my estimation, music is perhaps the last major area where liturgists can (and often do) really trash the prayerful experience of the Mass without explicitly violating the rubrics. I have a good priest friend in the Sacramento Diocese who said that at one of his first Masses there, the liturgist was using circus music as the Mass theme. I am sure that there have been worse.

So you can imagine how pleased I was to read Zenit’s news release today about a topic for the October Synod of Bishops on the issue of liturgical music. Among the items to be discussed: the recovery of Gregorian Chant, the enforcement of liturgical standards for liturgical music, and the encouragement for new hymns according to these standards using Gregorian Chant as a model. I hope that the time is now right for an escape from the gaudy music to which we have been exposed and a recovery of this very important aspect of liturgy.

The List of the Intrepid Grows

I mentioned as an aside in a post a couple of days ago, that biological evolution is one area that scientists can be as agenda driven as anyone else. LifeSiteNews ran an article today about a release from the Discovery Institute which updated their “Statement of Dissent from Darwin.” This is a list of now, over 400 scientists who state their skepticism that Darwinian evolution (i.e. solely the factors of random mutation and natural selection) can account for the complexity of life. This is a very difficult issue for scientists to take on. For those who are not familiar with the field: scientists can be much more dogmatic about scientific dogma than many religions today. Dissent can lead to being ostracized and even to character assassination. Compound ordinary dissent with the fact that most of the English speaking world considers dissent from Darwin (Lamarckian evolution is not even on the radar screen for most in the English speaking academy) places one in the camp of a religious fundamentalist. This is almost the worst thing a scientist can be called. So you can see the problem of getting anyone to sign on to such a list and so the chance of real progress in advancing the science in this field is still pretty slim.

Christianity has nothing to fear from science (done right). I for one am looking forward to the day when we can get on with the investigation for what natural explanations there are for the formation of life. However, for the time being, it is still a “mortal sin” for a scientist to point out that emperor Darwin has been running around in his birthday suit for well over a century now.

The Pill and Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche was the father of the philosophical school of nihilism. He died at the turn of the 20th century, well before effective oral contraception became widely available. In fact, he was a philosopher and not a chemist or doctor. So what does he have to do with the pill? Well Nietzsche was an honest atheist who recognized that without God there is only one thing that matters in the end; the “will to power;” in other words, self-assertion; pursuing our will becomes our god. I would suggest that the Pill is the ultimate manifestation of Nietzsche’s “will to power” philosophy. Our fertility gives us the ability to cooperate with God in passing on life, in co-creating with Him. But in contraception we demand the right to worship the gods of sex, power, and wealth regardless of the cost. We find fertility such a dangerous foe that women are willing to put their health at risk to defeat it (It seems to me that sex is in first place of the sex, power, and money tri-theon right now, but I wonder how long it will be before the lawyers recognize the financial windfall available if they were to take the drug companies to the carpet over the death and disease, including breast cancer and a host of other problems including blood clots, caused by chemical contraception). Unlike the lower animals which sexually procreate, we have the intellectual capacity to choose to impede our cooperation with procreation. With the pill we manifest our wish to overcome nature; we go to battle with nature (i.e. with God) over our fertility. And battle seems to me to be the correct term considering the ever so martial contraceptive vocabulary (contraception, barrier method, spermicide, etc.). In the end, we are fighting against life. We are embracing the culture of death; in fact the paradox is that in pursuing the satisfaction of our every sexual desire, we actually seem to have a death wish. Walker Percy saw this in his book, Lost in the Cosmos in which he criticizes our sex crazed culture. Literary AIDS is a new manifestation of this coming out of the “gay” subculture. This genre (??) seems to be a celebration of death, of flirting with and embracing activities which will bring death. The late Stephen Happel discusses this:

the condition for accepting the pleasure of single-sex affection . . . is the willingness to accept death by AIDS, not as the antagonist of pleasure, but as the always already-there inner limit of an open-ended desire. This appropriation of death-in-life, however, requires divesting oneself of the kind of constructed masculinity that asserts dominance over everything, including suffering and death. The understanding of anthropology faces lack as an intrinsic moment of human self-realization, whether male or female (Stephen Happel and James J. Walter, Conversion and Discipleship: A Christian Foundation for Ethics and Doctrine [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986], 114).

Demanding the right to seek death is the ultimate self-assertion of one’s will (even if Happel doesn't see this); it is the final defiance against the Lord and Giver of Life. If the traditional satanic exclamation Non Serviam does not come to mind here, I would be surprised. It makes perfect sense that Satan would attack the very point at which our wills can either bring us into the imitation of Trinitarian, fruitful love or into a rejection of the purpose of our free wills by our becoming lower than the animals who still at least act according to their instincts.

The Ties that Blind

As much as scientists (doctors generally consider themselves part of this community) like to espouse their objectivity in looking at the scientific data and their skepticism with respect to any and all "ideologies," the truth is that they are every much as subject to “groupthink” as anyone else. The biological evolution debate comes to mind here, where such ideologues as Richard Dawkins and the late Stephen Jay Gould refuse to admit the shortcomings of the current evolutionary theories because they are frightened that the only alternative explanation seems to them to be some sort of theism. Well, move over Richard, Stephen, you have company coming to join you. Zenit ran an interview in today’s edition with Dr. Rick Fitzgibbons of the Catholic Medical Association. In previous posts, I have referred to a white paper, to which he was a major contributor, "Homosexuality and Hope.” In the interview, Fitzgibbons, a psychiatrist, details how the American Psychiatric Association has wedded itself to anti-Christian, and especially anti-Catholic ideologies. Fitzgibbons says that these ties blind it to the medical evidence that homosexual attraction and behavior bring with it serious psychiatric and medical illnesses. The best part of this interview is the links to summaries of studies which detail these findings. In a culture where the gods are scientific knowledge and technology, and the high priests are the scientists and engineers (I had to throw engineers in . . .) the lay faithful are apt to bow down to whatever the high priests tell us. Hopefully we will mature in time to keep from following these “scientists,” like lemmings, over a sociological cliff.

Understanding Vatican II: Deconstructing the Myth

The Second Vatican Council was, as the Good Pope envisioned, the opening of the window of the Church to the Holy Spirit. VII provided the Church with the tools to engage modernity and to effectively dialogue with a changed world. A new personalist approach to presenting the alterable truths which Jesus suffered and died to leave us, has sparked the beginnings of a new springtime in the Church. John Paul the Great’s anthropology, though his writing can be dense for non-specialists, is a personally compelling way to understand what the Church has always taught about God and man’s Covenant relationship with Him. In fact, this blog tries to popularize JP the Great’s thought so that his understanding of the awesome reality of who we are and who we should become is more readily available to non-specialists. John Paul the Great was in a sense, formed by the Council and is perhaps its most fruitful implementer. It seems to me then, that it is important to have a good understanding not only of what the Council said but also of the history of the development of the documents. A couple of articles have recently appeared which have cast a new light on the “current wisdom” in which Vatican II is (mis)characterized as a fight between progressive bishops and theologians and traditional, neo-scholastics. In this common view, the latter of course lost the fight. Those who espouse this view often try to depict the council as a break with the past. Sandro Magister writes on Cardinal Ruini’s refutation of this popular view. The Cardinal took the occasion to discuss this common (mis)perception of Vatican II at the presentation of a new book, published by Libreria Editrice Vaticana and written by Bishop Agostino Marchetto. Bishop Marchetto is a Church historian and the secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People. The book is entitled The Ecumenical Council of Vatican II: A Counterpoint to Its History. Zenit interviews Marchetto on his new book. Marchetto takes particular issue with the so called Bologna School which is a major purveyor of this mischaracterization of VII. He emphasizes the continuity of the Council with the past and takes pains to refute the simplistic view that the Council was a fight between liberals and conservatives. This is of fundamental importance because this mistaken view is held by some extreme traditionalists who then reject the council and by dissenters of Church dogma who see it as their license for dissent. I hope that the book will be available in English as my Italian is not so good. It will provide an important corrective to the history by legend to which most of us have been subjected up to now.

It’s All About Me: Adding to the Crisis of Fatherhood in the U.S.

I rely on Hiérothée for a lot of blog topic ideas so I was happy to see him send me an article on an area related to my recently completed dissertation. It appears that MSNBC ran an article last week about a new movement among some professional women. It seems that they are coming to recognize late, with respect to their “biological clocks,” their innate “need” to have a baby. However, for various reasons they find that the best option is to conceive through anonymous sperm donation. The MSNBC article focuses on the need for support groups and child care for these mothers but there is no mention of the impacts of the missing father on the children.

David Blankenhorn, in his book Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem, draws together a mound of statistics to illustrate the problems associated with fatherless households. He begins by showing that the problem of fatherless households has grown significantly since 1960. By 1995 about 40% of all children in the U.S. were living without their biological fathers. This number is expected to reach 50% in this decade. While divorce and remarriage accounts for the majority, 40% of these children live only with their mothers. Blankenhorn cites study after study which links male youth crime, emotional and behavioral problems and social maladjustment to fatherless households. In fact, the most significant indicator of crime in a neighborhood is the percentage of households without the biological father present. While violence and crime are the main results of boys being raised without a father, for girls juvenile and single motherhood become the problems. For example, girls in single parent homes (87% of which are fatherless) are 53% more likely to marry as teenagers, 111% more likely to have children as teenagers, 164% more likely to have a child out of wedlock, and 92% more likely to divorce. These facts help to perpetuate further societal problems since women living with a man who is not their husband are four times more likely to experience abuse than a wife by her husband. In addition, children in fatherless households are at a significantly higher risk of sexual abuse. Finally, children are six times more likely to live in poverty if they live only with their mother.

I studied John Paul the Great’s theology of fatherhood and found that from his anthropology, these problems are predictable in a home where the father is not present. You see, God created man, male and female. We, men and women, are made to complement one another. We need each other’s complementary gifts to become who we are called to be (in a word . . . saints) and to subdue and have dominion over the earth (i.e. fruitfully steward families, society, technology, the environment, etc.). In a nutshell, women and men are given different ways of giving themselves as gifts to others. Children, who learn to trust from their parents' love, need to experience both of these complementary ways of loving in order to be well nurtured and to develop into healthy and well adjusted adults. The problems listed above are by and large, a response of destroyed trust.

By the way, the sociological data indicates that there is a big difference between children of divorced parents and children of a parent who has died; the latter not experiencing the extent of the problems generally seen among other fatherless households. Depriving children of this stable family life cannot be made up for later in life. Interestingly, the studies which ostensibly show that there is no difference between children of heterosexual parents and children of gay or lesbian parents actually does support the need for both parents. It seems that the authors of gay studies always take as their point of comparison single mother households, which as shown above, leads to very troubled children.

So, it turns out that you cannot fool Mother Nature. When we think that we can, with impunity, alter living in the way for which God has created us we are playing with fire. In the end, the piper will get his pay. Unfortunately, in this case it will likely be at the price of the emotional wellbeing of the innocent children.

The Liturgy, “Wyle E. Coyote”, and Faith

I saw that Amy had a long run of comments a couple of days ago on her post about the debate between Gerry Matatics and Robert Sungenis on the validity of the post-1962 Roman Missal and post-1968 Ordination Rite. I was surprised by the number of those commenting who summarily dismissed the issue as well as dismissed those extreme traditionalists who subscribe to it. While they are probably correct that few minds will be changed by the debate, I do not think that ignoring the dissenting traditionalists is any more advisable than ignoring any other dissenting Catholics. Paradoxically enough, I suspect that dissenters on sexual teachings, Church structure, Sacraments, etc. have much more in common with traditionalist dissenters than they might suspect. This brings me to the title of this post. The first item: the Liturgy. Traditionalists generally understand that the Mass is essential for Christian life, in fact, for life in general (see our posting on this subject). Even though many traditionalists mistake accidents for essentials in the liturgy, perhaps those who do not have some sympathy for traditionalists do not appreciate an important aspect of the liturgy which the traditionalists seem to intuit. Their desire to return to those things jettisoned in the 1970 and subsequent Missals which evoke a sense of mystery and transcendence in the Mass may be accidents but that does not mean they are not significant. We, after all, are both material and spiritual creatures and so we require stimuli from the material world to reinforce and orient us toward what is happening spiritually. Our ability to focus on and experience the great mystery which we enter into during the liturgy is greatly affected by the liturgical accidents. It is not surprising then that those who recognize the awesome nature of the Mass but do not experience the sense of transcendence in most of the present day liturgies they attend, perceive that there is some sort of discord between the reality and the experience. Unfortunately, this leads some traditionalists, such as Gerry Matatics, to separate themselves from the Church. The second item: Wyle E. Coyote. Gerry Matatics was one of the first apologists I listened to after beginning to relearn my faith back in the early 90s. Not too long afterward, I heard his good friend from seminary days describe Gerry in terms of Wyle E. Coyote. It turns out this friend was quite disturbed that Gerry had recently subscribed to the theory that the current Roman Missal was invalid. He described what he saw happening to Gerry in terms of the coyote in the Roadrunner cartoons who worked so hard to break into a house to get the Roadrunner, that he went right through the house and out the back door. In this case, the house was the Catholic Church. What explains this Wyle E. Coyote act? I cannot tell you that I know the answer. However, I suspect that it has to do with the fact that Gerry never shook his Protestant outlook on faith.

The third item: Faith. Now to the point I made earlier about similarities among all varieties of dissenting Catholics. Cardinal George has described our U.S. culture as Calvinist. I believe that he is right, though perhaps post-Calvinist would be more accurate. In any case, we have a Protestant mindset, reinforced by rationalism and American individualism, where, in truth we are our own popes. What I mean is that we do not recognize the necessity of trust for faith. This trust is in Christ and the Church He established. Trust is fundamental for faith, for social interactions, for community, for learning, for just about everything in our daily lives. However, if we make the mistake that because the Church may have made erred on something in the past, then our opinion is just as good as the Magisterium’s authoritative teachings then we are adopting the foundational premise of Protestants and all varieties of Catholic dissenters. There a many ways to show that this makes no sense but the quickest is to say that it is illogical to trust the Magisterium for the source material (the Bible, Papal Decrees, etc.) and then use these sources to show that the same authority is now wrong. This trust only in oneself is misplaced, dangerous, counter to our constitution as human persons, and totally alien to Biblical faith. This type of trust is not fideism it is faith aided by reason.

That’s Inappwopwiate

Well we made it home and for those familiar with traveling the I-95 corridor from Richmond to DC on a Sunday evening, you know that is no small grace. Actually, we were still in North Carolina when traffic ground to a halt the first time. It was bumper-to-bumper most of the rest of the way with a lot of stop-and-go . . . but all too much just plain “stop.” Regardless, we had a wonderful time with my brother, his wife and four children. Sheri is on the mend but we are keeping her in our prayers. We spent the night with our nephew, Ben, in Charleston, SC. We arrived early Saturday afternoon and saw some of the sights, we braved the traffic on the new Charles River Bridge (it’s actually named after a politician but I do not recall his name) which had just opened that day. It was apparently the thing to do in Charleston. We went to Mass this morning at the beautiful St. John the Baptist Cathedral. Thankfully, it has not been subjected to any of the slash and burn renovations all too popular these days. They even retained the ornate, carved marble fixed altar from the late 1800s. My wife was reading the bulletin on the way home and saw that the new rector/pastor plans to soon begin having the Credo and Pater Noster recited in Latin at all of the Masses. They begin practicing next week (the reform of the reform has begun . . . ). Now we have a week to recuperate before we leave on a trip up to the ole family homestead near Plattsburgh, NY for a Delaney family reunion. Guess who is in charge . . . So what about the title of this post. Well that comes by way of my six year old nephew, Tyler. Tyler is somewhat precocious but he has a little problem with pronouncing his “r”s, which makes him a hoot to listen to (I know, a dangling preposition, but it sounds better than the alternative). As I was taking Tyler and his brother to nature camp (there was also “speed camp” and “reading camp” for the other two nephews) we passed a couple of young men jogging on the way, very tanned and shirtless, which figures into the story. We were still a mile or two from camp and since Tyler and Aidan were not on their best behavior, I threatened to drop them off with the runners and make them run the rest of the way. While Aidan, the agitator, liked the idea Tyler was not going for it. He first thought that the boys would induce them to run shirtless as an obvious sign of manliness (not sure where that one came from). However, he thought that running around without a shirt was “inappwopwiate.” I thought about this for a second and realized that perhaps Tyler sees something here. While flaunting it if you have it . . . well these days unfortunately, even if you do not have it . . . is common place, it is important to recognize our responsibilities to one another. If we can be the cause of sin for another by what we wear (or don’t wear) we have an obligation to avoid subjecting others to our wayward fashion. Is this Victorian prudishness? Perhaps in Tyler’s case there is room for honest disagreement. However, it provides an opportunity to make an important distinction. What is the difference between prudishness and modesty aimed at purity for oneself and others?

Prudishness seems to me, to be based upon a false shame of the body. It is a modesty which sees the body as something dirty and therefore, to be hidden. Purity on the other hand, is a modesty which recognizes the beauty and wonder of the body, as the very expression of the soul of the person. However, purity also recognizes the reality of concupiscence. In other words, in the fallen state it is no secret that the body, inappropriately exposed, can be a cause for viewing the person as an object for pleasure or for the satisfaction of a desire. It seems then, that one must judge, given the circumstances, what kinds of apparel are reasonably likely to cause lustful thoughts in potential viewers and avoid wearing them in public places. We are our brothers and sisters keepers.

The Pope & Harry Potter

No, this isn't the title for J. K. Rowling's next book. Although it does seem to be a constant theme in the secular media. In 2003 JPII was falsely quoted as being in favor of the Harry Potter series. A news article from a few years ago has recently resurfaced which Pope Benedict the 16th goes on record as disapproving the series. An article in Reuters sets out the Popes thoughts on Harry Potter. Our Holy Father is quoted as saying “It is good that you enlighten people about Harry Potter, because these are subtle seductions which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly,”. I have read several of the Harry Potter series and have found that with out a properly mature and informed consious (which is a rare thing indeed) it would be difficult to see the damage the devil can do to a soul using the imagination and Harry Potter. I guess the words of our Lord Jesus Christ can sum this up better than I. "Whoever causes one of these little ones who belive in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea." Pray for our little ones always. Peace & Prayers, CLS

What Could She Be Thinking?

On Monday, the Ottawa Citizen ran an article on a hockey mom who was upset with the British Columbia Amateur Hockey Association and was taking her case to the Human Rights Tribunal in Vancouver. It seems that the residual patriarchalism/prudishness in Canada was leading to discrimination against her 14 year old daughter. Apparently this poor young lady was being unfairly left out of team camaraderie because she was not allowed to change in the same locker room as her male teammates.

I suppose that in the broad sense of the term, this is in fact, discrimination. However, in this case it is not unjust. Rather, this discrimination recognizes the propriety of keeping undressed teens of the opposite sex separated from one another. This is something lost on the mother who would seem to be more concerned with her daughter's so called "rights" and her "integration" into the team than she is with recognizing the reality of sexual differences and the sexual urge. Unfortunately, I will not be surprised to learn that the tribunal finds for the mother.

That Dog Don't Hunt: Same Sex Marriage

This Texas saying nicely summarizes the problem with same sex marriage. After all, from an authentic Texan's perspective a dog is made for hunting and it is a serious disorder when something cannot do that for which is was created. Same sex marriage is much the same. It seems perfectly obvious that marriage is ordered to the raising of children; even though it has been endowed by Christ with much more meaning. A relationship in which the two partners rebel in some way against their natures, reflects disorder. Homosexual relationships are the epitome of this rebellion.

LifeSiteNews is posting an article from earlier in the year by Richard Bastien on same sex marriage which helps one see this rebellion. Bastien's article summarizes and refutes the major arguments raised in support of same sex marriage. This is a very helpful article because it makes important distinctions between the valid arguments from the civil rights movement and their misapplication to the gay agenda. Bastien also addresses something we have mentioned previously in this blog. The connection between a contraceptive mentality and the situation to which we have now arrived with the near complete dissolution of the nuclear family.

I really cannot overemphasize how important I think the contraceptive mentality is for where we find ourselves headed in society. Contraception is the first step in turning life from a gift into a commodity to be seized, controlled, and bended to our wills. However, our wills cannot change reality. Eventually our cheat'n ways will catch up with us . . .

Interview with Joseph Ratzinger

In 1996 Peter Seewald, a secular journalist who had left the Church some years before, interviewed Cardinal Ratzinger. I have found this interview fascinating as well as deeply informative about my faith and the man Joseph Ratzinger. Cardinal Ratzinger never looked at the questions for this interview before meeting with Mr. Seewald. I would like to share just one question of this 283 page interview. This is on page 21 of Salt of the Earth from Ignatius press. -Peter Seewald – Aren’t Jesus Christ and, with him the whole design of the Church mysteries in themselves that one must either accept or reject, “take it or leave it”, as the Americans say? Cardinal Ratzinger – To be sure, one must decide. That is correct. But not in the same way that I can, for example, take or not take a cup of coffee. The decision goes deeper. It affects the whole structure of my life; it affects me in the core of my being. If I do my best to construct my life without or against God, then it’s obviously going to turn out differently than if I direct it towards God. It is a decision that encompasses the whole direction of my own existence as such: how I look at the world, how I myself want to be and will be. It is not one of the many casual decisions in the market of available possibilities. Here, on the contrary, the whole plan of my life is at issue.

Never Give Up!!!

Catholic Exchange provides an update from LifeSiteNews on B16's new book which focuses on the Church's battle against abortion. The Pope addresses the pragmatist argument of those who are against abortion but think that too much effort is being spent on a lost cause. He is adamant that this is a cause that cannot be lost.

It seems clear to me that to lose this battle is to lose the "whole shoot'n match." If we succumb to the proposition that any human entity is free to grant and withhold the protections associated with human personhood we are destined to follow in the steps of all previous societies which are now simply memories.

When Satan Seems to Win

A good friend of mine forwarded me an e-mail about her associate pastor at the parish her family attended when they were stationed in Montgomery AL, with the Air Force. Father Michael was young, orthodox, a gifted homilist, and on fire with his faith. However, Father Michael suffered from clinical depression. Everyone thought that he was on the mend but last week Fr. Michael took his own life.

His family, his parish and all those who knew him and loved him are no doubt shaken; for them there is no answer to the question "why?". Beyond the personal tragedy, those of us who daily pray for an increase in faithful vocations to the priesthood have to add to the loss of this young man the loss of a vocation, by all accounts I have read, of a very good, young priest. The only thing that can make this tragedy bearable is that we already know that in the end--God wins!

Please keep Fr. Michael and his family in your prayers.

3000 Teens under one Tent……

No, I did not go to the Circus. I was privileged this past weekend to lead a small group of High School students to the Steubenville East Conference at Attleboro Massachusetts. Not only was it engaging for the Teens but it also challenged them in their faith life. The challenge laid down to these 14 through 18 year olds was no small one. A challenge to remain abstinent until marriage as our Lord asks. To live their Catholic faith in accord with the teachings of the church. What a wonderful experience for these young people to see adults they look up to laying down the word and teachings of the Church, and then to have them stand up and applaud so loud the speakers could not be heard. The Holy Spirit was moving hearts this weekend. Three of my teens went in front of all 2997 other teens to recommit themselves to living a life in accord with Our Lord. Please pray for them that they may continue to be moved closer to Our Lord. How wonderful this weekend was. I ask you to pray for all teens, everywhere, that they maybe moved by the Holy Spirit in such a way, and they may find themselves in the arms of Our Lord and Blessed Mother all the day of their lives and into eternity. May the peace of Christ be with you always, CLS

Snips, and Snails, and Puppy Dog Tails...

This week Zenit published an article in their weekly news analysis entitled "Teaching Boys and Girls Differently." Unfortunately I can't provide the direct link for you. I am using my brother's computer. He is gone and the only log in I can access is his kids' account and he has them blocked from news sites. Back to the point: There is more and more evidence that the old rhyme (see title of this post) which has been eschewed by many feminists is not the result of cultural conditioning or stereotypical biases. Rather, it captures something which gives insights into real differences between boys and girls. A previous post on this issue indicated the potentially damaging results of a radical refusal to acknowledge this truth. In a bit of a turn around, in public education it seems that today boys are receiving the short end of the stick because they are not more like girls. For example, more and more boys are being identified with attention deficit disorder because they do not behave as well as do girls. They also tend to reject some subjects as being for girls, such as art, because the ways they are taught tend to play to their limitations. However, there are also benefits in education to understanding and capitalizing on the recognition of how boys and girls, on average, interact and perceive things differently. Psychologist Leonard Sax says that the differences in ceberal capacities between males and females is much greater during childhood than as adults. While understanding our differences is very helpful for adult interactions, it appears to be even more important for children. Unfortunately, it will take many years before we over come the dangerous Enlightenment mentality that believes equality means sameness.

Liturgical Samplings

One of the interesting experiences in traveling about the U.S. is the opportunity to experience the Liturgy in various parts of the country. However, I have to admit that I am often on guard as to what I will experience because it is not very often that one runs across a Mass done according to the GIRM's rubrics. Thankfully, the deviations/innovations seem to be subsiding in my experience but they still can be a challenge to deal with for some of us. The Mass at my brother's parish was thankfully fairly devoid of deviations but I suppose by my reaction to the liturgical music some might accuse me of being something of a curmudgeon. Except for the 70's schooled "liturgists" who impose it upon us, very few would argue that the choice of liturgical music over the last several decades has been anything but generally dismal. It seems that my brother's parish may have been trying to deal with the music problem but I fear that the direction they have taken is seriously flawed. It seems that many parishes, especially those who want to make the Mass more "relevant" for teens, have taken on the practice of incorporating Protestant worship songs into the Mass. This was what my brother's parish has done. Apart from the theological problems associated with the lyrics in many of these hymns, I think that my aversion to this is along the lines of aesthetics but I do not believe it is purely personal preference. Here is why: I happen to like much in the way of Protestant worship music and I did find the music selected aesthetically pleasing (I mean I liked it). However, good liturgical music is not a matter of personal preference. Nor is the desire to make the Mass "relevant" a valid criteria for selecting music. The GIRM provides some guidelines for music with the Mass which need to be taken into account, among these are the need for music to be sacred. While I am certainly not a music or liturgical expert, I do have a fairly good understanding the guidelines and the theology of the Mass. Here are my concerns with this type of music: The Mass is the Sacrifice of the Cross made present in which its grace is temporally applied on the Church and all of creation. In the Mass, heaven touches earth and all present are joined together in one ineffable act of praise and thanksgiving to the Father. Since we are composites of body and soul it is necessary that our sensory experience help to reinforce the transcendence of the Mass. When the GIRM mentions the requirement that the music be sacred, this theology is what it presupposes. The music must not only allow us to experience the transcendence of the Mass it must also allow us to be actively silent and composed (for a very helpful discussion of this I would strongly recommend Romano Guardini's, Meditations Before Mass). The '70s type of music lacks the capacity to manifest the transcendence of the Mass, in my opinion. Protestant worship music is much the same. Even more so, the latter can be so energizing that one cannot bring oneself to silence, be composed, or be fully focused on what is happening and on our complete agreement with and submission to our active part in this re-presentation of the Sacrifice of Calvary. If we really want to make the Mass relevant to Catholics, I believe that the movement must be more on the part of the faithful toward an understanding and appreciation of the Mass and their participation in it than an ill advised adoption of otherwise, pleasant, but liturgically inappropriate music in service to the Mass. I agree with the desire of those who recognize the need for changes in the music but I believe that the direction needs to be more cognizant of the authentic theology of the liturgy.

Just In Time

Well we made it to the Tampa area in 14 hours, an hour better than we estimated. The first bad feeder band arrived a few hours later but all in all we were very fortunate. Dennis is tracking more to the west right now so it looks like the West Coast of Florida is relatively safe but the Panhandle and points West need our prayers. My wife, Tricia, noticed that on I-75 (at least south of Gainesville were we picked it up) there were quite a few pro-life billboards along the high way. It seems like the Florida pro-life community is pretty well organized. Good for them! Very happy to report that my brother's wife was released from the hospital today. We will still have to stay until Saturday when we will be spelled by her sister. But still, she is doing pretty well. Thanks for all the prayers.

On the Road Again...

A call last night from my brother in New Port Richey, FL has us driving down there in a few minutes in order to try to beat the hurricane...it'll be close (I hope burglars don't do Catholic blogs). His wife has been admitted to the hospital and he needs help watching the four children. As such, the posts will be intermittant over the next week or so, but don't go away.

The Catholic Church: Public Enemy Number 1?

According to a new book reviewed by Sandro Magister, this is the view of the UN and the European Union. Why, might you ask? It is for the simple reason that Catholicism is a fundamentalist religion, largely responsible for inhibiting the world-wide acceptance of “reproductive rights.” He reports that the European Union actually passed a resolution which identified religious freedom as a potential threat to the fetal death wish espoused by many in these two organizations. These are some specific points of interest which Magister recommends paying attention to in the book:

– the weakening over the years, through successive variations, of the 1948 charter of universal rights, in which for example the original right to "change religion" was reduced to "have or adopt a religion" and finally, in 1981, merely to "have a religion"; – the tenet of the UN organizations according to which the family "represents the institution par excellence by which female subordination is defined," for which reason it must be fought and gradually dismantled; – the invention and deployment on a grand scale of the formula "reproductive health," according to which "the right over life is reserved exclusively to women, while a policy of severe demographic containment opposes the birth of children"; – the detailed reconstruction of the support given by the UN – and by Catholic exponents – to "interreligious events and organisms intended to replace traditional religions with a single worldwide religion based upon a declaration of the rights of man"; – the decision of the Holy See, announced in 2000, to suspend its own financial contribution to UNICEF, because "it has been transformed from a bastion of defense for children and mothers into just another agency for birth control"; – the repeated attacks against the Catholic Church in the annual reports of the commission for human rights at the European parliament, accusing the Church of " fundamentalism" in every area, but especially that of sex; – the very close interconnection, since the beginning of the 1900's, between opposition to procreation and eugenics, and the continuation of the latter of these under new appearances, even after it was discredited with Nazism; – the premise of UN organizations according to which the offering of abortion and contraception is, in every context, the first element of emancipation for women, and the only one pursued in point of fact, as in Iran, where programs for birth control have had great success but women continue to be subjected to oppression by men; – the striking contrast between the anti-procreation efforts lavished by international organizations upon poor countries and the lack of any change, in the past decade, in the number of women who die during childbirth, more than half a million per year.

The book: Eugenia Roccella, Lucetta Scaraffia, “Contro il cristianesimo. L’ONU e l’Unione Europea come nuova ideologia [Against Christianity: The UN and the European Union as a New Ideology].”

When Word Games Kill

So goes the subtitle (well almost anyway) of a book published ten years ago by William Brennan. This book came to mind while reading Christopher Blosser’s blog the other day (by the way, anyone know if he is a relation to Jamie at CUA?). Christopher was discussing (see his July 2 entry) his interchange with another blogger who was espousing what has been termed “delayed personhood” in his attempt to justify Catholics supporting abortion rights. Christopher gave a great response to it; especially his link to Peter Kreeft’s article on the topic. I think Brennan provides some supporting thoughts. Brennan’s book, Dehumanizing the Vulnerable: When Word Games Take Lives, does a masterful job presenting a summary of those who have perpetrated this nominalist fallacy and those upon whom it has been imposed. The recipients have been women and European Jews, and it was a favorite ploy of the Soviets against anyone whom they considered an enemy. Of course, we have had our own experience with it here in the U.S.—much to our shame. We have used it against Native Americans and African Americans. Those on the receiving end have been called inferior races, sub-humans, animals, parasites, diseases, waste products and any other pejorative appellation of which you might care to think. Dehumanizing some class of people used to be a logically necessary step before justifying the institutionalization of their being deprived of life and liberty. It seems we have now “progressed” beyond logic. We now get to decide who among human beings deserves the status and protection of personhood and who does not based solely on idolatry of the will--i.e. the "right to choose." Nietzche clearly saw that without God, "will to power" is the human endgame. The pro-choice logic seems to confirm that. It seems clear (to me at least) that once we make the decision which human beings get to be persons and which do not we have adopted the same logic as those who foisted on history the “Final Solution” and the American slave trade.

I have yet to see immutable criteria which can differentiate the unborn from any other human being. Peter Singer recognizes all too clearly that there is none. I am sure Christopher’s debate opponent does not see this but I honestly do not understand why.

Opinions??

We have had a few comments about changing the background color for this blog (which of course means changing the entire color format). Since my wife has to dress me--she is seriously considering 'grr-animaling' my clothes so as not to be embarrassed by what I might have worn when she is not around--I can certainly understand it is highly likely that I have not hit on a winner. The complaints range from mood concerns to eye discomfort. We are certainly open to change. Since we have no budget, will not be bringing in a high dollar color consultant, so it is up to y’all (this is a Texas ‘y’all’ which is always plural). Anyone with an opinion, feel free to give us advice. We will take the inputs and try them out over the next week or two and see what we come up with.

Only Ourselves To Blame

Stephanie Coontz, the director of public education for the Council on Contemporary Families, writes an Op Ed piece in the NY Times yesterday on the issue of "gay marriage." She makes some interesting points about the current marriage crisis (Article- registration required) .

Now I will state off the bat that Coontz appears to assume that marriage is purely a social construct with infinite flexibility (Columbine comes to mind here). She also conflates changes in what are purely social constructs, like marriage arrangement, with changes which are violations of natural law, like unrestrained use of artificial contraception. So my agreement with her only goes so far.

Nevertheless, she is right when she says that the wide spread social acceptance of contraception and no fault divorce have led to the unravelling of marriage. While she goes too far in suggesting that traditional marriage is left with no defense against the proponents of "gay marriage," it certainly makes the defense more difficult.

Extreme Makeover: The Tragic Edition

If you read much about the secular research into gender and gender identity, you may be familiar with the story of Bruce Reimer. Wendy McElroy wrote an article last year, which updates the situation. As some background: in the mistaken notion that equality means sameness, the 1960s and 70s saw the development of numerous theories and a lot of research attempting to show that sex differences did not extend much, if at all, beyond the procreative functions—at least they admitted that much. McElroy relates that caught up in this theorizing and experimentation was a little boy named Bruce who, in 1966 at eight months old, was the victim of a botched circumcision which left him without a penis. Enter Dr. John Money, a medical psychologist at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore. Money had recently proposed a theory that the sex differences that are normally attributed to men and women, beyond obvious anatomical differences, were purely social constructs. Since Bruce was a twin, this case was of extreme interest to him because Bruce’s twin brother provided him with a control subject. Money had a lot of ideas. He convinced Bruce’s parents to complete the removal of Bruce’s genitals, treat him with hormones, change his name—which became Brenda, and eventually he recommended that Brenda be surgically altered to be given a vagina. Money’s extreme makeover of Bruce-Brenda was an astounding success . . . according to Money’s publications on the experiment anyway. Unfortunately, for Bruce-Brenda the reality was not so rosy. McElroy reports: “Behind the scenes, Reimer’s mother told Money that Brenda ripped off dresses, rejected dolls, insisted on standing up to urinate, and asked to shave like her father.” These things did not make it into Money’s documentation of the effort. Brenda’s parents eventually ended the charade. The now teenager, took the name David and began to live as a boy. David describes what it was like growing up: “It was like brainwashing . . . I’d give just about anything to go to a hypnotist to black out my whole past. Because it’s torture. What they did to you in the body is sometimes not near as bad as what they did to you in the mind with the psychological warfare in your head.” McElroy reports that in 1997 two scientists writing in the Journal Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, exposed Money’s fraudulence. Milton Diamond, a biologist, and Keith Sigmundson, a psychiatrist, concluded that Money’s experiment was a failure and his reporting a fraud. Johns Hopkins Children Center subsequently released two studies which found that gender identity was dictated by prenatal exposure to male hormones in normal babies born with XY chromosomes. This finding held even with babies born without a penis. McElroy concludes: “Although Money’s research has been widely discredited, the belief that sexual identity is socially constructed still deeply impacts our culture. A good first step toward reversing the damage this belief can inflict is to reclaim a word usage that has been virtually abandoned. We should use the word ‘sex’ and reject the word ‘gender’ when discussing sexual identity.” Indeed, more and more research shows that sex differences are much deeper than environment, biochemistry, physiology or even chromosomal and genetic makeup. It is a complex union of all of these things. However, research can only go so far. Science does not have the tools to investigate the soul. John Paul the Great, in his theology of the body catecheses, indicates that sex is an integral part of the soul. He shows that we cannot change our sex without annihilating our identities. “Male and female He created them” (Gen 1:27) and these are the only two ways of being human. Our sex is part of who we are and we cannot change that. The tragic ramifications of the rejection of the true depth of sex for personal identity, in David Reimer’s case, appear to have been fatal. On 4 May 2004, David Reimer, after numerous attempts beginning in his teenage years, finally took his own life at the age of 38. See “Death By Theory".

Duhhhhh!!!!!!

I have admitted that I am a data freak. However, even for an engineer there are some things that are so obvious that supporting data is unnecessary. Case in point, LifeSiteNews is reporting on a study that was done by the UT Health Sciences Center in Houston that found the media saturation of sex is adversely impacting our children. Don't get me wrong, I certainly am glad for the study. However, I don't seriously believe that anyone really doubted this was the case before hand. Rather, we have consciously decided that when it comes to our favorite idol, our wills (which in this case manifests itself as freedom of speech), I am afraid that our children are just going to have to be offered as sacrifical victims.

A Lesson Here?

CNA is reporting on recent a NY Times article which says that many people initially opposed to B16 are now starting to reasses. They are won over by his mild manner and his holiness. It seems that many believed the caricature that was made of Cardinal Ratzinger while he was head of the CDF... simply because he defended Catholic teaching. It is all too easy to categorize someone; and easier still to demonize him if we disagree. Does anyone suppose that this thawing of polemics will have any wider impact for the Church?

Blessed Are The Pure of Heart

I am racing the lightening storm and hoping to get this posted before the inevitable . . . line transients which always reset my computer during electrical storms here in the Maryland suburbs of DC. Today is the feast day of St. Maria Goretti; virgin and martyr. Maria along with Blessed Pier Giorgio really ought to be every parent’s patron saints these days. Both saints were models of purity and chastity in their own ways. Maria’s witness was quite visibly heroic; Pier Giorgio’s was perhaps more ordinary compared to Maria, but nonetheless, heroic. If you are not familiar with them, consider checking them out. John Paul the Great devotes 27 of his Wednesday Audience catecheses in his Theology of the Body series to the virtue of which these two heroes witnessed—purity of heart. Here is my take on the essence of these audiences. Purity of heart, especially sexual purity is a challenge in our fallen state. Did you say fallen state? It seems that concupiscence is an overlooked truth these days. In fact, not only is our fallenness ignored, it seems when it comes to virtues the only one acknowledged is a rather novel creation — authenticity. One must be authentic; which seems to mean that one should follow whatever he is inclined toward by his emotions and appetites. JPTG (JP the Great of course) would say that this is a lie. Purity of heart, the ability to see a “babe” or a “hunk” as a person whom God has created for her or his own sake; not as an object for pleasure or emotional security. Purity of heart is critical in marriage as well. JPTG says that it is still possible to lust after one’s spouse. Using one’s wife or husband as an object of pleasure is a constant danger which must be guarded against. Purity of heart is ultimately a single-minded surrender of oneself to God such that we see others as God sees them . . . as those for whom He gave His only Son. We must learn to see others as gifts; gifts from God to themselves and gifts of themselves to us. This is the “narrow way” to holiness and ultimate happiness in this life and the next.

Damaged Goods!

The Catholic News Agency has an article on a homily by Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, Archbishop of Lima. The homily was delivered at the Mass celebrating the 36th anniversary of Ricardo Palma University. I am not sure about the tone but the point about so-called “gay marriage” certainly seems to lose nothing in the translation!

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

As an engineer, (at least I used to be) I love data. For an engineer, the only thing better than data . . . is more data. I remember the chief engineer for a program I used to work on had a sign on his door saying “In God We Trust, All Others Bring Data.” Not all data is equal however. When it comes to data in the “soft” sciences, like sociology, much of what you have are statistics trying to describe observed or reported behavior. A big problem lies in who is doing the collecting of the data. Furthermore, all data is meaningful only when it is interpreted. Therein lies the rub. Who is doing the interpreting and what prior preconceptions does he have? Some times it is unintended, sometimes purposeful, but both the collection and the interpretation can be drastically influenced by bias. Take for example the statistics used to both support and attack abstinence only sex education. Zenit published an article yesterday, which shows the data on both sides and it tries to weed through the agenda driven collection and interpretation of data. Certainly, both sides have an agenda and make claims such that it seems impossible to know whose results to trust. A thought here: It is curious that the so-called “safe sex” crowd seems so intent on showing abstinence only education not only does not work but that it has a negative impact on children. What could be safer than abstaining from sex? It occurs to me that if abstinence only education shows much effect at all this would be remarkable given the sex crazed media to which too many of our kids are exposed. It might actually suggest that rather than crazed animals running around at the mercy of their instincts, human beings (yes, even teenagers) have both intellect and will and can actually choose whether to fornicate or abstain. That would upset the entire apple cart. However, Zenit’s article gives solid reasons to believe that abstinence only education can actually help to overcome the sexual libertinism of our culture and even the hormones of youth. While we all heard the media clamor over the Texas A&M study and the separate Columbia study both of which seemed to suggest abstinence only education was harmful (huh?). We did not hear anything about the “issues” with those studies. For example, it seems in the Columbia study, out of a sample size of over 14,000 students, the researcher “cherry picked” 21 students to draw general class conclusions about risky behavior. You’d think that he would at least have selected 30, the universally accepted minimum sample size for statistically significant results. I wonder how much the extra 9 would have thrown off his agenda driven results. The next time you hear the press trumpeting statistics which seem to give counterintuitive results on hot button sexual issues, perhaps you should wait a few weeks for the dust to settle, then start trolling yourself to find out the rest of the story.

We don't know nearly enough...

Well at least they got that part right. A recent New York Times article discusses new research which suggests that there may be no such thing as bi-sexuality. It seems that bi-sexuals don't remain bi-sexual long enough to establish their identity. Note here the presupposition that arbitrary sexual inclination is part of personal identity. However, one of the researchers warns that we should not jump to conclusions. "We do not know nearly enough about sexual orientation and identity" to do so. I suppose it does not occur to this researcher that his statement indicts the current "wisdom" which claims as fact that homosexual inclinations are a part of a person's being. Perhaps the researcher, Dr. Sell, might be open to an unbiased persual of the study, Homosexuality and Hope, by the docs down at the Catholic Medical Association?

“Know Thyself”

So begins John Paul the Great’s Encyclical, Fides et ratio, recalling the admonition on the temple entrance at Delphi. The fundamental importance of this self-knowledge for an authentic engagement with faith and reason was brought to mind recently while reading Walker Percy’s, Lost in the Cosmos. Normally, if I had such a book it would be on my second pile of books to read, those strictly for entertainment. The first pile of “to reads” is usually for utilitarian knowledge—I admit. However, last week I was having lunch with Hiérothée (the instigator of this blog) at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception here in DC, discussing matters of theology, politics, or whatever else might come up. In the midst of our interchange Hiérothée gives me this book as a graduation present. He had mentioned it before but I suspect he realized that it would be a “second pile” book for an (un)recovering engineer like myself. For me, a gift is an obligatory read but to be sure Hiérothée tempts me with Percy’s unconventional primer on semiotics in the middle of the book—which makes it then a semi-utilitarian read I suppose. Any way, Percy seems to invoke this fundament, know yourself, in the following quote:

Why do people often feel bad in good environments and good in bad environments? Why did Mother Theresa think that affluent Westerners often seemed poorer than the Calcutta poor, the poorest of the poor? The paradox comes to pass because the impoverishments and enrichments of self in a world are not necessarily the same as the impoverishments and enrichments of an organism in an environment (122).

In fact, Percy’s entire book is an indictment of our materialist culture which can only momentarily glimpse the possibility for transcendence of the material world before crashing back to earth because it peremptorily dismisses anything beyond materiality. The result is depression, and for those most sensitive to this futility—artists of various sorts—even suicide. The lesson here is that when we forget God, we have no sense of who we are (ala Evangelium vitae). We have no clue that we are made in the image of Total Self-Giving and so giving ourselves away is the only way we can bridge the gulf between who we are and who we ought to be. The result is the manifold neuroses that Percy, I would say humorously if it weren’t so tragically true, cleverly expounds in 262 fast moving pages. In reading this, if one is honest, he can see that no appeal to libertarian freedom; no self-deluding attempt to redefine one’s nature based upon disordered inclinations can change who and what we are. If we try to break this immutable law of nature, it will end up breaking us.

On Nuclear Giants and Ethical Infants . . .

“We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.”

-- General Omar Bradley from a speech given on November 11th, 1948. Reproduced in Omar Bradley’s Collected Writings, volume 1 (1967).

On this Fourth of July, since my wife is in Dayton visiting her family, I have had some time to consider the meaning of this joyful day. Our deacon’s homily at this morning's Mass served as the catalyst. Certainly most of the speeches one will hear today will focus on the meaning of freedom and hopefully also convey thoughts about those who put themselves in harm’s way to allow us the freedom we so take for granted. However, I suspect that for too many of us the meaning of freedom will be a libertarian freedom; one that is best reflected in the title of a book from a decade or so ago . . . It Ain’t No One’s Business If You Do. This type of freedom contains its own seed of demise because it presupposes a liberty devoid of any consideration of God or our status as creatures made in His image. Albeit in another context, General Bradley summarized the dangers into which man puts himself when he tries to isolate himself from God. John Paul the Great conveys the same warning in Evangelium vitae. Drawing from the Vatican II document on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes 36, he says that “when God is forgotten the creature itself grows unintelligible. Man is no longer able to see himself as mysteriously different from other earthly creatures . . .” (EV 22). He then describes the inevitable result—we turn on ourselves and in the attempt to improve mankind’s situation, we misguidedly treat life as a thing to be controlled and manipulated rather than as an ineffable gift to be cherished. This is not the kind of freedom that any thinking person would defend; certainly not at the cost of his or her life. The freedom to destroy ourselves and others is no freedom at all. With our courts giving us the “freedom” to sacrifice over 40 million babies at the altar of the gods of sex and power, and moving ever closer to giving the government the right to decide whose life is worth living and whose is not, perhaps it is time to more carefully consider the true definition of freedom. I fear that this world of ethical infants with the power of giants is not far from achieving its own undoing. To honor the sacrifices of those who have gone before, to give our children and grandchildren a chance to enjoy the fruits of a true freedom, maybe we should take Vatican II’s document on the apostolate of the laity more seriously and begin to actively spread the gospel and sanctify the temporal sphere while there is still a society to sanctify. Happy 4th of July!

You can't buy a baby, but...

CNN posted an article a while back on IVF, 25 years after the first "test tube baby" was born. They note how quickly IVF has become common place. The article provides a telling quote by Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist with the University of Pennsylvania: "'You can't buy a baby in the United States,' said Caplan. '... But you can buy the sperm, you can buy the egg and you can rent the uterus.'" It is not clear how either Caplan or the author intended this to be taken. Nevertheless, it seems to me that it is emblematic of our utilitarian mindset which more and more is coming to see people especially babies, as commodities; mere means to achieving our goals of self-fulfillment and happiness. Salve for the poison: John Paul the Great's Encyclical, Evangelium vitae.

Maggie G. on Christian Marriage

Maggie Gallagher is writing a series of articles in the Register on teaching young people the truth about Catholicmarriage. They are quite good (not suprising with a fine Irish name like hers). If you don't get the hard copy, fortunately they are also publishing them on-line. Here is the second article in the series.

The Effects of Ignoring the Truth

Pete Vere, over at Catholic Exchange, has an article which details his experience of what happens in marriages when we ignore who we are and how we are made. What Pete describes makes perfect sense when one considers that we can only fulfill ourselves when we give ourselves away (aka John Paul the Great's law of the gift). These are the tragic results of trying to find fulfillment by turning inward.

What's this About?

If you are like me the first time I saw these terms linked together, you might be curious, perhaps even be taken aback. However, let me suggest that if one wants to understand what makes you (and everyone else) tick, he has to understand the complete picture of creation. These terms summarize the main elements of the complete picture, from the perspective of you and me any way. I suppose the reason that these terms seem to be unrelated (besides our theological ignorance) is our cultural mindset, which is generally, purely reductive. Reduction is great for scientific investigation but one needs to remember that a method of inquiry cannot change the integrated nature of reality. Joyce A. Little has a nice little article which summarizes many of these points, basing herself upon John Paul the Great’s anthropology. However, in a nutshell . . . God is a Trinitarian Family of Three Persons with an ineffable unity. This unity, which exceeds human concepts, comes from the fact that all Three fully possess the one and only divine nature. But this Trinitarian Family has distinctions, which we call Persons. These Persons are described by the Eternal Processions which John Paul II characterizes as the total gift of Self of one divine Person to the Other. The Father’s total gift of Himself to the Son and the Son’s reciprocation are fruitful. This mutual Love is a Person . . . the Holy Spirit. Being the Source of everything that exists, this total self-giving establishes the framework for creation and so it is the interpretive key for understanding creation and most especially the human person who is created in the image of this Self-giving God. Jesus, the Son Incarnate, reveals this Trinitarian love by His total Self-gift on the Cross. This total gift that Christ makes of Himself for the Church is the act by which He becomes Her Bridegroom. O.K. so where do liturgy and sex come in? Well, the Divine Liturgy, or the Mass in the Latin Rite, is at once the making present of Jesus’ act of total Self-gift and at the same time it is the Wedding Supper of the Bridegroom. Christ recapitulates all of creation and He does so in the most intimate of ways in the Mass; ultimately by joining Himself with us Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in Holy Communion. In fact, this Cosmic Liturgy embraces all of creation, renewing it and transforming it. Creation, which proceeds from the love of the Father, is reconciled and returns to Him through the Self-gift of the Son. Christ gathers this up into Himself as the Bridegroom. The grace by which He has conquered death is poured out on creation and the Church and is applied in space and time through the Divine Liturgy, the Mass. The Mass restores, guides and ultimately fulfills Salvation History. As the ole Baptist preacher says, now if that don’t light your fire, your wood must be wet. Man’s relationship to Christ is as Bride-Church to Her Bridegroom—the Great Mystery of Ephesians 5. This relationship is not metaphorical but it is analogical, rightly understood (. . . which means it is REAL). Now how about sex? In the second Genesis creation narrative (the covenantal creation narrative) we see that God has created man, male and female with the intention that the two become one flesh. In the marital union, we have the unity of nature and the distinction of sex. By the way, the Great Mystery, the Bridegrooms fruitful union with His Church, establishes the framework for this unity of husband and wife (is there any question why marriage is a Sacrament then?). Thus, sex distinctions give rise to the most intimate union of persons possible—marital intercourse. Being made in the image of the Trinitarian God, this union of persons—one flesh—in 9 months may just have to be given a name . . . if it is open to fruitfulness. Any copulation not open to fruitfulness is akin to a purposeful attempt to squelch the Holy Spirit in the eternal Processions. Sex differences establish the manner in which we become co-creators with God, women in the most intimate of manners (God bless them!). Sex differences also establish personal identity and the structure for our interrelations with other person. There is certainly much more to be said but this outlines what this blog is about.