Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

I recently finished reading a book entitled Emma’s Journal, by Juli Loesch Wiley. The book is an edited version of Juli’s journal which she kept during the years 1983-88. It is not exactly her conversion story. By this time she had already become Catholic. Rather, it is a story of her struggle for chastity after she had committed her life to Christ.

As a promotion of chaste living, it is not unlike Dawn Eden’s, Thrill of the Chaste. They both are very personal and brave testimonials about their faults and weaknesses. They both also provide the firm conviction that a chaste life is the authentic, and only path to true happiness and joy.

This is Juli’s description of the book:

The story of an activist’s journey from living as a lay woman in a community of radical sisters to founding a movement combining peace and pro-life conviction. In the process she wrestles with conflict, friendship, suffering, sexuality, grace, pain and love and finds – eventually – her heart’s home.

What I liked about it:

I think that Juli is a very talented writer (this might even be a negative for regular readers of this blog so you can find samples of her writing here and here to decide for yourself). Because her story is so very personal, it is also very compelling. However, she also has a gift with her prose that keeps the story moving and engaging. She allows the reader to discover along with her, the areas of her life that she needs to transform and along the way, perhaps might allow one to be somewhat self-reflective in a nonthreatening way. While the story, I suspect, will resonate with women more than men, there is still much in it for men as well. Men can understand more about the way the women experience the temptations against chastity which I think most will find quite foreign to them. It can provide men insights into feminine psychology (for lack of a better phrase) that can allow Christian men to better empathize and support Christian women in their vocations to holiness.

We need more books of this genre on chastity. It is important for women to realize that they can easily be misled by the false sense of intimacy that they get from corporal intimacy. This is especially important for women who have already begun to engage in pre-marital sexual relations. I say women because this is not the same experience for men.

Some other comments and cautions:

It would not be valid to consider this category of comments as the polar opposite to my “what I liked” paragraph. Rather, these are caveats for those who might be taken aback by some parts of the book. First, there is the issue of some graphic language and mildly descriptive sex scenes. If you subscribe to the Flannery O’Connor school of literary license in this regard, then you will not be disturbed. Myself, I have upset some commentors on this blog for deleting their comments that followed this line of thinking. I will explain more my thoughts on this in a later post. I do not want these thoughts to take away from my recommendation for this book. However, you should realize that if your temperament and/or personal history are such that these would be temptations against purity, then you ought not read the book.

Juli was/is a peace activist. While, I agree with all of her sentiments with regard to peace and violence, I do not agree with all of her moral analyses. Some, especially those who have served in the military as I have, might find it hard to identify with her do to some of these statements. However, I think that we should listen closely to what she has to say in this regard. As I said, I do not agree with everything but she comes closer to the authentic Christian position on the use of violence than the tendency of some of us who have been bred in the military.

Conversations with a female acquaintance (if she would permit, I would say friend) about the book suggested the concern about Juli’s comments about the “fictionalization” of her journal. Well, the first “fictionalization” is that she uses a pseudonym, Emma. I asked Juli about this and she offered that her plans for anonymity changed as she wrote the book. But more importantly, she employed the Emma pseudonym as a psychological tool to allow her to distance herself enough to make this project an emotional possibility. Another concern was the caveat in the preface that some of the characters were composites, leading to the question: what was real and what wasn’t. Juli told me that this was done primarily to make the book more readable. All of the events and conversations were as they occurred but to avoid having to sort through 50-70 different names, for example, she assigned conversations with 8 different sisters to 3 composite sisters…however, all of the conversations were actual. In the end, I would say that this is not an issue.

If you think you would like to read it, you can get a copy for a very modest sum right here.

What others have said: Amy Welborn, Mark Shea, Maggie Gallagher, and Annie Gottlieb

As a postscript, in the book Juli writes about her parents. Here is a very moving witness she gives to the recent passing of her father.

Our tax dollars will be sponsoring a school day on April 18th, where the students and teachers are to remain silent in all of the public schools (K-12) who choose to participate in the Day of Silence. I’m wondering, if the teachers and school administrators are in charge and responsible for protecting ALL students from bullying, harassment and discrimination in public schools, wouldn’t this Day of Silence actually be a protest of themselves?

A quasi scientific study sponsored by the theologically inept John Templeton Foundation allegedly found that those who were prayed for actually had more complications from heart surgery than those who were not. Are we to assume that God either ignores/hates Christians or there is no God?

Maybe it’s just the devil in the details.

I love the title of this book, The Dawkins Delusion. Richard Dawkins is a vociferous “anti-evangelist” who is intent on spreading his message that anyone who believes in God is a nut case. One of his Oxford colleagues has decided to take Dawkins to task for his pseudo-intellectualism in this book. Zenit ran an interview recently with the Oxford author, Alister McGrath, who is one of the book’s co-authors.

McGrath had begun on the same route as Dawkins. In the 1960s he was an atheist with a doctorate in molecular biophysics; however, he eventually corrected the mistaken aspects of his thinking that led him to his atheistic conclusions. In this book, he points out Dawkins’s errors.

Dawkins is an “expert” in evolutionary biology, though apparently he no longer has time to publish in this area since he is all consumed with his constant rehashing of the same old canards in book after book. In his latest book, the God Delusion, Dawkins reveals he is not an expert in philosophy, religion, or sound thinking. He seems to think that the louder he talks and more emphatic his rhetoric, the more convincing he will be. Here are some snippets of what McGrath has to say about Dawkins in the former’s Zenit interview:

McGrath declares himself disappointed with the level of argument in Dawkins’ book, which he describes as “the atheist equivalent of slick hellfire preaching, substituting turbo-charged rhetoric and highly selective manipulation of facts for careful, evidence-based thinking.” He adds: “Dawkins preaches to his god-hating choirs,” relying on pseudoscientific speculation and aggregating convenient factoids.

It seems that Dawkins has little appreciation for the beliefs that he tries to condemn; nor does he have the capability for reasoned argumentation (which would demand that one knows what he is talking about):

McGrath devotes a chapter to explaining why God is not a delusion, as Dawkins maintained. He observes that the definitions used by Dawkins to describe faith, such as a “process of non-thinking,” are foreign to a Christian definition of faith.

Apparently Dawkins’s major concern is that he believes that religion and God are evil:

Another argument used by Dawkins is that God and religion are evil, being responsible for all sorts of violence and abuses in mankind’s history. McGrath readily admits that violence which draws its inspiration from religion is clearly something to be rejected.

McGrath, who grew up in Northern Ireland, had plenty of experience with religious violence. Nevertheless, he points out that it is an entirely different proposition to argue that violence is an inherent element of religion. Dawkins also errs in making out atheism to be a universally benign influence. A look at 20th-century history readily provides abundant examples of politically motivated violence, not least of which was that committed by the atheistic regime of the Soviet Union.

Clearly, people are capable of both violence and moral excellence, McGrath points out, and both of these qualities may be provoked by worldviews, religious or otherwise. It is true that religion can turn human conflicts into battles of good and evil. At the same time, a society that rejects God then tends to hold up as an absolute other realities or concepts. Thus, the French Revolution in its effort to replace Christianity with secular ideals carried out violent repression as it sought to impose its principles.

In the youtube interview below, Dawkins provides helpful insights into his acumen for critical thought. He points to religion as the source of suicide bombers and terrorists. He counters this with the fact that neither he nor any other atheist he knows is anything but a peace loving person. As McGrath points out above, Dawkins conveniently avoids the fact that many (if not all) of history’s greatest atrocities were foisted by atheists and that the same claim about peace loving believers could by made by 99.9% of those who hold religious convictions.

In a related topic, CNN recently did a piece on atheists as an oppressed minority. Someone in the atheist “anti-evangelical” movement, I think has figured out that since their arguments have proven to be generally ineffective, perhaps playing the victim card will bring them more success. After CNN’s “heart wrenching” piece about the fear in which atheists live in the US, they had a panel discussion. Well, they forgot to invite an atheist. The atheist community clamored for equal time and so CNN did an interview with Dawkins. I find this interview rather insightful. Take a look:

Here he appears to have been coached that it is time to play the victim card. Dawkins’s responses seem to me to reveal his disingenuousness. He admits that atheism is a belief… an opinion, rather than the ironclad, scientific fact that he tries to claim in his books. He claims that atheists do not want anything from anyone else except to pursue their beliefs and live in peace. He is pleading for tolerance for his “belief” all the while attacking as delusional the beliefs of others. This is justified I suppose because “they are in the habit of always having it their way.” This hypocrisy is a common feature of “victim-ality” (those who erroneously hold themselves to be victims of some sort of oppression).

At the end of the clip, he says concludes that atheism is better than belief in God because atheists believe that this is the only life they have to live so they have to live it properly, happily, and to the full. Whereas, those who believe in God think that they are going to have another life so, apparently by definition, they cannot live this one properly, happily, or to the full. This he says is a very negative way to live.

First, it is interesting that without God he can make the absurd statement that there even exists a proper way to live one’s life. If we are all just historical accidents, then isn’t the existential dogma the correct one? In other words, the meaning of life is simply that which each person gives it. If so, then Dawkins’s message is contradictory. If believers create their own meaning of life and it makes them happy then on what basis does Dawkins’s criticize it if his goal is happiness through “proper” living? It seems like he wants to start getting it all his way.

It is not clear what religion he is thinking about when he claims that believers in God can’t live “properly” because they think they will get another life. However, even if he is thinking about reincarnation, I do not think that he would find many who hold to incarnation that would agree that they think they can misuse this life because they get another chance. Certainly, this is not the view of Christians who do not see eternal life as a “second chance.” Is Dawkins really this ignorant of those systems of belief with which he finds fault?

I’m not a psychiatrist but I do play one here on this blog. As such, let me say that Dawkins seems to exhibit the common behavior of those who hold tenuous positions on issues of grave importance. They subliminally realize their precarious situations and, therefore, they require continuous reaffirmation that “they are o.k.” from everyone else.  Moreover, they cannot bear to hear anyone else tell them that they are wrong. This, by the way, I think is much the same phenomenon we see from those who suffer from and simultaneously embrace the SSA disorder. It is no wonder that rational argument is not possible with personalities such as Dawkins.

No doubt, regular readers of this blog would greet the proclamation in the title of this post with shouts of joy. What a thrill it would be to learn that our best and brightest philosophers – those to whom we entrust the education of our young – had done away with definitively the idea that reason cannot ground moral judgments. Well, I have good news for you: According to Robert Miller’s recent post at First Things: On the Square, relativism is dead – at least in the academy! It’s just that too many Catholic thinkers haven’t yet gotten the memo. Miller, in the post linked to above, takes to task one such Catholic thinker: Bishop Giampaolo Crepaldi, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, who recently issued a screed against relativism. In Miller’s opinion, such unseemly talk about the pressing threat of relativism amounts to tilting at windmills. Relativism, in Miller’s opinion, was dead 50 years ago. It was shot down definitively by the analytic philosophers. To be more philosophically precise, it was emotivism that was definitively undermined, and (the tone of Miller’s blog posts might imply) no one who knows anything about anything has ever looked back. Of course, leave it to the Catholic thinkers – including presumably the Pope, who famously declared war against the “dictatorship of relativism” – not to know anything about anything!

Miller’s point, ultimately, is that Catholic thinkers need to be more precise. It is not relativism that threatens society, in his opinion, but various forms of moral/ethical theory that seek to ground moral action in something less universal than what traditional Catholic moral theory would do. Thus, we should speak out against utilitarianism, consequentialism – or even emotivism, if it were still alive and kicking – but not relativism. Moral relativism, as intimated above, is the idea that we cannot reason about what is morally good. Emotivists, utilitarians and consequentialists all assume the contrary. They all, in fact, construct some rational theory about the moral good. They are thus not relativists. For definitions of all these positions, consult Miller’s posts (in addition to the above link, see also here).

Of course, I exaggerated a bit in the first paragraph. I have little doubt that Miller is not faulting the education in moral philosophy and theology that such eminent prelates as Crepaldi and the Holy Father acquired. He realizes no doubt that among the “first things” (no pun intended) these men would have learned in the seminary was the difference between utilitarianism, consequentialism, and all other sorts of theories about moral action that have come down the pike. Miller’s call is simply for greater technical clarity.

Given all of this, I would nevertheless submit that Miller overstates the case. There is a deeper contradiction between Catholic moral theory and all of these modern positions that would enable one to label them as ultimately “relativist” from the Catholic perspective. It comes down to the matter of ultimate premises: for Catholic moral theory, good action accords at bottom with God’s eternal Reason and is thus universalizable and discoverable. All of the other positions that Miller lists stop short of this idea when it comes to ultimate premises. These positions all hold that there is an element of irrationality to moral discourse, at bottom. Thus, the good cannot ultimately be reasoned about. The idea of universalizable, discoverable, reasonable goodness can be exposed as a fraud, from the perspective of these modern theories, but it cannot be affirmed by reason. Thus, proponents of these various positions all suffer from relativism at the deepest level of their positions.

Besides, contra Miller, emotivism is not dead in the academy. In support of this claim, I would simply refer you to the work of the eminent Catholic moral philosopher, Alasdair MacIntyre. MacIntyre argues in part, in his seminal work After Virtue, that even analytic philosophers – who supposedly did away with emotivism – can’t shake the sense that, ultimately, all of our moral claims come down to personal preference. Analytic philosophers may indeed make arguments in support of their positions, but their arguments come down to, in the end (according to MacIntyre), appeals to emotion. Thus they are implicitly emotivists. It should be added that emotivism is the closest thing to explicitly stated relativism that has ever been propounded in the universities. Emotivists might, in fact, reason about where our sense of the good comes from. In this regard, they are not relativists. But when it comes to identifying the good, they are quite relativistic, locating it in our subjective preferences and not in a participation in eternal Reason.

And, in the end, none of this is to say anything about relativism in the culture at-large, to which our prelates direct their exhortations. People may in fact, as Miller asserts, argue in bars about the moral good and so assume by their actions that relativism is untrue. But, if asked to justify a moral claim, they would ultimately make appeal to some deep irrationality. So, please, Holy Father, continue to fight against the shifting winds of relativism – you have our full support!

Two elderly Catholic nuns, who were also biological sisters, were stabbed to death by two unidentified terrorists who raided their home Monday night near the Cathedral of the Virgin in Kirkuk. The nuns were 79 and 85 years old and they lived alone. The nuns were Chaldean Catholics, which are in communion with Rome and are the third largest ethnic group in Iraq after Arabs and Kurds. The terrorist attacks against the Catholics are being orchestrated to rid Iraq of Christians.

The Stone of Unction where the body of Jesus was laid after his crucifixion.

The Upper room.

All back seat riders receive extra penitential credits.

Our Lady of Revelation at the Church of the Visitation.

The Church of the Mount of Beatitudes owned by the Franciscan sisters.

The altar of the Wedding Church at Cana of Galilee.

For anyone interested in upcoming pilgrimages, you absolutely need to go with Steve and Janet. You will not only get expert knowledge of the sites, but outstanding catechesis.

Laodicia is reporting that Holy Thursday is to be the latest date for the universal indult for saying the Tridentine Mass. While this date has a certain logic to it, I remain with The Curt Jester in his sure method for prognosticating the date. While I have no earthly idea when or even if a universal indult will be granted, let me say what I think it makes sense as I understand B16’s program for a “reform of the reform.”

Here is what I mean. A wider availability of this Rite will expose a larger number of Catholics to the lost patrimony. Pastors are much less insulated from the desires of their parishioners than are bishops so even in dioceses where the bishop has much animus toward the Rite, it is likely there will be parishes that offer it. Attending the Trindentine Mass can familiarize Catholics with Latin and chant and prepare them, and even create a thirst, for returning some of these lost treasures to the current Roman Missal.

Creating a widespread thirst is a much more effective approach for reintroducing elements that too many “reformers” have succeeding in painting in a negative light for the majority of Catholics. This is perfectly in keeping with Benedict’s gentle manner. In order for this to be effective though, a lot of care will have to be placed in preparing those not already enamored with the Rite lest they be put off by unfamiliarity or even by a poorly done Mass.

I do hope that there is a universal indult soon. While I agree that the beauty of the Tridentine Mass will be compelling for many, I also recognize it will not be everyone’s cup of tea…at least the first couple of times in attendance. In any case, hopefully for most, they will be struck by the greater sense of transcendent mystery that seems to be missing from the majority of Masses conducted according to the current Roman Missal and will desire that some of the elements that contribute to this transcendence, be restored to the current Rite. This is my hope any way.

When the meeting was first announced last month, it was viewed as a potential landmark in Islamic-Catholic relations. The cleric Sheik Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, head of the Al Azhar university in Cairo is a top authority on theology for Sunni Muslims all over the world. Thursday in the Vatican press office’s daily bulletin, made no mention of the expected meeting. It is suspected that the meeting cancellation was due to pressure from Muslim ‘Ulema’ scholars in Egypt and also from the Muslim Brothers, the Arab world’s largest group of political Islamists.

“The offensive observations by Pope Benedict XVI against Islam make this visit not positive,” he told the Gulf News agency, going on to rebuke Benedict for having “abolished” the Vatican department for inter-religious dialogue. In fact, Benedict merged it with the Pontifical Council for Culture in a bid to put a more cultural slant on dialogue.

According to Egyptian daily Al Akhbar, the invitation issued by the Vatican to Tantawi earlier this year aroused fresh anger in Islamic world still reeling from the Regensburg incident.

How do you say get over it in arabic?

Source

Harvard University seniors Sarah Kinsella and Justin Murray founded a student group earlier this year, called True Love Revolution which promotes abstinence on it’s campus. Unlike many campuses which have abstinence clubs which are affiliated with religious organizations, the True Love Revolution is totally “secular,” and it should come as no surprise that many members of the group have come under attack from feminist students and others who mock and ridicule their choice to abstain from sex. This, I believe, is a rather natural reaction for those suffering from a low self-esteem. Somehow, because someone chooses to believe and behave differently and refuses to coddle and affirm a particular (destructive) lifestyle, those who have adopted the lifestyle feel offended and angered as if they were being personally threatened or attacked. Quite telling I would say.

The True Love Revolution is just part of an encouraging trend of unlikely colleges from around the country forming groups devoted to abstinence. For example, Princeton and M.I.T. have formed Anscombe Societies. Just last month the Anscombe Society of Princeton University held a conference on marriage, family, and sexuality which was dedicated to the memory of Professor Elizabeth Fox-Genovese.

Given that I was part of the problem when I was a college student, you can understand why I’m all the more impressed and that I admire the courage and conviction of these students and others like them who persevere despite being treated like societal freaks. May God bless all those who are on the front lines of this cultural war.

By now, most people have either read B16’s first post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Eucharist as the Source and Summit of Christian Life, or they have read summaries of it. The last couple of weeks have been quite busy so I did not get through it until today. But since most of the blog “ink” has long been spilled on this I will not rehash it, but I will share some of my parochial interests.

I have mentioned before (here, here, and oh yea, here) that I expected B16’s pontificate to be centered upon an authentic implementation of the Second Vatican Council’s call to reform the liturgy. In the aforementioned posts, I mentioned some of those things which I believe will be brought back that were summarily dismissed with the “reform” stampede of the first decades after Sacrosanctum concilium. Sacramentum caritatis (SC) is, I would say, the first indication of what we will see from this pontificate, in terms of the authentic restoration of liturgical reform.

It is clear, as I have said before, that B16’s temperament is similar to that of JPTG’s. As such, he is embarking on a patient and gradual path to reform. He is beginning by slowly reintroducing some of those significant “babies” that went out the window with the bathwater in the rush to implement Sacrosanctum concilium according to an inorganic vision as to the path the reform ought to take. Many of these reintroductions he discusses under the heading, ars celebrandi; a venerable phrase that sets the tone for what the liturgy is…an art form (in the colloquial sense of the phrase) and so the perspective from which the adorning accidents associated with the liturgy must be viewed.

B16 does a very good job in showing how the entire Christian life is formed around, must be structured by, and is made possible through the Eucharist and the liturgy. The Mass is the one and only acceptable offering to God on the part of humanity. As such, Benedict recognizes that the accidents which surround and adorn the liturgy must accord with the liturgy’s nature. We therefore, must adorn the one Sacrifice that reconciles man with God with the very best that humanity has to offer. It is in light of this that he earnestly desires to reshape the way the average Catholic looks at and approaches the liturgy. Clearly he thinks that an important step in doing so will come in replacing the mundane adornments with the sacred.

The liturgy is where heaven touches earth, JPTG reminded us in his first visit to Los Angeles. Thus, to experience this transcendence, it is important that the accidents not only do not distract us from our focus on the liturgical divine condescension and our divinization. Rather, they must also serve to lead us from earth, being taken up in this act of the God-Man which reveals trinitarian love, into divine communion. This last point is especially important, we do not draw God down to the mundane and keep Him here; rather, He condescends to us in order to transform us into Him and thereby take us up with Him to the Communion for which He made us.

O.k., the preceding is not explicitly from the SC, but it is implicitly there (especially look at his treatment of the presentation of the gifts) and can be found throughout B16’s writings. Nevertheless, the major features he brings to the table include restoring the Latin language in a measured way, to the Mass in the Latin Rite. He also encourages the reintroduction of Gregorian chant, something that is proper to (uniquely associated with) the sacred liturgy. He warns against musical forms that are not appropriate to the liturgy. However, he also makes clear that this does not remove the possibility of inculturation. However, he is clear that this inculturation does not approach the liturgy as an infinitely plastic artifact. Rather, he points to the documents, especially the GIRM, that define the space for inculturation that still corresponds to the nature of the liturgy.

He makes a point about the importance of appropriate architecture, art, and the unity of the furnishings with the liturgical form. He points out that lectors/readers must be well prepared. In other words, becoming a lector is not on the job training or a place to learn to speak in public, or a “ministry” intended to get everyone more “actively involved” in the liturgy. For this role we should provide the best we have to offer.

He also admits of the generally poor state of homilies and asserts that they must be improved. Particularly, he emphasizes the catechetical and the moral exhortative aims of the homily. He is wont to correct the abuses associated turning the sign of peace into a “hug fest.” Why? Because of the fact that it interrupts the form of the liturgy. This is both a material and a formal concern. It has a detrimental psychological effect and also an improper formal concern. While Nominalists would not understand this, it is in fact, a significant issue. Beginning with excessive communal expressions (before and during Mass) obscures the fact that true Christian community arises from the Eucharist and not vice versa.

B16 also spends a significant amount of space correcting the mistaken notions of “active participation.” It is especially here where, in my judgment, great care must be taken not only in catechizing the faithful in order to make them aware of what the Mass is and the proper preparation necessary for entering into this ineffable event. Care must also be taken that the accidents, and here I am thinking especially of the musical forms selected, do not distract from the quiet contemplatio, that must be maintained if one is to keep his eyes focused on his encounter with Christ (personally and communally).

I realize that this post does not do justice from the perspective of an overall summary, even of this particular issue. But alas, I need to get ready for class so this must do for now.

P.S. I not intend to usurp The Curt Jester’s title to the last blogger in St. Blog’s to post on this. I really am this slow.

Patrick and Susan have been living together for the last six years and they now have four children (3 of which have be taken and put into foster homes), but according to German law, not only can they not get married, they can be imprisoned for having sex. In fact, Patrick has already served a two-year sentence for having sex with his partner and is set to return to jail if the legal code is not overturned. Patrick and Susan are taking their case to court to change the laws so they can be left alone by authorities and be allowed to live like any other couple. You may have guessed by now, they are brother and sister.

Where is the outrage with all of the European progressives? Shouldn’t this law be considered somewhat antiquated by European standards, given all their advances of sexual freedoms and rights? Between you and me, I think a major part of the hoopla has something to do with the resulting pregnancy and subsequent birth. Who knows? Maybe the reproductive impossibility among same-sex couples has made it more palatable for acceptance in today’s culture.

Story found at Sed Contra.

Another gem of an anti-Catholic movie due out this summer:

Spain 1792 – the Catholic Church is at the height of its powers. The revolution has sent neighboring France into turmoil and the Spanish church decides to restore order by bringing back the dreaded Inquisition. Spearheading this movement is the enigmatic and cunning priest Lorenzo, a man who seeks power above all.

Lorenzo’s friend is Francisco Goya, Spain’s most famous artist and portraitist to kings and queens. When his beautiful model Ines (Natalie Portman) is unjustly imprisoned and tortured by the Inquisition their friendship is put to a test as Goya begs Lorenzo to spare the poor girl’s life. With the torture-ravaged Ines’ life in his hands, he (Loranzo) rapes her and leaves her to rot in hidden dungeons.

The numerous failures of justice associated with the Spanish Inquisition are perhaps, some of the more embarrassing events in the history of the Church. The Spanish Inquisition deserves neither praise nor the equally exaggerated vilification associated with the common mythology associated with it. Like the scandals of today, the excesses during the Spanish inquisitions were a by-product of sinful men who were assimilated into a culture of the times. Anyone who believes the secular courts in the Middle Ages resembled institutions of justice, really need to review their history books. Indeed, the Jewish scholar and Inquisition expert Henry Kamen, shows that those accused in the secular courts would purposefully blaspheme in order to gain access to the fairer jurispurdence associated with the rules of the Inquisition. I would recommend Kamen’s book for those who want a fair and balanced treatment of the history of the Spanish Inquisition.

Based solely on the film’s synopsis of the Catholic Church bringing back the inquisition as a means of maintaining power and control, there is little doubt to me that it deserves an anti-Catholic rating.

The trip to the Holy Land was amazing and I hope my experience will help bring a deeper meaning to Lent this year, but I had to keep reminding myself why I was there when I started putting a bigger priority on my pictures and video than on the spiritual meaning of the sites. That being said, I wanted to share a couple of pictures of the less traveled sites in the Holy land.

(Above picture – Masada) I just can’t quite figure why Masada, the place of a mass suicide of over 900 Jewish zealots, would be a symbol both of Jewish cultural identity and, more universally, of the continuing human struggle between oppression and liberty. Steve Ray was actually chastised by at least one Jewish guide for bringing a bunch of Americanos to their sacred suicide mountain.

Exactly what kind of lost goat would you expect to find in a cave over a hundred feet off of the ground? A majority of the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered in the cave in lower left of the picture.

A highlight of our tour in Northern Israel, we passed this car burning on the road next to the Syrian border. The fire was actually more spectacular, but I missed on the first try and had to settle for this one.

A bonus combination car fire in Jerusalem being controlled by a single garden hose.

By the way, did you hear? Hooters is heading for the holy land!

More later.

Don’t ask how I came upon this article in today’s Swazi, Weekend Observer. Neither ask me why I read through the inanity of the author, but I did and as usual it got me ta’ think’un. The author, Dumisa Dlamini, seems quite upset with men, to whom she refers as “three-legged creatures” (does this count as sexism??).

What she is upset with is the fact men do not respect the right of their girlfriends and wives to keeping secrets from them. She accuses men of being unjustifiably suspicious. Though it’s not quite clear that her logic holds as she admits that if men pry they are likely to find out secrets about their wives/girlfriends they do not want to know. Rather, she justifies feminine secrecy in saying: “that women by their very nature are creatures of secrecy.”

Now I certainly agree that a sound relationship can only be built on trust, but this author’s presupposition that women should be trusted even though not trustworthy likely explains more about her disordered thinking than it does about women in general. Suspicion will destroy a relationship. That is why the author’s erroneous assertion that women have the right to secrecy in relationships (and even more ridiculous claim that they seem to have a right to unfaithful behavior) will destroy any relationship. Relationships presuppose trust. Suspicion destroys relationships and is, in essence, antithetical to human flourishing.

This brings to mind how central trust is to being a human person. We can see this simply by looking at human experience. For example, we possess most of what we know because we have trusted those who have taught us. We leave our houses, buy food from the grocery store, or get behind the wheel of a car only because we first trust in the general good intentions of others in our society. God created the human person to trust.

We are born trusting and learn as quickly as we do, in part, because we trust. In fact, we call innocent, children who have not yet learned that they cannot always trust others. Trust is central to family life, it is central to social life, it is also central to faith. One cannot have faith without learning to trust. This by the way is why divorce is so destructive to children. It undermines their ability to trust in others. If their parents (those they trust the most) abandon them, and regardless of what one might tell them this is what they experience, they lose the ability to trust. This makes forming lasting relationships very difficult for them. This is why divorce usually begets divorce.

Suspicion is also the foundation of Enlightenment thinking and rationalism. Paul Ricoeur calls Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud the “masters of suspicion.” They promoted what Ricoeur derided as a destructive “hermeneutic of suspicion.” This hermeneutic is the manner in which these thinkers approached religious claims. This is why Merold Westphal (Suspicion and Faith: The Religious Uses of Modern Atheism [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993]), refers to their atheism as an atheism of suspicion. However, Westphal argues that the roots of this hermeneutic of suspicion begins much earlier with such thinkers as Francis Bacon in his critique of the Idols of the Tribe and Cave, David Hume’s critique of religion in The Natural History of Religion.

Suspicion is ultimately a cancer in the human soul.  This much ought to be obvious from the ill fruits that arose from these purveyors of the hermeneutic of suspicion.  Trust is a prerequisite for human flourishing because this flourishing is only possible through relationships with others, ultimate human flourishing is to be found only in communion with God.  Trust is necessary for interpersonal relationships and for faith in God.  The suspicion that leads to failed relationship also leads to dissent from Church teaching, and is the same suspicion that begets many forms of atheism.

The article with which I began this post, in this light then, seems to me to be most demonic.  It does not promote trust as the remedy to suspicion but rather justifies itself through a radical individualism and thereby it actually promotes suspicion.  Suspicious minds will never find happiness and joy because they can never surrender themselves to another in trust.  Authentic human flourishing comes in the beatitude of total self gift…something that is possible only by beginning with trust.

Wondertwin passes on this excellent article from the Observer, the University of Notre Dame’s student newspaper.  The author, James Matthew Wilson, laments the complete ignorance of the faith by the average Catholic today.  I agree with his concerns and admit that I was, for the greater part of my life, one of these ignorant Catholics.  Here is some snippets from his article:

We are now well into the second generation of Catholics growing up almost entirely ignorant of the faith their Church proclaims. The precipitous decline of Catholic school enrollment serves as one obvious indicator that fewer nominal Catholics are receiving the basic catechesis necessary to understand what goes on at Mass, or Who it is we worship there.

In a fashion typical of a culture in decline, most persons in the Catholic community subsist in their observances by habit or listlessly fall away, while a small flowering of devout and engaged Catholics blossom in increasing isolation. The fruitfulness of this group has been great, resulting in moving witnesses to life in Christ, and in an impressive emergence of attempts to address the crises of our age with the rich intellectual traditions of the Church. Most Catholics, however, float through their sacramental velleities, hearing nothing consciously and absorbing a little through proximity and habit.

[snip]

Those who go on to attend a Catholic university are likely to receive a couple semesters of theology and perhaps a couple more of philosophy. This, in most circumstances, gives them an understanding of their Church and its sacraments slightly inferior to that which their grandparents imbibed through the Baltimore Catechism by the fifth grade.

Now here I would have to disagree.  I would say that at most Catholic universities the intro courses they get are more than slightly inferior because they rarely teach Catholic doctrine.  Those universities that do, I think generally do a much better job than the average Catholic got from the venerable Baltimore Catechism.   Though, I agree with his sentiments of concern. Continuing:

Ignorance of the Church’s faith, however, is just a symptom of an even more grave condition. It is one thing not to know the doctrinal expressions of particular sacred truths; it is another thing – and a more serious thing – to live one’s life with a worldview blind to and uninformed by those truths. The great achievement of the so-called secularizing forces of modernity has been in reshaping the way in which we live in and perceive the world. Plenty of persons deny the religious truths their parents and grandparents approved and defended confidently. But plenty more persons affirm their belief in God, or confess they accept myriad other formal doctrines of our faith, while they see the world with the eyes of indifference and unbelief. One can claim to believe in the God Who died for our sins, while at the same time thinking about the world as if none of that business had happened. I do not speak of hypocrisy, but of a loss of religious feeling.

When a student at a Catholic university can write that dining halls should serve meat on Fridays during lent because such “penance” is an individual activity, meaningless if everyone else does it, and a matter of importance only between himself and God, ignorance and blindness converge in a monstrous concatenation. To be clear, that student seems unaware that one performs penance as an act of repentance for one’s sins. One “abstains” from meat on Fridays during lent as an act of solidarity with the poor and hungry, and as a sign of unity with other Christians preparing for Easter.

I might have said this differently but it is a serious concern.  However, I find the fact that UND seems not to serve meat on Fridays of Lent very encouraging.  This is indeed an excellent sign that they are taking their Catholic identity seriously.  Now here is a more encouraging (for me anyway) statement:

Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, recently observed, “Most of what modernity has accomplished has been the secularization of culture and society. Contemporary consumer culture not only makes the individual the center of value; it also caters to the lowest elements of human nature – greed, vanity, gluttony, lust and sloth. Conformity, complacency, and creature comfort hardly represent the ideals of a great culture. They may be economically powerful motives, but they inhibit any genuine spiritual development.”

That the chairman of the NEA would make this kind of observation is extremely encouraging, though of course the fact that he has to make it is not.  While neither is the content of Wilson’s article encouraging, the sentiment he expresses is praiseworthy.  It is good to see such concerns coming from a Catholic university whose mascot is an Irishman, albeit a fighting one, so close to St. Paddy’s Day.  It does my Irish heart good (sorry if I am not being my normal curmudgeonly self but it is the eve of St. Paddy’s Day after all).

Here is another article on Dawn and her visit to the U of I. And for those who don’t know her story, it provides a nice synopsis of her spiritual journey.

Well, this week was the annual Sex Out Loud “fair” hosted by the University of Illinios student organization, Feminist Majority.  In response, three student organizations in association with St. John’s Catholic Newman Center brought in Dawn Eden as I had previously mentioned.

There was a very good turn out for Dawn’s talk the night before the SOL fair.  We probably had around 100 students in attendance.  The response was generally very positive to her talk and based upon the sales of her book it seems, very well received.  One student even made the comment that she felt blessed to have been able to hear Dawn’s witness and her description of the joy she found in living a chaste life.

Wednesday morning, Dawn and the students headed over to the student union for the fair.  Apparently the chaste birds are also the early birds as they were the first to arrive and got their choice of tables.  Whether this was the reason or not, their table turned out to be the most popular.  They had copies of Steve Kellmeyer’s book “Sex and the Sacred City” on CD, chastity pamphlets one of the students made up, Dawn’s books of course, cupcakes, and in addition, Dawn had brought with her about 100 miraculous medals.  She gave them all away.

Moved by the grace of the medals no doubt, Dawn led the students in a spiritual assault on the Planned Parenthood table.  They offered each of the PP workers a medal as a “Peace” offering.  I’m sure the PP folks did not recognize the significance of the term “peace” in the context of covenant peace or that they were being quietly evangelized.  The workers accepted them.  I told Dawn at dinner last night, that I expect one day to read a conversion story about how someone gave her a miraculous medal at a sex fair one day…  Hopefully, Dawn will have more to say on her blog.

It was interesting to read some of the reporting on the “fair.”  The front page story of today’s issue of the student newspaper, the Daily Illini, focused on the students’ chastity table (though the pictures they ran along with it showed the infantile displays of feminine genitalia at the fair).  It is interesting to note some of the comments from those who object to the message of chastity.  The former president of Feminist Majority had this to say:

Kristen Rains, University alumna, former president of the Feminist Majority and former Daily Illini employee, said she thinks abstinence-only education is repressive because it is typically only directed toward women. “Personally, I didn’t want to admit them,” Rains said about the pro-abstinence group. “I feel like abstinence only is anti-women, anti-feminist.”

I don’t quite follow her logic.  Besides her mistaken impression that chastity means simply abstinence from sex, it is not clear to me that even if her dubious opinion about its typical orientation toward women is correct, how it could possibly be “anti-women, anti-feminist.”  Perhaps she explained this to the reporter but it did not make it into print?  Who knows.

There was another article in today’s Daily Illini reacting to an op-ed piece by Part-Time Pundit John Bambenek, who plugged Dawn’s talk and the chastity table at the fair.  This young lady’s thinking is even less lucid.  I cannot tell what the author is really intending to say.  Perhaps this is due to a quick deadline?  I dunno.  However, I wonder about the editorial standards at the DI for even allowing this to be published.

Here are some quotes perhaps you can help me with:

Although Bambenek briefly touches on adultery, he discusses it in terms of an emotional consequence, but, especially if you were having “natural” sex, there are potential physical consequences as well.

Unless a couple is trying to procreate, the use of condoms as a means of not only pregnancy prevention, but protection from life-altering STDs is strongly recommended by most medical associations.

Huh?  I suppose the second paragraph is intended to support the first but since I cannot figure out what either of them is trying to say, I can only guess at a relationship.  Here are a few more:

Also false is the contention that the degree of a person’s “sexual freedom” is in any way tied to their emotional growth.

The “sexual empowerment of women” through the advent of contraceptives was not intended to destroy the romantic relationship.

A promiscuous person is as capable of loving (emotionally and spiritually) as a chaste one.

Furthermore, no one has the right to force their views of how a relationship “should be” upon your access to information. Sex Out Loud acknowledges that there are many types of sexuality, including chastity.

Information will be available on each of these choices. Sex Out Loud IS a sexual health fair; what it is NOT is an attempt to control the behaviors of others.

Now I know that in print, stealing extra words is nearly impossible, but there still seems to be no logical argument here, just the spraying of personal feelings in stream of consciousness fashion.  Is this article emblematic of the “rigorous” thinking of those who support cultural hedonism?  Me thinks that it may indeed…

As I suggested yesterday, I have a host of half-finished posts (o.k., half-started) that I need to complete but of course, I need to comment on a very intellectually provocative essay that just surfaced.

Zenit asked Bishop Giampaolo Crepaldi, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the director of the Cardinal Van Thuân International Observatory, to provide more insight into B16’s thought on the role of reason and Christianity in the public sphere.

The essay ran yesterday. In it, Bishop Crepaldi explicates the thinking behind B16’s Regensburg speech and in the Pope’s view, one of the most pressing problems in modern culture. The Regensburg speech was aimed at a culture dominated by the “dictatorship of relativism.”

B16 has recognized that Gaudium et spes’s call to engage modernity in a dialogue is no longer possible because modernity has solidly passed into post modernity. He recognizes that before dialogue is possible it will be necessary to create dialogue partners who can become critical thinkers and, once again, recognize and embrace authentic reasoned thought.

Bishop Crepaldi begins by demonstrating the incoherence of the “dogma” of relativism. He shows that it is “dogmatic” in the sense that it cannot be defended through reason which it rejects, and so it must simply be presupposed and believed. He goes on to discuss the problem of what has been called, “scientism.” Here he explains that public use of reason has been hamstrung by its self limitation to matters that can be addressed only through empirical methods. Rather, this scientisitic thought has deprived itself of the capacity to criticize distorted religious philosophies because it has denied itself the full use of reason.

Having established that relativism is a dead end, unreasonable “faith” and that scientism is an unworkable reduction of reason’s true capacity, Bishop Crepaldi moves on to show how reason can be employed to criticize defective aspects of religion and how religion can and does have a rightful place in the public arena.

However, those who did not read the Regensburg speech very closely 0r did not read my post on it (shameless self aggrandizement I’m afraid) might be surprised by Credpaldi’s next move. He presents Christianity’s fullest expression of truth, Catholicism, as having the unique capacity to promote the common human good in a collaboration with the secular (but not Godless) state. He begins by showing the negative synergy between philosophical relativism and a distorted religious pluralism. He writes:

If a religion teaches a way of life that is not righteous, it cannot be a true religion. Only when man has lost sight of the ability to know what is good and what is true, then all offers of salvation become the same. If we do not have any standards of right living, then all religions are the same. If the standards for right living are relativized, man remains trapped inside religions. Again, this demonstrates that religious relativism is founded on philosophical relativism. Cardinal Ratzinger points out that St. Paul (Romans 2:14ff) does not say that non-Christians will be saved by following their religion, but by following natural religion.

We have to always bear in mind that also the reverse influence is true as well: Religious pluralism in turn produces philosophical relativism. In fact, Benedict XVI reminded us that “The convergence of differences must not convey an impression of surrendering to that relativism which denies the meaning of truth itself and the possibility of attaining it.”

Those shocked that in public dialogue in a religiously pluralistic society, that Crepaldi would dare bring up the suggestion that there is a “true” religion, perhaps demonstrate to themselves the truth of what he says. One might simply think it imprudent to say something like this, but this simply demonstrates that our culture of religious pluralism is intolerant to only one thing, claims of absolute religious truth. He goes on to explain problematic thinking about religion which arises from scientism:

To consider religion as something irrational, according to Benedict XVI, is entirely inconsistent with our whole Western and Christian history. In fact, both Greek thought and the Jewish religion, as well as Christianity, of course, rejected the vision of religion as myth and conceived religion as knowledge and God as Logos.

[snip]

Christianity, and especially Catholicism, cannot accept philosophical relativism, cannot be linked to philosophies that exclude the problem of the truth. This would mean to negate creation and the existence of a creative Spirit. For the same reason, the rational notion of “human nature,” which is currently questioned, is not relinquishable.

Therefore, Christian faith confirms and supports the rational search for truth and calls for a public role of reason that will also include the critique of religions. In fact, we cannot say that all religions relate to truth and reason in the same way as Christianity. They relate to truth and reason in a different manner, which is the same as saying that they are more or less rational and that they can more or less adequately support the public role of reason. This was the theme touched upon by the Holy Father at Regensburg. A God who preaches violence is not a rational God, because reason rejects violence as means of transmission of faith. What is not rational cannot come from the true God.

This is a very bold move. Here is public reason’s criteria for critiquing religion. It is not the indemonstrable claim that all religion is irrational but that there are aspects of all religions (or rather those that do not possess the fullness of truth) that can be critiqued as irrational. In Regensburg, his focus was on those religious traditions which claim that God commands violence as a means of transmission of the faith. Here he shows that compulsion and faith are self contradictory and therefore, this cannot come from a rational God. He goes to explicitly bring out some of these criteria of criticism:

We see here a very important criterion for the evaluation of religions that, in some way, is new to our eyes. Religions are concerned with eternal salvation. Religious relativism says that as far as salvation is concerned, religions are incommensurable, it is not possible to establish which is the most rational. Religions, however, in addition to the promise of an eternal salvation, also say that it starts here on earth.

[snip]

If it is possible to criticize religions starting from the reasons of man, then it must also be possible to criticize them starting from the reasons of man in society,[16] that is from a public religion. Then it becomes clear that not all religions are equally respectful of the good of man in society.

It is also clear that the political power that seeks to organize society according to reason not only cannot relate to all religions in the same way, but should also cherish its obligations to the true religion. Of course, if the political power is based on the relativistic democracy, it will not feel any obligation in this regard. Relativism, in fact, can only express a procedural public reason. When the truth is replaced by the decision of the majority, culture is set against truth. The relativistic presumption leads to the tearing up of people’s spiritual roots and the destruction of the network of social relationships.[17]

Relativism regards all religions as equivalent. It does so because it is incapable of engaging in a public critique of religions because for relativism common good cannot be rationally identified. By doing so, it precludes the possibility for the true religion to religiously support what men do to attain the common good. Here, too, we see a negative spiral. Relativistic democracy produces religious relativism and this strengthens ethical and social relativism.

All this happens when a society is no longer able to use public reason to criticize religions that proclaim polygamy, that incorporate the rite of physical mutilation, that do not respect the dignity of women, that preach violence or offer religious paths that depersonalize and hamper human reason and knowledge. How will our public reason be able to discern between religions if it loses sight of authentic humanity?

Here he has in mind especially Europe. Crepaldi shows that B16 does not shy away from advocating a priviledged place to Christianity, not based upon a demanded adherence to revealed truths, but one demanded by reason itself–a reason purged of relativism and scientism. It is demanded not simply because it is true but also because it is in society’s own vested self-interest of survival and flourishing. He goes on to explain that truth is essential to a healthy functioning society and so society is obligated, not to proclaim a particular faith as true (that is beyond its competence) but to listen to and dialogue with the voice of the religion that teaches the truth that is also accessible to human reason:

These states often acknowledge the contribution of Christianity to their history and to the formation of their cultural identity.

This is extremely important: Acknowledging that their roots are grounded in Greek thought, in the Jewish religion and in Christianity is a crucial step for developing the awareness of their own identity. However, it is not sufficient because, unfortunately, the past can be forgotten and, given the rapid disenchantment of the new generations, it is possible to lose sight of the importance of Christianity even in the face of historical, artistic and cultural examples that bear witness to its civilizing function.

Alongside the criteria of history and culture we also need the criterion of truth, i.e. of public rationality. This, then, will also foster appreciation for our history and the pride of our own identity. If, instead, we lose sight of the idea that Christianity expresses a truth that relates to the human being and that Christianity corresponds to authentic public reason more than other religious confessions, we also lose appreciation for our history and the pride of our identity. When Benedict XVI bitterly wondered if the West truly loved itself,[18] this is exactly what he meant: Does it truly love the truth it has inside itself?

Interreligious dialogue is not founded on religious relativism or indifferentism. This is true for the Catholic religion, but is also true for a public reason that has not entirely surrendered to the dictatorship of relativism. By proclaiming the right to religious freedom, the Church has never meant to deny that Christianity is the true religion or that the state has obligations towards the true religion.

According to the declaration “Dignitatis humanae” of the Second Vatican Council, the right to religious freedom “leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.”[19] Now, from where does the state, which is secular, derive these obligations to the true religion?

Not from being a “Christian” state, but from reason, that is from the natural ability to see truths about man in society, from the ability to understand the common good. This also founds the ability to see that one religion consolidates and helps pursue humanization objectives while another contributes to the degradation of man. Christian religion has this claim, the claim of preaching a “God with a human face.”

Here is a very significant observation. The Second Vatican Council’s proclamation on religious freedom itself says that the state’s obligation to religious freedom does not remove the state’s obligation to truth and therefore, to true religion and the one Church of Christ. I suspect many of us have missed this caveat. Again, it is not in terms of proclaiming a Christian state based upon revelation, but through the use of reason’s ability to see that Catholicism promotes and fosters the common good.  Thus, he points out that DH does in fact seem to call for the state to give a privileged place to the Catholic Church (in some capacity) because it is in its own best interest.

This is a dialogue in which B16 is fully prepared to engage based upon reason alone. However, it is clear that it is going to take a lot of preparatory work to find and develop dialogue partners who have the capacity to think critically. This means finding partners with the ability to make proper distinctions between such things as truth claims which can be discussed according to reason, and the attitude of arrogance which is completely unrelated to the truth claims themselves. In other words, one cannot use reason to simply dismiss truth claims based upon the faulty conflation of claims of possessing the absolute truth with arrogance, or of conflating relativism with tolerance. We must be able to develop partners who can also recognize that discussing differences in belief in which one endeavors to explain why he believes the other’s truth claims  to be wrong, need not lead to personal dislike or disharmony.

In the aftermath of Regensburg, we saw many such dialogue partners step forward from the Muslim academy. I have not yet seen the same from the “secular” academy. If I am correct in this, it is indeed ironic that those who profess their weddedness to reasoned thought seem not to have mastered it as well as have those communities that they so often dismiss as irrational believers.

Go over to Zenit and read the whole essay!

I have have been swamped, and still am…so what’s new (and who isn’t)?  Well, since Shelray is off galivanting around in the Holy Land with Steve Ray, et. al.,  for a couple of weeks, I figured that I had better get some half started posts completed.

However, before doing that let me do a plug.  If you are in the area of Champaign, IL next Tuesday evening (13 March) you will want to come to Lewis Lounge in Newman Hall at the St. John’s Catholic Newman Center (corner of 6th and Armory).  St. Blog’s own Dawn Eden (who now seems to be the rage in Colombia as well) will be here taking on the promoters of sexual perversion on the University of Illinois campus.

At 7:30pm that evening, she will be giving a talk based upon her new book to which we have repeatedly referred in the past.  The next day, she will go into the lion’s den with a host of intrepid students to witness to the joy of chaste living at the annual Sex Out Loud “Fair,” hosted by the student organization, Feminist Majority.  They will have a chastity table set up at the event among the sex toy vendors, chocolate phalluses, vagina coloring contest, Planned Parenthood exhibit, etc.

If you can’t be here, your prayers for Dawn and the students would be most welcome.