Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

An e-mail friend of mine, Steve, passed along an editorial in the 28 June 2007 issue of the journal Nature. The editors describe a claim by ETC Group out of Ottawa, Canada that “for the first time, God has competition.” This “environmental pressure group” suspected that the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, MD had “created” an organism using a synthesized, artificial genome–so called, synthetic biology.

While this turned out to be false, the Nature editors say clearly that synthetic biology will produce an artificial life form “in the next few years” (others claim it is only months away). They take this opportunity to turn from science to philosophy, though they do not realize it. In the context of these synthesized life forms they ask the question:

But should such efforts be regarded as ‘creating life’? The idea that such creation is a momentous step has deep roots running from the medieval homunculus portrayed by Paracelsus and the golem of Jewish legend to the modern faustian myth of Frankenstein. It will surely be hard to uproot. This is unfortunate, as the idea is close to meaningless.

What is it that the editors find to be meaningless–the “meaning of life” or the “creation of life”? Well it turns out that it is the former:

There is a popular notion that life is something that appears when a clear threshold is crossed. One might have hoped that such perceptions of a need for a qualitative difference between inert and living matter — such vitalism — would have been interred alongside the pre-darwinian belief that organisms are generated spontaneously from decaying matter. Scientists who regard themselves as well beyond such beliefs nevertheless bolster them when they attempt to draw up criteria for what constitutes ‘life’. It would be a service to more than synthetic biology if we might now be permitted to dismiss the idea that life is a precise scientific concept.

Now, the final sentence of the above quote might be taken as “scientific humility.” In other words, that life is a philosophical and theological concept and so science cannot circumscribe it. That would be great to hear from a journal such as Nature. Unfortunately, this is not what they are saying. That much should be obvious from the rest of the quote. Rather, the editors clearly are philosophical materialists and seem to uncritically presuppose that modern science warrants such a philosophical leap of logic…but of course, it does not. In fact, it cannot because it does not have the tools to engage in such speculation. The editorial goes on to opine that the synthesis of artificial cells can present more than a benefit to knowledge and medicine. Synthetic biology can, for Nature, benefit the culture at large by helping it to extinguish troublesome ideas such as concerns over the significance of life:

One of the broader cultural benefits of attempts to make artificial cells is that they force us to confront the contextual contingency of this troublesome idea.

What benefits can this bring to our culture? Well, how about the annihilation of moral thresholds when it comes to life. In that way, we could do away with any religious arguments that would give any special status to the embryo. Now what would that be worth? Science without morality…imagine the possibilities… Nietzsche’s “The Gay Science” comes to mind here. Well, let’s let Nature speak for itself:

Synthetic biology’s view of life as a molecular process lacking moral thresholds at the level of the cell is a powerful one. And it can and perhaps should be invoked to challenge characterizations of life that are sometimes used to defend religious dogma about the embryo. If this view undermines the notion that a ‘divine spark’ abruptly gives value to a fertilized egg — recognizing as it does that the formation of a new being is gradual, contingent and precarious — then the role of the term ‘life’ in that debate might acquire the ambiguity that it has always warranted.

Nature clearly recognizes that empirical methods do not provide the ability to precisely define life. However, their problem is that they presume, therefore, that there is no other source of knowledge that can do so. This is called “scientism.” I have already pointed out Nature’s lack of recognition that they are, in fact, engaged in modes of thought which extend beyond the domain for which empirical science alone can authorize discussion. However, not realizing this and not being trained in these other modes of thinking and knowing, they do it very poorly. They presuppose answers to questions without even realizing it.

Because of their mechanistic materialism they are led to think that if one can understand how the material world is “mechanized” and how the mechanical sequence of events relate to one another, then this explains why things are the way they are. In other words, in explaining “the how” they hope to avoid having to answer the question why.

What I mean is that they are taking a philosophical question: “what is life?”, and trying to answer it solely with the tools of natural science. Since they apriori reduce knowledge to the empirical level they have no structures, no foundation for addressing the realm of knowledge beyond that to which empirical methods have access. Thus they find that they need to dismiss as non-questions those issues for which their tools do not apply…such as the question: “what is life.”There are many other errors at play here. Another I ought to point out is the presupposition about a faulty “God of the gaps” philosophy. For the editors, this theory implies for them that the only reason for believing in God’s existence is because we cannot explain “life” from a scientific point of view. Thus, if we make it occur mechanically, then obviously there is nothing to explain.

Of all of the reasons for believing in God one of these reasons has never been, in the entire history of Judeo-Christianity up until recently, the claim that we cannot explain the way the world works without Him. In fact, St. Thomas Aquinas suggested exactly the opposite. He thought that God was shown to be greater by being able to accomplish His will in a world that had a certain autonomy (not in terms of existence but in terms of efficient causality in which for every effect, God is the Primary Cause but there is always a created secondary efficient cause).

Those who reduce Thomas’ third proof on the order of the cosmos to the idea that there must be some gaps in secondary efficient causality if we are to find room for God as the source of the cosmic order, mistake his meaning. This is no doubt because they are influenced by Cartesian/Newtonian mechanism. It was not until Newton, who was not even a Christian, that this “God of the gaps” theory arose. Nevertheless, there are many reasons to recognize God as Necessary Existence. One of these arises from contingency, which underlies all of Thomas’ five proofs. None of these have anything to do with the assumption that God must “intervene” in the world in a way that cannot be accounted for by regular laws of nature.

Because of their reductionist presuppositions, the Nature editors also succumb to the logical fallacy of a false dichotomy. The false dichotomy goes like this: Since empirical science cannot account for life then it cannot be more than a mental construct. Thus, if synthetic biology shows that through material means alone, it can “create” a working cell from a synthesized genome then it will have proven that “life” is a purely material process. Besides being wrong, it is faulty logic because it is based upon a mechanistic philosophy. Hylomorphism implies that there should be a corresponding material process for every hylomorphic formal cause.

If it were eventually possible to make a working cell from assembling constituent parts, it still would do nothing to undermine the existence of God. In fact, just as with cloning in which a human soul could be infused when the matter (the zygotic structure) was ready to accept it, so hylomorphic theory would surely say that a vegetative “soul” would be infused into the cell when the structure of the matter was ready to receive it.

The point is that scientism, though they do not admit it, bears the burden of proof when they want to limit existence to the material world. They have this burden because they are making a universally negative assertion with no proof. In the end, they are also left with the burden of defending the incoherent philosophy of mechanistic materialism rather than presupposing its validity simply because they refuse to admit the coherence of other modes of knowledge. However, I suppose that until scientists masquerading as philosophers come to terms with the fact that they are being self-contradicting by simultaneously doing philosophy and denying its legitimacy and also presupposing an incoherent philosophy for which “science” gives them no warrant, they will continue be, as philosophers, solely good technicians of the empirical method.

Chaldean Catholic Bishop Ibrahim N. Ibrahim of the Detroit suburb of Southfield feels the current situation in Iraq has put Christians in the hazardous position of being perceived as allies with foreign occupiers, but are not afforded the benefit of any protection. His solution to the problem: American withdrawl from the area.

“Let the Iraqis kill each other, but let the occupying power get out, because they are not killing each other because they are Sunni or Shiite, but because they are with the Americans or against the Americans.”  ”The situation of Christians in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, “is very, very bad,” with Islamic terrorists threatening that they must convert to Islam or pay a special tax as protection money. Even if they choose to leave, they are being threatened to leave any unmarried daughters behind so they can be taken as wives by Muslims and forced to convert to Islam.

Unlike Bishop Ibrahim, my opinion is based on no facts or time spent in Iraq: As evident by the escalating threats to the Iraqi Christian community, I believe an American withdrawl would only make matters worse. Overall, I see the anti-Christian violence as one of criminal convenience rather than an assault of al-Qaida waged against alleged American supporters. To what extent is this relatively small, outcast group of Christians who have no social or political relevance, a threat to the radical Islamic agenda? I believe they are being targeted simply because the Christians have the distinction of being  convenient and socially acceptable victims. Like so often the case, evil men can simply hide behind the veil of Islam, or any other religion or agenda to publicly justify their hateful, anti-social, criminal acts. For the sake of our Christian brothers and sisters, I pray more will be done to protect them and that they will not be left behind to suffer the consequences of total abandonment. Besides, if the Americans left now, who would be the most obvious victims in sustaining the terrorist criminal’s appetite for death and destruction?

The Catholic bishops of England and Wales publicly respond to the draft of a Government legislation to be debated by Parliament later this year where scientists will be given permission for the first time to create such (human-animal cybrid) embryos for research, as long as they destroy them within two weeks. The Human Tissue and Embryo Bill includes sections on test tube babies, embryo research and abortion. The Bishops oppose the creation of animal-human embryos, but also want to limit the destruction of such life once it had been brought into existence. If such creations of animal-human embryos (which would be more than 99 percent human) came into being, they argued that these “chimeras” must be regarded as human and a have a right to life and the genetic mother should be able to raise them as their own children if they so desire.

In their submission to the committee, they said: “At the very least, embryos with a preponderance of human genes should be assumed to be embryonic human beings, and should be treated accordingly.

“In particular, it should not be a crime to transfer them, or other human embryos, to the body of the woman providing the ovum, in cases where a human ovum has been used to create them.

“Such a woman is the genetic mother, or partial mother, of the embryo; should she have a change of heart and wish to carry her child to term, she should not be prevented from doing so.”

?!

I have said before that I do not get around blogdom much, so I am always surprised (though I ought not be) and disappointed to see that so many good blogs have stopped operating…both officially closed or have not posted in months or more and seem to be kaput.  A few that come to mind include Southern Appeal, Catholic Rage Monkey (I’m not sure that this title will ever be outdone), Ad Limina Apostolorum (run by a Blosser brother and former school mate of mine) and Angry Twins (Andrew officially retired a couple of years ago, Arthur seems to have done so earlier this year).

It is not surprising though.  At some point it begins to begin to feel like a burden and one begins to wonder if it is of any real benefit to anyone.  We have reached that point at times ourselves.  Any way, I was thinking that it would be interesting to compile a list of good blogs from St. Blogs that have ceased operating in the last couple of years that you wish would not have.  If there is enough of a response then perhaps we could vote for our favorite defunct Catholic blog?

Please leave your inputs in the combox and we will see what we end up with.  For blog owners, please advertise this idea on your blog if you don’t mind.  Perhaps we all will find out about blogs that we had forgotten about and did not know had “bitten the dust.”

Travis over at A Catholic Boudreaux blog has begun a Catholic “vlog” site called Catholic Tube.  Go over and take a look!

In an audience with representatives from a recently completed European Meeting of University Professors, Pope Benedict XVI identified three issues that require further study in order to address the crisis of modernity. At root, he says of this problem, modernity is trying to build a kingdom of man divorced from the fullness of the truth about himself.

The three issues are some of the primary concerns that we address here at C-L-S . . . aren’t we smart. These three issues revolve around the reduction of the meaning of the human person to solely the animal aspect of human nature, the reduction of rationality to empirical knowledge, and the solution that Christianity can offer to these mistaken views.

Just a quick survey of what it hopping on any one day on the internet and you can see these problems are real. For example:

Monica sends along a couple of links to hoax sites that, for various reasons, promote the future hopes of medicine as though they were already here today. The first is from what apparently was once a popular advertising technique for movies (where have I been). In promoting their movie, a studio put together a website about the Godsend Institute that made it appear that as though human cloning were already a reality. In a similar vein, we have RYT Hospital, Dwayne Medical Center that tries to make it appear as though such futuristic “therapies” as nanomedicine, male pregnancy, and methods for correction of a baby’s genetic defects at a “pre-embryonic” stage (this phrase gives you an hint about the view point of the authors I would say) have been available for some time. This later site is apparently the creation of an artist named Virgil Wong who has

concurrent careers as an artist/filmmaker, Web Center director, MFA faculty member, and Nia teacher all revolve around his interests in medicine, technology and the human body.” His full-time job is “Head of Web Design and Development for two prestigious non-profit medical institutions.

The content of both of these sites seem to suggest a phenomenon that G.K. Chesterton characterized as a symptom of the loss of authentic religion. Namely, when physical health becomes an obsession. In fact, the way that this manifests itself is the same phenomenon as that which underlies scientism as well. What I mean is that we can fool ourselves only so much. We know ultimately that we are not in control and we need Someone who is. For our culture, this “someone” is the omnipotent god of science and the scientist, the high priest who serves at the altar of secular humanism. Scientism and secular humanism both have in common the reduction of knowledge and in someways the reduction of the human person. However inconsistent it may be though, secular humanism also simultaneously exalts humanity to the position of autonomous deity.

I suspect that this is also what is behind such movements as the “global warming” religion (now I am not saying that environmentalism is bad, just that it must be kept in its proper place; nor am I making any declaration on the validity of the theory). While there is only speculation, and certainly no consensus, that human activity is responsible for a gradual rise in world-wide atmospheric temperature, it seems that very few in the popular promotion of this religion (either in the media or science) are willing to entertain the possibility that there is nothing that we can do about it (whether it is of human origin or not). Thus, the current orthodoxy is that there is human-caused global warming and it is the media’s responsibility to convince the world of this so that enough popular pressure can be brought to bear on governments so that “scientists” can be given what they need in order to “save us.” In fact, the emotional attachment to this religion of “global warming scientism” has become so strong that the heretical suggestions that global warming might not exist are considered dangerous and cannot be allowed public expression. In fact, the practioners of this religion among “scientists” (can you believe it) are driven to falsify any data that brings suspicion upon their religion.

The religion of secular humanism, a close cousin of scientism, also flourishes with the faulty thinking rampant in this “crisis of modernity.” In Germany, the dangers of suggesting that human life begins at conception is such that it must be punished with jail time. Whether it is faulty or not, free speech cannot be allowed to extend to any religious expression that might undermine the religion of secular humanism and so a committe report for the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly has deemed creationsim and intelligent design as threats to human rights and it asserts that the “science of evolution” is paramount to a secure and healthy Europe. Thus, the report urges that “appropriate precautions” be taken to stem these dangerous ideas that threaten to undermine the state religion of “man worship.”

It is perhaps, psychological projection which makes those of the secular humanist faith fear Christianity so much. However, it is appears that when they are in power, they will not hesitate to wield it against anything that threatens their faith.

B16 is clearly correct. This is a crisis of thought, a crisis of reductionism and only the full throated Gospel can effectively mollify it. The irony is that modernity prides itself on reason and dialogue. However, the protectors of the realm’s dogmatic teachings seem to intuitively recognize that they do not have the intellectual tools to engage in a dialogue and so suppression of opposing ideas becomes the only alternative. For most in this unholy magisterium, it would seem that intellectual debate is not welcomed and perhaps not even possible. However, for the less “orthodox” masses it is possible that, not being driven by (anti-)faith, they may be more open to reasoned dialogue and can be made to see the vacuousness of secular humanistic orthodoxy. This is certainly my hope, as perhaps this may avoid a 21st century resurrection of the 18th century’s Reign of Terror. Mercifully, that malignant progenitor of what I think is now possible was confined to France. However, the current trajectory seems to suggest a spawn, secular humanist Regnum hominis, that will endanger the entirety of the West.

For the last month, al-Qaida has mandated all Assyrian families who wish to remain in a neighborhood in Baghdad must now pay an approximate equivalent of one months salary as protection money. If they refuse to pay the tax, they are given a choice to either convert to Islam, leave within 24 hours, or be killed. The jizya, referred to as a “head tax”, was established by the Quran for all non-Muslims as a means of enforcing their submission to Muslim rule.

“Christians in Iraq are on their way to extinction, cut off from the country’s political process,” said Father Bashar Warda, newly-appointed rector of the St Peter Major Seminary, which was recently moved from Baghdad to Ankawa in Iraqi Kurdistan for security reasons. When asked why nothing had been done since the liberation to protect Iraqi Christians, Father Warda blamed “the indifference of Iraqi leaders. They do not consider us as belonging to this nation.”

William J. Murray, chairman of the conservative Religious Freedom Coalition, told NewsMax that he has called on President Bush to “step forward and protect the Christians that have been placed in such grave danger by our actions in Iraq, even if the sole solution is to grant immediate asylum to all of them.”

Over the past two years, more than 27 churches have been attacked throughout Iraq. The liturgy of the majority of Christians in Iraq is still done in Aramaic.

According to Robin Williams in his interview for the movie License to Wed, men who are celibate and hear the sins of others are prone to abusing pubescent children. I’ll give Mr. Williams the benefit of the doubt that this is not a potential sexual projection but I am curious as to what, if any, thought went into his claim.  Did he come to this conclusion through logically reasoning from certain facts to evident conclusions before embarking on his calumnious accusations against countless good men who have sacrificed so much in their lives for their commitment to serving God and others?  What are we to think of the Catholic Church who would employ either sex abusers or deceitful men who violate their vows of celibacy?

When asked if he had any concerns about having his role as a Protestant minister with a 10-year-old sidekick, he responds.

That’s why he’s a Protestant. If you had a Catholic priest with a small boy, already they’d be going “What’s up?” “What’s the boy?” “For the weekends.” You know it’s been a difficult thing for the Catholic Church to deal with after all these years when they have the Divine Witness Protection Program. Find a priest. It’s like three-card priest. “Find the priest, find the pedophile, find the priest. Here we go. Where is he? Right there. Here’s the priest, here’s the pedophile. Whoops! Found him! Move him over to another parish. Okay. Find him!” That’s why a lot of parishes don’t have Little League programs anymore. That’s why they went with a Protestant right away.

It might be something you look at for the Catholic Church to think about – maybe losing the whole celibacy thing. It’s a difficult thing when you realize that first of all you have to give up sex and then they say, “Okay. We’re going to put you in a small box and every week people are going to come and go “Bless me father for I have sinned.” “What have you done my son?” “Last night I was with two Philippine twins and it was slip and slide.” “Oh really? Keep going.” And then they’re going to take you from that and then put you next to pubescent children. It’s like getting out of Jenny Craig and saying “Where you gonna work?” “Haagen Dazs.” In the big picture that’s why he’s a Protestant and has been married and has some perspective on sexuality. Because it must be very difficult being a priest and having to talk about sex — kind of like Quasimodo is a chiropractor. I guess it works.

Only Williams knows for sure why he would make such malicious accusations against men who respond to the call to be priests, but it’s the same kind of illogical ignorance that fuels hate and prejudice towards other groups of people who look or believe differently than themselves. Ignorance may be bliss for the perpetrator but it’s usually at the expense of the victims. May God bless all of our priests.

If you have not yet seen Champions of Faith: The Baseball Edition, you really must do so. It is a film detailing the witnesses of major league champions like Mike Piazza, David Eckstein, Jeff Suppan, Mike Sweeney, Jack McKeon and Rich Donnelly, and others.

I watched it this weekend and was very much impressed with the quality of the film and the sincerity of the players. It is fast moving, engaging and compelling. It provides the right balance of dramatized action and well chosen theme music with compelling, personal stories of these major league champions. Rich Donnelly’s story was especially moving. It sent chills up my spine. From the website above:

In his late 20s, [Donnelly] fell away from the faith but had a radical conversion experience after the death of his 17-year-old daughter Amy. Her amazing story and prophetic words, “The Chicken Runs at Midnight” became a family motto and came true in 1997 when the Marlins won the World Series at midnight. “The Chicken Runs at Midnight” story is featured in the Champions of Faith: Baseball Edition DVD.

I think that this film can be an effective tool for many reasons. Not the least of which is that sports has become for many men, a replacement for religion. It permits them to allow the ecstatic experience of competitive sports to masquerade for the authentic self-transcendence and the experience of God that they truly seek. Sports provides what they intuit to be a masculine alternative to the human feminine relationship to divinity which they can find uncomfortable, though in an unthematized way. In this well done film, men and boys can see their masculine sports heroes providing a manly witness to the necessity of a sincere commitment to one’s Catholic faith and to the love of God.

This is a perfect tool, it seems to me, to begin to draw men into a thirst to learn about the faith. Coupled with a well thought out catechetical/faith formation program, this pre-evangelization tool should be a part of every parishes arsenal. You can go to the website to see the trailer to get an idea of the quality. It really is a must see!

National Catholic Reporter’s vastly overestimated man on the scene, John Allen, Jr., has a new post up extolling the “heroic” talk that Daniel Finn recently gave to the CTSA, decrying its ghetto-ization into an enclave of liberal theology:

For Allen, Finn’s address was an important battle cry denouncing the polarization in Catholic discourse that has strewn apart the Catholic community in the United States. We have forgotten how to talk to each other, in Allen’s opinion. We no longer carry on conversations as adults and open up ourselves to different points of view. Liberals talk to liberals, conservatives to conservatives, traditionalists to traditionalists, etc. We have become a Church of self-enclosed islands, of ideologues, with no one lending a sympathetic ear to one’s ideological “other.”

Now, there is no doubt that Finn’s address was of some importance. After all, it is heartening to think that heretics might indeed be willing to open themselves up to the living voice of the Magisterium. But here is precisely the problem with Allen’s theologically naïve perspective: heresy is not a legitimate voice of diversity in the Church of God. Allen’s plaintive cry for dialogue suffers from the same fundamental problem that one finds with Cardinal Bernardin’s wretched “Common Ground Initiative”: heresy requires anathematization, not a sympathetic ear, not a pat on the back, not a “we’re all just taking shelter under the One, Big Canopy of the Church.”

There is absolutely no reason to listen to and carry out a dialogue with proponents of womyn priests, or gay marriage, or with those many CTSA biblical scholars who deny the Resurrection as a physical as well as symbolic reality. Indeed, to “dialogue” with such Cretins is to approve implicitly their heretical perspectives as legitimate theological positions. Irenaeus did not “dialogue” with the Gnostikoi, he renounced them vigorously. Athanasius did not sit down and have a beer and a pleasant talk on the divinity of Christ with the Arians, he violently rejected their heresy. Saint Maximus the Confessor pleaded vehemently and unwaveringly with the monoenergists/monothelites to renounce outright their heretical denials of Christ’s humanity, at the cost of his tongue and his life.

And, in fact, the heretics in the Church today are much less theologically subtle than the ancient Gnostikoi, Arians, monothelites (pick your ancient heresy, its proponents were inevitably more intellectually subtle than the cult of CTSA “theologians”). Indeed, if dialogue with heretics were a worthy pursuit, these ancient pseudo-theologians would be much more worthy partners in the conversation than those we have to deal with today.

No, we don’t need more dialogue. We need to call a spade a spade and a heretic a heretic.

The outgoing rector of Saint John’s Seminary in Boston, Rev. John A. Farren, O.P., recently sent a stinging letter of rebuke to a pair of Church officials regarding the sale of properties adjoining the seminary to Boston College and Weston Jesuit Seminary. Farren argues that the doctrinal integrity of the seminary is at risk given the close proximity of these two Jesuit-run institutions – both infamously heretical in their theological orientation – to the seminary. Indeed, Boston College will now be in charge of the seminary’s library (I can only imagine how stupid the new titles acquired by the library will become).

Reverend Richard M. Erikson, who was at one time a professor at Saint John’s and is no doubt a dim-bulb proponent of Rahnerian clap-trap theology, could not disagree more vehemently with Farren:

“We are preparing men for ministry in the 21st century in an extraordinarily diverse diocese of 144 communities, 2 million Catholics, and many urban centers, and if our seminarians don’t face these challenges and issues as seminarians, they will the day they’re ordained. I’m not afraid that having a very diverse and wide experience at seminary is somehow going to corrupt our seminarians.”

Father Farren, on the other hand, rightly points out that Weston’s staff is populated by several openly gay and lesbian individuals and that several of its seminary theologians are under suspicion for heresy by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Of course, the glorification of sodomy and otherwise open heresy are not legitimate expressions of diversity in the Mystical Body of Christ. So, what on earth do the seminary students at Saint John’s have to gain from rubbing shoulders in their formative period with pseudo-Catholics and intellectual hacks who think that Elizabeth Johnson’s infantile perorations are the height of theological profundity and sophistication? Yes, there is no doubt that these young men will have to deal with that kind of idiocy and lunacy in the parish setting. But, the contemporary seminarian already knows about all that bunk anyway. The seminary should be a time of spiritual and intellectual purification, not a period of further spiritual and theological confusion. What do you think these young seminarians got growing up, anyway? A living Catholic culture? You’d have to be a knave to think so.

This summer has been crazy around here. We (i.e. The Institute of Catholic Thought) began the summer with a pilot program for a catechetical initiative at St. John’s Catholic Newman Center (SJCNC) at UIUC. It is aimed at providing a robust intellectual formation in the faith for students at St. John’s. It has been fairly successful so far as it would seem from the feedback. We also have been busy trying to begin a School of Theology under the Institute of Catholic Thought and offer an M.A. in Theology. This turns out to be quite an effort, especially trying to figure out how to begin without any money, but it may be possible (but if anyone has any good ideas about possible funding sources I would be most interested). We also hosted a seminar with the Institute for the Study of Nature which I mentioned here a few weeks ago. Tonight I am in Peoria speaking at a conference (if you look into the seminars you will not be surprised to see the title’s of my talks).

I was surprised to see how well known SJCNC is to many of the keynote speakers. I talked to Fr. Richard John Neuhaus who was quite familiar with it. I was going to mention that fact that he had linked to C-L-S in one of his On The Square posts a while back, one that caused Andrew Sullivan to call us a “far right Catholic website.” However, he was suffering from the stomach flu so I thought it best to just answer his questions. I also talked to Tim Gray who is familiar with us through his work with FOCUS. The most curious conversation was with Jeff Cavins. When we were introduced, he said “I know you.” It turns out that we did meet about 9 years ago at a conference in which we talked for about 20 minutes. He seemed to think that this must have been it. Myself, I can forget that I met someone 5 minutes after talking to them. What do you think? Does he have a phenomenal memory or did I just look like someone he knew?

Any way, all of this is to say that I have not had time to do much of anything (especially to blog). I am way behind also in my correspondence. Nevertheless, here is the first of a couple of things that I have been meaning to pass along. Stephen Dillard (who I did not know had “outed himself” as the anonymous contributor to the Southern Appeal blog which I also did not know had ceased to operate some time ago…I don’t get out much) has begun an effort to bring to greater light, Rudy Giuliani’s dismal demonstration of what it seems to mean to be Catholic and political today. In doing so he will be launching a website called Catholics Against Rudy, which is supposed to be stood up by July 4th (but check it out now for background).

Rudy is still the front runner in the Republican presidential race, and like the last Catholic presidential candidate, seems to have little appreciation for the faith or the logical contradictions in his positions. Besides the obvious concerns that they seem to demonstrate gross intellectual and character shortcomings, these “Catholic” candidates are even worse for the faith in the sense that they are anti-evangelists.

What I mean is that they help to confirm for the average, vague thinking, Catholic that a Catholic need only regurgitate the party line when it comes to why they think that can claim to be Catholic and reject Church teachings. These candidates also confirm a mistaken view of faith in general, and the Catholic faith in particular, for those outside of the faith.

I think that this is an excellent opportunity to help catechize the average Catholic and correct the mistaken views of others about Catholicism. In addition, it will also be good to remove an objectionable player from the field of other mostly objectionable candidates (for anyone who is Republican and from Iowa who wants to aupport a good Catholic [of course he is a convert] candidate, please get on board with Sam Brownback for the Ames Iowa Straw Poll in August…for anyone who is a Democrat please get working on your party to put forth any acceptable candidate).

This campaign will be very insightful. The last campaign made it clear where people put their Catholic faith in relation to their politics. I know many life long Democrats who had to swallow hard and with great difficulty decided they had to vote for a Republican. This campaign will help to show which Catholics are Republicans rather than Catholics. Ironically, this is what you get when you separate faith from reason…you get neither.

Two couples will have to pay restitution for their part in destroying a century old marble altar during a Sunday Mass. After communion at a 11 a.m. Mass, a man and woman came forward, yelling at the parishioners calling them idolaters before turning over the valuable altar. Two of the individuals will do a little jail time and all are responsible for paying $11,958 for the physical damage in the church. The only voice of remorse came from the former Catholic in the group who was sorry that it had to come to this before anyone could actually see what they were doing is wrong, “And they still don’t see it“.

I just tore up a table that people saw as an idol, kneeling before it and bowing before an idol. “It was so monotone,” Turgeon said. “There was no passion, fire, reverence. Through the prayer they were just eyeballing everyone else and saying the words. They have no heart. That’s not love. (The Bible says) Make a joyful noise unto the Lord.”

“We are in End Times,” Wagner said. “This is Armageddon, the end of all things. Basically, what we’re in right now is the appearance of the anti-christ who we believe to be Pope Benedict (XVI). . . . That’s the main reason we chose the Catholic church. It didn’t have anything to do with the people in it.”

Incidentally, the couple who attacked the altar are recognized as a common law couple explain that they believe “God spoke to him, telling both of us to go call out the evils of the Catholic church. We are followers of Christ.”

Philip Jenkins is making the claim that apocalyptic scenarios regarding the Islamicization of Europe overstate the case: He points to the various pentacostalist and charismatic movements — both Catholic and Protestant — that are taking root on the continent. He tells us that even hardened leftist intellectuals are coming to see that Europe’s roots are ineradicably Christian (see the quote he provides by Jurgen Habermas). His most recent book, God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis, argues vehemently against the so-called “Eurabia thesis.” Upheld by the likes of Bat Y’oer, the Eurabia thesis holds that the declining population among Western Europeans (stemming from the contraceptive mentality) and the increasing population of the continent by Muslims who are not assimilating will lead the continent to become a predominantly Islamic land in the not-too-distant future. The scholar of Islam, Bernard Lewis, himself a proponent of the “Eurabia thesis,” put it this way: “Current trends show that Europe will have a Muslim majority by the end of the twenty-first century at the latest. . . . Europe will be part of the Arab West—the Maghreb.”

Jenkins argues that all of these sorts of predictions overstate the case. On the other hand, Richard John Neuhaus reviews Jenkins’s book here and remains unconvinced by Jenkins’s argument.

I would only add that if the future of Christianity lay in its pentacostalist and charismatic movements, then it has no future at all. These sorts of movements are anti-cultural and aesthetically deadening, even their Catholic variants tend toward an aesthetic stupidity that is anti-Christic. They are iconoclastic expressions of faith (inherently heretical in their manner of worship) appealing to a certain emotionalism that is omnipresent in our barbaric age. They have little lasting value. No culture can take root from them; they are, indeed, anti-sacramental at bottom, and so can only attain a most uneasy mixture with the historic, apostolic faith.

If pentacostalism and charismatic emotionalism is all that is left of the great tradition of the Christian faith on the continent, then Islam will have an easy rout.

Two years ago, the Eastern Orthodox theologian, David Bentley Hart, wrote a sharp essay for The New Atlantis on the continuing “relevance” of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body:

In extolling JP II’s theology, Hart contrasts strikingly two religions at war with one another: the traditional Christian religion, for which JP II is an eminent teacher, and the intellectually deficient religious anti-humanism of the contemporary age. Indeed, in these we are presented with two radically divergent metaphysical paths, one proposing a “theosis” or “divinization” embodied in love, the other proposing a path of divinization whose way is marked by violent sacrifice and the glorification of power and domination. The latter is the “transhumanist” religion fanatically and pietistically proclaimed by third-rate minds in the scientifc community and by the academically credentialed community of “neo-Darwinist” bioethicists. The transhumanists are proponents of a Jihad whose religiosity stems from a belief system perfectly antithetical to that proclaimed by the departed Pontiff. Hart describes their creed, especially as expounded by that infamous prophet of their faith, Joseph Fletcher:

The far antipodes of John Paul’s vision of the human, I suppose, are to be found at the lunatic fringe of bioethics, in that fanatically “neo-Darwinist” movement that has crystallized around the name of “transhumanism.” A satirist with a genius for the morbid could scarcely have invented a faction more depressingly sickly, and yet—in certain reaches of the scientific community—it is a movement that enjoys some real degree of respectability. Its principal tenet is that it is now incumbent upon humanity to take control of its own evolution, which on account of the modern world’s technological advances and social policies has tragically stalled at the level of the merely anthropine; as we come to master the mysteries of the genome, we must choose what we are to be, so as to progress beyond Homo sapiens, perhaps one day to become beings—in the words of the Princeton biologist Lee Silver—“as different from humans as humans are from…primitive worms” (which are, I suppose, to be distinguished from sophisticated worms). We must seek, that is to say, to become gods. Many of the more deliriously visionary of the transhumanists envisage a day when we will be free to alter and enhance ourselves at will, unconstrained by law or shame or anything resembling good taste: by willfully transgressing the genetic boundaries between species (something that we are already learning how to do), we may be able to design new strains of hybrid life, or even to produce an endlessly proliferating variety of new breeds of the post-human that may no longer even have the capacity to reproduce one with the other. (For those whose curiosity runs to the macabre, Wesley Smith’s recent Consumer’s Guide to a Brave New World provides a good synopsis of the transhumanist creed.)

Obviously one is dealing here with a sensibility formed more by comic books than by serious thought. Ludicrous as it seems, though, transhumanism is merely one logical consequence (if a particularly childish one) of the surprising reviviscence of eugenic ideology in the academic, scientific, and medical worlds. Most of the new eugenicist, admittedly, see their solicitude for the greater wellbeing of the species as suffering from none of the distasteful authoritarianism of the old racialist eugenics, since all they advocate (they say) is a kind of elective genetic engineering—a bit of planned parenthood here, the odd reluctant act of infanticide there, a soupçon of judicious genetic tinkering everywhere, and a great deal of prudent reflection upon the suitability of certain kinds of embryos—but clearly they are deluding themselves or trying to deceive us. Far more intellectually honest are those—like the late, almost comically vile Joseph Fletcher of Harvard—who openly acknowledge that any earnest attempt to improve the human stock must necessarily involve some measures of legal coercion. Fletcher, of course, was infamously unabashed in castigating modern medicine for “polluting” our gene pool with inferior specimens and in rhapsodizing upon the benefits the race would reap from instituting a regime of genetic invigilation that would allow society to eliminate “idiots” and “cripples” and other genetic defectives before they could burden us with their worthless lives. It was he who famously declared that reproduction is a privilege, not a right, and suggested that perhaps mothers should be forced by the state to abort “diseased” babies if they refused to do so of their own free will. Needless to say, state-imposed sterilization struck him as a reasonable policy; and he agreed with Linus Pauling that it might be wise to consider segregating genetic inferiors into a recognizable caste, marked out by indelible brands impressed upon their brows. And, striking a few minor transhumanist chords of his own, he even advocated—in a deranged and hideous passage from his book The Ethics of Genetic Control—the creation of “chimeras or parahumans…to do dangerous or demeaning jobs” of the sort that are now “shoved off on moronic or retarded individuals”—which, apparently, was how he viewed janitors, construction workers, firefighters, miners, and persons of that ilk.

It is one of the great ironies of history that Fletcher, whose delusions of grandeur led him to see himself as an intellectual god-incarnate, was in fact a rather banal thinker with “no discernible speculative gifts,” but with a quite discernible philistine aesthetic sensibility:

Of course, there was always a certain oafish audacity in Fletcher’s degenerate driveling about “morons” and “defectives,” given that there is good cause to suspect, from a purely utilitarian vantage, that academic ethicists—especially those like Fletcher, who are notoriously mediocre thinkers, possessed of small culture, no discernible speculative gifts, no records of substantive philosophical achievement, and execrable prose styles—constitute perhaps the single most useless element in society. If reproduction is not a right but a social function, should any woman be allowed to bring such men into the world? And should those men be permitted, in their turn, to sire offspring?

Who should make the decision about fitness for procreation? Who is it that would establish the criteria? Should a moral idiot such as Fletcher himself be allowed “reproductive rights?” A serious question, in Hart’s estimation:

I ask this question entirely in earnest, because I think it helps to identify the one indubitable truth about all social movements towards eugenics: namely, that the values that will determine which lives are worth living, and which not, will always be the province of persons of vicious temperament. If I were asked to decide what qualities to suppress or encourage in the human species, I might first attempt to discover if there is such a thing as a genetic predisposition to moral idiocy and then, if there is, to eliminate it; then there would be no more Joseph Fletchers (or Peter Singers, or Linus Paulings, or James Rachels), and I might think all is well. But, of course, the very idea is a contradiction in terms. Decisions regarding who should or should not live can, by definition, be made only by those who believe such decisions should be made; and therein lies the horror that nothing can ever exorcise from the ideology behind human bioengineering.

Those who openly and explicitly express their assent to the transhumanist creed may be few and far between, but the metaphysical principles that underlie transhumanism are the standard dogma of the age among bioethicists. The extreme and open position of Fletcher just happens to be a particularly honest one – at least we can give him that much credit. According to Hart, the main difference between the Christian doctrine expounded by JP II and the transhumanist creed expressed by Fletcher is less a question of what it means to be man but of what it means to be a god. Hart rightly puts to rest any misconceptions among his Christian readers that the aspiration to become a god is inherently wicked. Indeed, inasmuch as transhumanism embodies this aspiration – however perversely the aspiration is manifested among the faithful transhumanists – there is a fleeting moment of contact between the two creeds, Christian and transhumanist. Hart explains:

Theologically speaking, the proper destiny of human beings is to be “glorified”—or “divinized”—in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, to become “partakers of the divine nature” (II Peter 1:4), to be called “gods” (Psalm 82:6; John 10:34-36). This is the venerable doctrine of “theosis” or “deification,” the teaching that—to employ a lapidary formula of great antiquity—“God became man that man might become god”: that is to say, in assuming human nature in the incarnation, Christ opened the path to union with the divine nature for all persons. From the time of the Church Fathers through the high Middle Ages, this understanding of salvation was a commonplace of theology. Admittedly, until recently it had somewhat disappeared from most Western articulations of the faith, but in the East it has always enjoyed a somewhat greater prominence; and it stands at the very center of John Paul’s theology of the body. As he writes in Evangelium Vitae:

‘Man is called to a fullness of life which far exceeds the dimensions of his earthly existence, because it consists in sharing the very life of God. The loftiness of this supernatural vocation reveals the greatness and the inestimable value of human life even in its temporal phase.’

John Paul’s anthropology is what a certain sort of Orthodox theologian might call a “theandric” humanism. “Life in the Spirit,” the most impressive of the texts collected in the Theology of the Body, is to a large extent an attempt to descry the true form of man by looking to the end towards which he is called, so that the glory of his eschatological horizon, so to speak, might cast its radiance back upon the life he lives in via here below. Thus, for John Paul, the earthly body in all its frailty and indigence and limitation is always already on the way to the glorious body of resurrection of which Paul speaks; the mortal body is already the seed of the divinized and immortal body of the Kingdom; the weakness of the flesh is already, potentially, the strength of “the body full of power”; the earthly Adam is already joined to the glory of the last Adam, the risen and living Christ. For the late pope, divine humanity is not something that in a simple sense lies beyond the human; it does not reside in some future, post-human race to which the good of the present must be offered up; it is instead a glory hidden in the depths of every person, even the least of us—even “defectives” and “morons” and “genetic inferiors,” if you will—waiting to be revealed, a beauty and dignity and power of such magnificence and splendor that, could we see it now, it would move us either to worship or to terror.

Hart expresses the Christian understanding of deification perfectly. But, at the risk of presumption, I can add a few words: the “Godmanhood” to which we are called (to borrow the expression of the Russian theologian Vladimir Soloviev) is a participation in the very life of the divinity, a share in the divine life in which our humanity is fulfilled in all its distinctiveness. We are called to become sons in the Son, gods in God, not by annihilating what makes us human, but by consecrating our humanity precisely in its being divinized. And, indeed, our weaknesses in this age are precisely our path to glorification, the manner in which we follow Christ on the Way of the Cross in order to share with Him the transfiguring Glory of His resurrection.

One of the most attractive things about Hart’s increasingly influential writings (and for those who are unfamiliar with him, might I suggest you perform a web search), is that he evinces no discernible illusions about the reconcilability between the two alternative religious visions enunciated in this article. None of what John Paul II says is likely to move the transhumanist zealot – short of the miracle of conversion. JP II’s Theology of the Body is a coherent expression of the vision of faith, enabling us to see the faith in its full integrity. But there is no false sense expressed therein that some facile accommodation with the world will make the Christian religion somehow more “appealing.” Hart captures well the specifically ecclesial purpose of JP II’s writings. Indeed, the vision of the divine humanity expressed therein could not be any more opposed to the quest for divinization implicit in the neo-Darwinist milieu:

The materialist who wishes to see modern humanity’s Baconian mastery over cosmic nature expanded to encompass human nature as well—granting us absolute power over the flesh and what is born from it, banishing all fortuity and uncertainty from the future of the race—is someone who seeks to reach the divine by ceasing to be human, by surpassing the human, by destroying the human. It is a desire both fantastic and depraved: a diseased titanism, the dream of an infinite passage through monstrosity, a perpetual and ruthless sacrifice of every present good to the featureless, abysmal, and insatiable god who is to come.

The choice is plain: either we give our assent to Christ and recognize the eternal value of our humanity, or we cast our lot with the transhumanist delirium, and envision our humanity as something that must be annihilated if we are to have our wishes – perversely misconstrued as a result of our willful blindness – fulfilled.

Iran’s parliament voted in favor of a bill that could lead to the death penalty for anyone convicted of working in the production of pornography. They consider the producers of pornographic works as corrupters of the world, who – according to the the Quran- rank among the highest on the scale of an individual’s criminal offenses. In addition to producers of pornographic movies, distributors and producers of pornographic Web sites could also face death sentences. Even though all types of pornography are already banned under Iranian law it is easily purchased through satellite television and readily available on the black market on many Iranian street corners. It’s believed the bill is an effort by Iran to address it’s embarrassing sex scandal involving one of it’s television actresses named Zahra Amir Ebrahimi appearing in a pornography video currently available across Iran.

As evident by the current prevalence of pornography, Iranian leaders probably couldn’t care less about pornography, but will do what ever is necessary to sustain it’s claim to moral superiority over the infidels and will not hesitate to kill their own in order to protect it’s facade of Islamic purity. What type of authority would Iran maintain among the Islamic believers in the Middle East if they were exposed as being accepting of the very same evil of which they condemn the west?

Update: Islamic Republic’s Sex Scandal Rather shocking.

A Manchester school board voted for an investigation of a field trip that brought middle school students who were classified as “at risk” to a Planned Parenthood office. The 7th and 8th grade children were part of the STAY program, which has been developed for at-risk middle aged school students operated by the YMCA.

12 years ago yesterday, Amber and I originally exchanged marriage vows outside of the Catholic Church on June 10th 1995 by a Methodist minister, and subsequently had our union officially recognized through a Convalidation of Marriage by the Church on August 29, 1999. Looking back, I think I may understand how tough it must be for some parents whose adult children have abandoned the faith and painfully want to do what is best to ensure the salvation of their children’s soul. For many years in my early adulthood years, my father and I – who were so very much alike – had a somewhat of a contentious relationship which placed a burden on him to maintain a relationship with his son who was not typically open to inconvenient truths and, at the same time, protect him from his own ignorance. He did the best he could. Despite the fact that I had not darkened a Catholic Church in 10 years at the time, because of my father – I actually went to confession and spoke to a priest prior to the wedding. Not that it would have made a difference, but the priest told me since it was only weeks away from our wedding, that we could just to go ahead with the wedding and return to the Church in 6 months (which I never did) to have it recognized – just what I wanted to hear but not correct (correct response here).

My favorite wedding picture of Amber who told me once, in no uncertain terms, she would never be a Catholic!

The exchange of our wedding vows which were not recognized by the Church, not because the Catholic Church sees Herself as the only Church capable of performing a valid marriage but because as a Catholic I should and must follow Church law.

We had our union officially recognized by the Church through a convalidation of marriage at Our Lady of the Atonement by Father Phillips. My father died prior to this and Amber’s conversion to the Catholic faith, but grace through his patience and words that he spoke to me shortly before he died, along with David and Tricia brought me and Amber home.

Both Shelray and I spent time in the military, he served in the U.S. Navy and I retired from the U.S. Air Force. We both have had family and good friends serve in Iraq so it is not difficult for us to keep in mind what those who serve and their families go through.

Our nations attention span is not very great in length and it is easy for most of us to get caught up in our daily lives. However, we ought not forget the sacrifices that servicemen (inclusive) and their families make. We need to keep them in our prayers. We must also make sure they know that we support them. They need to know that we believe in what they are doing and that it is important.

Jesus told His disciples that there was no greater love than to lay down one’s life for another. We must return that love through our prayers for their safety and for their families. Here is a video by 15 year old Lizze Palmer that will help you to remember:

Sheepcat is passing on some concerns of his Anglican buddies in the Zacchaeus Fellowship in regards to the resolutions on the agenda that would enable the blessing of same-sex unions. I quoted a small portion of their open letter to the Members of the General Synod 2007.

The apostle Jude warned against “malcontents” who indulge their own lusts; “they are bombastic in speech, flattering people to their own advantage.” Many of us in the Zacchaeus Fellowship were gay activists and played that card ourselves in our unreformed lives. So while we do not question the sincerity of the compassion that many have expressed towards our brothers and sisters who openly espouse gay or lesbian lifestyles, we urge extreme caution, lest legitimate sympathy distort the interpretation of Scripture as properly grounded in the tradition and history of the Anglican Church.

The synod meets in less than two weeks, and they could use all of the prayers we may wish to offer.

Interesting link to: Putting strategies to work: the homosexual propaganda campaign in America’s media.