Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

An elitist scientific establishment actively suppresses any research that conflicts with the accepted Darwinian theory.

“Big Science in this area of biology has lost its way,” says Stein. “Scientists are supposed to be allowed to follow the evidence wherever it may lead, no matter what the implications are. Freedom of inquiry has been greatly compromised, and this is not only anti-American, it’s anti-science. Its anti-the whole concept of learning.”

Movie Trailer from “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” starring the New York writer and intellectual Ben Stein. The film, set for release in February 2008.

LifeSite

With school starting back up, for anyone who might be interested in a great resource for answering questions Catholic students on campus might have about the Catholic faith, here is what you are looking for: Questions College Students Ask

Australian artist, Priscilla Bracks, insisted that her Jesus_ bin Laden “art”, was not meant to offend but a medium in which to promote discussions and to ask questions about how we think about our world and what is accepted and what is not accepted. Bracks is apparently another victim of the radical christian right who attack anyone who believes differently than ourselves. Imagine the shock of Bracks being blind sided over the controversy of Jesus morphing to a terrorist.

Her explanation of choosing Jesus and bin-Laden for the subjects of her “art”:

When you observe these two people, Osama Bin Ladin and Jesus, their ethics could not be more different. But they were both pursued by two of the world’s most powerful armies – the US and the Roman armies. Jesus is clearly defined by history, but I am interested in how history will treat the image of Osama.

This work has quite an open text so people are likely to read the image in many different ways. Some have mentioned they see it as a juxtaposition of good and evil, whilst others are interested in its comment on how iconic figures are created.

I guess someone should have let Bracks in the little fact that her main premise for comparing Jesus to bin-Laden is grossly inaccurate, as it was the Jewish Scribes and Pharisees who were pursuing Jesus. The Jews had NO Army and were under the control of the Romans who were at best, indifferent towards Jesus. Which brings us to the point of asking why is Jesus really being compared to bin-Laden? Although I have no way of knowing the heart and mind of the artist, she must either lack social awareness and sensitivity, or she’s ignorant and reckless towards research that goes into art work, or she’s lying.

As children, how many of us didn’t enjoy any opportunity to provoke or take a jab those who we did not agree with nor like? I wonder how the crowd who supports her “art”work would be just as supportive if say, she morphed Margarett Sanger with Hitler or Stalin?

A couple of months ago I posted on, among other things, the religion of those involved in the human caused global warming crusade. One of the problems of late modernity is that they have rejected much of the rationalism of early modernity. This in itself isn’t problematic. What is, is that in its place they adopt the Nietzschean admonition of the will to power. Thus, they deem it fair to use any method they think useful in order to obtain their ends.

They take advantage of the fact that much of society is bewitched by the word “science” but that many knowing little about science’s limitations. Thus, late moderns will appeal to science when it suits them. In that they cannot debate on the level of science, they will deny the credibility of those who present opposing scientific evidence. They rarely debate the evidence but rather seem to go straight to ad hominem.

A recent lecture by S. Fred Singer, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, takes on the emoting of these pseudo-scientists on the issue of human caused global warming. Looking at the claims of the global warming promoters, Singer notes that it is possible that global warming is not even a real phenomenon. For example, he shows that temperature have not risen over the last eight years although the rise in CO2 levels has increased. This suggests to him that last 30 year warming trend is due to more to other causes than to human causes. He also notes the failure of measured data to validate greenhouse computer models which also points the finger toward natural causes for the trend.

He also clears up misstatements about so called scientific consensus on this issue. He first shows that there is no consensus. Explaining that only a relatively few scientists have been consulted on this and that estimates are that well over half of the members of American Meteorological Society disagree with the so called “consensus” position. He goes on to explain that science does not proceed according to democratic means of establishing truth claims. Rather, science proceeds by validation of theories with empirical evidence that goes beyond simple trend correlation. I suppose that the media is so used to using their truth by poll method that this error could not be helped.

The irony here is that the claims of scientific obfuscation by those who oppose the will of the late moderns is what they themselves are guilty of. It is these same folks who know little about thinking and usually less about modern science, who use their scientism to justify their unbelief.

The next time you hear Christopher Hitchens railing about the inanity of Christianity in this age of science, think Al Gore and his scare mongering “documentary.”

That rascal B16 is at it again. Always agitating those secularists. Imagine the nerve of his claiming this for Christianity. You wouldn’t think that he might be saying this because he actually believes it do you?  What if it is true?  Would it still be arrogant to proclaim it, or would it be a moral imperative?

It doesn’t matter. I suspect that if the popular press picks up on this CNA article title of today’s Wednesday audience they will be incensed and attempt to ensure that everyone else is as well.

This passage from Zechariah’s canticle in the Gospel of St. Luke was the refrain from today’s morning prayer intercessions. It is, of course, appropriate as it is the Memorial of the Beheading of John the Baptist who presaged this Subject of this prayer. It seems to me also appropriate if one were to choose this as a prayer as one for the opening of our society’s eyes to the great truth of marriage and sexuality.

My inspiration for this suggestion comes from St. Bede’s reflection on St. John the Baptist as a Martyr from the second reading in the Memorial’s Office of Readings. Bede states that John died as a martyr because he testified to Truth Himself when he bore witness to Herod about the sanctity of marriage.

This reminds me that only the Christian understanding of marriage, as the divinely instituted arrangement ordered to the manifestation and living of life giving love, can help us out of our trajectory toward societal implosion. It is an implosion with its roots in the destruction of marriage’s meaning when the unitive and procreative meanings were separated with the wide Christian acceptance of artificial contraception in the early 20th century. The Christian message of the Trinitarian foundation of marriage is the only remedy for a society that has come to view relationships as consumable commodities for personal fulfillment and marriage as just one of those disposable commodities. It is a society searching for God but replacing Him with a idolization of the many goods of His creation. It must be shown how it can find what it is really looking for but despairing of ever finding.

I was struck by an article in LifeSiteNews yesterday about Governor’s Schwarzenegger’s amicus brief to the California Supreme Court which is considering the legality under the California Constitution of licensing same-sex “marriages.” A clip from the brief says:

“. . . except for the ability to choose and declare one’s life partner in a reciprocal commitment of mutual support, any of the statutory rights and obligations that are afforded to married couples in California could be abrogated or eliminated by the Legislature or the electorate for any rational legislative purpose.”

Now I am not sure what they have in mind when they say “rational legislative purpose” but I suspect that it does not necessarily need to accord with common sense, much less natural law. Whether or not the Governor’s claim is justified by current standards in the field of jurisprudence, it is clearly a rejection of common sense. It is not clear to me why he should suppose that the legislature would then have any interest in an individual’s “right” to “declare one’s life partner in a reciprocal commitment of mutual support.” If such a relationship cannot be said to benefit a healthy and functioning society then why should tax payers foot the bill associated with the costs of sanctioning it (here one sees costs from tax reductions to administrative management of records). Only a marriage that is ordered to procreation and the nurturing of children can fulfill this societal interest. One need not be a biologist to see that procreation occurs only when gametes from each of the two (and there are only two) sexes come together a child results. However, he must have common sense to recognize the implications of this for a healthy family and for society.

Certainly, if the possibility of procreation and the cooperative nurturing of children is not an issue then the intent to engage in sexual intercourse is of no concern to the state. Thus, why could not, for example, all of the sisters in a California convent declare themselves “life partners in a reciprocal commitment of mutual support”? After all, they fit this definition quite nicely.

Further, I do not see how this curious interpretation of the California Constitution, could then limit “life partners” to two people or that those life’s partner’s necessarily would need to live together. Why couldn’t my sister in MI and her family, and my brothers and their families in FL and TX all get together as life partners (extrapolating this logic to a national policy of course)? This could get us several dozen exemptions on our federal taxes. We are, after all, committed to one another in a relationship of “reciprocal commitment of mutual support.”

Of course, legislation could be written to rule this type of thing out but as it would not be based upon any natural principle, the legislation would set arbitrary limitations. If California’s leaders are so blind as to not see the necessity of protecting marriage between a man and a woman as the foundation for a healthy society then they will not be able to see that they will have no defense against any and all demands for state sanctioned relationships that can garner enough political clout.

We desperately need the Dawn from on High to break upon us again as a nation and so recover our nation’s Christian heritage. The Truth, to Whom John the Baptist witnessed, is the only way to recovering this fundamental institution and healing our crumbling culture. I suspect though, that we can expect some modern day Herod’s to behead many witnesses to the truth along the way before we will see a recovery of the authentic meaning of marriage amidst this lost and wandering generation.

Finkelstein, a controversial and alleged anti-semetic Jewish professor, was denied tenure by DePaul University and had his fall semester class canceled. He has been assigned to an administrative leave with full pay and benefits for the 2007-08 academic year. Finkelstein is irate and plans to retaliate by showing up to teach his class, and if arrested, will go on a hunger strike until released then start the process all over.

Additional drama from his personal website.

With over 500 hundred total votes. The most popular “dead blog” with 16% of the vote is …….

The 4 runner up blogs in order of votes were:

Thanks to every one who participated, and a special thanks to all of you who linked to our little poll.

“Physicians” blamed some unborn twins for moving too much in between an examination and abortion procedure as the cause behind killing the “healthy” twin while allowing the child with Downs Syndrome to survive. There was no mention of what ever became of the surviving twin.

This incident allegedly shocked Italy, as opposed to the abortions which go according to plan. This shocked reaction may reveal similar attitudes held by bigoted eugenic engineers and supporters who choose to assign different values to each individual based on appearance, “usefulness” and any other random attribute we typically use to judge others.

The transparent tactics of playing the carte blanche sex abuse scandal card as an opportunity to air one’s personal and predictable grievances against the Church on issues of sex and authority has possibly been taken to a new level by (retired) Bishop Geoffrey Robinson’s new book called Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church . He argues that the Catholic Church needs to reverse 2000 years of teaching on sex and power as part of radical reforms from the Pope down, accusing the Pope of failing the Church, and the Church failing its members.

There is “a crying need” in the Catholic Church to reconsider such issues as sex outside marriage, contraception and homosexuality. “The responsibility appropriate to adults must not be reduced to the obedience appropriate to children, and too often that happens in the church. I don’t think God does that.” Bishop Robinson proposes stripping considerable power and authority from the Pope, who would speak formally on behalf of the church only after consulting it. The Pope would function more like a prime minister than a monarch.

For what ever reason behind the good Bishop’s swan dive into the cesspool of heretical rhetoric, there has to be some sense of relief that the prevalence of Bishops such as this will soon be a thing of the past. As for the present - prayers and intensive therapy to address the underlying pathologies of clerics like Bishop Robinson are sorely needed.

The popular press it seems is making this claim. CBS ran a story this evening based upon a new book publishing Mother Teresa’s letters to her spiritual director. This information is nothing new. It was in the Catholic press many years ago (e.g. see this Zenit article for example). Here is what CBS reports:

“Where is my faith?” she writes. “Even deep down … there is nothing but emptiness and darkness. … If there be God — please forgive me.”

Eight years later, she’s still looking for the belief she’s lost.

“Such deep longing for God,” she writes. “… repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal.”

As her fame increased, her faith refused to return. Her smile, she says, is a mask.

“What do I labor for?” she asks. “If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true.”

This is what this means to the reporter:

Shortly after beginning work in Calcutta’s slums, the spirit leaves her.

I have not read the context but if you read St. Thérèse’s Story of a Soul, you will see very much the same thing.Again, the context is important but here you read her pouring out her sufferings in her many years of temptation against her faith.

The popular press goes beyond its competence in trying to explain what she wrote.What the passages mean depends upon what you understand faith to be.Because the press exists in an essentially emotivist culture, I suspect that they equate faith with affective experience, i.e., feelings. That is no doubt what they mean by “the spirit” leaving her.

This is not faith. Rather, as Mother Teresa, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Thérèse of Lisieux and a host of others witness, the strongest faith is that which presses on without the affective experience. So what is faith?

Faith is both a human act and it is also content. The act of faith is one of surrendering yourself to God in trust in order to believe what it is that He reveals and to do that which He wills. The content of faith is that which God reveals through His Church and as taught by the Magisterium.

However, faith is also a theological virtue. In other words, it is a gift of grace that supernaturally strengthens one’s act of faith and it provides (usually) a supernatural certitude that one’s faith is true. Recall that grace doesn’t force nature, but it heals, elevates, and perfects human nature. Thus, this grace takes the human act of faith, which is necessary because without it there is nothing for grace to work on, and grace supernaturalizes it.

Time magazine also did a rather longer article, which did do more research. In fact, unlike CBS, the reporter has heard of the dark night of the soul. With St. John of the Cross, he says that though St. John suffered for 45 years, he eventually recovered. Clearly this is a psychological experience as far as he is concerned. Here is how time magazine described it:

I love God, but I do not love my neighbor,’” she said, since in dying on the Cross, God had “[made] himself the hungry one — the naked one — the homeless one.” Jesus’ hunger, she said, is what “you and I must find” and alleviate. She condemned abortion and bemoaned youthful drug addiction in the West. Finally, she suggested that the upcoming Christmas holiday should remind the world “that radiating joy is real” because Christ is everywhere — “Christ in our hearts, Christ in the poor we meet, Christ in the smile we give and in the smile that we receive.”

Yet less than three months earlier, in a letter to a spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, that is only now being made public, she wrote with weary familiarity of a different Christ, an absent one. “Jesus has a very special love for you,” she assured Van der Peet. “[But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak … I want you to pray for me — that I let Him have [a] free hand.”

The two statements, 11 weeks apart, are extravagantly dissonant. The first is typical of the woman the world thought it knew. The second sounds as though it had wandered in from some 1950s existentialist drama. Together they suggest a startling portrait in self-contradiction — that one of the great human icons of the past 100 years, whose remarkable deeds seemed inextricably connected to her closeness to God and who was routinely observed in silent and seemingly peaceful prayer by her associates as well as the television camera, was living out a very different spiritual reality privately, an arid landscape from which the deity had disappeared.

Of course, Time had to go to Christopher Hitchens for his expert analysis. I will spare you Hitchen’s response as you can probably guess. So why do these reporters say that she lost her faith?Do any of the statements above show that she lost her faith?

Let’s look at the act of faith.Is there any evidence in the above that Blessed Teresa chose not to surrender herself to God? No, she continues to long for God but she does not experience His consoling gift.Let’s look at her public actions. They were continually vivified by faith, even when she did not experience it. She did not surrender to doubt or she would have not continued to suffer the doubts. In fact, to the end she preached the gospel in every occasion. So she never refuted the content. This is heroic faith, to perdure against the greatest of temptations. In fact, as the Zenit article above, as does a careful reading of the Time article, indicates that those closest to her did not have a clue that she was undergoing this intense suffering but that she did not stop offering herself to God. This is Christian heroism.

So if she did not stop offering herself to God in trust, she did not lose this aspect of her faith.  Then how about the theological virtue, the gift? Do we say that God did not give her this gift if she didn’t experience it. Given what she was able to continue to do and the experiences of grace people in her presence received while she was living, and finally, given the fact that we believe that this gift of grace is given in the Sacraments which she continued to receive, it must be assumed that she never lost this gift of faith. So what was there for her to lose, if anything?

The only thing she lost was the experience of consolation, the affective assurance of her faith that was always there. This is a universal experience of those who experience the dark night of the soul. One might ask why would God ask people to go through this experience?

Well, we are made in the image of total, self-giving Love. That is what the Trinity is. Thus, we are made to give ourselves totally to God and then to others. With respect to faith, when we experience affective reinforcement for our faith, there is always a part of us that is motivated to give itself to God for the positive feelings that we experience. These feelings, in a real way, deprive us of the opportunity to make this total, disinterested gift of ourselves.

Those, who in this life, experience this dark night, are those who God knows will remain faithful and so they are given the great grace of embracing the Cross and Christ’s dark night (”My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me”). They are given the opportunity to most perfectly give themselves totally. They continue to love God–they give themselves totally to Him for His sake and not for anything that they receive in return.

The press is understandably ignorant of this and interpret her experience from an emotivist and utilitarian (i.e. that something is only good if it results in pleasure) world view. Emotivism tells us that if we do not feel something then it is not there. If we do not “feel” sorry, then we are not sorry. If we do not “feel” in love, then we are not in love. This makes feelings the arbiter of truth. It is a very dangerous error because while our feelings are good, it is our reason and free will that make us human. To surrender our freedom to our feelings is to deny our humanity and make us slaves to ourselves and almost defenseless against Satan’s temptations.

It is no doubt why this is “important” news to the mass media. It helps them to placate the burning emptiness the vast majority of them (polls suggest) experience for their lack of faith. They want to believe that faith is not possible and so they think that this is their assurance–if a great Blessed like Mother Teresa seems to have lost her faith then faith must not be possible.

There is a great difference between the emptiness that Mother Teresa experienced in her dark night and the emptiness that those without faith experience. Mother Teresa experienced hers in love, knowing but not feeling that she was united to Christ and she was given the grace to press on in her mission and her growth in holiness. She did not try to fill the emptiness with material goods but left it there to be filled by God.

Those without faith attempt to fill their emptiness with “stuff” of the world. Eventually they will experience despair of this longing ever being filled.They do not grow in holiness but regress into selfishness and look with disdain at those who tell them that faith and peace are possible. They cannot receive the grace they need for their healing and so they continue to take when their healing only comes through giving.

It is not surprising that Satan can turn a great life of heroic faith into an argument against its possibility. This is simply because love is misunderstood in our society. Only those who experience self giving love can understand how the dark night can be God’s gift to those who He loves most. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us!

These were the options I heard a CNN correspondent claim that college co-eds were going to have to make this year . . . well, o.k., not in these terms. It seems that pharmaceutical companies have had to eliminate the subsidies for oral contraceptives that they used to make to the health departments at schools of higher education due to the apparently unintended effect of a new law (see this WSJ article from July).

Well, the prices are going up from about $20 for a months supply to around $50 for name brands. CNN did not mention the generic options that the WSJ article mentions. This is probably because, as the WSJ article claims, it is unfair to ask women to change from a brand that they are comfortable with. So, CNN asserts, this means that many co-eds will end up having to choose between books, food, or contraception. Hmm . . ., a few thoughts here.

Another option that CNN didn’t mention that was in the WSJ article, is co-eds using their parent’s insurance for this. Perhaps this is unconscionable in the mind of the CNN reporter because, as the WSJ article says, this would require forfeiting the student’s privacy. We cannot have this now can we? After all, this is the foundational principle upon which our most cherished ideals stand . . . the right to off our unborn.

Now, this breathless, “the sky is falling” coverage is par for the course for most television reporting these days. However, the underlying logical contradictions make it noteworthy. You see, co-ed simply have to fornicate. If they meet a guy at the football game or the bar, or perhaps they might even have a meaningful relationship, they do not the capacity to say no to sex. Our media assumes that they cannot decline sex (unless the guy is unpleasing I suppose) because they are just animals who are driven by instinct or, at least, they would develop some sort of psychological complex by not submitting to their ids’ demands. Freud has done his work well.

However, in the same breath, the reporter says that they do have the capacity to choose to eat, or buy books. Abortion was the other option that was mentioned (surprisingly after having the child but I suppose this option was for the dramatic effect of having to destroy your life because you wanted to eat), which again is a choice. But the underlying presupposition is that they will get pregnant. So we are more than animals. We have a choice to eat, or buy books, or purchase expensive contraception, or leave school and have a baby, or simply eliminate the unwanted biological material from the womb. But wait, no we are not more than animals, we must submit to our sexual desires whenever they arise . . . again, unless the guy is ugly. We either have the capacity for self-mastery or we do not. We cannot have it both ways, unless we appeal to sentiment, or science, or medicine I suppose.

How can this be, that one would have to choose between a primary material need (nutrition), the primary reason one is at school (education) . . . or so I once thought . . . , or fornication. Not to worry, CNN reports that Congress is going to put a stop to this madness. However, the crisis will not end this news cycle. Until then, if you see a hungry co-ed hanging around your garbage can, open your charitable hearts and give her something to eat. After all, she will need her energy if she is going to make use of that name brand contraception for which she is now paying top dollar.

Thomas over at American Papist has a post on the upcoming movie, The Golden Compass, starring Nicole Kidman.  He discusses it’s anti-Catholic bias and Kidman’s claims that it is not.

Go take a look.

California-based lecturer and author Dr. Judith Reisman, who has served as an expert witness in lawsuits involving sex abuse, explains why Catholic clergy and laity have every right to sue for Medical malpractice, all those involved in the promotional use of sex therapy centers to cure the clerics who were accused of sex abuse.

These “sexperts” held themselves out as authorities; bishops and vocations directors listened and commonly followed their directives. Yet, almost all of these “sexperts” built their therapies on the fraudulent research of Kinsey and his disciples.

Susan Brinkman gives the details in her book, The Kinsey Corruption (Ascension Press). Certain Catholic Church administrators hired sexuality educators who taught Kinseyan values. This employment pattern held as well for some selected psychologists who screened aspiring seminarians, many of whom were rejected because they were said to be too sexually “orthodox,” not “tolerant” of homosexuality. Bishops sent pedophile priests for treatment to therapists who accepted pedophilia as an “orientation.”

It’s time for those who contributed to the sex scandal, also share the culpability and responsibility. Unfortunately, they are not likely to admit in their failures, nor are they a popular target of focus by the media or those with an anti-catholic agenda.

California Catholic Article

Disclaimer: I nor this blog take responsibility for anyone offended by the fact that we included a post regarding sex abuse in the Catholic Church that does not vilify priests or the Church . This is NOT to say that all credible accusations made against priests or anyone else for that matter should be assumed to be false, nor should every accusation assumed to be true until a prudent investigation has been completed. I acknowledge the fact that there are real victims who were victimized by Catholic priests and this did damage to those abused, the families, and to the Catholic Church. All of the victims should be treated with compassion and respect. I also acknowledge the fact that some Catholic clergy in positions of authority acted irresponsibly in the sex abuse scandal. I support financial settlements for assistance with psychiatric care/interventions for all victims of sex abuse, not retirement funds and lottery equivalents for alleged victims and their attorneys . I also believe those in the psychiatric industry bear part of the responsibility in the damage done in returning priests who sexually abused children back into the ministry and should publicly issue an apology to the victims of sex abuse as well as apologize to the Catholic Church for their malpractice. I also believe that there are those who exploit the Church and innocent priests for their own selfish desires and agendas and do not take into consideration any damage done to innocent men who are wrongfully accused and that they justify their actions as a legitimate means of weakening the Church and it’s global authority on issues of faith and morality.

H/T to Dappled Thoughts.

I am sure that this has been done before, though I have not seen it. Nevertheless, I will give my own top ten reasons you just may be one of these thinkers/feelers.

The issue of heresy and dissent has been occupying my thinking for the last few weeks as I have been preparing for a class on faith and reason. So, in looking at the common assertions of those who want to remain within the Catholic fold but exempt themselves from the Church’s authority to teach and bind in disciple, I thought I might share some thoughts that I have come up with.

So, in the fashion of Jeff Foxworthy and his many imitators let me suggest that you might just be a heretic, dissenter, one suffering from the spirit of Protestantism, etc., if:

Ten: You find that you have much more in common with the thinking of the Protestant reformers than canonized Catholic reformers.

Nine: The issues on which you want the Church come to your point of view, just coincidentally, happen to be those few exceptions you would like to make to Our Lord’s admonition to be a sign of contradiction to the world.

Eight: You regularly comfort yourself in your dissent by clinging with a death grip to your conviction that the Church erred on such and such a teaching in the past and so they just might be wrong…err..must be wrong on such and such an issue today.

Seven: You sometimes get the fleeting sense that your justification for rejecting a Church teaching reminds you of your teenager complaining that he is an adult and should be able to decide for himself.

Six: Your three main sources of Church news and commentary are National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, and America (but you have been considering canceling your America subscription since they got rid of Fr. Reese, especially since they always run articles from that quisling Cardinal Dulles).

Five: The only time you read Church documents are in quotes from writers who are rejecting one of them.

Four: You find that all of your favorite theologians are all on the CDF’s Notifications list.

Three: In the rare event that you begin to develop doubts about your views and happen to pray about them, you immediately become distracted with a million thoughts that prove to you why the Church is wrong and you are right.

Two: You regularly demand that the Church adopt a position of humility and admit that you are right and She is wrong on your pet issue.

. . . and the top indication that you might just be a heretic, etc . . .:

One: Every time you speak about moral topics you preface yourself with: “I know what the Church teaches, but . . .”

It is no surprise to anyone around St. Blog’s that there is much confusion with the average Catholic about what it means to be Catholic. We have a culture of radical individualism in the West and when it comes to personal belief, this meets up with the mantra that one needs to think for himself–i.e. “no one can tell me what I should think.”

What this all leads to is the Catholic pseudo-thinker’s rejoinder that: “I know what the Church teaches, but I believe . . . .” Usually what this means is he presumes that unless a proposition can be empirically verified, that the proposition is equivalent to unreflective opinion; though he probably couldn’t articulate this. So how does he arrive at his opinion which he will place over against Church teaching? Does he dispassionately dig into the reasons behind the teaching? Does he investigate the support for the Church’s claim of authority for teaching in matters of faith and morals?

Unfortunately, he does not. He is led to the habit of vague thinking. Vague thinking is that in which people hear or read things that they really do not understand and/or really have not thought through but yet adopt these ideas as their own. Usually, these “thinkers” will string some of these claims together as though it were a logical argument and assume that they are thinking simply because they are rejecting authority. Our culture has brought us to the mistaken notion that anyone who rejects authority is taking the intellectual high ground for he is thought to be thinking for himself. Would that it were the case that even a small percentage of us rebels were actually thinking for ourselves.

Now it is true that everyone employs reason in selecting which truth claims he chooses to accept and which he chooses to reject. Unfortunately, it is too often the case that this reason is abused–it is high-jacked in put in the service of rationalizing a defense for why one rejects something he dislikes, such as a moral teaching that will require him to die to himself and conform his life to the right moral order. In other cases, he rationalizes when he is led to accept something simply because it sounds good to him. He likes it, especially if he lives in an environment that supports this line of thinking since it relieves the societal pressure to conform his thinking to that of the masses.

This is the biggest challenge that Catholics living and working in socially “liberal” environments face. A Catholic who professes to hold to the Church’s teaching on sex outside of marriage or contraception and working at the NY Times, will have to be ready to suffer ridicule and an attack on his intellect. If he professes to hold to the Church’s teaching about Same Sex Attraction Disorder, he may even lose his job. In fact, these days it appears that a Democrat has little chance of being elected or at least getting party support if he is unapologetically Catholic.

But as Steve Dillard’s latest apostolate shows, this vague thinking is not limited to Democrats. Republican front-runner, Rudy Giuliani, has taken the vague thinking program from a host of other Catholic politicians and made it his own. Giuliani repeats the errors of his Catholic politician mentors when he regurgitates the well worn litany of canards and mistakes this succession of ideas for thinking. Like the others, Giuliani still wants to call himself Catholic. Now, in an ontological sense, he still is but I would be surprised if he understood this. However, in terms of his beliefs, John Henry Cardinal Newman in his Grammar of Assent, explains the reality of the situation:

We cannot without absurdity call ourselves at once believers and inquirers also. Thus it is sometimes spoken of as a hardship that a Catholic is not allowed to inquire into the truth of his Creed;—of course he cannot, if he would retain the name of believer. He cannot be both inside and outside of the Church at once. It is merely common sense to tell him that, if he is seeking, he has not found. If seeking includes doubting, and doubting excludes believing, then the Catholic who sets about inquiring, thereby declares that he is not a Catholic. He has already lost faith. And this is his best defence to himself for inquiring, viz. that he is no longer a Catholic…

Cardinal Newman shows that authentic thinking demands that once someone no longer holds to Catholic belief that his only logical defense for rejecting what the Church teaches is that he recognizes that he is no longer Catholic. However, thinking is hard work. It takes much research and study of claims and counter-claims if one is going to truly think for himself in rejecting an authority. And well he should take this time and effort before he stakes his soul on the claims of others. However, this is rarely done.

It is obviously not clear thinking when one wants to reject the authority of the Church but still to claim his rights as being a member of the Church, as with Mayor Giuliani and other Catholic politicians. But this, I suppose, is after all the grammar of dissent.

The winner is … Fordham University, that little beacon of Jesuit controversy, and fresh off the heels of it’s US News & World Report ranking of the 70th best college in the country, continues to woo critics. The judges were not only impressed by the academics, but the school’s commitment “to prepare us as people with strong morals, values and ethical behavioral standards”.

Unfortunately, the morals, values and ethical behavioral standards of Fordham look to be notoriously secular, and consequently anti-catholic. It’s (Fordham legal dept.) public support for “gay” marriage, annual Vagina monologue presentations, pro-abortion graduation commencement speakers, and “gay” alliance associations, among others, may be hot for a series on MTV or Bravo, but they’re not Catholic.

It’s my suspicions that most Catholic colleges/universities have administrators and scholars who may have a underlying personal stake in fostering the culture of dissent. Both personal and professional lives have been defined by and built upon the same deep-seated beliefs that have put them at odds with the teachings of the Church, so the roots of the conflict between Catholic academia and Church authority are deeply personal. If only Fordham would amend their commitment to reducing their carbon footprint by 30% over the next 10 years, to include dissenting professors and administrators- our Catholic universities could have BOTH - less yellow AND more green.

The Vatican just can’t seem to stay out of trouble. This time they were apparently caught red handed editing Wikipedia entries on Catholic saints and Gerry Adams. The Vatican shares this questionable behavior with the likes of the CIA, Republican party, Fox news, and Labour party. Thankfully, the Democratic party’s only crime was calling a conservative talk host “idiotic”, “ridiculous” and labelling his 20 million listeners as “retarded”.

In the words of Wikipedia creator:

“Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.” — Jimmy Wales, July 2004

For all that is good in this world, this appalling racket of editing on wikiepedia has got to stop.

It is indeed interesting how Satan works at corrupting human beings. His primary attack seems aimed at the human appetites that support the aspect of our nature that we share with the animals. To support this attack, he also undermines that which makes us unique from the animals–our reason. The more that we learn the less we appear to be able to effectively use our faculty of reason. I know that there is a certain laziness here because thinking takes work. But there is also a certain hubris that allows one to think that his knowledge suffices for thought.

This hubris flows over into popular “thought” which confuses terms such as tolerance and humility with a rejection of certitude when it comes to faith. In fact, uncertainty seems to be considered by some as the ultimate virtue. One such example can be found in an article by professor David S. Seeley, writing for an on-line journal that aims at influencing “thought” with what can be called vague thinking. In an article entitled “Certainty Vs. Humility About God,” Seeley argues that religious certainty is the source of endless religious wars and conflicts and:

Even where religious certainty doesn’t lead to outright warfare, many feel it undermines the kind of respect and trust among diverse people and groups that is urgently needed to deal with today’s pressing challenges such as poverty, moral decay, terrorism, nuclear weapons, epidemics, global warming, clear air and water, hunger, etc.

The solution for Seeley is humility. He finds:

In addition to pragmatic concerns about these dangers of position (A) [absolute certainty about God's revelation to man], many people have philosophical and religious objections to such claims of certainty. Philosophically, claiming absolute certainty in any field is seen as unwise—an epistemological mistake that closes off thought and dialogue, and precludes further search for better answers. Religiously, for the limited mind of man to claim certain knowledge of God can seem presumptuous hubris and an insult to the mystery and majesty of the Creator of the Universe—a form of idolatry and blasphemy—whereas, a degree of humility leads to a deeper and more powerful religious faith, in which one prays to learn God’s Will, but can’t claim certainty in knowing it.

This same view is promoted by many Catholics. This is no surprise considering that even at the Catholic University of America this view is held by those who teach undergrads. While not Catholic, Cynthia Crysdale, the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies, is one such teacher and in fact, mentor of Catholic undergraduates. She writes:

The true enemy. . . [of authentic religious faith] is, in fact, ‘certitude.’ A personal faith or tradition that seeks to cling with certainty to its ideas about God, risks idolatry of the worst sort. Idolatry is, at root, not worship of images, but taking what is tangible and finite and giving it ultimacy and transcendence (Cynthia Crysdale, Embracing Travail: Retrieving the Cross Today [New York: Continuum, 1999], 121).

It is not surprising then that the average Catholic going to a Catholic university such as CUA would come away from their “Catholic” intellectual formation with this idea that certainty is a moral evil as well . . . and consider it “certain.” And this is just the point. The denial of the possibility of certainty is relativism and so in itself, it is self-contradictory. One pleads humility to support his denial of certainty but he must at the same time, then assume the “arrogant” position of claiming certainty for his truth claim–i.e. the denial of the possibility of certainty.

It makes no sense to plead humility as justification for religious uncertainty. For the former is a subjective attitude and the latter an objective truth claim. In order for this to come close to making sense, one must first be a rationalist. By this I mean, one must deny the possibility of God’s revealing the truth of Himself to humanity and he must reduce all religious truth claims solely the fruit of human operation. But even in this, one must claim certainty in being able to know that divinely inspired, inerrant revelation is not possible. Rationalism is anything but humble.

Furthermore, faith itself has to be reduced to a rationalist apprehension of some truth claims in which each individual is left to himself to ascertain their truth or falsity using his reason alone. Here more “arrogant” certainty is needed. One must also know with certainty that God cannot divinize man in such a way as to share His uncreated nature with him and thereby give man a gift of faith by which he has certainty that transcends reason but does not contradict it.

As far as contradicting reason goes, this is exactly the result of such relativism. Seeley concludes his article:

Is it not time, therefore, for the human race (supposedly “homo sapiens”) to confront the issue of religious certainty, and discuss openly the relative merits of positions (A) and (B) [the denial of the possibility of religious certainty]? This may seem to violate the tradition of not questioning people’s religious beliefs, but what is being questioned is not the content of people’s religious beliefs—on the contrary—it is a step that seems necessary in order to guarantee people’s right to their own religious beliefs. It is a questioning of the wisdom and merits of insisting that one’s religious beliefs are the only possible and legitimate religious truth.

Even with such discussion, many people may still feel that they need the assurance of religious certainty, especially in the face of today’s fears and dangers. But one hopes that a larger number would, on reflection, see that this position is not only dangerous to the future of mankind, but also contrary to the deepest values of religious truth.

Seeley seems to consider that religious certainty is the source of most of the world’s ills. He dismisses outright, the possibility that certainty could legitimately be considered part of the content of one’s faith. In the end, he begins with unsupported presuppositions and ends with the non sequitur that religious uncertainty brings about his view of toleration and peace. He doesn’t explain his tortuous logic that leads him to conclude that uncertainty corresponds with “the deepest values of religious truth.” He certainly is not employing reason very well in supporting his claims of truth.

Nevertheless, he does seem to be certain about his position. I just wonder if his is a religious certainty?