Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

I have long believed that the problems that Bishop Braxton has faced in Belleville, IL since his installation were motivated by his orthodoxy and demands for fidelity to the faith. Now comes further evidence that this is so. Many have probably already read the Bishop’s Holy Thursday letter, but if not here is a link to it along with some relevant snippets:

There was, however, one experience associated with my Installation celebration that is unknown to you. It is something that I have kept to myself for nearly three years. I now think it might be helpful for you, the Christian Faithful, to know about this experience. Just days before my Installation, the Administrator of the Diocese informed me that a group of priests wanted to meet with me in the rectory of what would soon be my Cathedral Church. I went to the meeting with no knowledge of what the meeting was about. The meeting was with a group of priests who I did not know at all, having never met them or spoken to them before. They certainly did not know me. To my surprise, the purpose of the meeting was to inform me that I should reject the appointment by the Holy Father to be your Bishop that I should cancel the Installation ceremony and step aside so that a more suitable Bishop could be chosen. For a period of more than two hours, these priests told me that there was a “firestorm of hatred” against me in Belleville, that I was not welcome here, that I would never be welcome here, that very few people would attend my Installation, and that they had investigated my history and could not find even one person from anyplace where I have served around the country who had anything positive to say about me. They also told me they had incriminating information against me which might be released, if I did not heed their words. They were quite insistent that I had no choice but to leave.

I listened to their entire startling presentation without interrupting any of the speakers. Before I spoke, I asked if everyone had finished with their comments. I then informed them that it is the unique ministry of our Holy Father, the Pope, to appoint and transfer bishops, or to ask for their resignations. No one else in the Church has the authority or the responsibility to do so. I told them that in my life as a Priest and as a Bishop I have always sought to be completely obedient to the Holy Father and completely faithful to the magisterium of the Church. I stated clearly that it was my intention to serve the Diocese faithfully for as long as the Holy Father wanted me to do so. I now repeat to you today what I said to this group of priests. It is my intention to serve as Bishop of the Diocese of Belleville for as long as the Holy Father wants me to do so. Shortly after this meeting, perhaps unprecedented in the history of the Church in the United States, I received an anonymous phone call on my private line. The message was simple. “We will not rest until we get rid of you.” Recently, I received the same message from the same anonymous caller. I have shared this experience with you with some hesitance. However, it may help you to understand more recent experiences.

One need not venture very far to guess who these priests might have been as they have signed their names regularly and publicly to complaints against the Bishop since he first arrived.  Bishop Braxton ends his letter with words from St. Thomas More indicating that he will remain faithful to the Holy Father and the Church even in the face of this white martyrdom to which he is being subjected.  Please pray for Bishop Braxton and the Diocese of Belleville.

“How does it feel to be a pregnant man?”(link to “gay” news website - Advocate) Thomas writes in the article. “Incredible. Despite the fact that my belly is growing with a new life inside me, I am stable and confident being the man that I am. In a technical sense I see myself as my own surrogate, though my gender identity as male is constant. To Nancy, I am her husband carrying our child . . . I will be my daughter’s father, and Nancy will be her mother. We will be a family.”

The fantasy of changing one’s personal meaning by changing one’s gender is derived from the fallacious belief that sexuality somehow frees us from our bondage to fear, inadequacies and despair. There is the tendency among many of us to cling to what can be lost or taken away, but there are those among us who invest their total being into these fears to the point where there can be no rest or satisfaction of ever receiving enough in return. To carry the burden of an external locus of control, one lives life with the constant feelings of being controlled by the actions of others and blown about by the whims of the world - being terrified of the bitter taste of losing or being denied of whatever is held in high value to them, some to the point of life itself.

Gender roles and identities are ultimately formed through the individual mind as experienced within the world which immediately surrounds us; consequently, some of us fail to recognize the potential fraud of assuming an identity in the first place. Constrained by deep insecurities and fears through reacting against the reality of one’s own sexual identity, some cling to a fantasy of there being something “wrong” with the external body vs. something being “wrong” internally, within the heart and mind. Simply speaking, Gender Identity Disorder is more of a rejection and abandonment of who one is, than the adoption of who and what one desires to be.

“Be not afraid,” because “each of us is the result of a thought of God, each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary”. - Pope Benedict XVI

I really like the ole, pseduo-Chinese proverb:

He who knows not and knows that he knows not is a student; teach him.

He who knows and knows that he knows is a teacher; follow him.

He who knows but knows not that he knows is asleep; awaken him.

He who knows not, but knows not that he knows not is a fool; fear him.

This proverb has come to mind quite a bit recently. I have been commiserating with colleagues lately about a number of issues that range from the students that we teach to the catechists that we are trying to form. Both have given us much room for discussion. In one enterprise, we have developed a new online catechetical formation program that we have directed toward students. catechists and catechetical leaders. First, I must say that we have been gratified by the response of those who have an intense desire for learning their faith. However, for everyone of these there are others who believe that all learning should be easy, entertaining, and an opportunity to emote with what they “think” (read feel) about that with which they are presented.

This is the response from not a few students of undergraduate age. That is to be expected. However, when similar attitudes are presented by the much older adult catechists and catechetical leaders who have taken it upon themselves to help teach the faith, one becomes a bit more jaundiced about the prospects for a springtime anytime soon.

Thus, when Shawn forwarded me this post by Barbara Nicolosi I decided that I would have to share it. After all, misery loves company. Here are some snippets:

I’m always pretty sharp in my critique of the Boomer Generation. I think they inherited a pretty good world and then selfishly screwed up so much that it will take a hundred years to even figure out where they left us. But, just to keep things balanced, it’s time to set the penetrating gaze on Gen X. (Of course, Gen X’s problems can mostly be laid at the feet of the Boomers, but whatever…) As somebody who has been teaching undergrads and twenty-somethings for the last decade, I have a lot of observations here. Maybe in a subsequent post I’ll flesh them out.

But let me start with one of the most serious issues that I see in Gen X. Let’s call it, “Defiantly Ignorant.” Simply put, one of the things that marks Gen Xers is the way they apprehend attempts to educate them as an assault on their personal dignity. Not everybody, but it is a generational trend. My experience with my students is that they are nearly incapable of debate, because every time you disagree with them, you suddenly find yourselves in a battle with their emotional survival. It makes many of them invincibly ignorant, I’m afraid.

An example of this comes up every time I teach Gen Xer’s this class I’ve got on the nature of beauty. Invariably, after I have gone through the three elements of the beautiful from St. Thomas - wholeness, harmony and radiance - one of the undergrads will prop a limp elbow into the air - what is it with this generation that even asking a question in class has to be a statement on how ambivalent they are about even being there? - and then he or she will issue forth, “I don’t agree.”

And then I respond, pretending all the while that this is the first time I’ve heard the astonishingness, “You don’t agree that there are elements to the beautiful? Okay, cool. Give me an argument.”

“Well, I think, you know, that any body can just decide what, you know, they like.”

“That’s not an argument.”

“I don’t need to give you an argument. It’s what I think. I have a right to my opinion.”

AHHHHHHHHHHH. There it is. The “rights” thing. And the abuse of the word “think.” There isn’t thinking going on here. There is resentment and petulance and the need to assert one’s existence. But it ain’t thinking. A huge inhibitor to great art coming out from the young generations today is that the assertion of knowable truth (including all of the skills that go into excellence of craft) comes off to Gen Xers and Millenials as an assault on their autonomy and personhood.

This is exactly on target. The intellects of young people these days seem to made in mush-melons with this deficient pedagogy that promotes the idea that everything a student says must be affirmed. Correction (unless it is a politically incorrect locution) is absolutely verboten. I would argue that this arises from the late-modern (aka post-modern) fantasy that one can create his own reality through the force of his will (ala Nietzsche and Sartre) combined with the sixties era confusion that supposes the solution to all the world’s problems is to be found through self-affirmation. But that is what we are left with.

Some have said that those involved in my enterprise today at the undergraduate level are greatly encumbered by being delivered with minds which are tabulae rasae. I would that this were the case. One could build from a blank slate. The problem today is that one has the problem of first dismantling a world view that confuses concupiscent emoting for critical thinking and before he may cultivate thinking skills. The latter takes effort and time, for neither of which does the hyperstimulated generation of today have much patience. Barbara would agree with this I suspect:

So, the two-part cause of the problem that is keeping Gen xers from adding anything really profound to the lasting cultural canon, is first that they have been so abysmally educated, that they live in chronic, probably insurmountbale double ignorance. They don’t know, and they don’t know that they don’t know. A reflection of double ignorance in Gen Xer storytelling is that they tend to say profound and then banal things back to back, and they really don’t know the difference. They don’t know when they are actually skirting and even ripping off great ideas that have been out there for three thousand years. And reciprocally, they don’t know what “obvious” means. (When I was in college, it was a funny insult to say that someone had “a keen sense of the obvious.” Today, I would kill for a room of students with that quality.)

[snip]

Secondly, they have been so wounded by the flailings around of their Boomer parents, that they are often simmering pools of resentment with the craven idol of their own hurt feelings relentlessly jerking them around. So, they don’t know, and it HURTS THEIR FEELINGS THAT THEY DON’T KNOW. When I correct my students for bad grammar, they tell me it hurts their feelings. When I call a young employee into my office for not doing her job well, she complains that it is a violation of her feelings. When I gave a student a completely unemotional notice that he had already missed his requisite three unexcused classes, he became pouty and petulant and told me I was harsh and didn’t understand him.

Yes, well sometimes reeducating these young (and unfortunately also the not so young) minds seems like a Quixotian enterprise. One is sometimes tempted to give up. It is then that I remember Mother Teresa reminder that God calls us to fidelity, not success. Then it becomes much easier to live with the marginal impact one gets to see that he makes and it becomes less burdensome to fear the masses whom we attempt to serve as they continue in the ignorance of what they do not know . . .

Now if it were not so fundamental an issue as life, perhaps I could respect someone who repays old loyalties. However, when someone claims to be Catholic, claims his position as an officer in the Knights of Columbus, and even establishes a pro-life apostolate working for legislation that supports both life and family issues and then not only votes for one of the worst politicians on these issues who is running for president , but he actually campaigns for her, well. . . this I cannot respect.

I nearly fell off my chair when I read that Ray Flynn was campaigning for Hillary Clinton. I saw that the Curt Jester had already noticed Flynn had voted for her in the MA primaries. I was in the middle of my move is probably why I missed that post. One asks how anyone could do some such thing that is so antithetical to his view of truth. Jeff shows how: Flynn admits that it is his loyalty to his former boss, Bill Clinton.

Flynn exasperated his Democratic friends and colleagues when he became a strong, public advocate for a culture of life. They were completely befuddled as he voted and campaigned for pro-life Republicans at all levels of Government. He even endorsed “Dubya” against Gore, though he couldn’t bring himself to do so the second time around.

While I disagree with his views about Clinton’s economic and social justice policies and how these accord with Catholic values, that is certainly something that is open to debate among faithful Catholics. We can vociferously disagree and then go out for a Guinness together afterward. However, when one returns to one’s loyalties in such a way that it will promote the death of untold numbers of unborn children, when policies will be championed that will further attack marriage and family, when one is working at cross purposes with himself, this is not an area in which good Catholics may just simply disagree with one another and both be good Catholics.

It is the sin of pride at root I suspect. The fear of someone having something over you in which you cannot repay him that can lead someone like Flynn into such a publicly sinful and scandalous action. Instead of continuing to witness and work for a culture of life, Flynn now takes action to put someone in the office of President of the United States who will promote a culture of death. This is formal cooperation with evil; it is mortally sinful and publicly scandalous. Because of his position, Archbishop O’Malley should take very public action against Flynn to bring him back to his senses and end this scandal.

Flynn seems to exemplify the sinful rationalizations of his earlier career in which he consorted with the angels of death for the sake of political expedience. St. Peter’s admonition about the return to one’s sinful ways after repenting from them was illustrated ever more aptly in the second proverb of this pericope from his second letter . . . “A sow even after washing wallows in the mire” (2 Pt 2:22).

“Why Lord?”

I have dealt with great things that I do not understand; things too wonderful for me, which I cannot know. I had heard of you by word of mouth, but now my eye has seen you. Therefore I disown what I have said, and repent in dust and ashes. Job 42:3-6

Jesus does not take away all our wounds, any more than the Father erased all of his wounds. Rather, he disinfects them and glorifies them.

For Jesus, the Resurrection was not an emergency room where the Father took away all of the signs of the Passion. Jesus rose with his wounds, wounds now transformed from darkness to light, dug into his hands in time and in pain and now become eternal fonts of light and blessing and glory.

Nor is the Resurrection Jesus’ reward for having suffered. It is rather the unstoppable explosion of glory that pours forth from Love’s triump on the Cross. - Mother Teresa: In the Shadow of Our Lady

A reader friend pointed me to a post over at An Examined Life. The post is largely in response to Mike Liccione, of Sacramentum Vitae, who responded to one of Scott’s previous posts on the value of investigating miracles. I did not read Scott’s earlier post so I am not sure if he is going so far as to claim that the investigation of miracles is a waste of time or not. However, this would seem to be the implication.

Scott points out that that he is making some quite subtle distinctions and he is right. In doing so, he makes many valid, and I dare say, important points. Among the important distinctions he makes is the distinction (but not separation I trust) between the ontological and the epistemic orders. In order to discuss this issue with clarity one must distinguish between whether one is talking about whether a miracle really happens or whether we are talking about how we might come to know this. Another important point he makes is about the inaccessibility of empirical methods to the supernatural, which is the domain of the miraculous. One simply cannot empirically verify a miracle. However, this is not the same as saying that empirical evidence has no place in the verification of a miracle which appears to be his main assertion. More on my thesis later.

Scott also points out that miracles are for the strengthening of faith rather than for giving, much less compelling, faith. This is true and the reason for it can be seen by understanding what faith really is. A short phenomenology of faith might be helpful here. Faith begins with an openness to the truth and supernatural faith begins with God’s invitation. What I mean by openness is one must not precommit his will against a proposition, or faith. This is what I call skepticism. For supernatural faith, in response to God’s invitation, one must exercise trust and acceptance of a Person (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) through the mediation of a proposition (the content of faith) by means of an act of the will (I choose to believe that: God exists, Jesus is God and Savior, that He offers me eternal life, etc.). Only the human person, in all of visible creation, has the intellect necessary to understand any such proposition. This unique faculty of reason means that to respond in a human manner, one must first have a reasonable proposition in which to trust.  In other words, an fundamental component of faith is a human act which demands use of reason and free will.

Faith requires some cognitive act of reason before one can make an act of the will in order to trust. This trust and acceptance of the truth is then supernaturalized through a gift from God which we call grace. A person is in a state of grace receives this grace as a theological virtue. When one is a skeptic, he is not open to the truth. He makes an act of the will against belief as a precommitment.  I is usually a precommitment against the supernatural for a variety of reasons.  This precommitment however, is not limited to the case of belief in miracles or faith in God. It is oftentimes invoked as a defense against potential attacks against one’s worldview, which can be anything from atheism to belief or something in between.  Thus, Scott’s treatment of Mike Liccione’s assertion that those who do not believe just don’t get it appears to me to be accurate and fair.

However, if it is the case that Scott is going so far as to say that the process of verifying miracles is a waste of time, then I certainly disagree as I indicated above. In making this disagreement, I will again say that I agree with most of his substantive assertions.  However, it appears to me the disagreement comes in the subtle understanding of the phenomenology of faith and its relationship to reason.

Here I would quibble Scott’s assertion that if empirical observations were rationally compelling in the case of miracles then non-believers would be manifestly irrational.  Here seems to be the core of where I believe that he goes wrong.  If it is his claim that empirical evidence must be rationally compelling before it is worthwhile, then I would claim that this is in error and it is so in this case because of the interrelationship between faith and reason.

First we should realize that it is the very nature of empirical methodology that they can never be, per se, rationally compelling. That is why findings of science are understood to always be provisional. Empirical methods are never rationally compelling because one bases his theory on samples of available data. Decision making is, therefore, limited by what one has observed and the rest must be filled in with theorizing (an argument about the support of philosophical tools, such as mathematics, which are not empirical and so more certain, would take us too far afield here). Thus, one who has made a precommitment to a world view (belief in a miracle, or belief in a favorite physical theory) can always argue that there are unknowns yet to be discovered and more data yet to be amassed that could negate the competing claim.

This lack of rational compulsion is especially true in the case of trying to affirm a negative; which is the case when one is trying to affirm that there are no natural explanations when investigating a miracle. However, it is also the case in many other areas of empirical science.  While this is an aside and not important to my argument, I might point out that one can refer to a plethora of events in the history of modern science in which a majority of “experts” rejected a new theory, even in the face of weighty empirical support and which later became accepted, because of attachment to a current theory.

In a sense those who do so are motivated by the non-rational (emotional commitments to their world view usually) but they can sill make the case rationally that they are not compelled by reason to accept the competing world view.  Does this rule out the use of empirical evidence in supporting theories in modern science because the evidence is not rationally compelling? Of course not, modern science is about understanding the way that nature works and even when provisional, often time partially correct theories are sufficient to successfully manipulate the world to improve man’s quality of life.

Neither can faith ever be compelled. If it is, it is not faith. But that is no reason to reject the use of empirical methods to rule out the possibility of a natural explanation. But why does one need to rule out a natural explanation in coming to accept that something is miraculous?

The miraculous is by definition a suspension of physical laws. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that God does this for the strengthening of faith, as we discussed above. Faith is strengthened if one is given a reason to believe that it is miraculous. Remember, faith and reason are mutually supportive. Faith is not an act of reason, but faith begins with reason (in varying degrees with different people).  Empirical evidence is the universally available method (God rarely confirms miracles through infused knowledge) God has given us to provide the intellect a reason for affirming the miraculous.

I  completely agree with Scott’s statement in his last paragraph that the willingness to believe has nothing to do with empirical verification. Mike, Scott and I are in agreement that openness is a prerequisite. However, one must begin with a proposition to consider. In this case, someone makes the claim of a miracle. In other words, he has proposed that God has suspended physical laws in order to make His will manifestly known. Rarely does anyone come about this claim through a private revelation. He has come about it through empirical evidence, or lack thereof. He believes it is a miracle because he sees no natural explanation, sometimes this is after having made a request for a miracle. The issue is epistemological—how do we know that this is proposition is true?

We must investigate and verify that all known natural explanations fail. With respect to epistemology, we remain in the same domain as the one making the proposition, the empirical.  When we have verified that there is no natural explanation, there is now reason for the believer to be convinced that the proposition is true. Reason supports and nourishes the faith that is already there; the faith in God and His providence in general, and now that God has acted in this concrete event, this miracle.

I think that if Scott’s last paragraph is support for why one would not need empirical verification for a miracle it is possible that he is not distinguishing between God’s Providence, which is always active, and an authentic miracle, which is when His Providence is active through the suspension of physical laws.

I completely agree therefore, that God is always Provident and that when He actively wills someone to recover, even when He uses the secondary efficient causes described by physical laws, it is still God acting as Primary cause.  However, if we say that everything that God actively wills is to be called a miracle then the term has no more meaning and there is no way for reason to be used to nourish faith via miracles.  If this were so, the Church’s long teaching that God affirms the faith through miracles becomes meaningless.

In the end, I think that if Scott is in fact dismissing the importance of empirical verification of miracles, then even though he is right on the majority of what he says, it is likely because he does not take sufficient account of the definition of a miracle, or the phenomenology of faith and its relationship to reason.

‘It is a great mystery that providence should permit diabolical activity, but “we know that in everything God works for good with those who love him.”‘ - Catechism of the Catholic Church

Dr. Richard E. Gallagher, the only American psychiatrist to have been a consistent U.S. delegate to the International Association of Exorcists, writes his experience with a present-day Demoniac, in the New Oxford Review.

The case of Julia illustrates a number of the classic signs of possession. The venerable Roman Ritual (Rituale Romanum of Pope Paul IV, 1614) lists as strongly suggestive signs, prominent among others, hidden knowledge, the ability to speak an unknown language, and abnormal physical strength. Other elements traditionally associated with possession were evident as well, including, invariably, expressions of hatred of the sacred, blasphemous and vituperative language, the ability to discern (and recoil from) blessed objects, the phenomenon of levitation, and, most importantly, a trance-like state interrupted by the presence of what appears as an independent, intelligent entity (or entities), and the expressed desire of this intelligence not to leave the afflicted.

Here’s a website on exorcism facts.

It is not God’s will that a soul be disturbed by anything or suffer trials, for if one suffers trials in the adversities of the world it is because of a weakness in virtue. The perfect soul rejoices in what afflicts the imperfect one. - St. John Of the Cross

Plans to berate Pope Benedict are in the works by the “Rainbow Sash Movement“. Their plan is to publicly demonstrate their “disgust” against the “sinner” by showering him with ashes and publicly shaming him with whistles for causing the Church so much division and pain.

“There are souls that wallow in the mire like animals, and there are others that soar like birds, which purify and cleanse themselves in the air.” - St. John Of the Cross

Addictions to our disordered attachments make us weak, impotent slaves to the will and defile our souls by diminishing the image of God within us. Narcissism can be found at the core of almost every psychological dysfunction because it’s a manifistation of “falling in love” with ourselves to hide our own inadequacies and treating others like objects to make ourselves feel strong and competent. As in this case, this particular group of sinners show how they are infatuated with the vanity of their own disordered desires, and hide behind their dependence of social prestige (same sex marriage, “equal rights”) and power (self-righteousness, sex abuse scandal) to destroy our beloved holy father whom they see as standing in their way of happiness (attaining the elusive sense of internal peace and rest).

“A soul that is hard because of self-love grows harder. O good Jesus, if you do not soften it, it will ever continue in its natural hardness.”- St. John Of the Cross

H/T Abbey-roads2

Image from Rainbow Sash Movement website

I had mentioned that a new school of theology is opening up. Here is the press release that hopefully will be making it’s way to your nearest Catholic News Outlet in the near future:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

“St. John Institute of Catholic Thought announces opening of a new school of theology”

Champaign, IL   March 11, 2008 Catholic graduate education is coming to Central Illinois.  St. John Institute of Catholic Thought (ICT), an apostolate within St. John’s Catholic Newman Center, announced today that it will begin offering Master degree programs in theology beginning this fall at St. John’s Catholic Newman Center near the campus of the University of Illinois.

The programs will be offered through the ICT’s new school of theology, which is independent of the university. After applying to the Illinois Board of Higher Education last fall, the school of theology was granted operating authority and degree granting authority for two separate master degrees: a Master of Theological Studies for students wishing to pursue a doctoral degree, and a Master of Arts aimed at those wishing to serve the Church or those wanting to deepen their understanding of their Catholic faith. The degrees will require 48 and 42 hours of coursework, respectively.

The Master programs are a natural extension of the existing academic efforts of St. John Institute of Catholic Thought and St. John’s Catholic Newman Center. “For over 85 years, we have offered for-credit undergraduate courses in Catholic studies through the University of Illinois and Parkland College,” explained Fr. Greg Ketcham, Director and Head Chaplain of the Newman Center. “These graduate level programs will enable us to offer a fuller, more solid Catholic academic formation.”

ICT Director and Senior Fellow, Dr. Kenneth Howell says the school of theology fills a significant void in central Illinois. The closest schools granting master degrees in Catholic theology are nearly 150 miles away. “A student would have to travel to South Bend, Chicago, or St. Louis to find other graduate programs in Catholic theology,” Howell says. He is already aware of several students who plan to begin studies this fall in Champaign.

The faculty of the ICT brings many years of combined experience to the new programs. The ICT faculty includes Dr. Howell, Dr. David Delaney, Associate Director and Fellow of the Institute, and Rev. Christopher Layden, S.T.L., Assistant Chaplain of the Newman Center. Additional faculty members include Dr. Douglas Grandon, a Church historian, and medical ethicist, Joseph Piccione, S.T.L..

In addition to the degree programs, the school of theology also plans to serve the greater diocese by offering certificate programs, including one for those without an undergraduate degree. These certificates will be well suited for catechists and others who want the benefit of the coursework but do not wish to do the additional work required for a degree. Future plans are to extend the school’s reach into Central Illinois by use of remote classrooms where instruction would be provided via video. The timing for the remote classrooms will be based upon obtaining the required funding.

The timing of the new degree offering comes amidst another significant expansion program at the nation’s largest Newman center. St. John’s is currently undergoing a $46M expansion and renovation of the Center which will be complete in August 2008. St. John’s Chapel and Newman Hall – the only Catholic residence hall on a public university campus in the county – will offer over 200,000 square feet of new facilities to better serve students. These expanded facilities will provide the classroom space, expanded library, and administrative offices for the Institute of Catholic Thought.

Admission into the ICT’s school of theology is now underway. More information can be found at www.ictsot.org.

Catholic, Brescia Women’s College out of Ontario, had recently invited a hostile, hate mongering feminist named Michele Landsberg to speak at a ‘Women Making Change‘ conference in conjunction with International Women’s Day.  Her talk was to be called “The F-Word: Fearless, Funny, Fast-Forward and Fabulous…Feminism.” Like most radical feminists, Landsberg is an sworn enemy of orthodox Christianity and hater of anyone and everything pro-life.

Will no priest or minister publicly resolve to stop the indoctrination of youth to view abortion as murder?

Is none ashamed of the blood-drenched holocaust vocabulary used so cynically (and anti-semitically) to whip up fervor for the crusade?

Where are the outspoken cries of conscience by bishops and cardinals who should be appalled by the evidence of links between anti-abortion fanatics and far-right militias, neo Nazis, and white supremacists? Is there no religious leader who regrets his church’s role in feeding this blind frenzy?

Will none of them repent of their excesses, will none call a halt to their sickeningly manipulative campaigns of ‘precious little feet,’ their fake ‘documentaries’ about screaming fetuses? You’d think that the world had enough lessons in the dangers of hate speech.”

My initial reaction to people like this is typically one of anger and condemnation because, I rationalize, this kind of hate speech not only distorts the truth of my faith and who I am, but also because of the danger it brings. I am offended and judge her to be all about hate through her slandering of those who are just like me. I feel anger and animosity towards her as a person because of her lies. Subsequently, I may get some sort of consolation assuming she will get hers in the end for her part in indoctrinating others to hate me and others who believe as I do. Non-heroically, I reluctantly carry a burden of paranoia, while trying to be a “good” Catholic in the public eye, but being well aware of the faceless others who will hate me for who they think I am - all because of the lies.

Obviously it’s especially difficult to let the “ill feelings” go, if those “others” hate and wish bad things upon you. Forgiving and forgetting among those with whom we have contact is one thing, but how about those those whom we will never meet or come in contact? It all comes through grace, but I try, so that I may will it, to examine myself more closely. Learning that our subconscious mind, so many times, significantly contributes to self-destructive, selfish behaviors. We become who we are, by how we react to life’s events - some over which we have no control. In reality, we are so often blind to how we come across to others, or why we do the things we do. Things are not aways as they seem to others and conversely to me.

In the case of so many among the radical activist ranks, there are the walking wounded who suffer from unmet emotional needs, neglect, seductions and possible other abuses which occurred during their lives. Sometimes, a nerve can be struck when someone says or does something that reminds them of their past which creates somewhat of an “emotional time warp” transferring their emotional past of anger, fear and inadequacy into the present. In other words, they react to someone in terms of what they are afraid of or what and who they think they see when, in reality, they know so very little at all. Like so many of our reactions, this happens without our knowing why we feel and react the way we do. In psychological terms, this is known as transference, and the reaction to it (or our reaction to Michele Landsberg) is known as counter transference. Depending on the situation, on the negative side - transference can produce a destructive hatred based specifically upon the individual’s personal illusion.

As it is, I’m still a work in progress.

It is not always within your power to control your feelings. You will recognize that you have love if, after having experienced annoyance and contradiction, you do not lose your peace, but pray for those who have made you suffer and wish them well. - as told to Saint Faustina, Diary, 1628

Source of story on Michele Landsberg: LifeSite

In January, Shelray did a post about a San Francisco man suing a Catholic Hospital in Daly City for refusing to give him a sex change operation. Well apparently the hospital caved under the pressure of a court order according to an EWTN feed from CWN. This is most unfortunate but I suppose that it is encouraging that they resisted to start with. However, what is problematic is that the hospital is said to have released the following statement:

“We regret any confusion that may have come from this situation. We want this patient and her physician to know that they are welcome at Seton Medical Center.”

In doing so they not only have caved into the pressure but they also have abetted this suffering soul’s confusion by referring to him as a woman and seeming to imply that they were wrong to have refused the mutilating procedure (aka breast enhancement operation) in the first place.

Any way, it turns out that the man, “Charlene” Hastings will not have his mutilation done at the Catholic hospital, Seton Medical Center, because he would feel that the hospital “is doing it under duress.” Nevertheless, he is going forward with the civil suit for monetary damages according to his lawyer. That is a surprise.

The local CBS TV news station reports that “transgender Charlene Hastings has claimed moral victory against Catholics.” That after all is what “Charlene” is really after.  I suspect that even in his confusion he still senses that his interior conflict is not the fact that he is a woman in a man’s body but that he is in fact really a man who cannot come to terms with his sexual identity. Thus, he needs continual reaffirmation that he is correct in his desire to reconcile this conflict by mutilating his body such that it makes him look like he feels. Of course, the lawyer’s goal is just as pathological but has nothing to do with moral victories. Nevertheless, perhaps in order to satisfy his victim’s, errr, client’s need for affirmation, he provides the following:

The CBS 5 News station characterized the statement as a “veiled apology.” It said, “transgender Charlene Hastings has claimed moral victory against Catholics.” According to the California Catholic Daily, Hasting’s attorney, Chris Dolan, said that a lawsuit seeking monetary damages would proceed.

“Like any good religious experience, first you need enlightenment and then you need atonement,” said Dolan. “And what we have here perhaps is a glimpse of enlightenment. Has it changed their heart? I don’t think so. Will it change their practice? It better.”

Isaiah 5:20, from the book of judgment, comes to mind here: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” Dolan is right about Christian experience, though he forgets about repentance–not a surprise. However, to call what the hospital has “seen” as enlightenment is chillingly satanic. To trade the truth for an attempt at monetary preservation is exactly the opposite.  At best one can call their caving in, material cooperation with evil. If they did release the attributed statement, it becomes more likely formal cooperation with evil which a Catholic can never do, even if it means closing the doors of the hospital.

I hope that Dolan is right that those running the hospital’s hearts have not changed. It is the only chance that they will come to see that giving in to this coercion is harmful to those like “Charlene”, his lawyer, and in the long run to the hospital itself and larger society. If they were to act according to the truth, perhaps through their witness then those who authentically need it may eventually receive “enlightenment and then atonement.”

I came across a story at the Catholic Education Resource Center of which a Canadian psychologist and author argued that biology, and not a patriarchal conspiracy, was reason for a significant disparity between men and women among the high ranking positions of fortune 500 companies. She attributed the “glass ceiling” as being one of choice, based partially on the effects of a hormone called oxytocin. In other words, they had other priorities in their lives other than climbing the corporate ladder. Oxytocin is not only essential for facilitating child birth and breastfeeding, but has also been found to enhance social recognition, bonding, the formation of trust between people and generosity.

A Rutgers University study indicates that the feelings of romantic love are among the strongest drives on Earth –– even more powerful than hunger. Other researchers indicate that oxytocin has other long-range implications –– that individuals develop a “template” for a partner based on their previous pair-bonding.

A study from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), found that the production of oxytocin varied among women according to the level of distress and anxiety or the degree of security in their relationships. The women who had fewer negative emotional relationships in their lifetime experienced greater oxytocin production. Likewise, they were better able to set appropriate boundaries for their subsequent relationships.

Numerous studies indicate that stress and fright inhibit oxytocin release. In other words, if relationships are not grounded in the kind of explicit commitment evidenced by loving, trustworthy, considerate, selfless behavior, the amount of oxytocin produced by intimacy decreases, and it becomes increasingly difficult for bonding to take place. On the other hand, the researchers at UCSF said bluntly: “[A] close, regular relationship may influence the responsiveness of the hormone.”

In the pursuit of equality and sexual freedom, the liberated women have set themselves up for exploitation by men within their relationships and in many cases, the best they can hope for is the mutated misnomer of love called eroticism. Eroticism is based on the fulfilment of infantile needs which include the need of being received, accepted, and satisfied. Relationships are sustained with acts of “love” (bribes) with the hope of one buying the other’s allegiance and favor. Consequently, those who have the most to lose also have the greatest need to deceive. The more failed sexual relationships one goes through, unless they dramatically change their behaviors, the less likely they will ever have a fulfilling and meaningful relationship in the future. Since the reality of true love is to will the good of the other, it’s not something we can possibly “fall into”, as opposed to falling into desperation, loneliness and selfish needs and desires.

I think the lack of bonding and commitment among couples illustrate why even among those who make it to marriage, a majority of them never make it a life long committment- and those who don’t divorce there seems to be an epidemic of infidelity, competition and hostile relationships. There is little doubt that sex before marriage damages the bond between husband and wife required to sustain a healthy, life long relationship.

“man can build a world without God, but this world will end by turning against him.“- Pope John Paul II

St. John Institute of Catholic Thought is opening a new school of theology in Champaign, IL. You are one of the first to hear about it! The school with offer master degrees and certificate programs in theology with classes beginning this fall. The school will provide a robust formation not only in the breadth of Catholic theology but also a solid formation in the Catholic intellectual tradition. While the school will not be limited to any one particular school of thought, it will have an integrating focus around the liturgy and its connection to the trinitarian structure of creation (does this sound familiar??).

Please help spread the word!

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the LORD, As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are My ways above your ways and My thoughts above your thoughts. —Isaiah 55:8–9

Clayton (The Weight of Glory) covers how the recent declaration made by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith created a watershed moment for the feminist movement within the Catholic Church who have been trying to replace patriarchal influences with repressive ideas of their own. These religious extremists who push their perversions onto the Church separate themselves from those originating from the Middle East in one significant way - where the act of one kills or mutilates the human body, the action of the other inflicts death and destruction onto the human soul.