#IAmBabyEmmett

The following is sooo not safe for kids.

Suppose you gave me, as a gift, a pet kitten—the über-cute, heart-melting kind.

Go ahead, fuss all you like.  I'll wait till it's out of your system.

Now suppose when you gave me this fuzzy bundle of precious, that I said, "Hey, thanks!  Then I wrung its neck and proceeded to dissect it.  How would that make you feel?

And suppose I just said, "Geez, chill!  I know it's not pretty, but it's invaluable to my research.  Hell, might even save lives someday."

When you were done being sick, you might look at me like this:

Or you might just cut to the chase and call me a monster.  Because I am.  You gave me a gift of the heart, and I, out of some affective disorder, blithely destroyed the precious life that made it beautiful.

That's why so many people are outraged at this:

Not to my point here, but even though Dr. Palmer may have been a victim of dishonest guides (Never trust a guy named "Honest" from a place that sends you spam from "princes" looking for your bank account), but really - isn't it obvious that today, the big game animals are inured to Man?  They're seldom, if ever, on their guard the way they were 100 years ago when Hemingway was doing this.  Where's the sport?

And a whole crop of others are outraged at the third round now of this outrage

Think how you'd feel about me dissecting that cat.  Then multiply that by the biggest number you can wrap your mind around.  It's still nothing to how God must feel when someone does that with His gifts.  You made a gift of the cat, but you didn't make the cat.  You gave it as a gift out of love.  God gives children as a gift of His infinite love.  Your kitten is an innocent, adorable creature that you expected me to cherish.  A baby is someone God cherished so much that He came to earth and died for him.

This is why I contend that abortion is the Black Mass in its Ordinary Form.  It's the closest thing you can get to repeating the Crucifixion of Christ, because the lives you take are the closest on earth to Christ's own innocence.

The video starts with Cecile Richards denying that Planned Parenthood profits in any way from the harvested organs of unborn children.  It then shows yet another undercover video where it's clear that not only do they in fact sell the tissue at profit, but sometimes the babies in question aren't always—strictly speaking—unborn.  This provides for more intact specimens (for your shopping convenience).

Finally, we see the butcher's block lab where the tiny organs are on display for the potential customers.  At 11:06, a lab assistant going through them says "Another boy!" the way she might have done in the delivery room.

I don't know where to start.  Sherry Antonetti suggests adopting an abortionist, since "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting" (Mk. 9:29).  Doesn't sound like a bad idea.

Students for Life have gone so far as to name the boy whose wreckage gets picked through in the video.  They've dubbed him Emmett, after Emmett Till, a black boy lynched by the Klan for talking fresh to a white woman.  They've launched the hashtag #callhimEmmett.  I like it, but it cuts deeper than that for me.

I think of Donne's Devotions:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine[Pg 109] own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.

#CallhimEmmett ?   Better yet, #IAmBabyEmmett.

Vocations

Hello, all,

Yes, I know--this blog's a ghost town.  Wasn't planning on posting today, either, but I've had a few things going around in my head that I want to work out on electronic paper.

Our shortage of vocations in America (and most of the developed world, for that matter) is well known.  Over at Lifesite, Anthony Esolen suggests a few causes.  I won't argue too much, though I think we've done the whole "it's-the-liturgy-stupid" thing to death.  But I did note his point that we don't offer as much challenge as perhaps we ought.

It's certainly true with every recruiting effort for the clergy I've ever seen.
Here's a ten-minute clip from a larger project aimed at teens.  Two young priests tell the stories of their discernment.

Now, I'm not dissing these priests.  I have no doubt their stories are genuine, and their love of the Church is clear.  But look at the filmmakers' subtext, and you'll see things common to every religious appeal to young people (apart from World Youth Day itself).

Apparently, there are just oodles of young, single Catholics out there thinking:

"Golly gee - I'd really like to join the religious life, but I'm afraid they won't let me play sports anymore!"

Really?

I'll grant, priests come in all varieties.  Some are introverted and scholarly.  Some are mushy sentimentalists.  Some (mercifully few) are downright effeminate.  Insofar, then, as this may be some young people's only experience with priests, it might not hurt to see a couple from more humble beginnings, doing "guy" things.  Street cred.  I get that.

On the other hand, we've got the pop soundtrack, and the edgy camerawork, and from all we see, they spend more time working out than they do in prayer.*

All this seems to say:  See?  God's not really asking that much of you.  You'll still be the same person, doing the same things.  For someone like my teenage self, they'd have said, "You can still have your booze, and your cigarettes, and your ponytail, and your Zeppelin albums.  C'mon, be a priest; it'll be really keen!"

It's all fun and games, until someone loses the Faith.

And I would have run the other way.  As, in fact, I did.  Because that's not the Christ I was looking for.

I wanted a Christ who'd say, "Put those things away.  Sell them and give to the poor.  Leave your nets on the boat, and come follow me.  It's the greatest adventure you could ever imagine!"

If we try that, I think, they will come.

It certainly works for the enemy.  Look at ISIS.  Young people from all over the civilized world are running to join a barbarian horde in the desert.  Why?  Because it offers something to believe in.  Something to which they can sacrifice everything.  Something that shows their contempt of a world full of pornography, political correctness, consumerism, and an overblown notion of fair play that refuses to let them risk anything.

How do we answer them back?  One-up them.  If young people will go to those lengths for something that offers them death, how much more will they give to something that offers them resurrection?

Let me show you something now that put me in a very good place this week.


This is who's getting vocations these days.  Note, for example, that their Prioress is nearly ten years younger than I am.  Note the joy.  Note the faith.

"But they're Traddies!" I hear you cry.  Yes, but they're the joyful kind.  They're traddies because they love their Catholic heritage, not because they hate everyday Catholics.  But if you're really disposed to argue, here's some Ordinary Form Dominicans getting even more vocations.


Yes, they play sports, too, but note what attracted the young novice from Australia:  The sisters walking around campus in their habits.  Post-Vatican II modified habits, but still set.  Apart.  From.  The.  World.

A modest proposal:  If you want to recruit young people, don't tell them how much they can keep.

Tell them how much they can give.


*Not to mention the stereotypes.  Fr. White's running through the hills to a Pure Moods-ish movie anthem - or is it a Zyrtec commercial?  Meanwhile, Fr. Not-So-White's walking through the inner city to a brooding hip-hop track.  Racist much?

I'M NOT EVEN GOING TO TRY

 . . .and compete with this.  Mark Shea FTW!

Borg To The Left Of Me . . .

A while back (quite some time ago, really), we discussed the resemblance of certain dissidents of a Modernist bent to the "Next Generation" Star Trek's arch-nemeses, the Borg.

Call me mean, if you like, but it does kind of fit.  The quasi-Marxist insistence on collectivism (note how often the word "we" appears in most of their hymns) and stretch-or-truncate-to-fit egalitarianism.  Individuals, their individual needs, talents, and wishes are irrelevant.  It's all chopped up and mixed around in a great liturgical blender until it comes out a smooth, even Long Island Iced Tea of heresies with a twist of deconstructionism and a low-fat froth.

But friends, there is another extreme to which one can go.  One that starts with a reaction against all the above.  One that starts off wanting nothing but a sense of holiness, beauty, solemnity, and continuity with those who came before us.

Sounds reasonable enough, yeah?  I agree.  I've been sympathetic to a lot of this.  I hate watered-down, ugly, pedestrian worship, mis-taught catechetics, and seeing ancient ritual replaced with funky-looking moves and gestures that some "professional liturgist" cooked up on the fly 15 minutes before Mass (and expects you to join in).  Sorry, I came in for sanctifying grace, not interpretive dance.

Nevertheless, there are limits.  There exists, on the far edge of this community, a species of Traddy that does not so much love God as hate their fellow man.  They white glove the liturgy, the hierarchy, and worst of all, men's souls.  They sit through Mass, parse through sermons and interviews, memorize ancient books of rubrics that haven't been in force in 50 years, looking for the least imperfection to call somebody on.  And when they find it, they have zero mercy.

Anyone who dares change anything, or get in the way, or does something wrong with his left pinky while elevating the host, is The Enemy Of The Faith and must be opposed at all costs.  It's not hard to find this type yammering on around the Internet.  They have their own sites (which I won't dignify with links), but no one goes there except them and their own ilk, so they evangelize by way of trolling anyone else who comes within their radar. (If you want to find some to look at on your own, just go take a look at whoever's kicking Mark Shea this week*.  Your nose will tell you).

-SPEAKING OF WHICH-

I warn you now, any posts loaded with transparent rhetoric, like "You talkin' to me?" or "I have no idea what you are talking about," or "I neither know, nor have heard of any such persons amongst Traditionalists; are you sure you don't mean 'Modernists?' or anything amounting to, "Why me and not Them?  Why don't you pick on someone your own size?" will be deleted with extreme prejudice.  Possibly tortured first, if in a moment's pique I forget to be charitable.

Why?  Because in Pope Francis' old stomping grounds of Buenos Aires - IN HIS CATHEDRAL - a small mob of these punks disrupted an ecumenical service commemorating the 75th anniversary of Krystallnacht.

I barely have words.  Let me quote Phil Lawler at length while I think of some of my own.

Let me make three requests: 

First, if you disrupt services at a Catholic cathedral, please don’t try to tell me that you’re defending the Catholic faith. 

Second, if you shout out the Rosary to drown out prayers, please don’t tell me you’re honoring the Virgin Mary. 

Third, if you refer to observant Jews as “followers of false gods,” please don’t tell me that you worship the God of Abraham and Isaac.

Oh, wait; one more request:

If you don’t think that the SSPX is in schism, please tell me how to describe a group that claims its own hierarchy, professes its own doctrine, rejects the official teachings of Catholicism, and describes itself as the one true church.

What he said.  Now let me add this:

Thank you, Traddie Daleks, for giving Christ, Catholicism, and your own founder a bad name.  Thank you for rending Christ's body with the same un-civilized mob tactics preferred by the Rainbow Sash movement.  Not only does this make you no better than they are; it makes you ten times worse.  Here are some reasons why.

1. You add to your dissent from the teachings of the past five popes, plus an Ecumenical Council, the heresy of consequentialism, i.e., that you may do evil (to wit, profaning a service approved by competent Ecclesial authority) in order that good may come from it.
2. You use prayer to combat Holy Mother Church, which violates the Second Commandment.  In fact, it goes well beyond blasphemy, right up to the borders of Satanism.
3. Whereas the Rainbow Sashers and their ilk make their protests (however misguided) in the name of both Divine and human compassion, you instead desire to cleanse a holy place of persons whom - contrary to Catholic Doctrine - you dare to call unclean or profane.
4. Whereas agitators for same-sex marriage, women priests, and the like call on us merely to reconsider our position (not understanding the permanency of the doctrines involved), you call for the summary interdict and excommunication of those with whom you disagree.  May I remind you that as Catholics, you're supposed to believe the doctrine of Extra Ecclesia, Nulla Salus - "no salvation outside the Church."  By wishing excommunication on a fellow Catholic, you are wishing the damnation of his soul.  May I remind you that "He who curses his adversary, curses his own soul." (Sirach 21: 27)

You know what?  I hope the Holy Father does kick it old-school for your sakes.  I hope he speaks Ex Cathedra, declaring, pronouncing, and defining that the teaching of Nostra Aetate concerning Jews, Protestants, Muslims and Non-Christians is revealed by God and to be held universally by all the faithful.  I hope he alters Canon Law and brings back the Anathema, just so he can declare it on anyone who dares say that the Jewish people are accursed, or that Non-Catholics don't have the same right to religious freedom the rest of us desire and deserve.

Note that reactionaries, like the Daleks, pick fights with enemies capable of defeating them over and over again down the centuries.

I hope you come to your senses.  Otherwise, I'm going to have to start behaving myself, so I don't have to spend hell with the likes of you.

Borg to the left of me. Daleks to the right.

Here I am, stuck in the middle with the Jews.

And you know what?  There's nowhere I'd rather be.

*As I write this, Mark actually doesn't have any comments on that particular post.  Trust me, though, he will.  The reactionaries' habits are so ingrained that they automatically stamp and whinny every time he says, "Blücher!"

And Now, A Word From A Young Convert

Photo courtesy of Catholic With A Vengeance.
Extraordinary Form  for an extraordinary blog.

Rae Marie, over at Catholic With A Vengeance, has a great piece up about parishes (is yours one?) who beg and plead for young parishioners to get involved . . . until the younger people actually try it.

I spoke up once during choir practice (I’d since then joined the choir because I enjoyed singing and praising the Lord). I said “You know, I’d really like some Latin hymns…Maybe we can have some silence after Mass during Lent- you know for reverence…”

I suggested to our priest once: “I think a Eucharistic procession around Christmas to celebrate the incarnation would be cool…” Deaf ears in reply. I was told by the music director: “We don’t do that anymore…Silence bores the congregation…” and by the priest “A procession would be inconvenient…” 

What I gave was the opinion of a young Catholic- a real, live young Catholic. They didn’t want it. 

The problem is all these pastors, youth pastors and music directors keep telling us young folk what bores us, what we really like, what we find interesting. And guess what, THEY’RE WRONG! If one listens to the young Catholic voice, one would find we are yearning for beauty, for tradition and for truth. Traditional Catholicism honestly fascinates us! We go all week hearing perky pop-songs, jumping techno and chatter that doesn’t leave a minute of silence. We go to church and we get exposed to the same exact things. Thus, of course we find it boring! Why should we go to Mass when we can stay home and sing “Gather us in”, listen to a preacher on tv and fill our rooms with noise? Young people are sick of the world. We long for a safe habitat where we can bow before God and think. We crave contact with ancientness, with a strong grounding, with strong Catholic identity. God’s people are chosen out of the world, set apart, destined for a heavenly home. We want a taste of that!

Read the whole thing here.

We see here yet another case of pastoral and liturgical disconnect: committees and "experts" striving to make Catholicism fresh and relevant for the young people of 1968.  It was a different generation, combating different kinds of abuses by a different kind of authority figure.  Yet here they still are, in 2012 - soon to be '13 - rebelling against an establishment that's been dead since the 1970s.  Jim Kalb has an excellent series on this over at Crisis.  Read all four parts; they're worth your time.

I've seen this nonsense all my life.  I was younger than Rae when I volunteered to teach Religious Ed. to high-school kids.  I'd studied the Catechism (brand new in those days), read the Bible daily, and had a couple semesters of Catholic Theology at undergraduate level from professors who later had shows on EWTN.  My qualifications were nothing, however, compared to those of the young lady who got the position.  She lived in such a close imitation of Our Lady that, like her, she managed to conceive a child without a husband - which child she was visibly carrying at the time.  What better way to teach our young folk than by example?

For twenty years, under four different pastors, I offered to train altar servers.  No takers.  Now, even if they asked, I don't remember enough to be of much use anymore (I could talk you through the average Mass, sure, but weddings, funerals, Benedictions, etc. I just can't remember how it went).

Of course, I'm no longer young, by any stretch.  Young Catholics cannot remember a time before John Paul II was pope.  I can.

But speaking as a recovering young person, I can tell you what young people want:  Christ.  They want Christ, they long for Christ, they hunger and thirst for him:  "When shall I behold His face?"  (cf. Ps. 42: 3)
They want a sense of something holy, mysterious, otherworldly.  Something to challenge their imaginations.  Something to live for.  A Mass to dress up for.  A sense that what they're doing matters.

What better means than through our own long-standing (if now long-lost) traditions?  It's no accident that you'll find ample candles, incense, and recording of Gregorian Chant in any college dorm.  Why don't we find them in our churches?  Why aren't we saying, "You like that?  We invented that!  Come check out what else we have to offer!"  It's time to raid the Church's attic and break out the Ancient Tools for the New Evangelization.  Trust me on this.  When I was 18, a traditional-minded priest called us altar boys together for exactly such a raid.  The object:  Locate the old cassocks and surplices the altar boys of the 1940s had used.  We found them, along with lots of other cool stuff.  Our mothers washed and ironed them, and we wore them as we served Midnight Mass.  We had smells.  We had bells.  Father said the Roman Canon in Latin.  It was one of the greatest nights of my life.  I can't even describe - the closest analogy I have would be falling madly in love, but the stirring's in a different part of you, one I can't pinpoint, because I didn't know it was there till I felt the stirring therein.

Christmas, 1987.  Yours Truly, top right.
What I wouldn't give to have that hairline back!

I've been saying a lot lately, with regard to Evangelization, "Get with Christ!"  That's exactly what I recommend for young people.  Get them with Christ.  And the ones who've got with Him already?  Listen to them!  They are wiser than you know.

"And a little child shall lead them." (Isaiah 11: 6)

And If You Liked The Canine Liturgy . . .

You'll love the St. Blog's Liturgolympics going on at Acts Of The Apostasy.

Giant puppets, liturgical dancers in shower curtains, and yes, even a blessing by Barny the dinosaur, all contending for the very top of the bottom rung in liturgy.  Check ye it, and vote early and often for your . . . ahem, favorites.

UPDATE:  And it's the Canine Communion Mass for the win!  Congrats to Fr. Greg and his merry band for sweeping both the Liturgolympics and the Guibourg Award for Best Black Mass!  You've earned it!

This is, of course, the Black Mass in the Extraordinary Form,
The Ordinary Form being abortion.

Why I Don't Do Much Apologetics

Because people like Peter Kreeft do, much better than I ever could.  Check his book on the culture wars, too.  I read it in a day, which means that if you're not dyslexic, you should be able to polish it off in a couple of hours.

The Simple Faith of Satan, Appendix A

The late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus once observed that, "As far as the New York Times is concerned, the only good Catholic is a bad Catholic."  It seems strange that those people in the Church but not of her, though their numbers and relevance dwindle geometrically with each passing year, remain the heroes/victims of the modern media narrative, while the institutional Church, livelier, healthier, and better organized than it has been in years, gets painted as the Host of Mordor, out to destroy all that is gentle, just, and good in the world.  Where on earth did all this nonsense come from?

George Weigel traces it to a series of articles covering Vatican Council II, some fifty years ago, which happened to dovetail nicely (as it still does) with the way postmodern society looks at the world:

 In a culture in which people imagine that religious conviction is a lifestyle choice of no more intellectual or moral consequence than the choice of a pet, it takes serious effort to grasp that what the Catholic Church teaches about the nature of God or the requisites for ministerial ordination is entirely different from the choice between a schnauzer and a dachshund. And in a secularized culture in which “choice” is the one sacred word, a Church that insists that its leadership teaches authoritatively is going to be easily portrayed as ham-handed, insensitive, out of step.

Read the whole article here.  It's worth your time.  And I'm not just saying that because it says many of the same things I've said in these pages.

Why I Don't Fret Much About Atheists

If you're already a fan of Bad Catholic, you'll know he delights in making atheists' heads explode.  If you read my last post about his new organization, 1Flesh, you know they're taking on the task of showing the world that Humanae Vitae was right.

The timing couldn't be better.  With the hullabaloo over Obamacare and the HHS mandate, the Fortnight for Freedom vs. the so-called War on Women, people are hungry for answers on what exactly the Church teaches on contraception, why, and what reasonable arguments are there on the subject.  It's no surprise, then, that 1Flesh has gone viral.  Just a few days into the official launch, the site's had so many hits, they're sprawling for a server big enough to handle it.  Their Facebook page, as of this writing, four days into its announcement, has over 2300 likes.  The world is listening.

Needless to say, the world, the flesh, and the devil aren't going to take this lying down.  Haters gonna hate.


In fact, they've already started.

You've probably been expecting this.  In fact, some small part of you has probably been kinda hoping for it.  Come on.  You can admit it.  Some small part of me wanted it, too.  I think it's kind of hard-wired in us, sometimes, to want to ride forth into battle for Truth, Justice, and the Latin Rite.

VOTR Bonus Points if you've seen this movie!

On the whole, though, I'm not really big on arguing with atheists.  With some exceptions, I see no point in it, other than the sheer joy of battle, which is risky to your spiritual health.  As St. Escriva said, it's not wise to waste time throwing stones at the dogs who bark at you along your way.  Oh, the Gentiles are raging again?  Ho-hum.  Been there.  Done that.  It's the same old song and dance (cue Aerosmith).  It amounts to, "Come down, and we will believe!" (cf. Mark 15: 32)


And that's just it, isn't it?  The whole of our faith, its single most important claim, is that Jesus Christ literally, physically rose from the dead one Sunday morning in A.D. 33.  That is the hope in which we are called.  For this hope, we do things that otherwise would seem counter-productive, if not downright masochistic.  We accept and bear our crosses and trials with patience, bless those who curse us, do good to our persecutors, return good for evil, forgive injuries and ask pardon for our own, always putting our own self-interest last.  At least, we're supposed to.  If you don't believe in the hope of a resurrection - what unbelievers call the "pie in the sky" - why wouldn't you baulk at such moral teachings?  St. Paul saw this clearly:

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.  Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.  If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied (1 Cor. 15: 16-19). 

Either God exists, revealed to us His will through the Scriptures and a teaching Church, and will come to judge the living and the dead unto eternal reward or punishment,

-OR-

Christianity is by far the single greatest crime against humanity ever conceived, and must be destroyed at all costs.  It logically follows.  Debate in these cases, then, comes down to first premises.  You've got to be far more skilled than I to get anywhere in situations like that.

So I cut the honest atheist of good will a lot of slack.  As I've said elsewhere in these pages, faith is a gift.  We can't achieve belief on our own.  And this is why we leave the judging of people up to God.  We can discern the objective matter of a deed, but only God knows the extent of anyone's culpability.  Some of the atheists who hate us because some of us first hated them.  You will usually do more harm than good to a soul by telling him he's going to hell.  Most people today are already in hell.  If you want to evangelize people, start by getting them to admit that, then show them the Way out.

That's for the "honest" atheists, mind you.

There is, of course, another species of atheist.

These are the ones you see and hear about the most.  I suspect they're a great, loud-mouthed minority, like planes that crash, or self-styled pro-lifers who think we can show killing babies is wrong by blowing up buildings and shooting doctors.  A lot of outsiders think most of us are like that.  Let's not make the same mistake about others.

For a small minority, though, these folks sure do get around.  I've not had any here yet, but the blog is young.  (Heck, I don't even get spam yet.)  I don't argue with this type, because they're not interested in debate.  They don't want to improve their understanding, nor do they wish to enlighten others.  They just want to pick a fight.  

It's Envy incarnate:  people who can't stand anybody else being happy, and feel they have a right and/or duty to "bring them down a peg or two."

Traditional catechetics teaches that Envy of Another's Spiritual Good is a subspecies of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.  Such sins are all but unforgivable, for it is hard to repent when you reflexively sneer at Mercy itself.  Appeals to reason cannot prevail here.  Even prayer can be doubtful.

There is a sin which is mortal;  I do not say that one is to pray for that (1John 5: 16).

Such people may not believe in God, but they serve a god.  The god who is always most powerful when his existence is denied.

One Flesh - Let Not Man, Nor Copper, Nor Latex, Nor Drugs Divide

I say this a lot, but I really can't say it enough:  I thank God that I've lived to see these days!  He has raised us up a new generation of the faithful, well-formed and bold as lions.  They've had enough of our wishy-wash, and they're not going to take it anymore.

The problem with truth is that it's seldom popular.  How much are you willing to sacrifice for the sake of being on the right side?  Your job?  Your friends?  Your liberty?  Your family?  Your life?  What's your threshold?  Christianity is not easy.  Jesus ain't for wussies.  Standing by Him, or standing by His Vicar, the Pope, or His Church will cost you.

That, and the fear of scism - yet another split in the Church - has kept priests and bishops fairly quiet about certain moral issues.  The Church's teaching on sexual morality, for example seems more honored in the breach than in the observance.  Parishioners often come to church expecting to be affirmed in their okayness, rather than challenged to repent their sinfulness.  In short, the scism's actually there de facto, but some of our clergy hope it'll go away if they just pretend it's not there.

If you think I'm being harsh, check out what Cardinal Dolan told the Wall Street Journal:

 The "flash point," the archbishop says, was "Humanae Vitae," Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical reasserting the church's teachings on sex, marriage and reproduction, including its opposition to artificial contraception. It "brought such a tsunami of dissent, departure, disapproval of the church, that I think most of us—and I'm using the first-person plural intentionally, including myself—kind of subconsciously said, 'Whoa. We'd better never talk about that, because it's just too hot to handle.' We forfeited the chance to be a coherent moral voice when it comes to one of the more burning issues of the day."

 As a result, people can cite spurious surveys claiming 90% of Catholic women defy Church teaching on artificial contraception, and otherwise intelligent people actually find it believable.


Because, truth be told, it may not be 90%, but it's probably better than 50%.

It's a good thing Jesus said, Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.  I don't even want to think about how many people would willingly make an informed choice, knowing it would lead to damnation.  At least the poorly formed have a chance.

But those comfortable days are numbered.  I've believed for some time now that this decade is going to be the Anti-'60s.  More and more of today's young people are demanding an objective reality, straight answers, a truth outside themselves, a challenge to be more, and something worth giving their all for.

In the spirit of this, Bad Catholic  and his merry band of friends have started a new website:

1Flesh

Their mission:  to expose, on a secular level, the damage that our contraceptive culture has done to women and to society in general.  It affirms sexuality in accordance with the Natural Law.  This blog supports them altogether!

Now, since they're focusing on the sociological, psychological, demographic, and philosophical side of things, I thought I'd take on the theological, typological, semantic, and aesthetic aspects.  This is a many-headed beast, and it's going to take me some time to put it all together coherently, but since these young folks are sounding the trumpet, what can an honest man do but grab his armor and set out to do his best?  Look for more on this in a week or so, maybe sooner.

Does This Sound Familiar?

This post is just too good not to share.  I'm blessed with a pastor prepared to tell his flock off (including me) when they need it, but nothing as straightforward as this.

Coming from a place where sports are the real local religion, and altar boys  servers are ill-trained, IF you can find one, I think I feel this poor priest.  I hope his bishop backs him up all the way.  Next time you're in church, ask yourself:  are you here to serve, or to be served?  And if you don't believe it's necessary for your eternal salvation, what are you doing there?

The Bibles of Babel: 4 Guidelines For a New, Improved, American Bible

If you're one of the many who still think Catholics aren't Bible-Christians, you probably don't read Catholic blogs (except mine, of course, or you wouldn't be here.  Thank you - I'm honored.)  The Catholic blogosphere is loaded with converts from Fundamentalist and Evangelical faiths who've learned the opposite is true.  The Ordinary Form of the Latin Rite employs more Scripture, and a broader range of readings, than you'll find in any other denomination.

There's just one problem:  the versions of Scripture we use are all over the place.  Different prayer groups, Scripture classes, and books on Scripture use different translations, made on different principles:  We have the New American Bible (NAB), the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (RSV-CE, 1st & 2nd editions), the New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, the Jerusalem Bible, the New English Bible, the Good News Bible, and so on.  Worse still, the version we use in the liturgy is . . .None of the above!  Will the real Word of God please stand up?

In an attempt to remedy this, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has ordered a new edition that they hope will be suitable for all and sundry.  I applaud the idea wholeheartedly, but I worry about the results.  The NAB is one of the worst, most useless translations of Scripture I know of.  One wants to ask its editors and translators just what the Bible did to them to make them hate it so.

Micah Murphy wrote a short but interesting blog on this.  Visit ye him, and take his poll.  I did, and when I was done commenting, I realized I had enough material for a post of my own.  "Blogger," said I, "blog thyself!"

So without further ado, here are four suggestions (since of course, the bishops hang on my every word, as well they should) for putting together a universal Catholic Bible in English.

1.  Vet Everyone Involved

I know, I know, background checks and loyalty oaths smack of totalitarianism.  Of course, the people you're looking to weed out already think the Church is a brutal dictatorship (except that you're not free to leave most brutal dictatorships any time you like).  I don't know how much may have changed in recent years, but back, say, in the '90s, a vast majority of Scripture scholars were de facto dissenters.  The notes and commentaries in most Bibles issued since the Council suffer from a bad case of Modernism.

Our first guideline, then, ought to be:  Don't let heterodox scholars anywhere near this project.  Everyone involved should be thoroughly grounded in, and consider himself bound to, the principles laid down in Dei Verbum and Divino Afflante Spiritu.  A working knowlegde of Pope Benedict's biblical theology wouldn't hurt, either.  Here's a simple test:  Get everybody together, then pass around a copy of the Catechism, blessed by a priest.  Make sure everyone touches it.  If any of the committee members burst into flames, crumble to dust, or exhibit signs of demonic possession as laid out in the Rituale Romanum, that's a good indicator you don't want them on your team. 


If the Bishops ask nicely, perhaps they could persuade Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch to let them peek at their notes for the new Ignatius Study Bible.  Once we have commentary that thinks with the Church, we can relax a little on some of the finer points of translation.  


Which leads me to:

2. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.  

When we consider pastoral needs, we too often play to the lowest common denominator.  Note the arguments against the new translation of the Sacramentary, that Joe Pewsitter can't understand words like, "consubstantial."  This attitude, along with a little ivory tower arrogance, has led recent translations to abandon the traditional phrasing of well-known passages, either to simplify or clarify points which often aren't all that important.  Most parishioners hate change.  Ask any pastor:  Announce something different - however well-intended or necessary - and you'll smell the tar and feathers simmering away.  

Actually, all he said was, you can't self-intinct.

When my wife and I married, we pulled out a 1962 Missal and chose the prayers (in English) used in the Extraordinary Form (though neither the wedding nor the accompanying Mass were Extraordinary Form).  I said, "With this ring, I thee wed, and I plight unto thee my troth."  Why?  Because those are the words my father said in 1967, and his father said in 1936, and so on, back through history.  Doing something like that, realizing that, reminds you of the fact that there are no empty seats at Mass.  Any Mass.  Ever.  The saints, the angels, and our loved ones gone before are all there with us.


Small-"t" tradition has its claims.  Unless it actively hinders formation, leave it be.  Phrases like, "Hail, full of grace," "the gates of hell shall not prevail," etc. have the weight of tans-generational consistency.  Leave it to the catechists and homilists to explain, for example, that Jesus probably meant Sheol, rather than Gehenna.  In fact, we've all but eliminated the word, "hell" from our readings, which could lead folks to wonder whether we still believe in such a thing.  And that does hinder formation.


3. Stop neutering and watering down the language.  
Jesus warned about multiplying words; someone should warn translators about multiplying syllables, often in the name of mollifying sensibilities.  We see this constantly in public and political discourse.

Jesus Christ, however, didn't talk like other public figures (Matthew 7: 29).  Pope Benedict, in his Jesus of Nazareth, Vol. 1, points out that rather than "astonished," the Greek says the people were "alarmed" at Christ's teaching.  Jesus does not mince words.  Jesus does not equivocate or euphemize.  Jesus is in.  Your.  Face.  


If He doesn't make you at least a little uncomfortable, chances are you're not getting the message.


4) Please, please, in the name of all that's holy, have somebody with an ear not made of tin READ THE BLESSED THING ALOUD!  
Why is the KJV still so popular after four hundred years?  Why do we still hear it quoted so often, even by people who can barely read, despite its inkhorn words and archaic phrasing?  Because it is beautiful.  Its translators were Shakespeare's contemporaries (Some think the Bard himself may have had a hand in it).  They read it aloud as they worked, to ensure that when proclaimed, it would ring out, clear and memorable.  We need that back.  That's why, when I pray the Psalms, I go back to the Douay-Confraternity translation.  It sounds like poetry - the poetry of Wordsworth and Tennyson, not Rod McKuen and Adrienne Rich.

We should try that sometime.

Yes, I know, it's pro-Reformation, but listen to Joss Ackland's readings, dammit!

In Which I Admit An Error (No Way! Yes, Way).

I admit it.  I was wrong.  Reasoning Fail.  Fortunately, it's something I didn't say publicly much.  It's a bit of a pointy-headed minutia for the average reader, but it matters if you're a doctrine-geek like me.

It has to do with what happens when we die.  I'd always assumed that a disembodied soul, being immaterial, would no longer be bound in any way by space-time.  It seems I'm missing something - a few things, even.  I don't want to go into too many more details until I've done some more research and made sure what I know and do not know and cannot know (for there seems to be a mystery involved here).

Anywho, if you've ever wondered about this kind of thing, here's Jimmy Akin with the lowdown.