No more, no less

You Are 63% American

Most times you are proud to be an American. Though sometimes the good ole US of A makes you cringe Still, you know there's no place better suited to be your home. You love your freedom and no one's going to take it away from you!

How American Are You?

Nationalism is an abstraction created by the modern State to supplant true religion and thereby monopolize control of bodies and souls.

Christian like Coldplay

Ok, I just discovered Mat Kearney has been claimed as a "Christian artist" with full coverage on Christianity Today and other evie outlets. I like his sound even though he is basically a Coldplay clone that can rap (sometimes I just want pure WB-soundtrack pap). But I needed Google to tell me that he's Christian. I've been listening to him a little more closely and I stil cannot for the life of me tell how his music is any more Christian than, well, Coldplay. So why do I get the feeling that there are "churches" that play his music during their Sunday "worship"?

Affirmative duties & abortion

Prof. Penlaver (liberal Catholic) responding to Prof. Brennan (quite orthodox) on Prof. Kaveny (kinda liberal Catholic) over at Mirror of Justice

I read her argument as making a narrower point by comparing a woman who carries a child to term at risk to her own health or life to someone who risks his own life to save another. I do not see her actually offering a judgment about whether there is a moral obligation so to act (in either case). The law does not compel a person to act in the latter instance, and the question is why it ought to in the former.

Since all pregnancy involves a degree of risk, Patrick has a point in questioning whether the analogy she makes can be cabined. But I think meaningful distinctions about risk can be drawn here, and I think the analogy is an interesting one. Even if one agrees with the Church's position that a woman is in fact obligated to carry the child to term, does the gap between what is moral and what portion of that category it is wise to try to enforce by law provide room to disagree about whether the state ought to insert itself into a woman's decision in this narrow category of cases?

Am I missing something? True, the law does not impose an affirmative duty to rescue a third party. But it's misleading to suggest that creating a legal prohibition against abortion is analogous to imposing an affirmative duty to rescue the fetus. The current law that says you don't have to save another's life is categorically different from our abortion laws which say not only do we not have to save the fetus' life, but that we have a right to affirmatively and intentionally destroy it. So how is the right to abortion anything like the right to not have to rescue each other? But what do I know? I'm not an Ivy League law professor.

Pounds of flesh

Commonweal's got Dean Mark Sargent's latest article on the sorry state of clergy abuse litigation.

MSNBC v. GOP

I'll tell you who really won tonight's GOP debate: the Democrats. I'm not sure if GOP planners considered how MSNBC & the DNC might conspire against their candidates by letting Chris "Hardball" Matthews moderate their debate, but that was probably the worst moderating job I've ever seen. Matthews lazily made up his own questions extemporaneously and then exerted only the thinnest semblance of order over the candidates. It made all the candidates look very edgy, confused, off-balance, and even more frumpy than they already looked. And the most ridiculous questions, like "which of you don't believe in evolution?" and "should Bill Clinton be back in the White House?" I thought I misheard the question. If I were the GOP, I'd be screaming for Matthews' head.

Insulted by facts?

I don't have a dog in this race, but I love Mr. Hitchens' implicit hat tip to MacIntyre's critique of emotivism, that insipid belief that one's dignity/self-esteem is only respected when the individual's gut feelings are accorded synonymity with reason and conscience.

1. "Dear Mr Hitchens, I feel utterly insulted by your gratuitous claim that there is no such thing as ADHD'. You are obviously an ignorant moron. You should do some research on this, and then you would know that it was a real problem."

A. An insult can only be offered to a person, directly, and concern his personal failings or faults. It is not possible to be 'insulted' by a statement of fact, or by an argument you disagree with. If the statement isn't true, then you are well placed to prove that. If you disagree with the argument, then you can say so. To say that you have been 'insulted' is to refuse to accept that there may be some truth in what I say, possibly because you have some doubts about the matter yourself. In fact I often find that angry, personal vehemence in an argument is a sign that the person involved has serious doubts about his or her position. Let us begin as we mean to go on, and treat this as a matter of facts and logic. Also, as it so happens, I have done a great deal of research on this matter, not least as a result of dealing with several waves of correspondence on the subject. And the more research I have done, the more alarmed I have become at the great numbers of children and teenagers being drugged because they are supposed to be suffering from a complaint for which there is no established, objective test.

Getting the East

Weigel on the hullabaloo over on Mt. Athos against Pope B16's overtures to the East:

The truth of the matter is that, outside historically Orthodox countries and certain ethnic communities, the thought of how one stands vis-à-vis the Patriarch of Constantinople simply doesn't enter Catholic heads. Perhaps that's a problem, but it's nowhere near as great an obstacle to ecumenical progress as the conviction in some Orthodox quarters that non-communion with Rome is a defining characteristic of what it means to be "Orthodox."

Unfortunately, this only reinforces the East's view of Catholics as ecclesiologically clueless. Quite simply, the Athonite monks are not anti-Rome per se, and they certainly are not defined by their anti-Romanism the way Protestants as a whole are. In fact there's still a palpable nostalgic affection for the "true Rome" of the Fathers that's mixed in with the healthy bile some Athonites are coughing up. Today Rome does symbolize all that is "heretical" in Western Catholicism, and it's the heresies that get them in a tizzy. But it's always simpler and more self-congratulatory to paint the Orthodox as an older, prettier version of Protestantism when it's not. It's also convenient because it shifts all the burden of change on the East which now has to to "loosen up" or "get over" their irrationally anti-Roman prejudices if Ut Unum Sint is to become a reality.

I care about this only because I hate it when Protestants misconstrue Catholic intentions and beliefs in general, as well as on the ecumenism issue, eg. "intercommunion." So to see Catholics carry on with the same methods of rhetorical misrepresentation towards the Orthodox is particularly disappointing, especially when it comes from "orthodox" Catholic commentators like Weigel who should know better.

And Earth to Catholics: the "Two Lungs" metaphor has worn itself out into some "can't we all just get along?" ethic, pace JPII. I really don't think he intended it to be mindlessly and casually plugged into every conversation on RC-EO relations. Catholics can get so attached to the lace -- the frilly turn of phrase uttered by a pope which when taken out of context becomes its own substitute for substance.

Rhetoric matters

I love Disputations because he understands the importance of rhetoric in our doctrinal and intellectual formation -- how the specific words we use say so much about who we really are and who we are becoming through those words. It’s also why I give Obama some credit for raising the bar on political rhetoric far more than most other candidates (the fact that he throws the bar away when it comes to life issues is a fatal contradiction). Mark Shea makes a nice reference to Disputations’ rhetorical appreciation:

Too many gripes to answer so I will just focus on a couple. One guy writes:

I guess I find it strange that you and Tom, among others, are so intent on dismissing the concerns of many good Catholics, and, it seems, those of the pope himself.

Tom makes a pretty good reply here:

This manages to pack many of the worst traits of discussions on the Mass into a single sentence. There's overstatement (two posts in two months is "so intent"), victimhood("dismissing the concerns," how boorish), moral posturing ("many good Catholics"), and implied charges of dissent ("dismissing...the pope himself"), all wrapped up in an obstinate inability ("I guess I find it strange") to accept that lack of interest does not imply a judgment against those who are interested.

Just a brilliant fisking of the subtle, corrupting, and self-serving uses of language even among those of us with ostensibly "good intentions" and "right teaching." It really isn't enough to know and crusade for the Truth. The call to "speak the truth in love" is not just some sentimental exhortation, not just an appeal to courtesy or politeness, but a rhetorical insight. Apart from love (which is also an intellectual virtue), our rhetoric can and will consume us and obstruct our participation in the Truth. I am guilty as charged.

Progressives & Orthodoxy

Great piece in the CSM by a Muslim who refuses to accept the "moderate Muslim" label and surrender the "orthodoxy" label to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Juxtapose that insight next to Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, RFK daughter and former Lt. Gov. of MD who's joined the Catholics-Misrepresenting-Catholicism industry. Heard her on C-Span the other night chanting the banal litanies of "progressive Christianity." If she had half a brain about ancient religions, she'd understand with Ms. Khalid that if you don't confront the primacy of orthodoxy, your hemming and hawing is just boring dinner theater.

Ruthie and the Catholic Five

What a great touring name. Unfortunately, SCOTUS doesn't tour anymore. So what does it mean that all five of the Catholic justices on the Supreme Court upheld a federal law prohibiting a very narrowly defined abortion procedure? The Philadelphia Inquirer and Rosie O'Donnell seem to be of one mind on this one:


We who are proud of the Catholic intellectual tradition would like to give it some credit, but that puts us in a bind, doesn't it? We don't want to say that the Catholic Five voted strictly out of some fideistic (or what most Americans equate with "religious") impulse -- mostly because Catholicism rejects fideism's partitioning of faith and reason. But neither do we want to say that being Catholic had nothing to do with their adjudication of a morally loaded and complex issue.

The Catholic intellect is oriented to the virtues of prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice. Now one doesn't have to be Catholic to exercise these virtues, but we need all the help we can get. So was it just a coincidence that the Catholic Five overturned all those lower courts in conformity with Reason and their church's opposition to abortion? No. But did they decide simply because their "sect" is opposed to abortion? No. Will most Americans (educated or not) be capable of appreciating this distinction? No. Rosie's methane-enhanced thoughts on Catholicism have already been given the imprimatur of mainstream academia.

But I suppose I should stop calling them the Catholic Five. Aww, shucks.

UPDATE: Rick Garnett's got his own fisking of the cartoon.

Worst Massacre?

Now I'm not Native-American or descended from colonizers, but I do think we ought to jiggle our national memory a little harder and try on a little reverent humility before we throw around pronouncements that the Virginia Tech shooting is the greatest massacre in American history.

What is it about us that we need a superlative to give anything innately horrific the time of day? The media response shows how so much of this is just more infotainment.

"Really? A massacre? Hmmm, but does it fit in a Top 5 category? No? Oh, not very original, is it then?"

Why Holy Thursday?

A good friend asked me Tues night how I would summarize to evangelical friends what the all fuss is about in Holy Thursday Mass, or the Celebration of the Institution of the Eucharist. It got me thinking.

What Holy Thursday does (and Good Friday & Easter Vigil do not) is draws us into those precious moments at the deathbed of a beloved spouse. It’s about remembering, not the death itself, but the dying. The Church, together with all the angels and saints of ages past, remembers that last night with her Spouse – the last meal, the foot-washing, the new commandment, the offering of His Body and Blood, the mounting anxiety of the disciples, the words of comfort spoken, the betrayal, the agony in the Garden, the arrest, the trial before the Sanhedrin, the deposition by Pilate and Herod, the torture, the mockery, the abandonment, the denials, the despair. It’s just not enough to read about it from a book, even if it’s the Bible; it’s not enough to just have a little service on Good Friday that summarily assumes what happened the night before. We have to relive that Thursday if we are to understand the Cross.

Christ is the dying spouse and the Church is the surviving spouse at his bedside. She knows he’s about to undergo excruciating pain and imminent death and they’re trying to make the most of those last few moments together, saying what needs to be said, the most important things. Yet the littlest things about that time together become eternally etched in her memory. Even in these moments, the surviving spouse is filled with mixed feelings – anger, fatigue, confusion, skepticism, hopelessness. And though she loves him, she still cheats on him in her despair. She knows she is with him, but not really, and it kills her.

Then the husband gives her a special token to always remember him by. Except this gift is a part of himself and in a mysterious way, it contains everything he stands for, everything about their unbreakable union, everything he is and has done, including his suffering and death. And she realizes afterwards that the whole dying experience and the Gift will save her life, which in turn really is HIS life living on in hers. Somehow, his suffering and death reconnects every loose thread in her life and gives it force and nerve. He not only lives on through the children she bore with him, but by the way she mothers them and the way the family remembers him and acts in his memory, he lives on forever.

The Institution of the Eucharist is all about that priceless gift of himself that the husband gives the wife in his last dying moments with her. It’s not just a material token of a past event, because his dying and his death live on forever.

And I think this is where many Evangelicals part ways – they tend to believe that the dying and death is the bad morbid part that the Resurrection sheds, whereas the Catholic & Orthodox insist that Christ’s death is His triumph, His glory, His crown, and not just a smaller crown next to the big kahuna Resurrection crown. The Cross is the one crown. The Resurrection is a proclamation and an extension of that triumph into eternity. It doesn’t undo, soften, or mitigate the Cross, but intensifies it.

Having no Holy Thursday is like telling the wife to just forget the painful past and move on. But to do that is to forget the Gift. And to forget the Gift is to forget Him.

Children: gift or duty?

The Ochlophobist demonstrates again what the Sarabite has described as an "Orthodox ethos within the Catholic Church," though Ochlo may want to dispute that. All his points on contraception are perfectly consistent with Catholic teachings, yet correct for some of its modern excesses, preoccupations, and inconsistencies. One inconsistency he implicitly highlights is Catholicism's near-exclusive reliance on ethics, rules, and magisterial authority to promote the culture of life.

In exhorting couples to have more children, even just one more than they "wanted" to have, we should not stress duty. Orthodox couples (married in the Orthodox Church) did not make a vow to submit to and die for the other, even if the Church exhorted them to do so. Orthodox couples are not under contract to do anything, including breed. We should call them to do so out of love, out of joy, out of hope. We should remind them of the goodness of oil, wheat, wine, wonder, prayer, and household tables in which they are surrounded by children. We should give them every reason to think of children as blessing and not curse.

Moderns know that contracts kill, even as they use and frequently love them. Moderns, for the most part, also generally intuit that the sophistic metaphysical gymnastics of "natural law" (especially in the sense in which it is used by modern "conservatives") can be contorted to condemn them for almost any sexual act. Certain of the manualists would have us cutting holes in sheets. Augustine proposed one sexual position if one had to have sex (more about that later). Good grief, the last thing a Christian couple needs in the bedroom is another ethic or trite metaphysical parsing of every act which a couple intends for love. No, pastorally we do not need couples to sign on another dotted line and accept the contract of proper Christian family planning. We need Orthodox couples to love, and to love more. This Ochlophobist would be happy with just one more, silly as that may seem.

Catholics love to say that children are unmerited gifts from God, not a right, not ultimately a burden or even a duty, as if we were talking about property rights and contractual obligations. But ontologically, children subsist as gifts, a category that even the secular law recognizes as far less bound by rigid rules. And yet we too often speak of the stricter, more authoritarian ethical teachings and pronouncements and focus on the penalties for violating the Church's pro-life message. This is indeed an inconsistency that the Orthodox ethos avoids. Where the Catholic ethos maintains that duty is a necessary part of a consistent ethic life, the Orthodox ethos insists that duty just scratches the surface. Both are right. The Protestant meanwhile denies the existence of any institutionally-related duties that infringe upon the individual's liberty to decide for him/herself.

The Church will not be marketed

Lion & Cathedral with another gem for all Catholic converts & enthusiasts, on the silly games we play with ourselves over choice of confession:

When Catholic evangelists try to convince people to like Catholicism, they convince them that it is something that exists to be liked. But whether people like doctrines and moral precepts and traditions is irrelevant. They are not marketing tools. They do not exist to be liked, at least not in the sense that something a man chooses for himself is liked. The Church exists to be loved in the way that a mother is loved, and nobody chooses his mother. The Church demands a loyalty that is as inseverable as the bond of maternity; a loyalty that is maintained even when it is unpleasant. The Catholic Church will not triumph by being marketed more effectively; this will not instill in people a conviction that they must honor her because of who she is, whether her qualities are to their liking or not.

Makes you wonder about the wisdom behind efforts like this:

Had someone called central casting in a Hollywood studio and asked for a Catholic look-alike of the magnetic Pentecostal preachers today marching across Latin America, they could not have done much better than Oscar Osorio.

Osorio, an articulate Honduran layman with a wife and four children, is a leader in the Catholic Charismatic movement in Central America. He’s also a star of Channel 48, the Catholic television network in Honduras, where his compelling Bible-based preaching opens each morning’s programming.