Coffee Bowl Browsing

That Icelandic volcano with the Klingon name is still spewing.  If this keeps me from going home in June, I will be most disappointed.

Why is it that Dems only seem to fret about anti-government rhetoric when one of their guys is in the White House?  We need to distinguish between "anti-gov't rhetoric" and "anti-administration" rhetoric.  I'm a big fan of republican (little "R") government.  Just not a big fan of the B.O. administration.

Changes in the tax law and B.O.'s budget proposals will reduce charitable giving.  This is planned.  If charitable organizations go bust, guess who gets to pick up the slack:  Big Government!

Report on the embarrassingly weak turn-out for the Tea Party Crashers.  Like most lefty astro-turfing it was all blow and no hard.  Also, the Partiers shunned the GOP Washington hierarchy, thus putting the lie to the MSM meme that the T.P. is all about Republican astro-turfing.

Hmmmmm. . .forget the Kindle and the iPad. . .what sort of handgun would be right for the discerning friar?

An interview with the woman who helped dioceses and religious orders hold their clergy accountable to the norms in sexual abuse case:  "Several men I know have “tested” the CDF (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) and found no tolerance for sexual abuse in the priesthood and no sympathy for the cleric who disagrees with programs of prayer and penance. Evidence of where Pope Benedict XVI stands can be found in the following examples:  here."

102 Things to Remember if you ever become an Evil Overlord.  My fav is #34:  "I will never turn into a snake.  It never helps."  Hey, that's just good practical advice for every day living.

Foreign Accent Syndrome. . .I wonder if there's a part of the brain you can whack that will  start  you speaking French?

According to complexity evolutionists, if you leave them alone for a billion years they will eventually grow into a real boy.

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Order your HancAquam post!

Here's your chance to order up a HancAquam post!

When  I started the blog five years ago, my only purpose was to post the texts of my homilies.  With the encouragement of my boss at U.D.'s campus ministry, Denise Phillips, I moved to podcasting.  My natural soap-boxing tendencies compelled me to comment (sometimes crankily) on all things liturgical, theological, and political.  Then, I started getting questions from readers about doctrine, history, pastoral problems.  Eventually, HancAquam turned into an all-purpose Catholic blog with a daily average of about 450 hits.

Since my public preaching has been reduced to a once a week thing with the promise of an un-preached Sunday homily in there somewhere, the original focus of HancAquam has shifted rather dramatically. 

I want this blog to be user-friendly.  As a Dominican preacher and teacher, I want readers to go away knowing more about their faith then when they arrived.  

So, if you could order up a HancAquam post. . .on most any subject. . .what would you order?  I can't promise to fulfill your order, but there's a good chance you'll get your wish!

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Christian, brilliant, and probably teaching near you

A list of the 20 Most Brilliant Christian Professors in the U.S. 

The subject of my thesis, the Rev'd. John Polkinghorne is listed, so is the legendary U.D. English professor, Dr. Louise Cowan.

Also, note the number of accomplished scientists on the list.

H/T:  Newadvent

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

And yet another reason for the U.S. to either ignore the U.N. entirely or withdraw:  proposal to institute "eco-thought crimes."

Sensible suggestions for dealing with Tea Party crashers.  The idea of crashing a Tea Party is to provoke Partiers into angry/violent reactions that get caught on video and provide "evidence" to the MSM that their stereotypes are true.  Since it is clear that crashers are not interested in reasoned political discourse, rhe absolute best way to deal with them is quick exposure and ridicule.

Another tactic that Partiers ought to adopt: proudly embrace the "Tea Bagger" slur as your own.  It worked for the gay rights movement.  Yes, I know what "tag bagging" is. . .but English is a nearly infinitely malleable language.  It will contain the multitudes.  (NB.  Ten brownie pts to anyone who can identify the allusion in the last sentence.)

I am quite proud of the fact that lawyers in my home state of Mississippi are attacking ObamaCare with a novel legal theory:  individual mandates violate privacy rights.

A reasonable clarification from the Vatican on Crdl. Bertone's controversial remarks.

Diogenes asks:  "Now, did you ever wonder why so many Irish bishops were forced to resign within weeks of the Irish report on sex abuse while no US prelate resigned after the release of the John Jay Report?"

Great Moments in Alternative American History:  the battle G. Washington never fought. 

This pic thawed my normally icy heart.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. . .

Beautiful butterfly sculptures made from beer cans.

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Truth spoken and done in the light

2nd Week of Easter (W): Reading

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

What does it mean to live under a spirit of salvation? First, let's think about what it means to live “under a spirit.” If we take “spirit” to mean something like “what animates one's mind and body,” or “the vital force of a person,” we understand spirit to be a neutral term, being neither negative nor positive. One's mind and body could be animated by a spirit bent on destruction. And a person's vital force could be sacrificial love. Some Christian communities use phrases like “a spirit of sickness,” “a spirit of rebellion,” “a spirit of mercy,” to describe basic personality traits in individuals, enduring dispositions that characterize a person and describes the condition of a soul. We might think too about how one's spirit constitutes a fundamental way of taking in the world, processing the information our senses gather up, and using all that data to make decisions, choose actions. Medieval physicians often used the theory of humors to classify types of diseases. Depending on the relative levels of the four humors in your body, you could be sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, or melancholic. This theory has the advantage of diagnosing the overall condition of the person by accounting for both the state of the body and the state of the soul. Though we no longer use the humors to diagnose disease, we still talk about someone's melancholic or sanguine spirit. Given all these different uses for the notion of the spirit, what does it mean the Christian soul to live “under a spirit of salvation”?

John teaches us that “. . .God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned. . .” Anyone who believes in His Son is given eternal life; they are saved from eternal perishing. But before those who have been saved from an everlasting death die their natural deaths they live on and do so under a spirit of salvation. If we are saved in Christ—who is the way, the truth, and the life—then we are participants in his truth, intimate players in the life of human salvation. Christ's truth is not a warm bath to lazily soak in, or a prize bed for us to linger in but an active, enlivening force, a vital spirit that animates us to not only speak the truth but to act truthfully as well. To speak and act out of the fullness of his truth that fills us to overflowing. If our truthful speech and acts are to be ministerial, a service to others, then they must be done in the light for all to see.

John writes, “. . .whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.” The apostles have been imprisoned by their religious enemies. The Lord sends an angel to free them. This same angel instructs them on how to use their newly gained freedom: “Go and take your place in the temple area, and tell the people everything about this life.” They do exactly that. For those who have been freed from the prison of sin, those who would walk the way of Christ's truth, their words and deeds must be spoken and done in the light so that a witness may be given. This not to be playacting or street theater but a genuine expression of a soul living under the spirit of salvation, the words and deeds of one who is infused to the bone with the truth of Christ's saving mercy. The spirit that animates you as a person, the vital force that drives you must be the spirit of Christ resurrected—a new life risen from death, freed from sin, given to you so that you can bring those enslaved by darkness to the light. 

Lest we bear false witness to those whom God loves and intends to save, we must be Christ's truth always and always in the light.

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Cardinal Bertone is Mistaken

The AP is reporting on controversial remarks made by the Holy Father's right hand man, Crdl Bertone in Chile:

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, made the comments [linking pedophilia to homosexuality] during a news conference Monday in Chile, where one of the church's highest-profile pedophile cases involves a priest having sex with young girls.

"Many psychologists and psychiatrists have demonstrated that there is no relation between celibacy and pedophilia. But many others have demonstrated, I have been told recently, that there is a relation between homosexuality and pedophilia. That is true," said Bertone. "That is the problem."

If the translation of Crdl Bertone's comments is correct, then I believe he is mistaken about there being a link between homosexuality and pedophilia. 

Some distinctions are necessary to make his mistake clear.  The very definition of the word "homosexual" is "one who is sexually attracted to one's own sex," perhaps even exclusively so attracted.  "Pedophilia" is a sexual attraction to children (pre-pubescents, non-adolescents) with no indicated preference for one sex over another.  Psychologists do not distinguish between "homosexual pedophiles" and "heterosexual pedophiles."  If any such term were to be used, it would be "bisexual pedophiles."

Pedophiles tend to be opportunistic, molesting when the chance to do so arises.  Generally, they also regard certain physical characteristics (hair and skin color, precociousness) as the most important in choosing their victims.  

The sexual attraction to adolescents is called ephebophilia.  In the U.S. clerical abuse cases, the overwhelming number of victims were adolescent males, mostly in the 15-17 year old range.   In classical Greece a sexual relationship between an adult male and an adolescent male was called pederasty and was accepted as a positive stage in the younger male's education as a citizen.  Once the boy became a man, the relationship stopped.  If it did not, the couple was often subject to public humiliation and risked being socially ostracized.  There was nothing more damning to a Greek man's virtue than to be though of as a woman.

It is clear from the evidence gathered by the John Jay Study on the Church's abuse scandals in the U.S. that there is a direct link to be drawn between sexually active homosexual priests and the sexual molestation of adolescent males.  This does not mean that all homosexual priests are molesters.  Nor does it mean that most homosexuals in the general population are molesters.  In fact, the overwhelming majority of molesters in the U.S. identify as heterosexual.

The media persists in calling clergy involved in the abuse of adolescents "pedophile priests" b/c they are loathe to draw attention to the politically incorrect fact that a vast majority of abusers were "ephebophile priests," thus avoiding an emphasis on the link between the sexual abuse cases and clerical homosexuality.  

By the same token, some in the Church have wrongly concluded that a homosexual inclination (exclusive of behavior) is a sufficient reason to exclude a man from seminary or religious formation.  This sort of exclusion fails to take into consideration that not all homosexual men experience their sexuality in exactly the same way.  The "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" approach to excluding same-sex attracted men from seminary is uncharitable and unjust.  By excluding homosexual men who are capable of living chastely in sexual continence, the Church is depriving herself of the service of potentially exemplary priests and encouraging those called to priesthood to begin their ministries under a shadow of deceit.  The emphasis in formation needs to be squarely and heavily placed on chaste, celibate continence, regardless of sexual orientation. 

It is entirely possible that Crdl Bertone is confused about the terminology he is using, or perhaps he is trying to point out that the current crisis is mostly about sexually active homosexual clergy.   Whatever he may have intended, it is wrong to suggest that there is a link between homosexuality and pedophilia.  They are two completely different burdens.

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Wow. . ."the public and obstinate betrayal of religious life"

Tom Peters, the American Papist, excerpts portions of a speech given by Archbishop Raymond Burke, the "Chief Justice" of the Church's Supreme Court.  The excerpted portions speak boldly to an old and on-going problem in the Church:

[...Our joy today is] overshadowed by the public and obstinate betrayal of religious life by certain religious. Who ever could have imagined that religious congregations of pontifical right, would openly organize to resist and attempt to frustrate an apostolic visitation, that is, a visit to their congregations carried out under the authority of the vicar of Christ on earth, to whom all religious are bound by the strongest bonds of loyalty and obedience?

Who could imagine that consecrated religious would openly, and in defiance of the bishops as successors of the apostles publicly endorse legislation containing provisions which violated the natural moral law in its most fundamental tenets – the safeguarding and promoting of innocence and defenseless life, and fail to safeguard the demands of the free exercise of conscience for health care workers?

We witness a growing tendency among certain consecrated religious to view themselves outside and above the body of Christ as a parallel institution looking in upon the Church with an autonomy which contradicts their very nature. We have certainly come a long way from the total loyalty to the Roman Pontiff which was at the heart of the foundation of the Society of Jesus and of every religious congregation. Religious life lived in the heart of the Church, and for that reason religious congregations are, by their very nature, bound in strictest loyalty to the Roman Pontiff. It is of course an absurdity of the most tragic kind to have consecrated religious knowingly and obstinately acting against the moral law.

The spiritual harm done to the individual religious who are disobedient and also the grave scandal caused to the faithful and people in general are of incalculable dimensions.

[Do not doubt the influence of consecrated persons] … Was not the Speaker of the House [Nancy Pelosi] glowing to report that so many religious sisters were in support of her proposed health care plan? Was not a religious sister [Sr. Carol Keehan, President of CHA] one of the recipients of a pen used by the President of the United States to sign the health care plan into law?

Now is the time for us all, and in particular for consecrated persons to stand up for the truth and to call upon our fellow Catholics in leadership to do the same or to cease identifying themselves as Catholics.

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Address change. . .

Since I will be visiting my family in Mississippi in about two months, I have changed the shipping address for my Amazon WISH LIST.

So, if you have been flinching at paying $13 for international shipping, now's the time to earn my gratitude and a place on my daily prayer list by sending me a book for the dissertation!

USED books are perfectly OK with me. 

I thank you.  My measly book budget thanks you.  And my provincial bursar thanks you.

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Without reservation we must proclaim the Risen Lord!

2nd Week of Easter (T): Readings

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

If there were ever a day in our lifetimes to believe the apostle's witness to the resurrection of the Lord, it is today. And not just today but tomorrow as well. And then again tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. If we failed to believe yesterday, or fail to believe even now, today is the day to set aside doubt and worry and choose to believe the ancient and living testimony of Christ's friends. The Lord is risen from the tomb! His grave is empty. Resurexit sicut dixit, Alleluia! This is the solemn witness of generations, of centuries of men and women who have lived their lives and died their deaths, walking the passionate path of Christ's Way. They followed him to Jerusalem and to the Cross. To Corinth, Thessalonia, Alexandria, Rome, and on to Lagos, Las Angeles, Tokoyo, Mumbai, Melbourne, and Moscow. And when and if the time comes, we will follow him out into the stars and plant the church on truly alien soil. Our solemn witness is a proclamation for all of creation to hear: the Lord is risen indeed! Therefore, we must speak of what we know so that all may come to believe.

Jesus himself confirms the necessity bearing witness when he answers Nicodemus, teaching him that all men must be born again in order to enter heaven. When Nicodemus expresses doubt about how such a rebirth is possible, Jesus answers, “. . .we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony.” We speak. We know. We testify. And yet our testimony is not believed. Jesus doesn't argue with Nicodemus, or perform a miracle, or offer a naturalistic explanation for what he knows to be true. Instead, he says, “No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. . .so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” How does anyone come to believe if there is no one to give witness? A word cannot be heard unless it is spoken. The Word made flesh and risen from the tomb must be spoken by those who believe, by those who know because they believe.

Among the first witnesses to the empty tomb were apostles, men and women who went out and gave their voices to the truth of Christ's resurrection. Luke tells us in his Acts of the Apostles that these faithful souls founded communities of believers who were of one heart and mind, holding everything in common, they claimed no possessions of their own. Bearing witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, God's grace flowed freely among them and they received His gifts with thanksgiving. From these small, local communities God's Word spread like a forest fire, burning away anguish, despair, and the futile longing for worldly prizes. Thousands were set free in the Spirit and then sent to free thousands more. They bore under the burden of witness, they spoke of what they knew so that all may come to believe. 

Thomas the Twin doubted and Christ showed him the truth. Nicodemus doubted and Christ taught him the truth. Today, perhaps more than any other day in our lifetimes, we too are confronted by doubters, sometimes hostile and violent doubters. Today, the integrity of the Church's witness is attacked from within and without, by doubters among us and doubters separated from us. To the degree that we have failed to bear faithful witness to the Risen Lord, their doubt is our burden to bear. For those who doubt despite our faithful witness, we can nothing better for them them than to remain steadfast in the preaching and teaching of the gospel the apostles have given us. If we remain one body with one heart and one mind, speaking the One Word of God, proclaiming without reservation or fear of rebuke, the integrity of our witness will be invincible. To do anything less is retreat and surrender.

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Yup, that's about right. . .

Michael Ramirez

Pulitzer Winner in Poerty

Not many HancAquam readers are into contemporary the way I am, but for those few out there, here's this year's winner and finalists for the Pulitzer Prize:

Winner: Versed, by Rae Armantrout (Wesleyan University Press), a book striking for its wit and linguistic inventiveness, offering poems that are often little thought-bombs detonating in the mind long after the first reading. 

Finalists: Tryst, by Angie Estes (Oberlin College Press), a collection of poems remarkable for its variety of subjects, array of genres and nimble use of language.

Inseminating the Elephant, by Lucia Perillo (Copper Canyon Press), a collection of poems, often laced with humor, that examine popular culture, the limits of the human body and the tragicomic aspects of everyday experience. 

I've not read any of these poets. . .been out of the poetry loop for too long. . .sigh.

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Scuba Becky update

Good News:  Scuba Becky is out of the hospital and already back at work.  She seems to think that the bank where she works will self-destruct if she's not there.

My thanks for all the prayers and kind comments/emails.  She's promised to stay out of the hospital for at least a year.

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Destroying the smoking gun case of abuse out of Oakland

John Norton of the OSV does an excellent job of summarizing, in plain English, all the errors of the alleged "smoking gun" case of sexual abuse in Oakland, CA.

This is the case where the headline blared something like "Pope delayed punishing priest child molester."

With journalists like the ones working for the NYT and CNN, we don't need the National Inquirer or Jerry Springer.

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Question for Geeks

A techy question for my Geek Readers:

Why is it that when I watch videos and enlarge them to full screen size, my mouse scrolling function is disabled? 

I have to empty the cache every time I finish a video in order to restore the scrolling function.

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No problem with the media when they do their job

Because there seems to be some doubt on this issue, let me say this as plainly and as clearly as I possibly can:

I have no problem whatsoever with the media reporting on the facts of the Church's sexual abuse scandal.  None.  Zero.  Zilch.  In fact, I credit the media with breaking the story and pushing the Church toward dealing with the problem. 

I have no problem with the media reporting on the Holy Father's involvement in the scandals if he was in fact involved.  None.  Zero.  Zilch.  Truth is truth and the truth sets us free.

What I object to is shoddy reporting based exclusively on material leaked to the media from the lawyers of alleged victims.  Any reporter worth her journalism degree should know that lawyers are advocates for a paying client.  There is only one side to any story when you're paid to tell your employer's side. 

What I object to is media habit of relying almost exclusively on Church dissidents, disgruntled former Catholics, and anti-Catholic "experts" to comment on the scandals.  Are Joan Chittister, Richard McBrien, and Thomas Reese the only Catholics in the media Rolodex?

What I object to is the media's obvious obsession with using the scandals to advocate for changes within the Church that cannot/will not happen.  Reporters report facts; they do not advocate for reforms that suit their political and ideological goals.

What I object to is the woeful ignorance of the media when it comes to the Church's history and her canonical processes and their apparent invincible unwillingness to learn.  What's so difficult about reporting that Crdl Ratzinger didn't take over the investigations of sexual abuse cases until 2001?  What's so difficult about reporting that canon law underwent a substantial reform in 1985?

So, let me say it again just in case: I have no problem whatsoever with the media reporting on the facts of the Church's sexual abuse scandal. None. Zero. Zilch. 

What I object to is the media spreading misinformation, distorting the facts, and outright lying. 

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Hitting the Holy Father where he is strongest

Let me draw your attention to an excellent article by Sandro Magister of Chiesa Espresso.

Magister outlines six charges that have been made against the Holy Father since he took the Chair of Peter five years ago.  Magister points out that all six charges leveled against BXVI have struck at areas where this pope has tried to bring Christian clarity and charity.

These are exactly the areas where one would expect the Devil to focus his attention in an effort to derail true progress.

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

More happy consequences from those who bring us gov't run health care. 

Hmmmmm:  "The eurozone area and wider European Union is now “on the brink” of disintegration unless Germany steps up and provides loans at below-market rates to Greece, George Soros, the hedge fund manager, has warned."  I have no love for the E.U. as a political entity, but the collapse of the euro would devastate the economies of the zone.  Another reason to scrap the whole bloated, over-priced edifice and allow nation states to be. . .ya know. . .sovereign.  Of course, Soros, a leftist billionaire, wants the collapse so he can make the case for the U.N. (or some other unelected body of elites) to grab control of the global economy.

The "Tea Parties Are Really Just Racist Confederates in Disguise" meme is gaining steam in the Old Media.  Only the woefully historically ignorant would buy such nonsense.

Completely flushing what little credibility he has left, whiny atheist biologist, Dick Dawkins, threatens to arrest the Pope when the Holy Father visits the U.K. in September.  Note to the Holy Father:  "Your Holiness, if you need a 300 lbs. Dominican to watch your back--one with years of experience dealing with the mentally unhinged--, I live fewer than two miles down the road from place.  Just let me know."

A run-down of the likely 2012 GOP presidential candidates.  Looks like a very fallow field.

Maureen Dowd, the NYT's resident self-loathing Catholic, sees the Taliban when she surveys her Church.  So, the obvious question is:  Maureen, why are you still a member of this horrible woman-hating institution? Diogenes has an intriguing proposal for Dowd. . .one I doubt very much that she will entertain.

The Anchoress spanks the "Women are Oppressed in the Catholic Church" meme and, in the process, exposes the self-loathing sexism of our Cultural Betters.  

Speaking of privileged feminists. . .one of my fav TV actors has died:  Dixie Carter.  When I was Big Liberal back in the 80's, her character on Designing Women, Julia Sugarbaker, was probably one of my top ten lefty heroes.

A new low in anti-average American politics:  an organized effort to crash Tea Party protests with racist signs.  Watch the MSM lap this up. 

Wow. . .and Catholics complain that our bishops can be wimpy when faced with difficult decisions.

Doing what the MSM can't be bothered to do:  Fr. Z. does a little fair and balanced reporting on clerical sexual abuse. . .among non-Catholic clergy.

John Allen throws a small cup of cold water on the smoldering hopes of those who see Archbishop Jose Gomez's appt. to replace Crdl. Mahony as a conservative revolution in the making. Generally speaking, BXVI is not appointing conservatives to the American episcopate.  Rather, he is appointing pastorally astute, sensibly orthodox men to serve the Church in the U.S. . .which is exactly what we need.

Of course men are happier than women.  Here are about 30 reasons why.  My fav: "Your underwear is only $8.95 for a three-pack."  Heck, if you shop at WalMart you can get a 10-pack for $9.00. 

Ooooooooooo. . .I need one of these to get around Rome's sidewalks when it rains!

Also, check out the updated WISH LIST.  A few new books added for the dissertation.  Grazie!

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"What can I do about the scandals?"

I've received many emails and comments asking for advice on how individual Catholics can deal with the current spate of media reports on the Holy Father's alleged involvement in obstructing investigations into clerical sexual abuse.

The requests for advice all more or less ask:  what are those of us in the pews supposed to do?

I suggest three things:

1).  Fast and pray

2).  Seek the truth and never fear it

3).  Live in hope

Fast and Pray

Fasting and praying in times of spiritual distress is the natural Catholic reaction.  We seek out the voice of God for comfort, guidance, and to accept His blessings to endure with strength.  Fasting with the intention to repair the damage done by clerical sexual abuse is not only worthy but necessary.  If there were ever a time for the laity to exercise their baptismal priesthood, it is now.  By offering the sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving, lay Catholics fulfill their priestly vows made at baptism and renew the spiritual heath of the whole Church.  So, pray for the victims and their families; the predators; the lawyers and therapists who aided in the cover ups; the bishops who failed to be teachers and pastors of the faith; the Holy Father, and for the Church as a whole.  I believe the intercession of the Blessed Mother is particularly called for in this current crisis.  Nothing works quite like prayers to focus the soul on what's essential to one's spiritual health.  When one part of the body is sick, the whole body is sick.  When one part of the body is healed, the overall health of the body improves. 

Seek the truth and never fear it

We know that the truth will set us free.  There is nothing for the Church to gain in hiding from the truth of these scandals.  Priests, bishops, religious sexually molested children and teens.  Some bishops and diocesan curial officials worked overtime to hide the abuse and spent millions from the collection plate to keep it all a secret.  The result?  An even bigger, deadlier scandal.  Whatever the motives for trying to hide the abuse, hiding these sins only made them more poisonous to the Body.  Like an infected wound on the body, the scandals must be thoroughly cleansed, competently medically treated, bandaged and left to heal.

If seeking the truth means exposing the scandals to the disinfectant of sunlight, then we  must look to the media for support.  However, the media have proven themselves again and again to be a voice for anti-Catholic bigotry in the cultural war against the gospel.  Because professional journalistic standards have given way to ideological advocacy and propagandizing, we are saddled with the difficult task of reading their reports with a healthy dose of suspicion.  No one denies the fact that children and teens have been abused by clergy.  No one denies that bishops have tried to hide this abuse.  In so far as the media have brought these terrible crimes to light, we should thank them.  We are not, however, obligated to thank them when they print and broadcast outright lies, distortions, or misleading omissions.  Nor are we to thank them for failing to take the time to learn something about the canonical procedures of the Church or her history.  Nor are we to thank them for using the scandals as an excuse to advocate for suicidal reforms to the Church's internal structure.  

The media's current campaign to fabricate a direct connection between the Holy Father and the abuse scandals is nothing more than a smear campaign designed to destroy his moral authority at a time when globalist secularism is fighting to move the Church out of the public square.  The ministerial hierarchy of the Church must be called to seek out the truth and proclaim it.  No matter how difficult, embarrassing, or expensive.  Likewise, the anti-Catholic media must be called upon to return to their professional journalist standards and restrict themselves to reporting verifiable facts.  The media's malpractice only serves to further erode what little trust they have with their readers and viewers.  At some point, we simply stop listening.

Live in hope

Even as the Church is pounded on all sides by those who would see us silenced, we must always keep in mind that our faith, our trust firmly rests in Christ Jesus.  No scandal--financial, sexual, political--can dislodge Christ as the head of his Body.  Our strength as the redeemed children of a loving God comes from an eternal source, the unshakable rock of ages.    Popes come and go from Rome.  Bishops rise and fall in a diocese.  Priests ebb and flow out of parishes everyday.  We lose buildings, vestments, books, vessels, ancient treasures nearly everyday.  None of these can be the source and summit of our faith.  Even the Church herself is an impermanent sacrament, a means of seeing, hearing, tasting God's boundless grace while continue our pilgrimage here on earth.  Given the hard realities of human sin, it is inevitable that filth will leak in and poison the body.  And it is just as inevitable that the body will heal and continue on.  Do we need to review the bloody persecutions of the first two centuries of Church history?  Or the Church's expulsion from France, England, China, Russia, Mexico, the Middle East?  The martyrs of Africa, Vietnam, Japan, even North America?  How about the near genocidal persecutions of Christians by Muslims in Nigeria and the Sudan?  The faithful have died, yes. . .but the faith never has and never will. 

As followers of Christ we are promised trials and persecutions.  Being a faithful Christian isn't for the easily spooked, or for the squeamish.  The core spiritual strength of Christ's faithful is the rock solid conviction that God has already won His battle against evil.  Our hope isn't a gamble against the odds of losing, but rather the assurance  of God's loving-care and that the final victory is ours.

Whatever you do don't allow those who are using these scandals as an excuse to leave the Church discourage you.  If the poor will be with us always, so will those who stand on the sidelines and whine about every inconvenience, every perceived slight, every imagined insult.  Pray for them as you would a faithful brother or sister, but pay no attention to their discouragement.  They are as free as any of us to choose hope over despair!

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Good Friday 2010 at the Vatican

Another video of the Good Friday Service at the Vatican.  You can see yours truly between 3:30-3:37.  The priests who will distribute communion are processing to the Blessed Sacrament Chapel.

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Questions the media wouldn't ask

Phil Lawyer of Catholiculture.org asks the questions the Pope-hating media couldn't be bothered to ask:

• Was Cardinal Ratzinger responding to the complaints of priestly pedophilia? No. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which the future Pontiff headed, did not have jurisdiction for pedophile priests until 2001. The cardinal was weighing a request for laicization of Kiesle.

• Had Oakland's Bishop John Cummins sought to laicize Kiesle as punishment for his misconduct? No. Kiesle himself asked to be released from the priesthood. The bishop supported the wayward priest's application.

• Was the request for laicization denied? No. Eventually, in 1987, the Vatican approved Kiesle's dismissal from the priesthood.

• Did Kiesle abuse children again before he was laicized? To the best of our knowledge, No. The next complaints against him arose in 2002: 15 years after he was dismissed from the priesthood.

• Did Cardinal Ratzinger's reluctance to make a quick decision mean that Kiesle remained in active ministry? No. Bishop Cummins had the authority to suspend the predator-priest, and in fact he had placed him on an extended leave of absence long before the application for laicization was entered.

• Would quicker laicization have protected children in California? No. Cardinal Ratzinger did not have the power to put Kiesle behind bars. If Kiesle had been defrocked in 1985 instead of 1987, he would have remained at large, thanks to a light sentence from the California courts. As things stood, he remained at large. He was not engaged in parish ministry and had no special access to children.

• Did the Vatican cover up evidence of Kiesle's predatory behavior? No. The civil courts of California destroyed that evidence after the priest completed a sentence of probation-- before the case ever reached Rome.

Read the whole article and lament the decline in professional journalistic standards.

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Apple Cider Vinegar cure-all?

Anyone out there ever tried drinking diluted Apple Cider Vinegar as a tonic?

I tried it years ago and was generally unimpressed by the results.  I recently ran across a "folk remedy" site that has a huge amount of material on ACV and its alleged benefits.  

Always willing to give most anything a go (legal and moral, of course!), I bought a bottle of organic, unfiltered, unpasteurized ACV.

I add about a tablespoon of ACV to my two liter water bottle and drink it all before lunch.  The results?  The most noticeable result for me has been a rather dramatic increase in energy.  I find myself chaffing at sitting inside to read. . .I'm going out of the priory most everyday. . .I'm actually sleeping through most of the night now.  ACV is also supposed to help with excessive sweating by correcting the magnesium imbalance that often causes this problem.  No results on this front just yet.

ACV is also touted as a natural way to prevent infections.  Since I rarely get sick, this benefit might not be all that apparent for me.  We'll see. . .

Anyone else ever tried this?

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Steven's resignation will move Kennedy in the Right direction

The Legal Fanboy in me couldn't resist posting this insightful analysis on the effect Justice Steven's resignation from the SCOTUS would have on future court-rulings.

The bottomline: it's pretty much good news for the Court's "conservatives."

from SCOTUSblog:

[. . .]

First, take the issue of Kennedy’s soon-to-emerge role as an “assigning” Justice. When the Court is divided on any case being decided on the merits, the senior Justice in the majority gets to select a colleague (or take on personally) the task of writing the opinion for the majority. Depending upon who gets the assignment, that can shape the actual outcome of the case, and also influence its breadth or narrowness. Also, a colleague whose support may be somewhat shaky can be handed an assignment in order to nail down that colleague’s vote and preserve a narrow majority.

If the Chief Justice is in the majority when the Court divides, the Chief always has the assigning function, because, however long in the job of Chief Justice, that member of the Court always has top seniority. Only if the Chief Justice is not in the majority does the assigning task then fall to the Justice next highest in seniority. That has been Justice Stevens, for 16 years of his 34 years on the Court.

But Kennedy is moving up only a single notch in seniority. He is still outranked in seniority by Justice Antonin Scalia. So, if the Court’s eight other Justices were to split along conservative and liberal lines, and the four most likely conservative Justices attracted Kennedy’s vote, the assigning task would fall to the Chief Justice. In any divided Court with Kennedy and Scalia on the same side, Scalia would always be the assigning Justice should the Chief Justice not be on that side.

But, if Kennedy were to line up, in a divided case, with the Court’s four moderate-to-liberal Justices (assuming Stevens’ replacement sides with that bloc), Kennedy would always have the assigning task, inheriting it from Stevens. He would outrank, in seniority, all of the Justices in that bloc. He thus will be able to shape even the Court’s more liberally inclined outcomes, by the way he chooses the opinion authors. And, if he thought any of the other four might use an assignment to write an opinion more sweeping than he would want, he could assign the task to himself, and keep it within whatever bounds he chose so long as it did not drive off one of the four other votes he would need to keep a majority.

[. . .]

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Too much? Maybe. . .

I'm no fan of B.O., but I think DRUDGE may be piling it on a little thick, don't you?

GINGRICH: Obama 'most radical president ever'...

LIMBAUGH: Obama 'inflicting untold damage on this great country'...

MARK LEVIN: Obama 'Closest Thing to Dictator We've Ever Had'...

PALIN: Obama's 'vast nuclear experience he acquired 'community organizer'...

LIZ CHENEY: Obama Putting America on 'Path to Decline'...

HANNITY: Obama 'Is a Socialist'...

SAVAGE: 'Obama The Destroyer'...

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Advances in anti-Zombie weaponry

The Coming Zombie Apocalypse fix for the day:

Yeah, OK. . .but does it have a flamethrower?

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

Justice Stevens will leave the Supreme Court at the end of this term.  What does this mean?  Another summer of listening to Senate confirmation hearings on NPR while commuting to Irving.  Why they bother holding these hearings is beyond me.  Nominees never say anything of substance.  Every word is carefully crafted to make the nominee as inoffensive as possible.  It's a choreographed dance.

Oh, if only women and married men could be swim coaches, this sort of thing would've never have happened!

Jonah Goldberg:  "We can’t become Europe unless someone else is willing to become America. . .Europe is a free-rider. It can only afford to be Europe because we can afford to be America."  Ouch.

A preview of the chaos that ObamaCare will cause. 

Richard Bastien asks the pertinent question:  "Why the near hysteria regarding sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, most of which occurred decades ago, from a society that celebrates the lack of constraints against almost every form of sexual activity, no matter how degraded?"

75 Books Every Man Should Read. . .and it would't hurt women to read them either.

Need help separating fact from urban legend?  Go to Snopes. I recently rec'd this one at my email account:  Giants Found! 

Fascinating solutions to everyday problems. . .


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Call it anything but sin

Bishop James Conley sticks up for the Holy Father.  Here are three excerpts that deserve special attention:

[. . .]

Sexual abuse of children cries to heaven for justice. It violates everything that is good and holy. It mocks everything Christ said in the gospels. Jesus compared the Kingdom of Heaven to the innocence of a little child. And for a Catholic priest to commit a crime and a sin like this is profoundly evil [Except for murder, I would say that there is no more evil act a priest could commit.  The damage done to children who have been sexually violated is enduring and often leads them into becoming predators themselves.]

[. . .]

And no person has done more to rid the Church of the evil of sexual abuse than the current successor of St. Peter, Benedict XVI. As archbishop of Munich thirty years ago, then as the Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and now as the Vicar of Christ, Pope Benedict has always been dedicated to his responsibilities of purifying the Church in this area [and this is likely why he is currently the focus of these vicious media attacks:  does anyone think that a permissive, doctrinally lazy pope would be attacked like this?].

[. . .]

No other world religious leader, Jewish, Muslim or other, would be treated in this way. Contempt for the Catholic Church—and don't be fooled; the contempt is directed not just at Church leaders, but at ordinary believers as well—no matter how vulgar or bitter, is the last acceptable prejudice. Why? Because the Catholic Church is one of the few remaining voices that speaks effectively against the moral confusion of our day. The Catholic faith does not and will not bless the damaging moral path some people now seem to prefer [Amen.  The general line of attack here is fairly obvious:  if you can't beat the message, beat the messenger and hope that the message is discredited in the process.  The duplicity here is exposed when media talking-heads and church dissents immediately start touting their reform agenda as the only possible answer to the crisis.  What do they fear?  That the Holy Father's sincere efforts to return the Church to the principal task of preaching and teaching the gospel will succeed in unraveling the unmitigated disasters of the Spirit of Vatican Two revolutionaries.] 

 

I wonder when some prominent member of the Spirit of Vatican Two cadre will man-up and accept partial responsibility for this mess.  As I have already noted many times, the root cause of the scandal is sin.  Not ecclesial structures.  Not processes, procedures, or policies.  So, the question is:  what has happened in the Church in the last forty years to turn sin into any and everything but sin?  We talk endlessly about psychological disorders, legal responsibilities, criminal negligence, financial culpability, and the failure to self-actualize.  Why have we been so reluctant to call this outrageous behavior what it is:  sin?

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Kindle 2 vs. iPad. . .what's it gonna be?

In a recent post I asked for advice/reviews of Amazon's Kindle 2.  Most of the responses were positive.  Some readers suggested I look at Apple's iPad. 

So, I did.  

My conclusion:  very nifty machine. . .but WAY more machine than I need.  I just want a easy-to-use, inexpensive way to read my books while traveling during the summer.  Since I have a laptop for web browsing, the iPad's internet capabilities would go unused most of the time.  I don't collect pictures or videos nor would I use the thing to store financial/personal info.  My sense of the iPad is that for me buying one would be comparable to a little old lady buying a Porsche to make her weekly trip to Bingo at St. Bubba's.

So, what's the decision on the Kindle 2?  Probably gonna pass.  First, on the advice of my sagacious readers, I looked at the WISH LIST and discovered that none of the books I should be reading during the summer have been Kindled (is that a new verb?!).  Second, my Fun Books (sci-fi, fantasy, mysteries) end up in the common reading room of the priory.  I couldn't share them if they were on a Kindle.  Third, I could buy a lot of philosophy books for $260. 

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Abuse scandals = crisis in fidelity

George Weigel, always an excellent read, points out what is obvious to any clear-thinking Catholic:  the abuse scandal is the result of clerics defying Church teaching and not the result of structural problems.  Ergo, all the fav "solutions" of ecclesial revolutionaries are just opportunistic whining about reform for reform's sake:

". . .what ought to be obvious about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is that these grave sins and crimes were acts of infidelity, denials of the truths the church teaches. A priest who takes seriously the vows of his ordination is not a sexual abuser or predator. And if a bishop takes seriously his ordination oath to shepherd the Lord's flock, he will always put the safety of the Master's little ones ahead of concerns about public scandal. Catholic Lite is not the answer to what has essentially been a crisis of fidelity."

Exactly.

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AP once again lying about the Holy Father. . .

"New" revelations of the future Pope Benedict XVI covering up for a clerical child molester?

Or, just another case of a lazy, Catholic-hating reporter publishing court documents leaked to her by plaintiff's lawyers?  (You know, like that NYT hit piece over Holy Week. . .)?

Here's the "reporting". . .

And here's Fr. Z.'s evisceration of the story.  . .line by line, "fact" by "fact."  The gist of Fr. Z.'s take-down is this:  the AP story ignores the time-line of Ratzinger's appt to the CDF; conflates the canonical duties of various curial offices in dealing with priests accused of molestation; completely confuses the various sorts of canonical remedies for molesters (defrocking, dispensation, etc.); and completely punts on the historical fact that Crdl. Ratzinger insisted on taking personal charge of all abuse cases sometime in 2001. 

Makes you wonder if AP reporters have access to Google or, you know, telephones. . .anything that would help them actually look stuff up, or you know, call someone to check their facts.  

Also, I have to believe that if these charges were being made against a prominent Muslim cleric or leading Rabbi, the reporter would go out of her way to learn something, anything about the internal workings of these faiths in order to better report the facts.  Cultural diversity, difference, and all that being the pinnacle of lefty ideology.  But since she's dealing with the Evil Roman Pontiff, who opposes all thing holy and good to the Left, plain ole willful ignorance serves the narrative just fine. . .so, why bother?

UPDATE:  Damien Thompson points out a few factual errors in the AP report.

UPDATE 2:  Fr. Fessio has an interesting take on why the process for granting priestly dispensations took so long after 1980.

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Catholic Priest = Child Molester?

from the otherwise reprehensible Newsweek:

+

The Catholic sex-abuse stories emerging every day suggest that Catholics have a much bigger problem with child molestation than other denominations and the general population. Many point to peculiarities of the Catholic Church (its celibacy rules for priests, its insular hierarchy, its exclusion of women) to infer that there's something particularly pernicious about Catholic clerics that predisposes them to these horrific acts. It's no wonder that, back in 2002—when the last Catholic sex-abuse scandal was making headlines—a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll found that 64 percent of those queried thought Catholic priests "frequently'' abused children.

 

Yet experts say there's simply no data to support the claim at all. No formal comparative study has ever broken down child sexual abuse by denomination, and only the Catholic Church has released detailed data about its own. But based on the surveys and studies conducted by different denominations over the past 30 years, experts who study child abuse say they see little reason to conclude that sexual abuse is mostly a Catholic issue. "We don't see the Catholic Church as a hotbed of this or a place that has a bigger problem than anyone else," said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "I can tell you without hesitation that we have seen cases in many religious settings, from traveling evangelists to mainstream ministers to rabbis and others."

+

The good news:  Catholic priests do not molest children at rates higher than other ministers.

The bad news:  Catholic priests molest children at rates comparable to other ministers.

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Banning the burkha?

Q:  What do you think about these countries like France that are trying to ban Muslim women from wearing  burkha's?

A:  Only liberal fascists are stupid enough to believe that something as useless as banning religious garb will guard their precious secularist dogmas.  If they ban burkha's, why not clerical garb or religious habits?  You might say that they wouldn't ban Christian religious garb b/c Christianity is foundational to western European culture.  According to the E.U. Constitution, Christianity had absolutely nothing to do with the foundation and development of European culture.  They've already tried to ban crucifixes in Italian classrooms, and the leftists in the U.K. are trying to force Catholic schools to teach that abortion is a morally acceptable choice. 

By banning the burkha, the Nanny Statists are turning this traditional form of dress into a symbol of religious resistance to an over-weening political ideology.  I say, "Wear Two Burkha's!"

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Coffee Bowl Browsing (in breve)

The ever-vigilant Tom K. of Disputations provides irrefutable scriptural proof that Jesus was a Dominican:  Luke 24.41.  Now, this proof fails to demonstrate that Jesus was a plump, trustworthy Dominican.  Had Jesus wanted to prove that he was such a Dominican, he would have asked, "Have you any creme-filled Krispy Kremes."  Why KK's?  Because Jesus was also a southerner. 

More anti-Catholic bigotry from Newsweek:  a report on priests raping religious sisters in Africa is titled, "The Trouble With Celibacy."   Are we to conclude from this that celibacy causes rape?  

I've often preached against "bumper sticker spirituality". . .now there's a book out explaining the philosophy of bumper stickers.  If you read, send me a review. 

Kathryn Lopez of National Review Online takes Maureen "CINO" Dowd to the woodshed.  Lopez notes that in a recent column Dowd whines out this ridiculous question:  “How can we maintain that faith when our leaders are unworthy of it?”  Surely this question tells us all we know about the depth, breadth, and sincerity of Dowd's faith.

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Rel & Sci seminar: required texts

Below I've posted a very rough syllabus for the Religion & Science seminar I am offering this summer at the University of Dallas.

Here's an updated list of required texts:

Polkinghorne, J.  One World: the interaction of science and theology (2007)

Ferngren, G.  Science and Religion: a historical introduction (2002)

Godfrey-Smith, P.  Theory and Reality: an introduction to the philosophy of science (2003)

A good portion of the reading for this seminar will be articles, chapters, etc. from my collection of anthologies.  

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Calling terrorists by a different name doesn't make them disappear

B.O.'s brilliant plan to re-name radical Islamic terrorism out of existence is working great.  

This just in:  an elderly Methodist woman is caught trying to blow up an American passenger jet while screaming something about a conspiracy against Jeopardy and her SSI benefits. 

Not.

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Lower the drinking age. . .

I was all of 20 years old when the federal gov't raised the minimum legal age for alcohol consumption to 21.  All of us 18-20 year olds were "grandfathered" into the new limit; that is, if we were drinking legally when the law was changed, we were still legal. . .even if not yet 21.

Study after study, report after report has concluded that the 21 year old drinking age is not doing the job it was designed to do:  prevent irresponsible drinking by young adults.  In fact, there's a good case to be made that the 21 age limit is actually helping to increase binge drinking, drunk driving, etc.  

Yup, time to rethink the 21 year old age limit. . .

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Rel & Sci syllabus

THE-6377: Religion & Science
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP, PhD
University of Dallas
Second Summer Term 2010

Description: this course will examine the often-times tumultuous relationship between religious believers in the West and advocates of the empirical scientific method. We will focus particularly on the various philosophical/rhetorical strategies that have been used to help believers and scientists cooperate in the common pursuit of verisimilitudinous truth. Fundamental to our discussion is the ancient notion that faith and reason are not only not incompatible but perfectly suited, in virtue of their common origin, to serve as complementary workers in the task of investigating, describing, and explaining the “One World” of creation.

Week One: What is religion? What is science?

Religion: revealed relationship with divinity (theological)
Science: discovery and explanation of materiality (scientific)
Limits of revelation and reason

Week Two: Conflict, cooperation, or mutual ignorance?

History of the relationship between religion and science
Models of interaction: worlds apart?
Alethic hubris and complementarity in the search for truth

Week Three: Religious and Scientific Realism

Aquinas: adequatio as epistemology
Religious and scientific anti-realism
Critical religious and scientific realism

Week Four: Going too far

Intelligent Design as pseudo-science
The New Atheism as a fundamentalist religion 

Week Five: “One World” case studies

Macro: Cosmology/creation
Micro: Galileo and the Church
Other possibilities: divine interaction (i.e., miracles), revelation, religious experience

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Mom back in the hospital

Just got off the phone with my dad. . .Scuba Becky is back in the hospital! 

Looks like she has pneumonia again. 

Prayers, please. . .

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Vatican Good Friday Services

Finally, I found an on-line video of the Vatican's Good Friday Service. . .well, the vid covers most of the service anyway:

Veneration of the Holy Cross  (for some reason the embed option is not working)

If you want to see how close I got to the Holy Father, fast-forward to 27:50.  I'm Father "Twice As Wide" Powell right in the middle of the screen at the beginning of the Pater Noster.
 
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The B.O. Answer to the iPad

Can't afford an iPad?  No worries.  Congress just rammed through a $17.89 bazillion project to provide all Americans--including the dead, illegal aliens, and those guilty of felonies--with the oBamaPad:

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Summer Classes at U.D. update

Also, update on my 2010 summer teaching schedule at the University of Dallas:

The English dept. has asked me to teach a senior seminar on American literature. . .this is the course I normally teach for them.  

With the kind permission of the theology dept., we're dropping Understanding the Bible from the summer term schedule and adding American Lit.  

American Lit, Mon-Thurs 4-6pm (senior seminar covering major writers from N. Hawthorne to C. McCarthy)

Religion and Science, Mon-Thurs 6-8pm (senior seminar/grad covering the historical and philosophical relationship between western Christianity and western science)

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Scuba Becky update

Talked to Scuba Becky (a.k.a. my mother) yesterday.  She has rec'd no official word on her biopsy results; however, a nurse in her doctor's office told her that if anything had been found, the doc would have called immediately.

So, looks like the biopsy was negative. 

Funny aside:  while talking to mom on the phone, I could hear the O2 tank making this wheezy, popping sound.  I started snickering, thinking of my new nickname for mom.  Shhhh...don't tell her.

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Gomez to L.A.!

This is H.U.G.E.!!!

Rocco of Whispers in the Loggia is reporting that Archbishop Jose Gomez of San Antonio is going to be appt'ed coadjutor-archbishop of Los Angeles!

This means that when Cardinal Mahony begins his much-deserved retirement in less than a year, Archbishop Gomez will take up the reins of a archdiocese in desperate need of reform, starting with the Religious Education Conference/Circus and moving right on to the dismal condition of seminary education/formation.

Archbishop Gomez is an Opus Dei numerary.  And I imagine that the idea that BXVI is going to give one of the Church's largest, wealthiest, and most influential liberal archdioceses to an Opus Dei bishop is going to send the NCR/America/Commonweal/LCWR-types into fits.  

Gomez is only 58, so he will have a long, long, long tenure in L.A. 

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Choosy Medieval Philosopher-theologians choose Kindle

A HancAquam reader sent this to me:

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

Someone get his teleprompter back:  B.O. rambles for 17 minutes trying. . .futilely. . .to answer some poor woman's question about how his health care boondoggle is going to raise taxes.  Here's a surprise. . .I'd ramble on in my homilies if I didn't use a text.

The very definition of cheekiness:  Archbishop Rowan Williams accusing someone else (anyone else!) of having a credibility problem as a Christian leader.  Update:  His Gracious Fuzziness has since apologized for the remark. 

Spoiling the "Tea Partiers are a bunch of GOP racist" soup:  one of the recently arrested militiamen is a registered Democrat.  Also, 40% of the Tea Partiers are Dems/Independents.  Now that's really gonna mess with the narrative!

I'm a terrible speller.  Grammar is not really my thing.  And I frequently mispronounce words.  But punctuation is most definitely my forte (pronounced exactly like "fort," btw not "for-tay.")* Check out some of the up and coming punctuation marks--the irony mark and the interrobang.  An argument can be made that the internet/cell texting have made emoticons more useful than traditional punctuation marks. 

I want a hand-held version of this baby!  Would be most useful in walking around Rome. . .Italians have this thing about parking themselves in the middle of the sidewalk and chatting as if no one else were around. 

A decision tree that helps you answer the question:  it's touched the floor, do I eat it anyway?

A series of motivational posters.  My fav:  "Teamwork:  with a fat friend there are no see-saws, only catapults." 

I'm ashamed to admit it. . .I laughed at this.  It's both funny and vaguely sacrilegious.

Perfect Man & Perfect Woman pick up Santa Claus on the side of the road.  They get into an accident.  Who survives?

A slightly different take on the origin and use of the Easter Island monuments.

* "Forte" is French in origin but pronounced "for-tay" in Italian if you mean to describe musical emphasis, i.e., "strong," or "forceful." 

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Dark clouds and the rise of our only hope

Standing through the cloister window that looks south out over the Coliseum this morning, I watch a long line of dark clouds move over the city.   The most prominent angels of the Angelicum--the squawky sea-gulls--squabble over nesting rights and a few church bells ring out to wake those still asleep.

Clouds over Rome on the Resurrection of the Lord.  How fitting.  Bickering birds instead of angel's choirs.  Perfect.  For a few, quick moments I felt a cold, weighty melancholy squeeze my Easter joy. Would today be a day to get through, a day to merely endure with fingers crossed?  

The WeatherBug reports that it will rain.  Great.

At Mass this morning, I sit in my accustomed place.  Near the altar and across from a huge Renaissance-style fresco of Christ leaving the tomb.  During moments of silence, I look up at the triumphant Lord and back down at his emptied grave.  Some of the people in the fresco--the Mary's, soldiers, servants, angels--watch him rise.  Some with joy.  Some with knowing contemplation.  Some with fear and hatred.

These figures, I decide, represent quite nicely the diversity of contemporary reactions to the Resurrection.  Some greet Easter with joy; some with expectant silence; others with fear and loathing.  For repentant sinners, the Resurrection means life everlasting.  Joy comes naturally.  For those who see the Gospel as an unwelcomed restraint on their passions, their choices, the Resurrection is a unmitigated disaster.  Now, because Christ is risen, their choices have consequences beyond this impermanent world.  That they fear this revelation is their own choice.

I hear bells ringing all over the city.  The rain keeps the bickering birds under cover.  In churches here in Rome and the world over, faithful Christians are gathering despite the fear the world hopes to spark in their hearts.  Fear is easy.  Hope is hard.

Christ is risen.  The only hope for creation is risen.  He is risen indeed!

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Strife, deceit, and malice: media motivations & the Church

(NB.  Welcome Commonweal Blog readers!  And my thanks to Fr. Joe "Spirit of Vatican Two" O'Leary for all the extra traffic.  Joe's intolerance of any opinion that contradicts his personal magisterium is legendary in the blogosphere. . .as predictable as sunrise!)

I had a longish post dissecting the secular media's treatment of the Holy Father and the abuse scandals.

Then I remembered Romans 1:28-30 and decided that Paul describes it best:

"They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil."

Faithful Catholics, remember and never forget:  the war against the Devil is won.  Always has been.  Our victory over evil is not a future event, something yet to come.  The war is won.   This doesn't mean that there aren't battles to fight now and to come.  It means that we fight best when we fight knowing that victory is ours already.

Media attacks on the Holy Father are designed to do one thing and one thing only:  demoralize the faithful into surrendering hope, thus giving less faithful Catholics the excuse they want to abandon the Church's unwavering teaching on difficult moral issues.  Don't believe for one second that this latest onslaught of hyperventilating media self-righteousness* is anything but an attempt to throw mud on the Holy Father during Holy Week and Easter.  Just when the Pope is most visible to the world as preacher and teacher of the Gospel, suddenly--SUDDENLY!--the media discover documents long in the public domain and use them to score ideological points.  As SNL's Church Lady used to says, "How convenient. . ."

Now, to be absolutely clear:  the media's nefarious motivations do not excuse the Church and her leaders from the guilt of sexual abuse and cover-up. Nothing excuses the sexual abuse of a minor.  Nothing excuses covering these abuses up.  Calling the media to journalistic responsibility in the reporting of facts is not an ecclesial strategy for dodging blame or distracting attention.  No one in the Vatican or the Church at large is denying that minors were abused by clergy and that bishops sometimes worked overtime to hush these abuses up.  The only thing the Church is asking of the press is for them to do their jobs and report the facts.  Not speculation.  Not sensationalistic gossip or one-sided accusations from victims' lawyers.

That's not too much to ask.

*Why describe the media as self-righteousness?  The same media outlets that wail and claw at their faces, mourning the evils of sexual abuse are the same outlets that regularly tell us that there is nothing morally wrong with poisoning children in the womb and scraping their scalded bodies out with forceps.  It's hard to take their lamentations about sexual abuse seriously when they turn a deaf ear to children who are killed by their mothers and doctors.

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The Kindle: to buy, or not to buy?

Thoughts on the Kindle. . .???

Anyone out there use a Kindle for reading texts in electronic form?

I've been thinking of asking for one for my birthday.  I travel a lot in the summers and carrying around boxes of books for research/fun is just not possible.  Kindle-style texts are cheaper than books, so there's money to be saved over the long run.

Since I'm not a Gadget Guy, my concerns about the Kindle are mostly about how easy it is to use.  My poetically structured brain has zero interest in the intricacies of how the thing works or how its tech-wizardry can be improved by endless tweaking.

Does it work?  Is it easy to use?  Is it more convenient than a paper book?  Does it save money?

Thoughts. . .suggestions for alternatives. . .arguments for/against?

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