On Pope Francis I

Been so busy, haven't really had much time to post my thoughts on our new Pope.  We started our journey into the Church back in the waning days of Pope John Paul II's time.  In fact, the week I scheduled a luncheon meeting with a priest I knew in our ecumenical ministry association to talk about becoming Catholic was the very week that PJPII passed away.  Pope Benedict XVI was already settled in when we officially were brought into the Church on Easter, 2006.

So as a Catholic, Pope Benedict is the only Pope I've known.  I have my opinions about him.  Not harsh ones.  I think he was a decent enough fellow who tried his best.  MHO was that he was a book guy, an academic, a fellow better suited to sitting in a small room with a window and a stack of books, making sure things were in order from behind the scenes.

True, he suffered from the Earle Bruce syndrome   Earle Bruce?  He was the football coach who replaced Woody Hayes at Ohio State back in the late 70s.  Hayes was one of the iconic figures in the history of college sports.  Charismatic, a violent temper, over the top theatrics, a keen mind and passion for the academic well-being of his students at a time when that wasn't necessarily vogue, and a flare for the controversial  made him much loved and much hated, but well known.  He also won games.

When he was fired for punching a player, Earle Bruce took over.  Bruce was not Hayes.  Quieter, a bit stocky in appearance, he replaced Haye's trademark OSU baseball cap and short sleeves with a fedora and suit.  He was a good coach.  In fact, he could have been great.  And  yet, he wasn't Hayes.  He just wasn't Hayes.  And that did him in.  By 1987, he was gone. Just like George HW Bush wasn't Reagan.  Benedict just wasn't John Paul II.

He seemed, at times, again IMHO, to be in over his head.  He really wanted to convey beautiful truths, but seemed unable to do so without something going haywire.  Scandals began to emerge, and the world became increasingly impatient with the apparent lack of decisive steps to remedy the years of abuse and scandal that have defined the modern Church.  Internally there appeared to be issues.  And in the end, well, he just wasn't John Paul II, Superstar.

When he made the historical decision to resign his post, to be honest, I wasn't that surprised.  Things were not getting any better, that's for sure.  If there were signs of hope in some cases, in others there were clearly indicators that the wheels needed some grease.

And so now we have Francis I.  The reason I spent most of this post about Francis I talking instead about Benedict XVI, or John Paul II, or Woody Hayes and Earle Bruce, is because I don't know that much about our new Pope.  Heck, I don't know anything at all.  I think - think mind you - that I've heard some stories that referenced him in recent years.  It seems to ring a bell that he stood against the push for gay marriage in Argentina.  But that's about it.

So I don't really have that much to say.  I'm not going to damn or defend the man.  I'm not going to stake my ground now, and then spend the next however many years doing back flips and gymnastics to make sure that no matter what he does or says, and no matter what I've praised or defended, it all must line up.  I'm not going scream that he's either a pock mark on the Church or the most super-de-duper Pope we've ever had.  I'm going to wait.

Since he comes from a place not in the comfortable West, not in a culture where ethical debates are often as academic as they are urgent, I'm betting there will be some different spins on some old assumptions.  Since he's from a real 'gun-in-the-face' background, I'm wagering that some Catholics may be hard put to keep where they've been and where we'll go.  But I could be wrong. We'll just have to see.  I will give him kudos for picking St. Francis, my own patron saint who was instrumental for my own Catholic conversion.  Again, I'm not about to say 'I know nothing of this new Pope, but anyone who says thus or this is stupid or evil or doesn't know about Jesus.'  For now, I'm content with sitting back and letting things unfold.

Hating on America in the Catholic Blogosphere

Mark Shea posts on the recent reaction of the Cuomo's to Pope Francis I.   The basic take is that this is typical NE liberal elitism.  Read the article and conclude for yourself.  But what I found fascinating is some of the comments on Mark's page.  This:

I see the Cuomo reaction as another indication of the tendency to see the US as having the right to police the world, as well as eliminating the leaders of countries when they disapprove of the choice (remember Allende and Pinochet?) . Now they decide that the Catholic church is fair game too – when are they going to organize a military coup in order to get a Pope to their liking? (emphasis mine)

And this:

It is sad that so many are simply ignorant of U.S. foreign policy and its effects in so many places throughout the world, especially Latin America. But hey, why inform yourself when your living off the benefits of Empire? So the ignorance and the exaltation of the U.S. centric view continues.

Jumped out at me.  Mark's site has become one of the rallying points for Catholics Who Hate America.  Really.  There is an entire swath of the Catholic internet that hates, and I mean hates, the United States.  Whether it's Catholics here or Catholics abroad, hating on the US is almost a sacramental badge of honor.

None of this is to say the US isn't above reproach.  And goodness knows, it's not as if we're heading in the right direction.  But let's be honest.  There's a difference between someone who criticizes something because they care, and someone who criticizes to buttress contempt and hatred.  

These are not folks saying that this or that US policy is bad, or even that the US is heading in the wrong direction.  These are people who speak of the US the way the US used to speak about the USSR, or in the war years, Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan.  The US, in no particular case, is simply the blame.  The cause.  The problem.  There's an assumption that the US just is - evil, rotten, the reason for problems, inferior.  Read those quotes again.  These aren't thoughtful statements that say 'in this case, America has certainly been wrong.'  These are statements that basically say evil is in the nature of America, and the world's sufferings are the direct result.

Why did they attack us on 9/11?  America made them hate us.  Why does Latin America struggle?  Because of US policies.  Why are there tensions in Asia?  The US, that's why.  And on and on.  The Catholics who see things this way appear to come from different molds.  Though this is the hallmark of America and European liberalism (you don't get change until you convince people that things are completely horrible - just ask our Founding Fathers), it's not confined to only the progressive wing of American Catholicism. Some are traditionalists, others not.  Some are American (a major problem, more on that in a minute), others are not.  But it is a unifying attitude for many across the Catholic blogosphere that the US is really a pretty rotten place, and always has been.

Now for those in other countries, what can we say?  Other countries have disliked the US for ages.  The Iraq war didn't make countries hate us, it simply gave people who hated us a valid excuse to finally express it.  But those in America?  Especially Christians, especially Catholics? I once had a professor who spoke to the issue of properly and improperly criticizing our nation.  To nothing would be wrong.  To not point out our country's failings is to deny reality.  America has done horrible things, allowed horrible things, partaken in horrible things.  Just like any nation, kingdom, empire, or civilization. 

But there's a limit.  Like anything, it should be criticism to construct, to build up, to improve.  To help right wrongs and turn the people back to the face of God.  To beat up on the US just to beat up the US, to act as if the eighth sacrament of the Holy Church, is to declare your eternal disgust with an entire nation of people, a nation with blessings and benefits you're more than prepared to enjoy.  To be stupid and blind enough to lump the US into the same mold as a Nazi Germany or USSR, is beyond the pale.  If you think it's that bad - leave.  

Unlike Nazi Germany or the USSR, you lose nothing by trashing the country.  Despite rumors to the contrary, there are no secret death camps in the Nevada deserts to which you will be whisked away by men in sunglasses driving vans with tinted windows    You can pretty much say anything about our country and, as of now, get by without a hitch. Unlike, again, other nations.  Likewise, you can leave.  If you were in Nazi Germany or the Khmer Rouge, you were screwed.  Try getting out of there.  If you labored to change, not only did you risk of injury or death, but you also had little other choice. 

In America, you can leave.  So standing about and trashing the nation day after day, declaring it bad and evil, and making no real and honest attempt to do anything other than get your pound of flesh, is a bit like having sex with a prostitute while insisting that prostitution is a sin.  You don't have to have sex with a prostitute at all, but you want that orgasm all the while making yourself feel so righteous for calling her a sinful slut.  

Why Mark's blog has become particularly popular for the 'Good Catholics Hate America' contingent  I don't know.  Mark doesn't seem to be there himself. Though I admit Mark's own tendencies have certainly shifted over the years.  One of Mark's first pieces I read that turned me on to the possibility of not being an America Hating Catholic was a rousing defense of our urgent need to respond to the 9/11 attacks.  Why we must fight!  That was its title.  It was a call for Catholics to understand why America must take up arms and defend our nation against the real and immediate threat of Islamic terrorism. 

Today, the link is disabled and the piece cannot be found anywhere.  Likewise, I noticed last year, Mark - for the first time I think - had no real kudos on Veterans Day.  Perhaps a coincidence.  I don't know.  Again, nothing wrong with criticizing the US.  Just make sure we do the same for other countries by name.  And nothing wrong with wanting to see the US improve and come closer to what God would bless upon this earth.  Just make sure that's the reason for the criticism.  Having specific criticisms of specific issues as well as solutions would go a long way in that department. 

But it's impossible not to notice that there are those across the Catholic blogosphere who, for whatever reasons, are convinced that in the annals of history, few nations have been simultaneously inferior and yet the single cause of human suffering in the way the US has.  And they do it with no apparent desire for anything to change.  There appears only the desire to condemn a country in the way that anti-Catholic bigots of old said they would.  And as I said before, we don't need to live up to negative anti-Catholic stereotypes, no matter how much we may want to. 

Talk about the miracle of life

It's found in pictures like these:

"Water droplets on an insect's eyes" PIC BY IRENEUSZ IRASS WALEDZIK / CATERS NEWS

Yes, bugs.  More specifically, bugs' eyes.  But how absolutely breathtakingly awesome.  I mean, wow.  Think of the lumbering robots or the puddles of smudge that scientists brag about when they say they've "Created" something.  And all from materials already produced.  Then look at this, a mere insect.  I'm no insectphile, in fact it's my desire to avoid insects that prevents me from journeying to places I would otherwise love to travel like Africa or the Amazon.  For that matter, it's part of what made my sojourn in Florida such a drag.  The state had roaches that took flying lessons (the hot, muggy, 120% humidity was the other problem along with no real changes of the seasons).  Nonetheless, insects are part of God's interwoven plan of creation, and when you look at images like this, you just have to pause before casually grabbing that next flyswatter.

“Who is this that darkens counsel
By words without knowledge?
“Now gird up your loins like a man,
And I will ask you, and you instruct Me!
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding,
Who set its measurements? Since you know.
Or who stretched the line on it?
“On what were its bases sunk?
Or who laid its cornerstone,
When the morning stars sang together

And all the sons of God shouted for joy?

Job, 38.2-7

It's pie day!

No, it's Pi day.  For the occasion the family made a maple sugar apple pie (in addition to some other homemade goodies).  For my part, allow me to link to a post by the esteemed Cracked Magazine* which sometimes seems to notice what our most brilliant leaders miss by a mile.  In this case, the observation is that all we have in our modern schools may not be brilliant and golden.  My favorite: we need more recesses.  Duh.  My wife and I noticed that with our kids.

At first we thought we were being a couple old cranks.  There's no school like our school!  But when we stopped to put it together, we had to say our kids were missing something.  From Kindergarten to fourth grade, they had about a half hour recess a day, and gym I think once a week.  In fifth and sixth grades, they had fifteen minutes of recess, and one quarter in the year, had gym every day for an hour.

When I was in school, we had gym three times a week.  In sixth grade, it moved to twice a week and then once a week with the girls.  Recesses were three: an early morning recess shortly after school began, about ten minutes.  Then the big one, after lunch, usually finishing off the 'lunch hour.'  Since we could scarf down our food pretty quickly, that usually left us around 30 or 40 minutes of recess.  Then we had a fifteen or twenty minute recess in the afternoon.

So on any given day, we had at least an hour and ten minutes of so of physical activity.  On gym days, we had over two hours.  In today's 'our kids are fat and we're going to die!' hysteria, what do they do?  Slash and hack away our kids' physical activities   In fact, my sons' intermediate school (that's fifth and sixth grade) only had fifteen minutes a day, and that in a former parking lot with two basketball hoops, all in a space no larger than a smallish gymnasium on asphalt.  Really?

That's the brilliance of our education system.  One of its biggest problems is the ideas promoted by people who just don't seem to have common sense.  Which is one reason we pulled our kids from the schools. We were tired of the system looking the problems straight in the eye, and then turning to go the opposite direction of a solution.  The other points in Cracked's observations are no less true.

*Please be aware that the article contains some pretty strong language.  

A new Pope!

Now is a time for happiness, hopefulness and prayer.   The white smoke and the bells peal.  I don't know much about the man, though I've heard some things through news accounts from Argentina over the years.  I look forward to learning more.  I wish him the best, and blessings for the Church through his ministry   I can't imagine what it must be to take on the burden of leadership like that   Just saying yes to a small Protestant congregation in southeastern Indiana was enough to keep me up nights.  But this.  To quote Belloq, he's no longer passing through history.  Now, Pope Francis I is history.  May God bless him and keep him and let his face shine upon him. 

Delicious dining at the Maple Syrup Festival

Ah, the weather was grand.  A slight chill in the air and the bare trees dropping a blanket of leaves to protect from the mud.  We went to the Lutheran Memorial Camp's annual Maple Syrup festival again.  I have fond memories, as I've said in the past.  This was our school camp when I was growing up. Not only did every 6th grade class go during the first week of November, but different grades came here through the years for different reasons.  My first trip, I believe, was in the second grade, where we went to see the old maple syrup shack to see how it's done.

Today, they import most of the sap.  Much of the syrup is from local producers, though not from the camp.  Over the years, staffing has diminished, and funds of course being what they are.  But in the day, they got the sap, processed it, made the syrup, and sold it no doubt to some pretty happy costumers   The local brands are still great, and we forked out a little extra this year, owing to the job I have.  Sure, we're still just getting by if everything goes just right and there are no unforeseen disastrous expenses.  But since we're finally at least at sea level, we thought we'd squeak in a splurge.  And ooooooh, it's worth it.  Even locally grown, that's good eating.  The pancake breakfast was particularly tasty, and we had the chance to share it with an elderly couple who came here when they were in college.  That beats my memories.

The rest of the day was just the fun that comes with hanging out with some awesome kids, a great family, a fun wife, and just the good feeling of being outdoors and seeing what God put together, rather than seeing it through the latest digital images.  The best that humans can create is still a drop in the bucket next to the simplest leaf in the great outdoors of God's canvas.

They keep me going.

What my ever patient wife must contend with.

It wasn't that tough of a journey, really.

 

No, he didn't throw the sack of syrup at me. 

We have so few pictures of our understated one.

And even fewer clear pictures of our always active youngest

Though when we get them, he always seems more serious than he is.

Talk about a kid magnet - a bridge, some leaves, a bubbling stream.

Up to the sugar shack to see how it's done.

Yep, that's real sap he's checking out; the weather was perfect this year for the output.

James O'Keefe and the Curse of God

It looks like James O'Keefe has been slapped with a 100,000 dollar fine for his video taping mission a while back.  I'm sure you remember, he would go in and pose under false pretenses to extract confessions from such places as ACORN that they were involved in truly heinous and deplorable activities - such as covering for sex slave traffickers. 

Well, Mr. Okeefe didn't read the fine print, and it turns out you can't video tape someone without their consent   There you go.  You break the law, you pay the price.  I'm OK with that.  Furthermore, I admit that the tactics of premeditated deceit and falsehoods in order to trap someone is starting off on a dangerous footing.  Better to find more honest and open ways.  You can still discover what's happening, it might just take a little more golly-gee-wiz on your part. 

Nonetheless, Mr. O'Keefe, like Lila Rose, became a lightning rod across the Catholic blogosphere, with bloggers and commenters jumping in to smack them down as the wretched sinners that they were.  Ridiculous threads erupted as some Catholics declared their willingness to stand by and let a million babies be raped and tortured to death before they would tell a white lie to save them.  

For me, it was the moment when much of the Catholic blogosphere jumped the shark.  It proved that yes, Virginia, there are Catholic fundamentalists, even if they don't act and talk like their Protestant counterparts.  Because nothing screams fundamentalist like someone willing to hamstring their own brothers for the speck in their eye, even as the brothers are attempting to extract the true logs of evil out of the eye of the world.  That happened a lot in my own Evangelical tradition.  I can't tell you how many times someone with the best of intentions threw up their hands and gave up because they might have done something wrong, and it was the failure, rather than all the best intended efforts, that everyone chose to focus on.

Even that wouldn't be so bad if those who decide to unleash the gates of Hell on an eye's speck aren't then typically inclined to want to ignore whatever logs are in their own eyes. That James O'Keefe lied is a sin for the ages, and proof of how horribly sinful all those other Catholics are who don't see his vile failings.  When I sin, of course, it's nothing of the sort.  I sin with the best of intentions   I expect nothing but grace, mercy and understanding when my sins are forgiven by the Almighty.  That James O'Keefe may have sinned with the best of intentions, of course, is beside the point.

Now that Mr. O'Keefe has been fined, I expected some in the Catholic blogosphere to rise up and say 'HA!  That'll show you!'  Even though the verdict had nothing to do with the sin that outraged the Catholic blogosphere, it would be enough to say the Curse of God is upon him for sinning in not the way I sin!  It could just as easily have been 'James O'Keefe got run over by a dump truck   HA!  That'll show you!'  

And yet, all this just went by me as nothing other than what I expected.  When I saw the headline, I knew that some bloggers would react the way they reacted.  But what did shock me is finding out that places that only recently sang the mercy and forgiveness and understanding for the late, great Hugo Chavez, now find themselves removing all quarter from their take on O'Keefe's fortunes.  Really?  So we praise God because Chavez died in the bosom of Mother Church, we pray for Chavez, and we look at Chavez as a victim of vile and contemptible right wing nut jobs in America who don't know how to be truly Catholic, but we crow over the unrelated punishments of O'Keefe in order to send a message?

I know, I know.  I would be told that nobody was saying Chavez was a great guy.  We're just wanting O'Keefe to follow the straight and narrow.  We all want the mercy of God for ourselves.   But when stepping back and looking at the big picture, I just can't help but say there is certainly a disconnect with my understanding of right and wrong, and grave sin and venial sin.  I can't help but wonder if we're losing perspective, and beginning to pull a Col. Nicholson, prepared in our own righteousness to swallow a camel in order to show why those other Catholics are so wrong for straining gnats incorrectly.  I could be wrong, but at least as it seems to play out in the words and emphases in certain blogging segments. 

Sandra Fluke update

Just checking in to see if everyone has been able to get their lives back together after the media outrage from her statements comparing tax supported birth control and leukemia.  We know how those media outrage cycles go.  Sometimes it can almost wear you out when the media latches onto something, like a politician comparing homosexuality to a disorder or suggesting that some rapes may not be rapes at all.  Whew.  No doubt our heads are all still spinning from the just and reasonable outrage that the media displayed in their coverage of this out of the ballpark half loony/half evil idea that one's sex life is as important as a leukemia patient fighting for life.  What's that?  No you say?  You're trying to convince me that there was no media outrage and daily round table discussions expressing unified outrage?  Really?  That would almost suggest that the media is biased.  Heck, it might almost suggest that most in our modern media are about the post-Christian notion that drugs, sex, and bathroom humor are the only rights we have, that everything else is unimportant, and therefore unworthy of being protected as a right.  I think you go too far.

Blessed are the poor Catholics

I just thought I'd throw that out there as a reminder to the Catholic Church that not everyone has the money it takes to be a devoted Catholic.  Next week, my boys' youth group is going on a retreat that my boys are not going on.  Why?  Because we couldn't afford it.  I know, I know.  They would give me the money if I asked.  And up to now, in past times I have done just that.  Though there seems to be a break down on paying for PSR, but that's a different issue.

As it is, their youth group is going on retreat   A year ago, some youth went on a trip to Italy.  Know what? My boys didn't.  Why?  We can't afford it, that's why.  Heck, there's a decent chance that if I were to have kept my standard of living I had before entering the Church, we still couldn't have afforded it.  And no, there were no offers to pay for those without the funds.

You know what we did in Protestant circles?  First, we made sure that anything we did was open to everyone.  Not just the well-to-do.  Second, when it involved funds or expenses, we raised the money.  The kids had to wash cars, work at people's houses, raise the money themselves.  All of them equally.  Then the congregation would find a way to match, or through donations pay, a certain balance.  That way no kid was set in the 'you're too poor so here's the money' category, as opposed to those kids with rich parents who don't need the help.  I know, it is likely behind the scenes.  But still, I know churches.  People talk.  Things get around.  And it's enough to remind the kids by virtue of what is needed anyway.

This doesn't even include the uber-trips like Italy or the Holy Land that just don't have options.  Let the adults do that, but don't do it for the kids.  Don't separate the kids into sheep with money and goats without before they're even out of high school.

Do I seem a bit pissed off, maybe resentful and jealous?  Perhaps.  Maybe I am.  But it's not jealousy toward the people with the money.  That's fine and dandy.  I'm not one who thinks large bank accounts leadeth unto perdition. It's the fact that it's my Church doing the categorizing.  It's being the standard bearer of 'blessed are the poor, for they shall stand over there' that's the problem.  The Catholic Church has a long, age old reputation for wallowing in wealth while the poor of the world grovel in the mud and dirt.  Remember what I've said about avoiding stereotypes?

If our parishes want to go to wonderful events for our youth  that's great!  Just find a way to make sure all can go together, without the need to stand up and say 'I need help since my family isn't as rich as yours.'  And if the answer is 'but Dave, there's no shame in being poor', let me remind the Church it shouldn't be the Church's youth policies and programs that force the confession in the first place.  Programs for adults?  Sure, why not.  But kids shouldn't be shown by the Church that with money comes soother paths to the child born in a manger.

My son the comedian

So last night we watched a few shows together during the weekly Friday Night chill out.  We got to talking about all sorts of things, religion and history, movies then and now, art, music, and whether  pigs have wings.  Then my 12 year old asked what was the most famous phrase in history.  Not in movies (that's easy, GWTW's famous line).  But of all time.  Wow, how to you categorize that?  We threw some ideas out: 'Let there be light...', 'In the beginning...', 'Blessed are the poor..', 'To be or not to be...', 'Do unto others...'.  All of them coming from our own cultural heritage of course.  But it's quite the tall order if you think about it.  So we kept on throwing out our own ideas until, right along with the string of opinions,  my 14 year old chimed in with his contribution: 'Would you like fries with that?'  After the laugh, I had to admit he's probably right.  What is a modern phrase or rallying cry that no doubt will make it into the annals of history?

Mayor Bloomberg the Uniter

Mayor Bloomberg, a man who acts as though he wishes he could control everything, continues to amaze.  Catholics as well as Planned Parenthood have united to condemn his recent anti-teen pregnancy ads.  The reasons for the opposition are, of course, different.  Planned Parenthood believes the emphasis should be on how to have more sex with less consequences up front.  Catholics believe it should be on something like 'don't have sex until marriage'.  Both seem to draw a certain 'ick' factor from the idea that the real problem is you'll be stuck with a rotten snot-nose brat who will indefinitely interfere with the cocktail hour.  Perhaps Mr. Bloomberg watches too much Bill Maher, who  is famous for his desire to abort snot nose brats who interfere with the cocktail hour.  But even in our hedonistic post-Christian world, all but the moist radical 'genocide for orgasms' cynics will tend to recoil at the idea that children are not precious, but in fact are a disease needing cured.  We may say it.  But we don't like to see it.

Sin

SIN

1

a : an offense against religious or moral law

b : an action that is or is felt to be highly reprehensible sin

 to waste food>

c : an often serious shortcoming : Fault

2

a : transgression of the law of God

b : a vitiated state of human nature in which the self is estranged from God

Origin of SIN

Middle English sinne, from Old English synn; akin to Old High German sunta sin and probably to Latin sont-, sons guilty,est is

First Known Use: before 12th century

A word you don't hear much in Catholic circles   Nope.  It's just not a term used that often.  Evil.  Intrinsic evil.  I've heard those terms used.  But the word sin is not something that is overly used.  I can't remember the last time I heard the word in an actual homily.  And when a particular issue is mentioned at all, it's often in a very roundabout way.  So I mentioned the other day that I've never heard homosexual relations called sinful.  I've not heard them called wrong.  I have heard priests point out that marriage is between a man and a woman.  That does seem to suggest that marriage between any other combination is therefore wrong. Though sin, perhaps not.  But maybe none of it is sin?

I learned as a pastor that you have to say it, say it again, say it one more time, then tell them you said it for the message to sink in.  And even then you could have about a 20% failure rate of getting the point across.  I can't tell you how often the church I was serving would begin promoting something, like a special concert, weeks in advance.  We would have posters and signs.  We would have bulletin inserts.  We would announce from behind the pulpit (that was OK in evangelical circles) the upcoming event for many Sundays.  The last couple weeks before the event I would then add the final push to encourage everyone to come.  And it never failed that someone would come up to me after the concert and say "Gee, I didn't know we were having that.  When did you say we were having a concert?"  Sigh.

So given the tendency some people have of missing the train's headlights, hiding things under bushels is no way to make a point.  Priests could get up Sunday after Sunday and say 'homosexuality is a disordered appetite and homosexual relations are sinful' (assuming, that is, the Church still teaches this).  They could do it for weeks, and you'd still have a hunk of the people not sure about where the Church stands on the issue.  But since that's not what I've seen priests or anyone do, and since when it's brought up at all it's in that sort of backdoor 'we're not saying anything at all about homosexuality, but we will say marriage is between a man and woman' approach, we shouldn't be surprised that one of the top demographic groups in America to come out in support of gay marriage is - you guessed it - American Catholics!  Woohoo!

That's because people usually don't take exactly what you leave them with and stay there.  For all the attempts to say 'but for penetration, homosexual same sex attraction is a perfectly normal disorder', that dog just isn't going to hunt.  People won't leave it there.  Questions will be asked.  Puzzlement will occur. The obvious contradictions will be noticed.  The pressures of the post-Western juggernaut will take their toll, and you'll have folks just take it to the next step.  Since clearly same sex attraction is one of the most wonderful disorders a person can have, and since the Church isn't really coming out and saying  it's a sin or whatever other word it prefers, I'm just going to say it's time to get with the act and go the final step.  After all, we're 9/10 there anyway, let's just take it to the final obvious conclusion.  Assuming this is not what the Church wants, I'd advise it start making things clear, or you're going to have more and more Catholics deciding that whatever the Church is desperately trying not to say is sin must, in fact, be the way it should be.

Am I a bad Catholic for not caring that Hugo Chavez is dead?

I don't know.  Over at Mark Shea's blog, there're a couple posts about Mr. Chavez.  For some reason, the focus is on Matt Drudge and the Evil Conservatives   I'm sure there are some who are cheering his death, and we probably shouldn't cheer that anyone has died.  I guess we ought to pray for him like we pray for anyone.

But truth be told, it's easy to pray for him.  What was he to me?  Several on Mark's blog point out that Chavez was well loved in his country.  Of course Russians wept when Stalin died.  And Chinese still venerate the memory of Chairman Mao.  So the love of the people doesn't seem to equate good living.

From what I can tell, and given the attitudes of those in the West who celebrate Chavez, I'll guess he was a petty dictator who gained immense wealth and power by catering to the masses with bread and circuses, and keeping their minds off their problems by continually stirring up hatred toward other countries (like ours).  Of course in some corners of the Catholic blogosphere, that's a feather in his cap.  It certainly was for a large swath of American progressives who have always known of the eternal evil of America.

But despite it all, I didn't really suffer under him.  He didn't do anything to me.  He didn't hurt me, help me, or mean anything to me.  He was one of those cheerleaders hoping for my country's decline.  Too many in his country testified to brutal totalitarian tactics that Americans only think we suffer under but don't.  He cozied up to our enemies, those proud and open in their desire to slaughter and kill us.  But in the end, I still didn't really get hurt by anything he did.

So I can pray for him all I want.  It doesn't cost me a cent.  But what does it matter?  Personally, I will pray only so far as I say I hope he is in the hands of a loving, merciful and just God.  Beyond that, not so much.  It's not my job to forgive him.  It's  not my job to defend him.  I can say I saw what he did and that it was bad.  Even evil.  Catholic though I am, I'm not ready to believe all evil ends at the exit sign of 1600 Pennsylvania. So personally, I don't care that he's dead.  My guess is the world will be no worse off because of his passing, and there might even be some in the long run who are better off.

Perhaps that makes me a bad Catholic, but it's how I feel.

Catholics where the hell is Hell?

A month or so ago, a conservation swept across the internet involving speculation about the hereafter.  The main crux of the issue was hoping all humanity is saved vs. the possibility that some will not be saved.  That is, some will spend an eternity separated from God in a place we commonly translate with the word Hell.  It was an interesting conversation.  It touched on many different points.  What shocked me, however, was the number of Catholics who have already dismissed the doctrine of Hell as passe; at least, Hell as anything real.  Two individuals had "Fr." before their names, though on the Internet, that might not mean much.  Several spoke of Hell existing, for Satan and the fallen angels, but in a Barth-like turn of doctrine, all humanity will be saved.  From St. Peter to Hitler and Mao, it's going to be the great banquet feast!

I realize this is not a new idea.  In fact, for most of the Faith's history, there have been those who have questioned the idea that God would allow people to suffer for all eternity, to be cast into the outer darkness for all that is outside of time and space.  That's even worse than the Sarlacc!  How could God do it?  Especially when there is already so much suffering, and our only hope is through mere faith, not by God actually appearing in front of us in human shape to tell each generation here He is.

Nonetheless, the Church's historic answer has been: tough.  Basically, it's said whether we like it or not, that's the makeup of eternity.  That's why we needed saved.  That's what makes the Good News so damn good. That's why God sent a savior.  To save us from the penalty of our sins.  Sure, salvation is more than just an insurance policy that eliminates the need for 900000 point sun blocker.  But the escape from an eternity separated from God was certainly one of the main selling points of the Gospel.

Plus, to be honest, it incorporated a concept I'm hearing less, and less, and less of in the Church, and that's the concept of Justice.  That idea that God is a merciful God.  God is a loving God.  But God is also a just God.  The idea that justice is real, and not only when it comes to bending governments and societies to taking care of the widow and the orphan's healthcare and nutritional needs.  There is a sort of 'all accounts are reconciled in the end', an opening of the books and judging the dead based on what they had done.  I realize that the thief on the cross had his famous 11th hour and 59th minute conversion.  I know the biblical passages of 1 Timothy and 2 Peter.  I got that.

But this has always - and I mean always - been balanced with the sheer fact that despite God's wishes, not all will be saved.  God doesn't desire sin, but yet we sin.  God doesn't desire the little ones to suffer.  And yet they suffer.  The promise of Justice has always been that those who call upon the Lord will be saved, they will be redeemed, they will have their rewards who may have had nothing in this world due to the evil that men (and women) do.  And this is more than a promise of justice.  It's a reality. A notion that this whole world isn't just one big test drive for eternity, where nothing really matters, where everything is just a temp tag for what's real in the netherworld.  Justice says that this created order is as integral a part of reality as the next.  What we do here does have ramifications, because the one small moment of a baby's precious breath is a part of the whole fabric, one that ultimately includes an eternity in heaven before the throne of the Almighty - or not, as the case may be.  It's why we're judged.  And it's why, if we follow the wide path that leadeth unto destruction, well, you know.

Now, I'll admit that ditching the idea of Hell goes a long way toward opening up to other things.  It's not some cosmic coincidence that mainline Protestant denominations that have ditched Hell tend to be more focused on the individuals, disdaining the death penalty and all armed conflicts, focusing less on authority and more on the right of each person to define his or her own reality.  Things like war, punishment, negative reinforcement - they just crush the individual's right to be an individual. As for the ramifications? Well, in the end, we all end up in heaven anyway.  It's just not worth it down here, and if an innocent suffers  well, there's automatic salvation, however vaguely or new-agely that salvation is defined.

How the Church will continue to hold onto its historic teachings if it begins to jettison key doctrines like Hell, I don't know.  But then again, I'm not sure I'm convinced on it's jettisoning of teachings like Capital Punishment or Just War (which seems to be going the same direction that Capital Punishment was going a couple decades ago).  Maybe it isn't.  Maybe it is. Will it hold firm?  Will it toss it and other doctrines out with the bathwater?  Will it look back and say 'we used to believe silly things like that  but we're much better now'?  I don't know.  I just found the discussion interesting.  And yet, not altogether shocking.

I leave you with a couple of verses from a lyric we used to sing in Seminary.  It was a humorous tribute to Rudolf Bultmann  the famous German Protestant Theologian who popularized the idea of demythologizing the New Testament.  That is, admitting that the New - as well as the Old - was just a collection of myths, fables, and fairy tales.  Bultmann promoted a sort of existentialist spin on Christian doctrine, though some of my professors who actually heard him said that he could preach the old time religion as well as Billy Graham.  For him, it was not a contradiction to say 'The Christ who died for your sins' and elsewhere say 'it was all a made up legend to put a philosophical and spiritual spin on events that may not have happened.'  So out of humor, an individual rewrote the words to the Protestant hymn "Jesus, Jesus How I love You."  I can't remember the whole song, but I remember these two verses, one of which is quite pertinent to my musings:

Rudolf, Rudolf we've been thinking
What a pity it would be
If our faith were transformed into
Existentiality.

Rudolf, Rudolf
You have shown us
Heaven here on earth must dwell
Purgatory's gone to Limbo
Rudolf where the hell is Hell?

I wonder if there will be a similar cant directed at the Church someday.  Time will tell I guess.

Why did John McCain lose the election in 2008?

Now we know!  What a couple of buffoons   Really.  Rand Paul inspires a nation, cuts across partisan lines, challenges a terrifying trend in presidential politics, and what do the esteemed John McCain and Lindsey Graham do?  Well, after dining in posh surroundings and pressing their lips against the President's buttocks and smooching, they promptly run back to the Senate to - wait for it - trash Rand Paul!  There is a reason most conservatives and Republicans didn't trust McCain in 2008.  Hopefully common sense will see a rise in that number.

Rand Paul is filibustering

I just thought I'd throw that out since not one television news agency is bothering to cover it.  I understand that some shows, even on 24/7 cable, are prerecorded.  But still, you'd think they could break in and at least mention it.  I know they are cable of that, since I've seen different cable networks do just that over the years.  Or how about CSPAN.  Hello.  Anyone?

I like Rand more than Ron.  Ron always struck me as a bit unstable, a sort of 'one flew over the cuckoo's nest' spark in his eye when anyone questioned him.  Not to mention his radical isolationism, America sucksf or fifty years perspective, and hyper libertarianism are not to my taste.  Of course Rand is similar, but I trust him more.  He seems more level headed and a little less inclined to declare himself the only one in Washington who isn't nuts.

I also appreciate his cause.  Believe it or not, I'm no fan of George W. Bush.  I never was.  I didn't support him in the 2000 primaries.  I was less than happy with him in 2004, especially when it became clear he had no intention of following through with any of his lofty promises to religious conservatives.  Plus, he was just a lousy leader.  With that said, I'm not a fan of Obama either.  He's everything that was wrong with Bush, plus the added benefit of now having a sympathetic media cheering him on.

So when Bush was pushing warrantless wire tapping, to hear the media report it, we were on the edge of a new dark ages.  Now, we have a president arguing that it might be permissible for the president to kill American citizens on the mere suspicion that they might be terrorists.  And the media?  Crickets my friend, chirping crickets.  Like I say in other debates, it's not that the radical right doesn't have its loons.  Oklahoma City showed that.  Radical militias and people holed up in log cabins in Montana ready to shoot the local mailman show that.

But show the same level of lunacy and radicalism on the left, and it's in the newsrooms,  the college classrooms, the seats of power and influence and wealth and adoration.  They don't have to hole up in Montana.  They spew the same radicalism and are rewarded by the other venues of liberal thought.  So our president, buoyed by the progressive culture, is going places that Nixon never came close to going - and we ran him the hell out of town on two rails.

So well done Mr. Paul for pointing out the obvious.  You'd make Jefferson Smith proud.

Well done Ohio State!

David has toppled Goliath.  But this season, that seems to be a weekly headline. I'm not a huge basketball fan, but my oldest follows it pretty closely.  I have to admit, it was impressive.  Or perhaps Indiana, basking in the glow of media love, just wasn't up to par.  Whatever, it was clear by the end that OSU had it in the bag.  So congrats Bucks!  It's been a long time since OSU was a basketball powerhouse, and these last few years have been a nice counterbalance to all the problems with the football program.  Keep up the good work!

It's off to work I go

My apologies for not blogging more.  It's been a trademark of mine that just about the time I make a bold, brash promise to do something, inevitably I'm sidetracked.  I guess James wasn't writing to kill time when he warned us about making too many plans.  In any event, just getting settled into the new job.  Like all things, it's a bit of an adjustment. Quite a bit to learn.  Also just getting used to the discipline of going somewhere regularly and working on a schedule.  It's amazing how something you just get used to over the years becomes quite new when you've been out of the loop for a while.  Hopefully as things settle down, I'll be back to where I hoped to be, and keep the readership going.  I'll try to post when I can.  Maybe a post here or there.  In the meantime, keep visiting, send me your thoughts and offer your prayers for my wife, that her side of the job options finally opens up.  And enjoy this little tribute to workers everywhere around the world, courtesy of the house of Mouse in its glory years:

Married priests on the Huffington Post

Mark Shea was on the Huffington Post today, discussing the whole priestly celibacy topic.  Mark didn't get much of a chance to talk, and was clearly outnumbered by those who think it's time to put the whole priestly celibacy issue to rest.  I don't have time to go into much, but here are a couple of ideas of mine when it comes to this.

First, as I've said, I think the clergy convert movement has turned a corner, and we won't be seeing broad ordinations of married former protestant clergy like we did.  At least that's what I've been told.  I didn't say much, but a couple years ago, after being approached by several individuals suggesting I consider the diaconate, I went to our parish pastor to discuss the possibilities.  After a while, it was floated that I consider going all the way into the priesthood.  To be honest, I never really thought about that, and hadn't really considered it.  But who was I to say no?  After almost two years of discussions it just came back to me, on the eve of our pastor leaving for another parish, that the married priest ship has sailed.  At least in our diocese.

In fact, on a side note, I've been told that the attitude toward clergy converts is such that not mentioning that I was a clergy convert could go a long way toward increasing my possibilities in our diocese.  I had already been told this before, but now it came from on high.  But that's a different issue.  Right now, the answer is what piqued my curiosity.  Basically, from the high seat itself, I was informed that there is a Canon Law limit of 2 married priests per diocese, we have 2, that's that.  Don't even think about it.

That's the first thing with the priest shortage.  I've noticed that even now, the Church turns people away.  Whether because of class size, availability of resources, demands for apparently a far from perfect screening process, an arbitrarily decided upon number, whatever - the Church does its thing and that's that.  Better to shut down parishes and close ministries than consider moving the number to 3, or possibly letting 4 more into the class this year.  The Church does its thing.  Reason  #1.  The Church simply does its thing and isn't going to change, demographics or stats be damned.

Reason #2 is that the Church has lost some of its zing.  It's trying to adapt to a rapidly changing anti-Christian world while standing firm in a 2000 year old tradition.  And so you have a Church that seems to say, on one hand, that it's better that a million babies be murdered than a single person tell a white lie to save them.  And on the other hand, is willing to embrace the latest hippest that all the cool post-Christian progressive Westerners embrace, as I said yesterday.

That sort of 'everything because sometimes it's near darn close to what is almost always for the most part nearly true based on the clear teachings of the ancient Church until yesterday but need to be understood without coming full near to saying up to the down of something' approach to crystal clear teaching has left a Church where a whole lot of people are on record not believing.  Period.  Half of Catholics don't believe in the Real Presence.  Most accept the use of birth control.  Most American Catholics support abortion rights.  Most Catholic scholarship is far closer to the mainline liberal scholarship of Protestantism than traditional understandings of biblical studies (see above).  Catholics are quite frankly all over the map, some to the extreme left, others to the extreme right, and others calling down a pox on both extremes while simultaneously, and not too subtlety  forging their own fiscal version of what the Church really should have said.

In my seven years, I've met three priests whose homilies call it like it is.  So many times, I hear priests talk in ways I can't pin down, even though I know the context.  I've not heard one priest say that homosexual relations are sinful.  Not one.  Abortion?  Yeah.  That's the one issue the Church will take a bullet for.  But unlike Patton, the Church seems to have forgotten what many Protestants are now forgetting, but both traditions (and Patton) once knew: you don't just get a bunch of guys together, hand them guns, then say storm the bunker.  You train them.  You discipline them.  You teach them it's the little things that are as important as the big things, because those who are faithful with little things will typically end up being faithful with bigger things (Luke 16).  Any coach worth his salt will say the same thing.  You learn the fundamentals.  The basics.  The little disciplines.  Then, and only then, are you ready to take on the powers of hell.

Unfortunately, that's not the Church today.  It's troubles' roots no doubt precede Vatican II.  I would wager they predate Vatican I.  Truth be told, the difficulties are rooted in Luther's rather successful throwing off of the Church's authority.  For centuries, that has caused no end of trouble.  And in the last century, the trouble has been overflowing.  Vatican II was simply an expression of trying to fit the square peg of the historical Catholic faith in the increasingly round hole of post-enlightenment, post-Christian contexts. Because of that, the Church is confused, or at least appears that way to the average Jane and Joe who don't have multiple advanced doctoral degrees in hermeneutics, historical theology, philosophy, and biblical interpretation.  Mixed up.  Not sure.  I hear Catholics say more things than I ever heard in a dozen different Protestant denominations.

Catholics, and especially Catholic converts, love to point out that once upon a time there was a Protestant denomination, now look how many!  Fair enough.  One of the clear problems with Protestantism was its very origins.  I knew that well.  It's true.  But in many ways, there are as many Catholic denominations today, at least mentally and religiously.  That they all gather together around a table that only half believe to be true is hardly the point.  Do we really think in such a setting, in such a fragmented and quite frankly confused environment you're going to have parents pushing their kids to be priests?   Do you think you're going to have kids grow up and want to be priests?  Fighting and dying for a cause is one thing.  Fighting and dying for something that's not really sure how it wants to say this, is something else.

Naturally some will, and God bless them. Because not all Catholics are like this.  Many are faithful, finding balance, seeking wisdom in humility, following the Church, questioning the Church, but doing so with honesty and restraint with a heart toward obedience.  But the Church is made up of far more who are not there, for whatever reasons, and their numbers have pushed the limit I'm afraid. And sometimes, to be brutally honest, I can't help but believe the aforesaid things I've noticed are part of the problem.  At some point, the Church needs to get its act together, and remember that God takes a dim view of religion that stands by while the flock drifts off into oblivion (Ezekiel 22.26, Hosea 4.6).

One more thing.  For the most part, I don't buy the whole concern over priestly celibacy as anything but the outrage of it interfering with the mantra of the sexual revolution   After all, the keystone to to our entire post-Freudian sexual ethic is that sex is like oxygen   No, scratch that.  Food, oxygen  and water we can live without.  But not sex.  Not Sex!  Everything we teach, believe, or follow just happily points to this idea that man can live on sex alone.  And celibacy  of any sort, especially of a traditional Christian sort, is a smack in the face to that little lie.  It's Jessie Owens sprinting down before the pride of Nazi Germany in the 36 Olympics, smacking Hitler's entire Master Race theory square in the jaw.  That's why they want celibacy to just go away.  It's a powerful reminder upon just how much of a falsehood is our entire modern sexual ethic.  So here's hoping that the Church can get it's act together, learn to not always be an Ent about adapting to changes, and yet that it stands firm on its traditions, especially because of the rather nefarious nature of those who are so eager for her to change them.

A person who had a fig tree?

Really?  That's one of the problems I have with the New American Bible translation endorsed and used exclusively  in American Catholic Masses.  A person didn't have a fig tree.  A man did.  How do I know his gender?  Easy, read:

“There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard, 
and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none,
he said to the gardener,
‘For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree 
but have found none.
So cut it down.
Why should it exhaust the soil?’
He said to him in reply,
‘Sir, leave it for this year also, 
and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; 
it may bear fruit in the future.
If not you can cut it down.’” (Emphasis mine) 

You see, the continued and repeated use of the masculine third person singular pronoun proves it was a he.  I have no problem with translating Brothers as Brothers and Sisters when it is clear that the meaning was all people.  I have no problem with translating Men to People when, again, the intent is the whole of humanity, male and female alike.

But this is a clear and flagrant case of appeasing the great PC brother.  This is PC revisionism and nothing less.  I know it's a small, almost insignificant thing.  So what Dave?  Get a grip man!  Who cares?  Well, I care.  Because, to be brutally honest, like so much that is modern PC censorship (and Heston was right, PC is simply censorship with increasingly diminishing manners), it is dishonest.  Call it C.E. rather than A.D. all you want, but it still references the life and times of He Whose Name Cannot Be Mentioned.

And use 'a person' when it's beyond clear that the individual is a man, and you've just been slightly less than honest, and that dealing with nothing less than Holy Scripture.  Sometimes when Catholics call for a Church with more backbone, they're smacked down and asked if they would want the Church to come down on them.  Would I want the Church to come down that hard on me?  Would I want the Church to say 'it is as it is, suck on it'?

Well, yeah.  For one thing, it has.  After years pounding on the doors at Canossa Castle, I've been told there's no room in the inn for former Protestant Clergy.  At least not from my tradition.  At least not for now. That's that.  It is what it is.  For whatever reasons, whether I'm right or not in guessing what reasons might be, the winds have changed and are blowing in different directions than the ones that carried the Hahns and Grodis into a life of Catholic lay ministry, or even the Ray Rylands or the Longeneckers into ordained priestly ministry.  But that's what comes of being Catholic.  It is what it is.  The Church has spoken.

In my few years as a Catholic, I've gotten used to the Church saying it is as it is.  So yes, I'd be happy to have the Church start saying it a little more across the board.  Tell feminist sensitivities and progressives calling for radical change that they can deal with it.  We don't have to go and rewrite all of Scripture, even dishonestly, to appease them.  Start telling it straight.  You can't say 'take up your cross and follow the Savior', only to turn around and start rewriting words like cross and Savior in the hopes of appealing to our post-modern generation.  Take it from one who spent years along side mainline Protestants and denominations descended from the traditions of Bultmann and John Dominic Crossan, any attempts to compromise with a movement whose roots are diametrically opposed to the foundations of the Christian universe are doomed to fail, no matter how trivial the compromises first appear.  Being less than sincere in our interpretations of Scripture in order to contribute to the failure is just heaping coals on an already burning flame.