Faith No More

Christopher Hitchens on "What I have learned from debating religious people around the world":

"[Pastor Doug] Wilson isn't one of those evasive Christians who mumble apologetically about how some of the Bible stories are really just "metaphors." He is willing to maintain very staunchly that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and that his sacrifice redeems our state of sin, which in turn is the outcome of our rebellion against God. He doesn't waffle when asked why God allows so much evil and suffering—of course he "allows" it since it is the inescapable state of rebellious sinners. I much prefer this sincerity to the vague and Python-esque witterings of the interfaith and ecumenical groups who barely respect their own traditions and who look upon faith as just another word for community organizing. (Incidentally, just when is President Barack Obama going to decide which church he attends?)"

Read the whole thing here.

Insomnia, or On the use of Greek pastries in the Crimean War

Ugh.

I woke up this morning at 3.00am and couldn't go back to sleep, so I got up, got some coffee and fired up Ye Ole Laptop for some browsing.  (Note the time stamps on the posts below).  My hope was that I would get a little sleepy and manage to fall back into dreamland.

No luck. 

Anyway, after Laud/Mass, breakfast, and a turn around the cloister, I got to work.  Lunch, recreation with the brothers, and. . .finally!. . .a little nap.

However, I am still both wired and tired.  So, wired and tired that I completely misread this pic caption at one my new fav blogs, Big Government:  "Today is also the anniversary of the Charge of the Light Brigade, from the Battle of Balaclava in 1854."

My first thought was, "Uh?  The Brits attacked the Russians with sticky Greek pastries?"

My next thought was, "Oh, maybe the Russians were allergic to pistachios."

Now I'm looking for my travel size bottle of Benadryl. 

More Anglican questions. . .*

1).  Any guesses about the title of the apostolic constitution?

Sure.  How about Tiberis Nare? (Now we wait for all the picky Latinists to correct my grammar. . .it's inevitable.)

2).  Will Anglican parishes be able to bring property along with them?

I hope so!  They don't allow ugly vestments in the Anglican Church.  Of course, the Episcopal Church has lately taken to wearing some howlers.  Seriously, in the U.S. it would be decided parish by parish, diocese by diocese.  In the U.K., you have the whole state religion problem.  My fear is that traditionalist Anglicans will resist the urge to Come Home to Rome for no other reason than their churches are actually look like churches instead of urology clinics.

3).  What will we call Father's wife?

Ummmm. . ."ma'am"?  Most anything but "Mother."

4).  What are the main differences between the English translation of the Roman Rite and the rite the Anglican Use parish will use?

The Anglican Use Rite doesn't condescend to the people by assuming that they are too stupid to know what words like "ineffable" mean.  The language is actually real English and not committee-speak designed to desacralize the liturgy with fortune cookie inanities. 

5).  Has there been any response from the Episcopal Church leaders?

Yes, the Presiding Bishopress donned her oven-mitt miter and invoked her goddess, Hecate, to pox the Holy Father.  It didn't work; in fact, it backfired.  Now she's all itchier and whinier than ever.

* No, these are not real questions.  I'm making them up.  The answers are real though.

A Parable

A passenger jet carrying about 250 people is forced by a hurricane to crash land on a remote island.*

Most of the passengers and the flight crew safely evacuate to the beach to ride out the storm.

After a couple of days, the hurricane abates and three members of the flight crew climb the small mountain back to the crashed jet in an attempt to contact help with the cockpit radio.

The crew is gone for two days.  In the meantime, another hurricane hits the island.  When the three crew members fail to return after four days, a small party of passengers climb the mountain and discover that the storm has caused an avalanche and killed the three crew members.  The radio has been destroyed as well.

The passenger-rescue party find three notebooks bound together with a rubber-band and sealed in a heavy-duty plastic bag.  They take the notebooks back to the beach and begin trying to decipher the scribbled notes.  Soon, all agree that the crew members were taking notes on a proposed rescue plan.  But it is unclear whether they themselves were planning a possible rescue scenario, or if they were taking notes on a plan proposed via radio by authorities on the mainland.

The notes indicated that the stranded passengers and crew would have to undertake several arduous tasks in order for any rescue attempt to succeed.  In fact, these tasks would not only deplete their limited food and water reserves, but also place all of them in danger of injury and death.

Two groups quickly formed around two possible interpretations of the three notebooks.  One group, the Rescue Realists (RR), argue that the notes themselves indicate that the crew had been in contact with the mainland and that they should do everything necessary to complete the tasks in order to be rescued.

The Rescue Anti-Realists (RAR) argue that the notes indicate nothing more than a plan to be proposed by the crew to make sure that the stranded people worked together as a cohesive group in order to maintain civilized behavior and the hope of rescue.  Given the obvious tentative tone of the notes, the more dangerous tasks are interpreted as merely brainstorming suggestions rather than requirements to be met for rescue.

Since the radio had been destroyed, there was no viable means of verifying the RR interpretation.  However, the RR camp argues that to ignore the plan would be tantamount to suicide, so the whole group should immediately begin the tasks so as to maximize their chances of rescue.

The RAR argue that since there is no way of verifying the RR interpretation, it would be wiser to ignore those tasks that directly threaten their limited resources and focus only on those tasks that would keep the group together as a community until they were rescued, if they were rescued.

The following are givens:

1). There is no viable, external means of verifying either interpretation.

2). Both interpretations would work to keep the group together as a community.

3). Neither interpretation guarantees rescue, injury/death, or an unusual depletion of resources.  Though everyone agrees that the RR interpretation is more dangerous and likely to deplete supplies more quickly. 

Given all of this, which interpretative group would you join and why?

*This parable is adapted from one proposed by Paul Moser to explain the difference between theological realism and theological anti-realism.  He sees the difference as primarily one of epistemology, that is, what can we know about God and how?

Victicrat

Great vid! Some of the language may not be appropriate for everyone. . .

Well, well. . .HancAquam is #18!

 Top 25 Catholic Websites

1.  EWTNews - 4,038
2.  American Papist by Thomas Peters - 1,466
3.  New Advent - 702
4.  What Does The Prayer Really Say? - 278
5.  Catholic Church Conservation - 197
6.  The American Catholic - 121
7.  The Curt Jester by Jeff Miller - 91
8.  Jimmy Akin - 88
9.  Conversion Diary - 83
10.  Whispers in the Loggia - 74
11.  Holy Smoke by Damian Thompson - 51
12.  Per Christum - 48
13.  Inside Catholic - 38
14.  The Black Cordelias - 36
15.  RORATE CÆLI - 34
15.  The Hermeneutic of Continuity - 34
17.  Pro Ecclesia by Jay Anderson - 20
18.  Vatican YouTube Channel - 19
18.  CVSTOS FIDEI - 19
18.  Steve Skojec - 19
18.  PewSitter News - 19
18.  Domine, da mihi hanc aquam! - 19
23.  New Liturical Movement - 18
24.  National Catholic Register’s Daily Blog – 16
24.  Creative Minority Report - 16

Why are liberal cities so white?

Funny thing. . .turns out that all those Leftie Prog cities that the eco-weirdos love so much are really, really, really white.  I don't mean shiny clean. . .I mean White. . .as in mostly Lily White People.

Figures the Lefties would find a way to couch their racist white-flight in terms of "saving the planet."

Heh.

Coffee Bowl Browsing (A.D.D. Edition)

Well, it's not a Chinese buffet. . .but close!

Ten for $10, or five for $8. . .no refunds.

Very sick. . .but also true.

He wants to borrow your camera. . .but he has no thumbs.

Off to the gym. . .in 1909.

Ahhhhhh, so this is where the Italians get their driver's license. . .

Don't watch this if farm animals and yoga teachers creep you out. . .

Zombies hold a car wash fundraiser. . .to buy more brains.

Fun before death. . .horrible, agonizing death.

I don't know what this means. . .but it's funny anyway.

Yea, they're gross. . .but vanilla ice cream helps a lot.

The Dark Lord has lost it. . .Vader does Carmen.

Oops. . .someone burned the roast again.

Anglican Welcome Poll

Is the Holy Father's welcome to traditionalists Anglicans. . .
	...an act of a true pastor.
	...a good thing but not a big deal.
	...a nice gesture that will go unanswered by most.
	...an act of poaching.
	...a declaration of war against revisionists.
	...a confusing mess for canon lawyers and bishops.
pollcode.com free polls

Dominican sister helps out at abortion clinic (UPDATED)

[UPDATE:  A number of readers have written to ask me about contacting Quinn's superior or Cardinal George.  The LifeSiteNews story includes the contact info for both.  However, if you read the whole article linked below, you will see that sister's prioress is well-aware of her activities and defends her.  Quinn has been involved in supporting abortion for years.  There's nothing new here.  At most a letter or email will get you "thank you for your concern" note in response.  Please don't expect anything more than that.  In my experience dealing with dissenters, notes of outrage only fuel their view of themselves as martrys.  Also, please note that Quinn is a sister not a nun.  Dominican nuns are not in the business of helping mothers kill their children. . .nor are a vast majority of sisters.]

Next time some "Spirit of Vatican Two" Catholic sputters and whines about the injustice of the Vatican investigating U.S. religious women, point them to this article from LifeSiteNews.com:

HINSDALE, Illinois, October 23, 2009: A Dominican nun [sic] has been seen frequenting an abortion facility in Illinois recently - but not, as one might expect, to pray for an end to abortion or to counsel women seeking abortions, but to volunteer as a clinic escort.

Local pro-life activists say that they recognized the escort at the ACU Health Center as Sr. Donna Quinn, a nun [sic] outspokenly in favor of legalized abortion, after seeing her photo in a Chicago Tribune article. . .

This is beyond scandalous.  Donna do doubt believes that she is truly doing God's work by helping these mothers kill their children.  

But what drove her to this dark place. . .radical feminism, of course:

In a 2002 address to the Women's Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School, Sr. Quinn described how she came to view the teachings of her Church as "immoral": "I used to say: 'This is my Church, and I will work to change it, because I love it,'" she said. "Then later I said, 'This church is immoral, and if I am to identify with it I'd better work to change it.' More recently, I am saying, 'All organized religions are immoral in their gender discriminations.'"

Quinn called gender discrimination "the root cause of evil in the Church, and thus in the world," and said she remained in the Dominican community simply for "the sisterhood."

"Gets 'em every time," snickers Wormwood!

Bridge over Anglican waters...

I've rec'd a lot of questions about the practicalities of the Holy Father's invitation to traditionalist Anglicans to join Mother Church.

I will attempt to answer them with these provisos:  1) I am not canon lawyer; 2) and the apostolic constitution has not been published.

1).  What's the difference between the current pastoral provisions for allowing married Anglican clergy to become Catholic priests and this new arrangement?

Under the pastoral provisions of John Paul II a married Anglican priest may be admitted to Catholic Holy Orders at the discretion of a local bishop.  He will have to take some classes and pass a few exams before ordination.  After ordination, he can be assigned to a Catholic parish as an administrator or associate pastor.  He may not serve as a pastor.  Whole Anglican parishes may come over as well and be included in what is called "Anglican Use" parishes.  These parishes use a version of the Book of Common Prayer for their liturgies and are usually served by a former Anglican priest.  In all cases, the individual priest and the parish remain under the direct jurisdiction of the local bishop.

Benedict is changing this up by placing converted Anglican clergy and parishes under the jurisdiction of their own Ordinaries; that is, an Anglican Use parish served by a former Anglican priest will not answer to the local Roman Catholic bishop but rather serve under an Ordinary who was also once an Anglican priest or bishop.  This means that in any given diocese, there can be an Ordinary for the Latin Catholics (always a bishop) and an Ordinary for the local Anglican Use Catholics (can be a celibate bishop, a celibate priest, or a married priest, all of whom were once Anglican clerics).  Every geographical diocese already has a number of Ordinaries.  One is a Latin Rite bishop, another may be a Ukrainian Rite bishop, or a Byzantine Rite bishop.  What Benedict seems to be doing is establishing the first non-Latin rite in communion with Rome that comes out of the Reformation. 

2).  Can boys who grow up in one of these Anglican Use parishes become married priests?

That is unclear.  My guess is that the marriage provision applies only to converts not those who will be baptized in the Anglican Use rite as children.  I doubt very seriously that Rome will allow the Holy Father's offer to become a permanently opened backdoor for an across-the-board married Latin Rite priesthood. 

3).  Will these former Anglicans be real Roman Catholics?  I mean, do they have to accept Church teaching in every way?

Yes.  Without a doubt they will have to accept as true all the teachings of the Church.  Rome is not going to let them fudge on hot-button issues like contraception, papal primacy and infallibility, and Marian dogma.  They will have to become fully Roman Catholic.  The word is that they will sign copies of the Catechism rather than just make a statement of faith as is the norm now for Anglican converts.

4).  Doesn't this offer from the Pope ruin ecumenical dialogue with the Church of England and the Episcopal Church?

Some certainly think so.  I don't.  We can continue talking to anyone we please.  Most professional ecumenists see their job as an effort to find ways of bringing two churches together in some sort of theological or ecclesial compromise.  We'll drop doctrine X if your accept doctrine Y.  This is not the Church's teaching on how to do ecumenical dialogue.  Dialogue with other ecclesial communities is not about diluting the tradition just so we can all say that we belong to the same institution.  Benedict's offer to the Anglican is truly ecumenical because he has waived certain non-essential requirements for admission into the Church.  He has made it simpler to become Catholic, not simpler to just join a compromised tradition.  Catholic ecumenists are a little upset with all this because they sometimes see these dialogues as a backdoor means of liberalizing Catholic teaching.  They also don't like the fact that Benedict's offer is unilateral, that is, not negotiated with the official Anglican bodies.  The assumption here is that Rome should have treated Canterbury as an ecclesial equal rather than the usurper it is. 

5).  Does this move hurt our relations with the Orthodox?

Hardly.  By allowing married Anglican clergy to become Catholic priests but not bishops, the Holy Father is sending a clear signal to the Orthodox that the ancient tradition of a celibate episcopacy will be maintained.  If anything, the offer will strengthen our ties to the Orthodox (a very, very good thing!).  It has become painfully clear in the last few decades that organic union with the mainstream of Protestantism is not going to happen.  The divisions have been widened over the years by women's ordination, same-sex activism, and other radical changes in the catholic tradition.  Rome cannot alter the essentials even if she wanted to.   And most liberal Protestants are too entrenched in their modernist heresies to accept Roman authority anyway.  Our only hope for reunion now is with the traditional Anglicans and the Orthodox.  This is one of the projects of the current pope.

6).  Why not set up a Jewish Use parish, or a Buddhist Use parish?  They don't hold Catholic beliefs either.

I'll treat this as a serious question.  Obviously, Jews and Buddhists aren't Christians.  The Church has never said that Anglicans, Methodists, Quakers, etc. are not Christians.  They do not hold to the fullness of the apostolic faith found in the Catholic Church, but they are baptized Christians.  Jews, Buddhists, atheists, animists are all welcomed to become Catholic any time they choose to.  Christ's offer of salvation with his Church is universal.

I will post more on this issue once the constitution is published.  One friar noted yesterday that the Vatican is holding on to the constitution in order to gauge public reaction to the Pope's offer.  The idea is to let the notion percolate, listen for issues not raised or discussed in the private deliberations, and make any changes necessary.  Smart move, if true.

B.O.'s media bullying of FOX fails. . .miserably

The Most Transparent and Open Administration EVAH! tried to bar FoxNews from the press pool that covers this most translucent, illustriously tolerant White House.

It didn't work.

To their credit, the other news organizations refused to go along with B.O.'s bullying and threatened to pull their reporters if Fox was excluded.  As usual, confront a bully and he'll back down--they are basically cowards at heart.

Never one to say anything nice about the NYT, I will nonetheless gratefully acknowledge the Times' role in exposing B.O.'s thuggery. 

The current take on the White House's war with FoxNews is that the bumbling crew of the West Wing hoped to dissuade their media minions from picking up on stories Fox is reporting. 

Again, it didn't work.

Let's hope and pray that the MSM has grown tired of B.O.'s petulance.  Maybe they'll start doing their jobs now.

Awake! Awake! To set the bowls for leaks!*

For once this week I was sleeping well. . .only to be awakened at 3am by an annoying dripping sound.

I got up to discover that it was raining outside. . .and in my room.

At this moment there are eight leaks in my ceiling.  Are they dripping over the sink?  No.  The middle of the room?  No.  How about near the door or window?  No.

All eight are concentrated over my bookshelf and desk.  Of course.  Where else?

Siamo in Italia!

For the last two weeks a crew of roofers has been crawling over scaffolding right outside my window repairing the roof. . .allegedly.  They "work" from about 8.30am to 11.00 and then again from about 3.30pm to 4.00.  And only on days beginning with "T."  As far as I can tell "repairing the roof" in Italian means a lot of yelling, lots of milling about smoking, and the occasional burst of hammering between coffee breaks.  Must be union labor.

Anyway, this makes me very cranky b/c it means that I have to stay in my room to make sure no new leaks spring up to ruin my books or the electronics on my desk.

Last November the leaks were right over my bed, which meant rearranging the furniture.  That was no big deal, really.  I'm not all that concerned about losing a mattress or some bed linens.  But my BOOKS!!!  Now, you're threatening my children, buddy.  And Papa Bear ain't happy about that.  

Fortunately, it never rains in Rome for long.

*Ten brownie points to anyone who can identify the allusion here.

Simply Catholic: Cardinal George on the liberal project

In 1966, the French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, read a paper at a conference held at Johns Hopkins titled, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences."  Thus was the American academy introduced to the corrosive influence of deconstuction's radical skepticism about the ability of language to convey truth.  The history of the liberal arts in the U.S. since 1966 has been a long, sad story of decline into relativistic chaos and left-wing political manipulation.  Deconstruction is essentially (no pun) a machine of critique.  It is conceptually incapable of building anything.  It can only destroy.

In 1998, Francis Cardinal George stunned a congregation at Old St. Patrick's with this line delivered in his homily:  "Liberal Catholicism is an exhausted project."  Later, he was asked to elaborate and did so at a Commmonweal forum held at Loyola University in 1999.

An except from his elaboration:

"We are at a turning point in the life of the church in this country. Liberal Catholicism is an exhausted project. Essentially a critique, even a necessary critique at one point in our history, it is now parasitical on a substance that no longer exists. It has shown itself unable to pass on the faith in its integrity and inadequate, therefore, in fostering the joyful self-surrender called for in Christian marriage, in consecrated life, in ordained priesthood. It no longer gives life."

What started as a much-needed critical review of Church doctrine and practice in the late 19th century, peaked in the documents of Vatican Two, and found its most strident voices in the 70's and 80's has become the sterilizing practice of postmodern dissent and heresy.  The "necessary critique" of manual Thomism and semi-Janenist moral practice in the Church is indeed now "parasitical."

Just as deconstruction demolished the absurd pretenses of liberal western culture and literature with its relentless attack on language, and now sits like a bloated toad on the university quad poisoning everything in its reach, the Spirit of Vatican Two refreshed a moribund institutional Church only to find itself haunting a decimated and demoralized body of believers.

Lest we think the cure is nostalgia, Cardinal George quickly adds:

"The answer, however, is not to be found in a type of conservative Catholicism obsessed with particular practices and so sectarian in its outlook that it cannot serve as a sign of unity of all peoples in Christ."

We cannot rebuild the Church if the only vision of the Church we can see and communicate is the Church as it was in the 1800's.  The liberal project (exemplified by Newman) pushed the Church to engage the world in terms foreign to its basic philosophical foundations.  In taking on this challenge, the Church gained an incredibly fruitful means of evangelization that saw amazing results in the decades leading up to the Second Vatican Council.

Then, like most good things, one good thing was taken to be the only thing and aggressive, unrelenting critique became the mark of being a Catholic intellectual.  Left aside were the pesky admonitions of tradition, ecclesial authority, reason, and just plain good sense.  The only thing that came to matter was opposition to alleged oppression and the failure to be radical enough in one's take-down of the Church.  This is the intellectual equivalent of deciding to renovate your kitchen by demolishing your house and killing your family.

What both John Paul II and Benedict XVI have been trying to communicate to the Church and the world is this:  the time for critical demolition is over.  That project is done.  It is time to retire the dynamite, return the bulldozer, fire the demolition crews, and start to rebuild on the foundation left for us by the apostles.  At the very least, this means a return to the documents of Vatican Two, read and implemented through their continuity with the tradition and reason.  They are not calling us back to an uncritical embrace of Baroque Thomism and manual moralism.  Nor are they asking us to live in the illusions of a warmed-over 1950's nostalgia.  All they are asking the Church to do is start in the present, look back to where we came from and forward to where we are going without getting lost in the bitterness and cynicism that a life of complaint and opposition engenders.

Is that so hard?

Lambeth not happy. . .but why?

Damien Thompson is reporting that Lambeth Palace (the Anglican Vatican) opposed yesterday's generous offer by the Holy Father to take their troublesome traditionalists off their hands. 

I'm not sure why.

It's a win-win for Rome and Canterbury.  Rome gets lots of new, orthodox Catholics, including many extremely well-educated priests.  Canterbury gets rid of one of the many traditionalist thorns digging into its postmodernist skin. 

The only losers in this move by the Holy Father are the left-lib bishops, priests, and institutional dissenters of England & Wales.  There will now be lots of alternatives available to faithful Catholics who are fed up with The Tablet * Church in the U.K.  Catholics who are weary of being told that their Anglican Betters are clearing the path ahead of them toward a Better Roman Church will now have the choice to join a parish that preaches and teaches the Sacred Tradition and not the Latest Thing from the Holy Zeitgeist. 

And since faithful Catholics are the ones actually going to Mass and having kids, it won't take long before all those beautiful buildings we "donated" to Henry VIII and his wives become available. . .assuming, of course, the Church of England doesn't sell them all off to the Muslims as community centers before then.

* The Tablet is the U.K.'s version of America Magazine and the National Catholic Reporter.  Think: Richard McBrien and Joan Chitisster with really posh Brit accents.