Italy freaks out over paranormal activity

There's a minor controversy roiling in Italy over the movie, Paranormal Activity.  

Apparently, some Italian movie-goers are freaking out during and after the movie.  Showing signs of classic panic attacks, children and teens are complaining of shortness of breath, rapid heart rate, etc.  

I'm not sure what to make of this.  My first reaction was:  the movie studio must be delighted at the free P.R.  Nothing promotes a book or film better than a call to ban it for producing unpleasant effects.

Then I started wondering if the attacks were more than just your typical teenager overreaction.  It would be interesting (though difficult) to find out if these afflicted teens have any connections to occult practices or worldviews.  Most of the attacks are being reported in Naples.  I've been told more than once that Naples is a center of occultism in Italy.  Rome has its share too. 

Hmmmmm. . .???

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

Why Are Liberals So Condescending?  Reaching back into my left-liberal days in grad school, I recall many cocktail party conversations with my fellow-travelers.  The target of our ire was the entrenched "white male dominated culture of western values" in the academic study of literature.  Of course, this bled over into our politics as well.  Unfortunately, we chose to adopt various versions of deconstructionism and Marxist ideology to uproot these scalawags.  Though we often differed on the details of how to carry out our Utopian revolution, we never argued over one essential point:  conservatives were beyond stupid; they were evil.

Fisking the pro-abort hysterical overreaction to the pro-life Tebow Superbowl ad.  Can you say "clueless"? 

As an academic, a philosopher-in-training, I thrive on discussion.  It's just what we do.  When it comes to ecumenical dialogue, I'm all for it.  Talking to other religions and other Christian bodies is not only a good idea, it's a moral duty.  However, Cardinal Kasper's latest idea is a really, really bad one:  the Ecumenical Catechism.  I have visions of the CCC being replaced on seminary bookshelves all over the world.  Talk about the rise of an alternative magisterium!

Should Catholic Charities be in the business of providing a needle exchange for heroin addicts? 

The Boy Scout Handbook:  the most conservative book published in America?  With sources in virtue ethics and Stoicism, just maybe.  Though I think "conservative" is the wrong label here.

The mind of Ratzinger and the heart of Roncalli:  Italian Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture.  John Allen profiles one of the Vatican's rising stars. (H/T:  New Advent).

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Are we driving men away?

On any given Sunday here in Rome, the congregations attending Mass will be mostly women, and most of them will be elderly women.  God bless them!  What you will almost never see is younger men.  Hispanic friars tell me that the same goes for Masses in Latin and South America as well.  Church-going is women's work.

Why is that?  Not so long ago it was suggested by critics of a modernist Church that the reforms of Vatican Two and the subsequent hijacking of those reforms by feminists had "feminized" the Church (esp. the liturgy) to the point where men felt excluded.  Men voted with their feet.  

As a student brother in St Louis I once attended a Newman Center Mass at a university in Illinois.  Among the 30 or so students in attendance there were exactly three men--me, the priest, and the boyfriend of a young woman who read the readings.  Father, unfortunately, was the stereotypical Newman Center chaplain--deeply committed to a 1973 reading of Vatican Two, tied-dyed vestments, syrupy homily, huggy-kissy liturgy, big chunky loaf of granola bread for consecration, etc.  

The Center's personnel were women.  All of the student officers of the Catholic Student Organization were women.  All of the communion ministers were women.  All the readers and the entire choir were women.  I saw several offices with name plates on the doors.  All women. 

The building itself was "female" as well!  Round building, the chairs arranged in a circle, the altar dressings were "hand-made" in that oh-so-1973 style.  Since the chapel was basically a multi-purpose religious celebration space, images of other religions were hung about.  The Episcopalians had recently painted the walls and ceiling pink and hung up "art" by their grade school children.  The whole place exuded the feeling of a kindergarten classroom. 

During the Mass, I noticed that the boyfriend was standing stoically by his girlfriend with his arms crossed.  He never opened his mouth.  He was especially resolute in his silence when we sung a hand-clapping rendition of the Gloria!  When Mass was over, I tried to introduce myself, but he hit the door faster than I could get to him.  

I asked the priest afterward about the conspicuous absence of men at the Mass.  He just shrugged his shoulders and seemed not the least bit worried that his summer camp Mass might be alienating his male charges. 

Fr. Z. has some thoughts on getting men back into the parish. 

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A Strange Sight: Nuns on Oprah!

The Holy Father recently called on priests to use the internet to preach and teach the Gospel.  The Dominican Order regularly calls on its friars, nuns, sisters, and laity to enter the fray in cyberspace and mark out a place for the Holy Preaching.  

In answer to these calls, the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist will process onto the set of the Oprah Winfrey Show.

“When asked why they chose to accept the invitation and appear on the show, “Oprah is powerful -- we entrust this endeavor to Mother Mary for the greater glory of her Son! It's truly been a lot of fun as 'the world' does not begin to understand our life,” the Dominican said. “Hopefully, this will inspire more people to love God and serve Him in the manner He invites each of us -- and get the Gospel on the airwaves!!”

“The Dominican Sisters of Mary were founded in 1997 by four Dominican sisters responding to John Paul II’s call for a new evangelization. In the 13 years of their existence, they have grown to almost 100 members. Their newly constructed motherhouse is already filled to capacity.

Currently the average age of the sisters is 26 and the average age of their postulants is 21.

“Young people, inspired by John Paul the Great and Pope Benedict XVI, are generous and desirous of living sacrificial, authentic lives as God asks of them,” Sr. Joseph Andrew said.

“We agreed (to be on the show) because it will further understanding of Religious Life,” she added. “The Catholic Church is alive, well, and thriving as is authentic religious life,” she added.” 


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Rationalists, Doomsayers, & Survivors

Though not generally a big fan of horror movies, I really enjoyed The Mist (2001).  Here's a very brief thematic summary from Wikipedia (Spoiler Alert:  the full entry in Wikipedia outlines the whole movie, including the end):

[. . .] the central theme is what ordinary people will be driven to do under extraordinary circumstances. The plot revolves around members of the small town of Bridgton, Maine who conceal themselves in a local supermarket when a violent thunderstorm cuts off the power. While they struggle to survive an unnatural mist which envelops the town [. . .], extreme tensions arise amongst the survivors.

What's interesting to me about this movie is the way Stephen King (the novella's author) and the script writers of the movie present three distinct hermeneutical lenses through which the people in the supermarket view the crisis they find themselves in and how they come to deal with the horror they have little control over. 

The three lenses are clarified once a small group of those locked in the supermarket try to leave the building through the loading dock.  I won't give away exactly what happens, but this group witnesses an event that confirms for them earlier reports of what the mist conceals.  When they report what they have seen, the people divide into three hermeneutical groups:

Evidence-based rationalists who believe that the men are lying about the event they witnessed, steadfastly insisting on empirical proof and refusing to credit the incredible story w/o such proof.

Apocalyptic doomsayers who believe the men but interpret the event as a sign of God's wrathful judgment on a sinful world, demanding expiation in blood.

Pragmatic survivors who are unsure of what the men saw but nonetheless prepare themselves for survival as if the men are telling the truth.   

Each group proposes its own explanation of the crisis according to its hermeneutical lens and sets out possible responses to the crisis given their initial assumptions.   Each group is sorely tested by events, and each experiences potentially debilitating set backs.

The ending is heartbreaking.  And you will be very surprised to learn which of the three turns out to be true. 

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

American-style sex scandal hits the German Church.  The Church in Europe is under both external and internal attack.  Pay attention to the amount of energy and time the Holy Father puts into calling on European Catholics to return to the faith of our fathers.  He knows what's going on.

BXVI calls out the culture of death in the E.U.  Talk about a lone voice crying out in the wilderness.

Kudos to B.O. on making the right decision:  no plans for the U.S. to join the International Criminal Court anytime soon.

The decline of the global warming farce is not being hidden.  It's time to de-fund the whole thing and send the IPCC apparatchiks back to their dank basements at mama's house.

I watched highlights of Sarah Palin's address to the Tea Party convention.  What I heard wasn't all that impressive.  Some are painting her as a female Ronald Reagan.  Naw.  She's gonna need a MUCH better speechwriter to achieve that.  Governor Palin, have your people call my people.  I'm free this summer!

The other side of the CCHD story:  Fr. Frank Pavone, pro-life priest extraordinaire, defends the former head of the CCHD, James Carr, against accusations of being pro-abortion. 

Tom Peters, the American Papist, has a round-up of links about the CCHD controversy.

This is both cute and cruel.  But the really important question here is:  where's the sweet and spicy relish?

10 places you cannot visit. . .including the chapel containing the Ark of the Covenant!

Man survives polar beat attack:  gruesome pics that may make you lose your breakfast.

13 foreign words with no English equivalents.  During my time in China as an English professor, I had a very difficult time learning the rules of guanxi ("gwan-chee").

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Modernist crisis in religious life?

Cardinal Franc Rode, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, recently addressed the problems in contemporary religious orders, describing the situation as a "modern crisis." 

He argues that declining numbers, systemic dissent and disobedience, and spiritual malaise are all rooted in a surrender to secular worldviews, specifically, "the adoption of a secularist mentality and the abandonment of traditional practices."

The situation in contemporary religious life is not only a modern crisis but a "modernist crisis" as well; that is, a crisis brought on by the introduction, cultivation, and harvesting of the destructive fruits of modernist thinking.  

As a philosophical and theological worldview, modernism leads to several ways of thinking and acting that erode spiritually fruitful religious life. . .

First, modernism elevates scientific rationalism above mystery.  In an attempt to replace less reliable sources of knowing such as revelation, myth, mystery, etc., modernist thinkers placed materialist reason and science on the throne of knowledge.  Reason's patrimony as a divine gift for understanding God through His creation was up-ended.  Reason became an end in itself. 

Second, modernism, now committed to the pursuit of knowledge through reason alone, abandoned traditional metaphysics, the science of being.  No longer concerned with existence itself as a foundation for knowing, modernism replaced the divine with the natural, leaving us blind to everything but the material world.  Once our ways of knowing were naturalized, we no longer needed to appeal to any sort of objective ethical/moral standards.  There is nothing beyond nature that gives us a way of deciding between right and wrong, so there is no real  metaphysical difference btw right and wrong.

Third, if there is no real metaphysical difference btw right and wrong, how do we go about deciding which behaviors, beliefs, etc. are acceptable and which are not?  Since we are dealing only with the natural world--no objective standards, no appeal to God--we must appeal to emotion, affection.  Now, our moral decisions are made after asking the question, "how does this make me feel?"  Trusting in feelings over and above a rational assessment of objective truth inevitability leads to moral chaos. 

Fourth, by focusing exclusively on individual feelings, modernism rapidly declined into a project for self-fulfillment and narcissist projection:  the world and everyone in it is all about me and my needs.  As the sole creator and redeemer of my world, I am the final arbiter of what's good for me, bad for me, necessary for me to thrive, and you are just a player in my world--though a player I choose to respect as if you were totally independent of my decisions.   My respect for you, however, is premised solely on your willingness to stay out of my way.  Detached from community and transcendence, I am a morally free agent but, perversely, one largely determined by genetics, social forces, and biology. 

Fifth, as modernist rationalism slowly became more and more the possession of materialist science, the humanities surrendered to nihilism.  No objective standards.  Total suspicion of authority.  Elevation of liberationist politics over the search for truth.  Anti-realist appeals to language as the sole builder of "reality."  Collectivists models for knowing (philosopher Richard Rorty once noted, "The truth is what my colleagues will allow me to get away with saying.")  And the most destructive development of all for religious life:  the death of charity in the pursuit of individualized careers, agendas, etc. even to the destruction of the community.

Though Crdl Rode is correct in noting that secularization is destroying religious life, I do not think that an uncritical return to traditional religious practices will reverse this trend.  What we need is a renaissance in the humanist pursuit of mystery in the art, liturgy, theology, philosophy, literature of the Catholic sacramental imagination.  Simply picking up a rosary or wearing a habit is not going to revive religious life.  We have to come to a broadly, deeply held understanding of what it means to "stand under" the mystery of the divine and live toward our perfection in Him.  Traditional religious practices are more likely to lead us to this goal than the fabricated neo-pagan rituals many religious communities use now.  However, there is no magic in devotionals; no magic in habits or monstrances or anything else we associate with traditional religion. 

What we must do at every level is re-establish the notion that intellect, will, reason, emotion, etc. are all divine gifts oriented toward our divinization though Christ.  Nothing can stand above faith as the source and summit of our life in Christ, but every gift we have received as well-loved creatures can stand along side faith in order to clarify, enlighten, and distinguish.

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

B.O.'s adviser for faith-based initiatives continues his anti-Catholic bigotry.  This guy needs to go.

Will we witness another bloody revolution in Iran?

There is Hope for Change in Nevada.  It's coming Nov. 2, 2010.

Your Majesty, the peasants are revolting!

A little wake up music for you farm boys and girls out there.

I have no idea what this pic means or why it was taken. . .if you laugh at it, you're strange.  LOL.

Beware of Dog. . .he thinks he's Rambo.

The inexplicable.  Ummmm. . .I dunno. . .you tell me.

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Catholic identity at the University of Dallas

John Allen reports on his participation in a recent panel discussion at the University of Dallas.

The discussion topic:  "The Identity of a Catholic University."  

Oddly, Mr. Allen contrasts "intellectual openness" with "religious orthodoxy," as if one cannot be both open and orthodox.  Of course, what "openness" means to the Tolerant Crowd is a dogmatic adherence to leftist ideology, deviations from which result in swift prosecution and punishment at most secular universities. 

So, yes, it's true. . .one cannot be intellectually open and secularly orthodox.

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Just Say No to the Ouija

Now there's a pink Ouija board. . .just in case you want to introduce your daughters and granddaughters to the practice of occult divination.

And just in case you DO want to introduce them to such things:  DON'T!  Marketed as a parlor game, the Ouija board is anything but a game.  It's a doorway to Something that no sane person wants to play with.

Even if you reject the notion that divination is a way of invoking demonic forces (whatever they may be), and even if you reject the notion that there is any such thing as demonic forces, divination of any kind taps into the human unconscious and brings to the surface images, patterns, forces, ideas, passions, etc. that are unconscious for very good reasons.  

Chief among these reasons is the tendency of the human mind to shape its understanding of the world around the complexities of daily experience.  Guided by right reason, the mind is capable of rational deliberation, of weighing options and calculating consequences for self-preservation within the proper bounds of Right and Wrong.  Once we have opened ourselves to our more primitive impulses and passions, reason quickly begins to look more and more like a nagging restraint rather than a guide.  And what is left to guide us then?  Predator instinct? Power?

From a Christian perspective, occult divination is the outright rejection of Divine Providence.  We don't need to know the future (if such a thing is possible) b/c we trust in God's promise to provide and care for us.  All we need do is give God thanks for all the blessings He has already given us and do what is Right.  

If you own a Ouija board, Tarot cards, etc. get rid of them.  Destroy them.  There's no need to be superstitious about the process--just burn them along with other trash, or tear them up so no one else can use them. 

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India spanks IPCC

The evangelism arm of the Church of Global Warming, the IPCC, is starting to unravel at lightening speed. 

The Indian government has announced that it has pulled out of the U.N.'s effort to fabricate a global climate crisis and formed its own scientific foundation to track changes in the Himalayas. 

Can China be far behind? 

Pope Al Gore I was unavailable for comment.   The Nobel Peace Prize committee is too embarrassed to show its face in public.

Of note:  GreenPeace U.K. calls on the IPCC Chief Pachauri to resign.

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Powerhouses of Prayer: O.P. Nuns

Another excerpt from the Holy Father's Wednesday general audience on St Dominic:

+  +  +

When Dominic died in 1221 in Bologna, the city that declared him its patron, his work had already had great success. The Order of Preachers, with the support of the Holy See, had spread to many countries of Europe to the benefit of the whole Church. Dominic was canonized in 1234, and it is he himself, with his sanctity, who indicates to us two indispensable means for apostolic action to be incisive. First of all, Marian devotion, which he cultivated with tenderness and which he left as precious legacy to his spiritual children, who in the history of the Church have had the great merit of spreading the prayer of the holy rosary, so dear to the Christian people and so rich in evangelical values, a true school of faith and piety. In the second place, Dominic, who took care of some women's convents in France and in Rome, believed profoundly in the value of intercessory prayer for the success of apostolic work. Only in Paradise will we understand how much the prayer of the cloistered effectively supports apostolic action! To each one of them I direct my grateful and affectionate thoughts.

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I can personally attest to the fruits of our cloistered sisters' ministry of contemplative prayer.  Their intercessions have helped me, my family and friends, and the friars of my province dozens of times in the ten years I have been a Dominican.  For the Order as a whole, our nuns are a Powerhouse of Prayer! 

If you would like to learn more about our cloistered sisters, check out this link.  

Complete text of the Wednesday audience.

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Why is this Canadian premier coming to the US for surgery?

The Premier of Canada's Newfoundland province will travel to the U.S. for heart surgery.

This choice by Premier Danny Williams should raise serious questions in the minds of Americans who look to Canada as a model for socialized medicine in the U.S.  What's wrong with Canada's system of health care that scares the premier?

Not only does the premier's choice indicate a serious lack of confidence in the Canadian system, but it also points out the tendency of the rich and powerful to abandon the nationalized schemes of wealth redistribution they support when their own health and wealth is threatened. 

Of note here is the consistent refusal of Congressional Democrats to require Senators and Congressmen to use the public option they were trying to force on Americans.  Majorities in both houses of Congress voted against several GOP amendments requiring Congress to abandon its "Cadillac" health plan in favor of the much touted public-option.

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Recognize dissent for it is: corrosive

In his address to the bishops of England & Wales, the Holy Father challenged the prelates to "recognise dissent for what it is." 

Too often disguised as "dialogue," dissent endangers ecclesial unity and leads the faithful into serious error.  Lest anyone come away with the idea that calling out dissenters amounts to suppressing free speech or academic freedom, we must remember that the Holy Father himself is one of the best examples of how the Church can talk to a secular culture in a reasoned manner with fruitful results.  The orthodoxy of the Church is not a straitjacket nor it is a choir for parroting papal talking points.  As I have noted many times, a Church that boasts prominent theologians as diverse as Augustine, Bonaventure, Aquinas, de Lubac, van Balthasar, and Congar cannot be labeled an oppressive monolith of fossilized thought.  

There is a distinction to be made between the Truth of the Faith and how this Truth is understood and communicated.  Gregory of Nyssa in the 3rd century believed and taught the truth of the Holy Trinity.  Thomas Aquinas, a thousand years later, also believed and taught the truth of the Holy Trinity.  However, their approach in communicating this mystery couldn't be more different.

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BXVI on St Dominic

At yesterday's general audience, BXVI spoke about Saint Dominic Guzmán, the founder of the Order of Preachers:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today I wish to speak of the great contribution made by Saint Dominic to the renewal of the Church in the Middle Ages. As a priest of the Spanish diocese of Osma, he was sent on missions throughout Europe, which drew his attention to the need for sound and zealous preachers to bring the Gospel to the people. He was entrusted with the task of refuting the heresy of the Albigensians, who denied the incarnation of Christ, the resurrection of the body and the value of marriage and the sacraments. Embracing a life of poverty, Dominic dedicated himself to the task of preaching the Gospel, and with a band of followers he established the Order of Preachers, also known as Dominican Friars. Adapting the rule of Saint Augustine to the needs of the apostolic life, Dominic placed emphasis on theological study, prayer and community life for his friars. Thus fortified, they would be sent out on missions as itinerant, mendicant preachers. Hence the Dominican motto, contemplata aliis tradere – to hand on to others the fruits of contemplation. One important way in which the Dominicans did this was by promoting the prayer of the rosary, a beautiful means of contemplating, through the eyes of Mary, the truth revealed in the mysteries of the life, death and Resurrection of her son. 

Some interesting facts about the OP's. . .

The Holy Father's household theologian is always a Dominican (there were a few Franciscans thrown in there Way Back When).  The current household theologian is from Poland, fra.Wojciech Giertych, O.P.  Fr. Giertych is also a professor of moral theology here at the Angelicum.

The Holy Father's distinctive white cassock is an adapted Dominican habit.  Pope Pius V, an O.P., wore his habit while pope and his successors adapted it for daily use.  It is traditional for O.P. friars to wear the full habit--including black cape and hood--while out in the city of Rome as a sign of respect for the Holy Father's distinctive garb.  Papal protocol does not allow those in private audience with the Pope to wear white.  Only heads of state are exempted.

The leaders of the friars--from the Master right on down to the priory's lector--are elected for limited terms.  There are no "until death" offices in the Order.  There is evidence that Thomas Jefferson was familiar with the Order's constitution and used some of its principles in drafting our nation's founding documents. 

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