Banning the burkha?

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

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

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

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Coffee Bowl Browsing (in breve)

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

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

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

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

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Rel & Sci seminar: required texts

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

Here's an updated list of required texts:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not.

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Lower the drinking age. . .

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

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

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

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Rel & Sci syllabus

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

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

Week One: What is religion? What is science?

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

Week Two: Conflict, cooperation, or mutual ignorance?

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

Week Three: Religious and Scientific Realism

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

Week Four: Going too far

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

Week Five: “One World” case studies

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

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Mom back in the hospital

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

Looks like she has pneumonia again. 

Prayers, please. . .

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Vatican Good Friday Services

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

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

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

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

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Summer Classes at U.D. update

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

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

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

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

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

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Scuba Becky update

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

So, looks like the biopsy was negative. 

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

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Gomez to L.A.!

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

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

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

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

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

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Choosy Medieval Philosopher-theologians choose Kindle

A HancAquam reader sent this to me:

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Coffee Bowl Browsing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Dark clouds and the rise of our only hope

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

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

The WeatherBug reports that it will rain.  Great.

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

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

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

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

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