Followup to yesterday's Humane Vitae post...

   I have gotten some response to yesterday's post, and first of all... thanks.  I've been quiet recently, I know, but I've also been real busy with a number of projects.  I am still waiting for my assignment to come down, which is just a matter of time at this point, so when I have news I can share publicly, I will certainly do so.

   I am also sitting on top of a couple of "Comeback Trail" articles which I started and never finished.  Number 3 is practically done, so I'll work it over in the next day or so and turn it loose.  The next one shouldn't be too far behind.

 

   Anyway, one of the follow-ups I wanted to offer was something that I and no small number of my colleagues have used in a homilies and talks before... it is the four "predictions" of Pope Paul VI which he offers towards the end of Humane Vitae, the papal teaching document which was offered 45 years ago yesterday.  He was a prophet of his time, I think, as he had a good understanding of the consequences of the "contraceptive spirit" which he could see, even in the mid-1960's.  Without further ado, here they are:   (from Humane Vitae #17-18)

1. Contraception would promote conjugal infidelity.
2. Contraception would contribute to a "lowering of morality" by increased temptation and the perception of 'ease' (meaning a seeming lack of consequences) in breaking that law.
3. Contraception would lead to diminished reverence (what an awesome word!) for women, where they would be seen as "instruments of satisfaction of his own desires " rather than as a cherished partner to the man.
4. Widespread acceptance of contraception would lead to a massive imposition of contraception by unscrupulous governments.

The results some forty-five years later are somewhat self-explanatory, but wow, we are getting front-row seats to #4 here in the states in our own time.  Contraception and abortion are now considered health care by many of our duly-elected overlords (not to mention, the unelected bureaucracy).  Indeed, the next step for a big government that assumes this kind of power is that it exercise that power coercively.

 

 

Notre Dame: Obama (2009) vs. Dolan (2013)

I ran across an article that contained Cardinal Dolan's address to the graduates of Notre Dame University.  Out of some 'vast right-wing conspiracy' operating in the depths of my soul, I thought some random comparisons might be interesting... just for kicks and giggles.  This isn't a scientific survey... I simply leafed through the speeches and picked out some key words to search with my browser's "find" function.  Maybe I counted perfectly (including plurals and singulars of the same word, etc,) maybe I didn't... but I'm fairly close and fairly representative, I think, in my counts.  I'll be happy to make any corrections or include observations that readers might point out.

Oh, FWIW, my parish has already been the subject of a "random" IRS audit... which we passed...  it cost us a bunch of time that would be better-spent doing anything else, a bunch of money in professional fees that would be better-spent on anything else, and unnecessary wear-and-tear on an already-overburdened pastor, but we got through it OK.  (It's a good thing I like to run a 'clean ship'.)  I wouldn't mind seeing some people in the government fired for this, however high it goes, if this can be proven to be an arbitrary attack on us as a church and as Catholics who are not afraid to be Catholic.

 

 

 

 

 

	President Obama, 2009	Timothy Cardinal Dolan, 2013
	Printed in NYT	speech not printed in NYT… See New Advent instead
Total Words	3539	1581
Total Time	30:30	12:30
“I”	52	19
“my” "me"	14 9	5 8
“we”	44	9
“us”	21	7
“them”	4	2
“they”	18	1
“you”/”your”	67	39
“Jesus”	0	5
“God”	7	13
“Mary”	0	12
“Notre Dame”	12	17
“Graduate”	2 (once referring to himself)	1
Interruptions for Applause	24	?
“Alum”	0	3
“abortion”	7	0
“pro-life”	2	0
“Christian”	3	1
“Muslim”/”Islam”	1	0
“Jew”	1	3
“bible”	0	0
“opportunity”	0	0
“job”	2 (once referring to himself and his ‘job’)	0
“contribute”	0	0
“Catholic”	4	4
“poor”	1	1
“Gospel”	1	2
“moral”	3	0
“value”	3	0
“gay”/”homosexual”	1	0
“love”	5	2
“cooperation”	4	0
“2009” or “2013”	5	5
“religion”	2	0
“diversity”	4	0
“(dis)/agree”	4	0

  I don't know if this survey proves anything.  My greatest interest, as you might see, was in the use of pronouns.  I suppose that a speech twice as long as the other will result in twice as much usage of these kinds of words, but what I am detecting is one orator's significantly greater use of "us" vs. "them" kind of language... assigning attributes and attitudes to what "they" do or say or believe.  I was surprised to see that, proportionally, the self-references ("I", "me", "my") between the two orators were pretty close.

   The other thing to consider is the use of 'moral' language... what "should" and "should not" be part of the graduate's life or worldview in the president's speech--content which was mostly lacking in the Cardinal's.  I would be from the school that moralizing is pretty low on the totem pole when it comes to preaching.  Yes, morals need to be taught from the pulpit, but I think there is at least as great a need, if not greater, to inculcate the "Catholic way of thinking"... sound interpretation of scripture, seeing the eschatological horizons, bringing the Good News "home", teaching Catholic culture and liturgy and history and hagiography.  Moralizing tends to be a lot of "you" talk, which tends to turn people's ears off... people have a tendency to say to themselves when they feel themselves in the cross hairs: "this doesn't apply to me" or "the priest doesn't know what he is talking about" or "quit treating talking down to us, you hypocrite"... or worse yet, "yeah, go after those (other people) sinners!"  One cannot ignore morality as a necessary component of preaching, but to simply be fed a steady, indiscriminate diet of moralizing tends to strangle the homiletic imagination and divide crowds.

   Neither speaker had much to say about what the graduates would be doing on Monday morning, i.e., getting a job and contributing to society.  I hope that's OK with all the Notre Dame parents out there and the student loan industry.  Who knows?  Maybe there were some religious vocations lurking about in the crowd?

de Tocqueville on Catholicism in America (II)

   The Catholics are faithful to the observances of their religion; they are fervent and zealous in their support and belief of their doctrines.  Nevertheless they constitute the most republican and the most democratic class of citizens which exists in the United States; and although this fact may surprise the observer at first, the causes by which it is occasioned may easily be discovered upon reflection.  I think that the Catholic religion has erroneously been looked upon as the natural enemy of democracy.  Amongst the various sects of Christians, Catholicism seems to me, on the contrary, to be one of those which are most favourable to the equality of conditions ... On doctrinal points the Catholic faith places all human capacities upon the same level; it subjects the wise and the ignorant, the man of genius and the vulgar crowd, to the details of the same creed; it imposes the same observances upon the rich and the needy, it inflicts the same austerities upon the strong and the weak, it listens to no compromise with mortal man, but, reducing all the human race to the same standard, it confounds all the distinctions of society at the foot of the same altar, even as they are confounded in the sight of God.  If Catholicism predisposes the faithful to obedience, it certainly does not prepare them for inequality ... The priests in America have divided the intellectual world into two parts: in one they place the doctrines of revealed religion, which command their assent; in the other they have been freely left open to the researches of political inquiry.  Thus the Catholics of the United States are at the same time the most faithful believers and the most zealous citizens.

--  Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) Democracy in America,

quoted in Fisichella, The New Evangelization: Responding to the Challenge of Indifference (2012) pp. 40-41

de Tocqueville on Catholicism in America (I)

   America is the most democratic country in the world, and it is at the same time (according to reports worthy of belief) the country in which the Roman Catholic religion makes most progress. At first sight this is surprising.

   Two things must here be accurately distinguished: equality makes men want to form their own opinions; but, on the other hand, it imbues them with the taste and the idea of unity, simplicity, and impartiality in the power that governs society. Men living in democratic times are therefore very prone to shake off all religious authority; but if they consent to subject themselves to any authority of this kind, they choose at least that it should be single and uniform. Religious powers not radiating from a common center are naturally repugnant to their minds; and they almost as readily conceive that there should be no religion as that there should be several.
   At the present time, more than in any preceding age, Roman Catholics are seen to lapse into infidelity, and Protestants to be converted to Roman Catholicism. If you consider Catholicism within its own organization, it seems to be losing; if you consider it from outside, it seems to be gaining. Nor is this difficult to explain. The men of our days are naturally little disposed to believe; but as soon as they have any religion, they immediately find in themselves a latent instinct that urges them unconsciously towards Catholicism. Many of the doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church astonish them, but they feel a secret admiration for its discipline, and its great unity attracts them. If Catholicism could at length withdraw itself from the political animosities to which it has given rise, I have hardly any doubt but that the same spirit of the age which appears to be so opposed to it would become so favorable as to admit of its great and sudden advancement.
   One of the most ordinary weaknesses of the human intellect is to seek to reconcile contrary principles and to purchase peace at the expense of logic. Thus there have ever been and will ever be men who, after having submitted some portion of their religious belief to the principle of authority, will seek to exempt several other parts of their faith from it and to keep their minds floating at random between liberty and obedience. But I am inclined to believe that the number of these thinkers will be less in democratic than in other ages, and that our posterity will tend more and more to a division into only two parts, some relinquishing Christianity entirely and others returning to the Church of Rome.

--Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)  Democracy in America II.1.VI

Blog posts I wish I had written this week...

 

Source: BBC

   Good afternoon, everyone.  Been busy at the hideout this week and dealing with a temperamental Internet connection, so I haven't been able to post.  I have about three articles in various stages of development, but none ready to go right now... and then a bulletin article and homily reflection to offer as well.  Hopefully I'll get around to finishing all that off in the next couple of days.



   As you know, Holy Mother Church has been in the news a bit the last few days with the election of a new Holy Father, Francis.  Every time I have sat down to try to write even a little note, I find out that someone has already written an article that says what I wanted to say, and did it better than I could in the first place.  So, like the dreaded television clip-show, I offer my first "digest" article, regarding the news of the last few days.

   On Wednesday morning, before the white smoke came, I had read an article off of one of the major news services (I don't remember if it were AP or Reuters or someone else) that in the first paragraph said that the cardinals had failed to elect a pope, and then made it sound like not having a pope on the first ballot was a disaster, because there was, obviously so much disagreement among the electorate and that this was tragic because we are in such a time of CRISIS for the Church.   Crisis?  Really?

   In no way would I want to downplay the seriousness of some of the stuff the Church is facing, but this journalistic meme is not worthy of a high school rag-sheet.  Crisis?  Thomas L. McDonald over at God in the Machine points out that it took SEVEN journalistic geniuses to put this kitsch-ish article together, wringing their hands at the first ballot stalemate during one of the "most difficult periods in Church history".  McDonnald counters with a harrowing list of much worse times for the Church, starting with the execution of Jesus Christ himself, listing a couple dozen popes who had been executed or assassinated, reminding us of the early persecutions, the collapse of the Roman Empire, the Great Schism with the East, the Avignon (anti-)papacies, the three-year conclave to elect Gregory X, the Inquisition, the Reformation, the French Revolution, the anti-clerical movements of Mexico and other communist/socialist regimes, World War II and the holocaust, and much more.  Again, not to discount the challenges we face, but these crocodile tears from the media for the 'crisis' of the suffering Church shows ignorance, rather than sympathy.
   It was from Cardinal George's famous discussion about his successors dying in prison or the public square that an even more important and prophetic statement was made by the Archbishop of Chicago.  The successor of the martyr-bishop executed in the public square would be the one to "pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history."  That's the suffering Church of today--the Church guided and sustained by Christ.  No matter how badly the world would wish its collapse, we will be there.  It is that wounded Church that will ultimately be the salvation of human history and the world.  We are lucky to be living in these times of 'crisis'.  I welcome it!  If we Catholics used the courage and strength already in our hands by the power of the Holy Spirit, we could turn this world and perhaps not even have to lose our lives to do it.

   None other than Rush Limbaugh had a wonderful rant through several segments of his show yesterday, explaining that the media, while they love the idea of the South American, Jesuit pope are going to be horrified when they realize that he is CATHOLIC!  And not only that, but an orthodox, Culture-of-Life, friend-of-the-poor, personable fellow who rides the bus, who doesn't fit the media-villain meme like they would like to paint.  Not only is this an assertion of what the Church really is, an institution of FAITH, rather than POLITICS, but it shows how faith trumps politics for what is RIGHT, not what is politically expedient.  There are lessons for BOTH liberals AND conservatives as they watch the Church during these days.  It is easy to lambaste secular liberals who are unable to see that the Church can't and won't be popularly morphed into something she is not, but there is also an opportunity to remind secular conservatives the importance and security of standing for principles, rather than selling out for political expediency.

 

Speaking of "conservatives" having stuff to learn, there's a follow-up article from Thomas L. McDonald about the shameful response of some of the "rad-trads" which goes hand in hand with an earlier article from Acts of Apostasy.  Come on, people.  It has been 24... no 48 hours since he was presented on the loggia.    At this point, we still need to do a lot more listening before we do too much judging, talking, or comparing of papal pros and cons.  No pope is perfect.  No pope will satisfy all of our desires to see the Church become perfect... after all, he doesn't work for us... he works for God.  Let's welcome him and support him in assuming the awesome responsibility and influence as the leader of 1.2B Catholics and the heir to 2000 years of wisdom and history.  Let us also embrace him in his frail, broken humanity which reminds us of the struggles of Peter and others who have followed in the 'shoes of the fisherman' over those years.  (By the way, has anyone detected any "Shoes of the Fisherman" moments in the last few days?  I'm going to write a post on that soon, if I don't get beaten to it.)

 

Speaking of standing for our pope... here's a 'honeymoon' article from the BBC, followed by an article by R.R. Reno on the First Things site which shows what the Argentine media really think about the election of Francis.  Read and learn... this is where the talking points will come from in the next few days.  I'm serious, friends, Francis really does need our prayerful support.

 

Fr. Z over at WDTPRS had a poll on the major network coverage of the conclave/election.  While EWTN was not included on the list as a vote for a 'major network', the others were listed.  I was watching NBC with George Weigel and Fr. Robert Barron and Cardinal Egan and thought it was pretty good.  I heard afterwards from friends that EWTN was chattering inanely (and in some cases inaccurately) again during its broadcast coverage of the announcement of the new pope.  I really got mad about that during the funeral of John Paul II and the election of Benedict XVI... about half way through the funeral I turned off EWTN and tuned into CNN, which was broadcasting the events without all the play-by-play.  EWTN, I love you and what you do for the Church, but you really need to tell your people to shut up during these huge Catholic moments.  There are more than a few who watch EWTN who know Latin or can passably-interpret Italian at these big-time events.  Put the commentary on what color his shoes are on a SAP or provide a translation in the closed captions. 

 

Finally (for now), the Georgetowner speaks of the "Irony of a Jesuit Pope".  One should never take the holy event, such as the election of a pope by the guidance of the Holy Spirit as an opportunity for indulging in the fantasy of what 'scores' might be settled by the new management... lots of people were doing that when Papa Ratzinger came out on the loggia... we... will... resist... doing... that... now...  But as Francis steps out into the spotlight, and as Catholic institutions such as Georgetown hail the election of one of their brothers as the first Jesuit pope, one has to wonder how long that praise will echo...  ?  After all, an editorial back on February 27/28 reasoned that the "New pope must shepherd Church into modernity"... yeah, modernity... that has done the secular world loads of good:

"The Catholic Church has the potential to alter its stance on contraception, LGBT individuals, and women’s ordination within the next few decades, and this papal selection will be crucial in determining which course the Church will take. While a regionally or ethnically diverse pope could provide new opportunities for the Catholic Church to reevaluate its role in the world, perhaps these considerations should be forgone for a more progressive candidate, regardless of his origin. In order to remain relevant and maintain its scope of influence in an increasingly modern era..."  blah, blah, blah.

I suppose the real irony is that the selection of Bergoglio by the same newspaper was considered "implausible" just weeks ago.   (He seemed safely, 'too old', is my read of the editorial.)   Catholic Education at all levels is in desperate need of reform and re-visioning, that it may speak and teach clearly with the heart and mind of 2000 years of tradition and wisdom... will this Jesuit institution have the courage to lead the real reform which we need, renouncing the demonic Culture of Death in all its forms?  Will it accept the challenge of this pope not to be a milquetoast "compassionate NGO", but the Church, the Bride of Christ... after all, "when one does not profess Jesus Christ, one professes the worldliness of the devil."

'nuff said for today.  Enjoy all the chatter out there in net-land... there's some good and engaging stuff to wrap your minds around in these days.  BTW, I am welcoming (moderated) comments to my posts now.  Feel free to drop by and say 'hi'.