About that homosexuality/seminary document.

My take? I don't have much of one yet.

That's because, like everyone else in the world, I haven't seen it yet. It hasn't been published, so I don't know what it actually does or does not say.

So, it's one of those things that ought to daunt prospective opiners, so to speak.

But since everyone has an opinion anyway, I'll chip in my two denarii worth.

General gut reactions are two. First, if it is as advertised (a big if), it strikes me as an overreach, banning anyone who has experienced same-sex attraction, as opposed to someone who continues to act out on that attraction. A faithful celibate priest is a faithful celibate priest.

Second, it is utterly irrelevant, inasmuch as it is committed to the discretion of the locals for enforcement. The same folks who were so determined to ordain the likes of Rudolph Kos, despite that monster's file having more warning flags than a Christo exhibit. Since it is beyond dispute that misbehavior between consenting adults is not remotely as horrid as the rape of boys, they'll ordain who they want, and if necessary, pay the harassment settlement later. No big whoop.

Your local chancery bureaucracy is the place where Vatican directives go to die. No matter how it is worded, this will join the rest in the circular file.

Don't screw with the money.

Every now and then--about once a week or so--I get a little cynical about the Church as an institution. It's stuff like this and this that do it.

As I spoke with My Much, Much Better Half about the resignation of the Rev. Walter Cuenin yesterday morning, she remarked: "Funny how that works: you can say whatever you want from the pulpit or in public, but once there's money involved--watch out."

It's pretty hard to avoid that impression.

Likewise with the USCCB's condemnation of Remarkably Buoyant Ted: a stalwart supporter of abortion on demand for decades, he finally gets a personal and public rebuke--for fighting aid to Catholic schools devastated in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Yes, indeed--painfully difficult to avoid that impression.

But that's what happens when you spend a couple of generations impersonating Conan Doyle's dog that did not bark. When the dog does start barking, we get curious about what's setting it off. Here, the armed burglar can break into the house with nary a snarl.

Just as long as he doesn't kick over the bowl of dog food in the process.

A Quiz for the SF Geek in all of us.

I am: E.E. "Doc" Smith The inventor of space opera. His purple space war tales remain well-read generations later.

Which science fiction writer are you?

WARNING: Some gratuitously rough language in the quiz.

Prayer request.

Not for me, but for a close friend of ours and her children. The friend, whom I shall call Teresa because it sounds nothing like her real name, is an immigrant, and her closest family members live about 1300 miles away. She has spent the past week making a break from an abusive marriage, and Heather has been helping out every day. There are two little children involved (not abused themselves), and it has been heart-rendingly painful and difficult for them, too.

Prayers for Heather, too--it's been stressful for her as well, though not nearly at the same level.

Thanks.

Calfskin Clericalism.

I think the thing that really torques me off about Fr. McBrien's sneering dismissal of Santorum's faith is the fact it is predicated on an academic clericalism that has run riot in the Church in America since the Council.

Stripped of the boilerplate, McBrien is arguing that if you really want to understand the Catholic faith, you have to have an advanced degree. Not even attending a seminary will do, as his trashing of the authors of Catholicism for Dummies shows. Nope--you have to attend "graduate-level course[s] in church history" before you are permitted to speak.

OK, fine. If he really believes what he is shovelling, I'll see his raise and go all-in. If that's what it takes, Mr. Voice Of The Faithful, then every officially Catholic college and university in this country is morally obligated to offer a tuition-free religious education up through the graduate level to every confirmed Catholic who wants to enroll, with all the varigated needs of working Catholics and their families provided for.

Right? Because if he says no, all he's really done is substitute one form of clerical tyranny for another. The only thing that's changed is the set of letters at the end of the name. But he and his confreres have done the old pre-VII clerical princes one better: even the worst of those men didn't claim that the laity couldn't get a proper grasp of the faith on their own. Fr. McBrien is arguing precisely that.

There is a religion that teaches that the fullest truths are available only to a select, initiated elite. But it's called gnosticism, not Catholicism.

The muppets stole our dates!

2005's Toy from Hell has arrived in stores: "Shout Elmo." Here are the specs:

• Plush Elmo sings & dances to another classic song: Shout!
• Your child is sure to want to join Sesame Street’s red furry friend as he grooves to this easy dance tune
• Suggested minimum age: 18 months
• Suggested parental medication: 800mg of ibuprofen, chased with generous shots of Stolichnaya
• Requires 3 AA batteries, included; 15Hx6Wx12L"

OK, so one of those specifications is my creation--but it's still strongly recommended. The good news is that it appears to shoot the gap between Dale and Rachel, being too much a baby toy for the former, and too involved for the latter.

"Appears."

McBrien. Again.

If you get a chance, sit down and enjoy one of the old Bob Hope films from when the comedian was in his prime--they've actually aged pretty well, especially the zingers and quips. One of my favorites is his rejoinder to a Bing Crosby shot across the bow:

"Hey--be careful with that joke. It's an antique."

I'm reminded of that line when considering the fraying schtick of MSM's favorite speed-dial Catholic commentator, Fr. Richard McBrien. In a recent essay, he gets all brotherly on a prominent Catholic senator. No, not Remarkably Buoyant Ted. Nope--try the Vatican sock puppet, Rick Santorum. Santorum is not exactly flawless, but I get the sense that Santorum at least tries to let the Faith inform all aspects of his public life. The padre's mail-it-in hatchet job deserves an inquest.

A few months ago, The New York Times Magazine published a cover-story on Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

God forbid the professor should actually try to talk to Santorum himself--ick, poo. Might come down with a bad case of orthodoxy.

The article focused on various aspects of his life and political career, including his religious affiliation and convictions. Senator Santorum is a Catholic,

Well, that's pretty nice of Fr.--perhaps we're just one big happy--

albeit of a particular kind.

Oh. "Particular kind." Has the smell of "ilk" or "type." So much for amity. As we shall see, Padre's allergy to orthodoxy is nowhere near remission.

He attends Sunday Mass along with Justice Antonin Scalia

Apparently a sympathetic reader's cue to boo, hiss or, more likely, puzzle over the reference in the midst of asking for the AARP discount at Bob Evans.

and other prominent Catholics of similar orientation

If it's an "orientation," then why do you judge us, you hater!?!?

Orthophobe.

at St. Catherine of Siena Church in Great Falls, Virginia, where the liturgy is in Latin and the priest prays with his back to the congregation, just like it was in the days before the Second Vatican Council.

Four sentences in, and the Professor has activated the autopilot. As in: "Feel free to move about the cabin, taking the column with you to the crapper." Apparently, the Chaired One is operating under some private legislation: The No Canard Left Behind Act.

Let's rewrite this a bit: "and the priest prays facing the same direction as the congregation, with the symbolism of facing east, the direction of the rising sun and associating the Mass with the Resurrection, just like it was in the 547,500 days before the Second Vatican Council."

It's telling that those locked in a perpetual spiritual teenagerhood prefer their inflated sense of self-regard ("Turn your back on me?") over the truth.

However, at 47 years of age today, Senator Santorum was only 4 years old
when the Second Vatican Council opened in October, 1962, and only 7 when it
adjourned in December, 1965.

Apparently, the reader needs to be reminded that Certified Modern Catholic Theologians™ can read calendars and are capable of basic math. Unlike their preconciliar forebears, who were so unevolved they didn't even have digits.

We need an editor--stat!

He never attended a Catholic college or university,

That would explain why his faith is intact.

having received a B.A. in Political Science from Penn State in 1980,

Paterno's got the Nittany Lions of to a solid start this year, but the real tests are yet to come.

an M.B.A. at the University of Pittsburgh,

Overrated!

and a Doctorate of Jurisprudence from the Dickinson School of Law in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Sounds pricey, I will admit.

One of his fellow Catholic senators, Susan Collins of Maine, has referred to him as a Catholic missionary in the Senate.

For being a youngin during V2, the Senator sure seems up to speed on its call to the laity:

There are innumerable opportunities open to the laity for the exercise of their apostolate of evangelization and sanctification. The very testimony of their Christian life and good works done in a supernatural spirit have the power to draw men to belief and to God; for the Lord says, "Even so let your light shine before men in order that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 5:16).

However, an apostolate of this kind does not consist only in the witness of one's way of life; a true apostle looks for opportunities to announce Christ by words addressed either to non-believers with a view to leading them to faith, or to the faithful with a view to instructing, strengthening, and encouraging them to a more fervent life. "For the charity of Christ impels us" (2 Cor. 5:14). The words of the Apostle should echo in all hearts, "Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel" (1 Cor. 9:16).

She occasionally attends the study group he organized to promote more knowledge of the Catholic faith. Only Republicans are invited.

Perhaps because he's a big-time target of the Dems in 2006? A Democratic mole would find plenty to twist into horror-story material for the push polls. At any rate, ideology certainly isn't a factor if the reliably-centrist and pro-choice Collins is an invitee.

One is tempted to ask if this is one of those cases of the blind leading the blind (with apologies to anyone offended by the politically incorrect usage).

One is tempted to note that he would know.

Indeed, there is a book, Catholicism for Dummies, co-authored by two priests who also lack theological credentials.

Ah--so they're Notre Dame grads.

Pity.

But they are "safe" enough to have a regular program on Mother Angelica's Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN).

Ilk! Kind! Type! EWTN!

You know--them.

And even though there's not a chance in Hell Fr. would want to be associated with EWTN, I get the definite sense that McBrien is feeling a little green about those capable of authoring a God's honest bestseller, as opposed to a rightfully-maligned doorstop which sells only to a dwindling number of incurable nostalgics.

Especially when his column keeps getting dropped, to boot.

In the Times Magazine article, Senator Santorum is portrayed as exuberant over the election of Cardinal Ratzinger as the new pope. “What you saw,” he claimed, “is an affirmation by the cardinals that the church is not going to change, even though maybe Europe and North America want it to. It is going to stay the way it hasbeen for 2,000 years.”

Yep. Many of us saw it as a rebuke of those seeking the establishment of the Church of What's Happening Now! and its sister organization, the Chapel of the Affirmed Groin. If nothing else, the election was universally acknowledged to be the demise of a certain media personality's predictive abilities.

A remarkable statement indeed from someone who has never had a graduate-level course in church history.

No wonder--have you seen the cost of a graduate credit hour at ND?

Blessed John XXIII reminded us in his opening address to the Second Vatican Council that history is “the teacher of life.”

Fine.

Without a sense of history, one is always vulnerable to the temptation of accepting and repeating generalities that are without factual basis or, more specifically, are contradicted by the facts of history.

Odd criticism, coming from a fellow conspicuously noted for his denigration of the past:

Catholicism's clear affirmation of the superiority of modern theology and modern anthropology—based upon the advances made by modern science and philosophy—provides a crucial background for its presentations of various positions. The problem is that this embrace of modernity is so enthusiastic as to imply a certain naive denigration of premodern thought (and thus of all forms of thought that do not embrace modernity). The text is at times quite harsh in its criticism of patristic and medieval thought (pp. 163-65).10 From the perspective of Catholicism, modern thought has definitively superseded ancient and medieval thought.

Many Catholics believe, for example, that only the pope can appoint bishops.

Actually, they should, though "believe" is remarkably klutzy formulation. It's more than a little like saying "Many Americans believe that only a natural-born American citizen can become President." It's a demonstrable, empirical fact, not a matter of belief.

But the pope has only exercised that prerogative for the universal Church since the 19th century.

I guess the consistently-modern theologian's preference for the post-Enlightenment era has its limits.

Before that, bishops were selected by various processes, the most common of which during the First Christian Millennium was election by the clergy and laity of the diocese in which they would serve.

True, but so what? Lest we forget, the First Millennium also saw the occasional deposition of errant bishops by howling mobs of outraged orthodox Catholics....












What?

Oh, sorry--lost in a daydream there for a moment. Anyway, the greater point is that some of those elections were corrupt, and remain eminently corruptible. Just ask St. John McCain. And, at the risk of sounding like a snob, the idea that my vote would be swamped by the hordes of theological illiterates clamoring for the ChOTAG doesn't bear thinking about.

Catholics today take for granted that bishops can be transferred from smaller dioceses to larger dioceses when they are deemed suitable for greater pastoral responsibilities. But in the early Church that was not only uncommon; it was absolutely prohibited -- and by no less than the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the same council that defined the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ.

Er, I think the dogmatic definition of the person of Christ is a rather more important subject than a superceded disciplinary canon on bishop-shuffling, no matter how grievous one may find the latter practice. But that's just me.

Then again, I've never had any graduate level courses in church history. Not even from quirky universities in Indiana.

Indeed, the body of a deceased pope, Formosus (891-896), was dug up and placed on trial because he had accepted election as Bishop of Rome when he was already the bishop of another diocese in Italy (Porto).

Memo to Self: "The will needs a codicil mandating cremation in the unlikely event McBrien or one of his acolytes becomes the Ordinary of Detroit, or any other diocese I happen to be residing in when I pass."

A few months ago many people both inside and outside the Catholic Church speculated about whether the new pope would come from Latin America or perhaps from Africa. Through-out the First Millennium, this would have been unthinkable. Bishops were elected from the local diocesan clergy, and once in office they remained in the same diocese until death.

The point of these this distorted trip down Millennium Lane is what, precisely--that he'd like to return to it?

If so, I have eight words for you, Fr.: Fabian Bruskewitz as South Bend's Bishop for Life.

But these are only a few examples of changes that have occurred in the Catholic Church.

Each of which is disciplinary and as changeable as meatless Fridays. But here come the well-worn and ill-considered talking points:

There are countless others in the realm of doctrine (the Church once approved of slavery

NOT.

Not unless the Catholics listed in the article were hammered for heresy on that point. No, really--this one is more tired than his fan club. Lay the cards on the table, Prof.: give me the dogmatic, binding Church document(s) which mandate slavery and support it as a positive good.

while condemning the taking of interest on loans),

Sigh--the usury argument. No Canard, indeed. Again, disciplinary in nature. That can change, like the economic system on which the prohibition was based did.

This is very much unlike, say, a change from a spiritual director advising "Adultery is mortally sinful" to "Like a screen door in a thunderstorm, slugger! After all, she's a hottie and your conscience is your guide!"

Memo to Self No. 2: "Never borrow money from Fr. McBrien, a/k/a 'Dickie the Wire.'"

liturgy (the Mass was originally in Greek, then Latin, and then in many other languages), and even the making of saints (it was not until the year 993 that a saint was canonized by a pope; before then it was a matter of acclamation by the people).

Disciplinary/procedural and hardly articles of faith. Next?

That, and he doesn't really mean it--it's not like he's advocating for the restoration of some of those relatively unknown early Saints to the liturgical calendar. And I rather doubt he'll be signing a St. Philomena petition anytime soon, despite the fact she is a modern example of a saint by acclamation.

Senator Santorum is surely not the only Catholic who is unaware of the lessons of church history.

Assuming he is unaware, of course not: after all, consider the large number of people who have attended the Professor's classes.

Nor is he alone in mistakenly believing that “the church is not going to change,” that it is “going to stay the way it has been for 2,000 years.”But if history is “the teacher of life,” we need to learn from it.

Actually, we need to be damn careful who we learn history from. Starting with the realization that some things are really not going to change, and teaching otherwise is an exercise in fantasy. No matter how fervently our Degreed Betters wish it were otherwise.

My life is far more interesting than you ever imagined.

Here's the proof.

Yes, I am a hardbitten, fedora-and-bourbon kind of guy, when it comes down to it.

And don't get me started on the frequent flier miles for trips into Sea-Tac.

Many thanks to Chris for this great piece of religious noir.

Michigan, My Michigan.

Sure, the winters are cold, but the ground doesn't shake and we don't get Category anythings.

I'm staying here, thanks.

Pray for Texas, standing right in the path of yet another of nature's monsters.

Here's hoping we've learned something from Katrina.

We have a winner!

For the 2005 Most Scorching Commentary Award (One-Sentence Category).

The winner is Mark Sullivan, offering up this brief, yet thorough evisceration of the controversial Flight 93 Memorial:

"Was the Box-Cutter of Friendship idea already taken?"

Now for my $0.02:

I saw the Discovery Channel documentary/docudrama about Flight 93 on Sunday. Verdict? Brilliant: heart-rending and inspiring at once. They were just random Americans--ordinary folks--thrown together and tossed unwillingly into the midst of a shattering, epochal event. They were given a choice: to do the passive, classically safe thing in hostage situations and wait it out, or to risk all in an effort to wrest control of what had become a deadly guided missile from murderous thugs.

They chose the latter, in a classically American fashion, in a show of hands. Thanks to their efforts, no one on the ground died.

As an architectural work, the winning entry is actually beautiful.

However.

Let's leave aside the crescent/Islam point, because I think it's pretty clear that it is unintentional (the architect has a thing for crescents and circles--check the link) and the firm has already agreed to make changes. The design falters because it ultimately fails to capture the essence of what happened: The skies over Shanksville, Pennsylvania were a battlefield four years ago. There's not a hint of that in the public memorial.

Please note the second to last word in the previous sentence: public. This is not a private decision, solely the province of the familes, analogous to selecting a headstone. This is a public commemoration of an act of war. Windchimes and maple trees fail to capture what happened on that day, much less do they convey it to generations to come. It's a fine commemoration for the therapeutic society, but not for the passengers, nor for the country. A serious redesign is in order.

Heads up!

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Input welcome.