The Ark and The Dove

Apologetics

I don't know what your situation is like, but if you're like me, you are sick to death of hearing (chiefly from Catholics who would like to find an excuse not to believe the Church in these matters) the absurd weasel line that the Catholic Church doesn't really teach that abortion and contraception are immoral and that same-sex marriage is not marriage, because (they claim), those are only the opinions of a conservative faction who would like to represent their opinions as Church doctrine.

Thanks to Amy Welborn, I heard something that you almost certainly won't hear about on the news.  A Catholic university professor in Wisconsin wrote some pamphlets arguing that very thing and sent copies to all the bishops in the US.  As a result, his bishop made public statements to the effect that the content of these pamphlets is not the teaching of the Church and is in fact contrary to the Church's faith, and the USCCB issued a detailed and unequivocal statement which is intended to "clarify the Church's faith and teaching for all of the Catholic faithful throughout the United States."

As a layman who loves the Church's faith, thank you, Eminencies and Excellencies.

Today's Tidbits...Cup Censors, Rational Comments, and Yo Joe!

A) At Starbucks...my cup had a quote talking about how Darwinism led to the problems of eugenics, racism, and abortion. It is part of Starbucks' "The Way I See It" ad campaign. Below the quote, Starbucks makes sure to add: "The opinions put forth by contributors to 'The Way I See It' do not necessarily reflect the views of Starbucks." So, no, Starbucks isn't rushing to join the pro-life movement...but at least they put their money where their mouth was and let a counter-cultural argument get through the cup censors.

B) Drudge linked to an article about some whacked-out animal rights activist who is arguing that Knut the polar bear cub should have been exterminated rather than suffer the "humiliation" of being bottle-fed by humans when he was abandoned by his own mother. The vast majority of the reader comments actually agreed that killing the cub would be stupid idea. This might have been the first and last time in the history of the Internet that everyone got along in an extended comment box conversation.

C) I was never a big fan of the G.I.Joe Movie from the 1980s. It ruined the whole mythology of the franchise, and it was utterly lacking in Snake-eyes. This morning, however, it occurred to me that it could easily be resurrected as an argument against the extremism of the environmental movement. Remember that the villain, Golobulus, is the leader of an ancient civilization that lives in complete symbiosis with living organisms. In Golobulus's civilization, with the unfortunate name of Cobra-la, all of the technology actually consists of freaky animals and living tissue. Cobra-la is annoyed that humanity is dominating the Earth with non-ecologically friendly technology, and so Golobulus plans to release spores that will mutate all human life into animals...because that's all they really are.
Thus, the Real American Heroes are called in to save the world from rabid environmentalists turned terrorists. Sound uncannily poignant?

Capital punishment, Church teaching, & Maryland

I just noticed the column the pastor of my old parish wrote.  I think he has done a fine job of presenting the issue in terms of the Church's teaching without allowing himself to be drawn into ideological battles and of providing context with relation to war, abortion, and embryonic stem cells as other issues of respect for life and its sacredness without being drawn into conceding moral equivalencies where they do not exist.  All emphases are his own.

Dear Friends, 

As I write this column, committees of the Maryland Senate and House are deliberating a bill that would replace the death penalty with life imprisonment. Perhaps the committee vote will have been taken before you read this column.  Be that as it may, Bishop Denis Madden, the urban vicar and one of the auxiliary bishops of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, testified in favor of abolishing the death penalty.  He did this on behalf of the other bishops in the Maryland Catholic conference.  What is the moral and/or religious background to this?
    
Throughout history, our Church has recognized the right of legitimate government to resort to capital punishment.  The Church has seen this as allowable for the protection and common good of society.  However, our Catholic tradition and teaching has also challenged the appropriateness of capital punishment in a society that is capable of defending public order and ensuring public safety without this.  In other words, if non-lethal means are sufficient, then public authority should limit itself to such means.  This is more in keeping with respecting the sacredness of human life and human         dignity.
       
This last point is why Pope John Paul II spoke out so clearly against the death penalty in this era of human history.  The Church sees this as a respect life issue.  This is why our Church opposes the taking of unborn human life through abortion.  It is why our Church opposes embryonic stem cell research, since it takes the incipient human life that is present.  It is why our Church has carefully delineated the conditions under which war can be justified.  The clear and fundamental point is that human life is         sacred because it comes from and is a gift from God.  The opposition to the death penalty is part of this consistent ethic of life.  I once heard someone put it this way.  You do not promote respect for life by taking life, even of someone who has in fact taken the life of another.
       
No question, this is a very sensitive and probably controversial issue.  Those of you who have been victims of violent crime, directly or indirectly, probably are very alert to this issue. Regardless of where we as individuals stand on this, I do believe that we need to take account of the Church's teaching on human life in general as we form our conscience on this issue in particular.
                         
Father Mike                

Ignoring the Pope

Is "a custom more honour'd in the breach than in the observance," but it is a long one in the Catholic world.

This post from The Hermeneutic of Continuity details the shameful widespread shrugging-off by bishops, priests, and laity of the consistent and repeated condemnation of modern race-based slavery by the popes, to which the writer draws a parallel with the modern situation with abortion and birth control.

This might be a little surprising to non-Catholics, who seem often to think of the pope as some all-powerful potentate enjoying absolute obedience from his flock.  Actually, when you think about what the pope is, it must be very confusing to them that we are so massively rebellious, but such is the world.

Anyway, seeing as how we've been similarly blowing off the pope for most of 400 years about liturgy and church music (even though that doesn't involve money, political power, or sex), what do you think is the likelihood of the instructions of Pope Benedict's Exhortation being implemented?  I'm not getting my hopes up.  Blogging priest Fr. Zuhlsdorf here covers how people are already working to make sure they are not.

Having the nerve to state the obvious

Garrison Keillor is so liberal -
    "How liberal is he, Johnny?"
He is sooooo liberal, that in Minnesota they sell tubes of sunblock that say, "Apply like Garrison Keillor."

From what I know of him, which is basically his radio personality, I like Garrison Keillor.  Though it's about as pleasant as sand in my teeth when his ideology leads him to go against natural virtue or Christian virtue, aside from that he seems like a good, honest sort of man with that kind of folksy charm that reminds me of my relatives from the Midwest.  Or at he least he can turn it on for his writing and radio pieces.

But anyway, the point is that given all of this, I respect the guts and candor he had to have, being such a noted liberal, to write something like this "Stating the obvious" column - the "obvious" being that sex is naturally ordered towards the begetting and raising of children - because of the heat he will take from people who will judge him not to be sufficiently "progressive."  Maybe next he can become more consistent and bring himself to disapprove morally of homosexual activity.

Forgetting history doomed to repeat etc.

Remember the days when that foolish "foreign-government" slam against Catholics regarding the Pope was actually something people took seriously?  When people sang songs, and meant it, like "Oh, I'd rather be a Klansman in my robes of snowy white/Than be a Catholic priest and wear a robe as black as night/For a Klansman is American and America is his home/But a Catholic priest is loyal to a foreign prince in Rome"?

Hopefully this business that MCJ raises the alarm about in his own communion is an isolated case and not the "latest thing" - protesting Christian orthodoxy as subjection to foreign domination and un-American.

Even gentiles prefer kosher Coke

I happen to know that some of my friends really like Coca-Cola, and some of the ones with more finely-attuned taste buds really lament the switchover from sugar to high fructose corn syrup.  According to this article, not just Orthodox Jews, but everyone wants the kosher Coke they make for Passover because it is made the old way, with sugar.

Errata

Some time ago a friend asked me if what his parish does with the Agnus Dei is allowed, and I answered incorrectly.  My usual approach is that if someone does something I'm not familiar with, and I'm not absolutely sure it's wrong, I presume it to be licit.  For instance, if a priest starts using a Eucharistic Prayer at Mass that sounds unfamiliar to you, maybe it's one of the Reconciliation Prayers (bet you didn't know there're something like ten approved EPs).

This question in particular was whether it was allowed to replace one or more instances of the phrase "Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world" with some other invocation.  This didn't feel right to me, but I suggested yes, it might be technically permitted, explaining it by means of "tropes."  This article knocks that down using information that I knew.  It also has some pretty neat info and history about the Agnus Dei.

By the way, (and this applies to you especially if you are part of or the leader of a church choir [don't be paranoid, but do your homework and check]) don't just assume that just because a song is in a hymnal marketed to Catholic parishes that everything in it is correct.  Those things don't come from anyone with any authority in the Church.  In fact, some of the more popular ones come from people who don't really like the Church's teaching or liturgy and want to change it into something they like better.  How did they become so ubiquitous, then?  Good question.

Joseph of Nazareth, You Are The Man

Yes, that is the title of a breviary hymn.  You might have seen it if you have a breviary or a Christian Prayer book.  If you see the rest of the words, you'll realize that the sense is a bit different than what you are probably thinking, but that sense is just as true.

There are tons of great St. Joseph meditations you could think of, but did you ever think of the parallels between St. Joseph and Joseph of the Old Testament?  I didn't really until someone pointed it out to me.  Both were noted for their righteousness and chastity, both were the son of Jacob, both had to go from Israel and live in Egypt to save their people, both were noted for their gift of dreams from God that directed them on how to do this.

St. Joseph is famous as the Just Man; you should know that in the Bible in English, both the word "just" and the word "righteous" translate the one Greek word dikaios.  Latin uses "iustus" consistently because that is the word for that; English "just" doesn't have quite the same punch, so the NAB often uses "righteous" except in the verb form where it has to use "justify" because, I suppose, there is no such word as "righteousnessify."  Some of us like the idea of social justice better and some social righteousness as though they were opposed or you had to pick one or the other.  Really they are two sides of the same coin: Joseph the dikaios should be our patron for the fully integrated life of Christian charity.

St. Joseph's Day culinary traditions

According to this chowhound site, zeppeli pastries on St. Joseph's day is an Italian tradition.  Apparently the pastries consist of deep-fried dough (like a donut hole) topped with honey, cinnamon, vanilla ice cream, and whipping cream.