The Ark and The Dove

Confession

The Miami Herald covers a non-denominational church in Florida which has hit upon the idea that confessing one's sins is beneficial for the soul.  They do it online by typing it in on a slick website.  The idea is that the anonymity of the computer is less intimidating than talking to a minister.

The fact is that the Sacraments, including the ones people aren't so crazy about - like Confession - are not artificial impositions by bored clerics trying to think up hoops for people to jump through, but things that are a deep, deep part of human nature.  The Sacraments, though, don't just stop at the level of natural goodness: Jesus (He instituted them, after all) takes something that is natural and good, like confessing one's wrongdoing, and elevates and perfects it to something transcendent.

To clarify, the article states that "The Catholic Church is among those who reject the idea of confessing online."  The fact of the matter is that the Catholic Church does not consider that a sacramental Confession can be accomplished over the phone, internet, or through the mail, but only in person.  To my knowledge the Church does not say that you're not allowed to write articles or letters to people letting them know what sins you've committed, only that you should not expect such a thing to be a sacramental Confession like the Catholic Church offers, a confession that isn't merely a "catalyst" to open up to God or other people, good as that might be, but something that actually applies to you the forgiveness Jesus won for you on the Cross.

For the record, the Church goes to extraordinary lengths to make sure that what is confessed in sacramental Confession will not ever be disclosed.  Even if you do a face-to-face confession with a priest, he will never even think of it outside the confessional.  If you are not comfortable with this,  unless your parish is hardheadedly "progressive," you can confess through a screen so the priest can't see you, and you can whisper if you don't want him to recognize your voice.  Grace and anonymity.

Pope Benedict's book

Chiesa.it has an article on the book which notes how the Pope (no anti-intellectual, as you know if you know him) takes aim at the sort of theologian or Bible scholar who is too busy with the ideas he's invented to bother with actual faith.

Benedict XVI dedicates this passage of his book, in the chapter on the temptation of Jesus, to the interpretation of Scripture:

“To lure Jesus into his trap, the devil quotes Sacred Scripture, [...] he appears as a theologian. [...] Vladimir Soloviev took up this theme in his ‘Tale of the Antichrist’: the Antichrist receives an honorary degree in theology from the University of Tubingen; he is a great expert in the Bible. With this story, Soloviev wanted to express in a drastic way his skepticism toward a certain type of erudite exegesis in his time. This doesn’t mean a ‘no’ to the scientific interpretation of the Bible as such, but rather a very healthy and necessary warning over the incorrect paths that this can take. The interpretation of the Bible can essentially become a tool of the Antichrist. It is not only Soloviev who says this; it is what is affirmed implicitly in the account of the temptation itself. The books most destructive toward the figure of Jesus, the ones that demolish the faith, have been woven together with presumed results of exegesis.”

Don't be a "personally opposed but"

From the American Spectator.   

When somebody says he "hates" or is "morally opposed" to abortion, he begs the question: Why, exactly, do you hate/oppose abortion? The answer, certainly, is that he believes what is being aborted is a human being deserving of at least some of the natural human rights all people possess. He may also believe -- if he acknowledges the developing consensus in the academic community -- that abortion can have adverse effects on the physical and mental health of women.

If he didn't consider the unborn child a human being and/or didn't think that abortion hurt women, there would be little reason for him to oppose it, especially with words like "wrong," "hate" and "tragedy."

In other words, if the child in utero were merely a "cluster of cells" and if the effects of abortion on women were "mainly positive," as Planned Parenthood insists, why would anyone oppose it on a personal, or any, level?

The main thing I would pick on in the article is that in my estimation, it is a mistake to think that someone is necessarily guilty of dishonesty for taking the convenient out offered by the "personally opposed, but" position  - they may just not be very philosophical thinkers (I should not understate the difficulty of being dispassionate enough to decide on the most rational grounds, let alone to frame the argument properly in one's mind).  Many people also do not have the advantage of having logical consistency built into their religion and morals the way Catholics do.  The author also sidesteps some assumptions many liberal types have about religion and morality as chiefly a "private" affair that has no place in informing public debate (rather than a matter of recognizing objective truth about the human person).  But on the whole, a good article that says something that needs to be heard.

Unintentionally humorous place names

Boring United Methodist Church (wonder what the preaching is like).  Yes, there is one.  Right there in Boring, MD (I bet they're tired of those jokes there).  There is also a Savage Baptist Church.  Think about that next time you're going to name your town with a name that could function as an adjective.

"Transformerssubstantiators," or "Jesus in Disguise"

Thank you Peter, I agree with you entirely.

I've heard of the Transformer analogy, too, but I don't think I've ever had it used on me at Mass.  The version I'm more familiar with uses Transformers as an analogy for the confection of the Eucharist itself, which is even less suitable than the one you laid out, Peter.  I suspect that the people who are particularly likely to be tempted to use it are the ones who have forgotten their Latin and Thomistic ontology, or never learned it in the first place.

Latin, because we have a special word "transubstantiation" owing to the fact that "transform" is simply inadequate.  If you know what the Eucharist is, you would only dare to use the word "transform" if you weren't thinking about what is meant by form and substance and were using the word as it is sometimes used colloquially in English to mean any kind of change whatever.  Aquinas also, because to use that analogy you have to forget about the difference between form generally speaking and substantial form or essence.

Here's the gist:
When a Transformer transforms, it merely rearranges its configuration.  Its form changes, but what it actually is does not change.  If it was Optimus Prime before the transformation, it is Optimus Prime afterwards, too.  Some of the parts have shifted around so that it now shaped like a truck and functions as such rather than like a gigantic humanoid robot, but the substance, that is, the answer to the question "What is it?" is still the same: Optimus Prime.

The Eucharist is almost the exact contrary, because unlike the robot it has the exact same outward appearance before and after the transubstantiation happens, but the answer to the question "What is it?" is different - before the consecration the answer would be "bread and wine," and after the answer would be "the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus" (albeit under the appearances of bread and wine).

Although the analogy may seem appealing because the one is a "robot in disguise," while the other is the Lord "in disguise," so to speak, that is about where the similarity ends.  Although the Eucharist is definitely "More Than Meets The Eye," I think that if you wanted to bring Transformers into it at all, maybe it would be more instructive to contrast them in the way I did above rather than to compare them.

Transformers are NOT Eucharistic

Ugh. I heard about another "Transformers" homily this weekend at a children's First Communion Mass. The argument of the homily was that the Eucharist "transforms" the believer. It seems to me like the homily was a well intended, but misguided attempt to look cool and hip for the kids...when in reality, it just exposes a generation gap and creates an even more confusing metaphor.

As a faithful geek, I feel it is my duty to warn priests and teachers about the unsuitability of using Transformers in relationship to the Eucharist. If your target audience really understands what the Eucharist and Transformers are about, the comparison isn't going to make any sense to them.

If you are trying to suggest that the Eucharist turns us into something more than what we are or had been, this is simply a bad analogy. A transformer "turns into" a car or a jet or what have you in order to disguise himself. He only looks like a vehicle, but if you open his hood, you'll quickly realize he is not what he appears to be. And his vehicle mode is almost always inferior to his robot mode, or, at the very least, puts him at a distinct tactical disadvantage in some way (indeed, there is a classic episode where Megatron creates a weapon that forces Autobots to transform into vehicle mode against their will).

A Transformers transformation is entirely external, deceptive, and does not really change the Transformer's character.

If you feel utterly compelled to use Transformers in a homily, you would do much better to invoke the role of mini-cons (although since they were popular about three years ago they are now virtually obsolete as a metaphor for children...). Anyway, the mini-cons were miniature pokemon-esque Transformers that, when attached to a larger robot, granted that robot new powers. This cannibalistic means of acquiring the power of another being through a direct interface seems far more apt to express the way in which consuming the Body of Christ offers the grace to overcome evil and do good works.

Ahem.

Just sayin'.

The wee hours of the morning

Me: "Hey Mike, you wanna say Matins at the time you're actually supposed to say it?"

Mike [sounding like he's speaking from experience]: 'They don't call it "Madness" for nothing.'

You're Not the Boss of Me!

Obvious thought of the day...

Most human institutions in Western Civilization today demand a double standard: 1) that they be free from the restraints of religion, and 2) that they have the jurisdiction to restrain religion.

We hear (through the media, mind you) that many scientists feel that morality taking its root in a religious authority has no place in saying whether or not science should pursue certain procedures. Yet, we also hear from some scientists that they can disprove religious beliefs. Isn't the height of hubris to think that you cannot be restrained yourself but that you can restrain others?

Likewise, some say that law and politics should be free of any taint of religion...and yet those same people would say that the law and government can dictate when, where, and how religion can be expressed.

It seems to me that many people live by a double standard: they would allow human disciplines to impose themselves upon religion in ways that they would not allow religion to impose itself upon human disciplines.

Is it going to far to say that, in divorcing our human institutions from religious ones, we have let them slip under diabolic influence? Is that too dramatic an explanation for why many of our institutions lean towards hatred of religion?
If all religion were just another human institution, why wouldn't it get the same respect as other human disciplines?

And You thought Chick Tracts were Bad...

Chuck Colson covers the backlash of anti-Catholicism in commentary and cartoons after the Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of the partial birth abortion ban.

For Brian Craig

Sorry, my mistake, then.  Please accept my apologies if any of my misdirected rhetoric was any too personal.

Unfortunately, there are enough in real life who are actually more over-the-top and exaggerated than your parody that I didn't recognize it as such.  The rhetoric was so realistic that I missed that.  It was "too good," perhaps.  With the proper context, I rather like it.  The choice of the quite conservative Bl. Pius IX to trump the huge reformer St. Pius X was a nice touch.

Aside from that, I entirely agree with what I think the point was - that once you have decided that you represent real Catholicism and the pope does not, any place you decide to settle is arbitrary enough that someone can out-whatever you in whatever you think you are unbeatable in.  And once you start peeling away layers that really are an organic part of the whole but that you think ought not to be there, how do you decide where to stop?  Arbitrarily, to be sure.  There is a friend of mine who went over to the Lefebvrists; for him, every pope up to and including Pope Pius XII was a good, real pope and every one after has been a bad, defective pope.  It is no good pointing out to him the efforts of reform of the pre-Vatican II popes, or how they led up to the Council, because they were good popes and the ones afterwards were bad ones, period.