I wish everyone would come to Jesus’ Heart

There are so many people in pain and sorrow; so many struggling with worry.  There are so many lost, so many seeking, so many following false hopes and false gods.  How do I make them see? How do I bring them all to Jesus’ Heart?
Heaven is so beautiful.  If they only knew the happiness–it’s a prize worth anything.  It’s not something to be taken for granted.
Hell is so horrible.  The torment, the pain.  Even Purgatory, which we tend to dismiss or joke about, is a nightmare too dire to imagine.

Why do people gamble with their souls?
Why do people take their salvation for granted?
This day, your life will be demanded of you. Wake up!  Get your lamps ready!  Purge yourselves of evil.  Cut off that which leads you to sin.  Preen the bad limbs from your soul so you will only produce good fruit.  Sell all you have and give to the poor.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  Love your neighbor as Jesus loves you–by giving yourself completely.  Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
Live the beautitudes.  This is the Gospel.  It is so simple, yet so difficult.  Why do people hear Jesus’ words and ignore them?  Say, “This doesn’t apply to me”?  Let the dead bury their dead.  Come, take up your cross and follow Him, for His yoke is easy and His burden is light, even if it may not look at it.  It is time for you to rise from sleep!  Pray, fast and do acts of love.  Do small things with great love and offer up the small things that bother you as great sacrifices  This is the message of Fatima, the message of Therese, the Little Way.

John Paul II said the Little Way is perhaps the greatest new doctrine ever given to the Church, for it sums up the Gospel so perfectly.  Live it.

A Lesson to Parents from St. Pio of Pietrelcina

I’ve always argued that one of the reasons for homeschooling is that, no matter how good a school is, school’s can’t control what the kids say to each other, so when it comes to issues like bullying and bad influences, a school impedes parents’ ability to protect their children from unnecessary persecution and/or bad examples. Similarly, going by the MPAA’s meaningless “ratings” system as a standard, schools will show programs and movies that may not meet the standards of some parents. By the way, if you reading this are a parent, teacher or administrator, advise your school that copyrighted material can *only* be shown if it’s in an academic context. Schools can’t just show movies for “fun”; they have to at least have discussions of the film or assign a paper or something.

Having our kids in brick & mortar school for the first time, we’ve come to see the reality of these issues. Thankfully, Gianna for one is holding fast in the tide of evil and secularism she’s facing at school, but how can a 7 year old be expected to really stand up against such filth?

When we were homeschooling, our kids only associated with children whom we also knew–I take that back, they were in virtual charter schools, and Allie was picking some stuff up in discussions with her online classmates that was less than wholesome. If there was a bullying issue or fight, parent could talk to parent and get it resolved. Even in activities, we still generally chose Catholic activities, and the kids at those events were kids of parents who are also committed Catholics.

Anyway, all of this has me thinking of the famous statement by Padre Pio that is often misquoted, regarding permissive parents. I looked it up, and here are two statements he had towards permissive parents, with another one to a husband who was being overly permissive with himself, from www.christianfamilyoutreach.com/pamphlets/saint_padre_pio.pdf:

One day a priest brought a husband and wife to Padre Pio so that he could bless them. Three of their sons were in prison for burglary. Padre Pio said to them, “I absolutely refuse to bless you! You didn’t pull in the reins when your children were growing up, so don’t come along now when they are in jail and ask for my blessing.”
A woman came to Padre Pio whose daughter had just died in the process of giving birth. The woman couldn’t think of anything else but the loss of her daughter. Padre Pio said to her, “And why are you weeping so much for her when she is already in Paradise? You would do much better to devote more attention to the activities of your seventeen-year-old daughter who comes home late at night from dances and entertainments.”  . . .

A man who was being unfaithful to his wife confessed that he was having “a spiritual crisis.” Padre Pio stood up and yelled, “What spiritual crisis? You’re a vile pig and God is angry with you. Go away!”

In the family of Bl. Louis and Zelie Martin, SFO (interestingly, while the Martins are honored by Carmelites b/c of their Carmelite daughters, they themselves were Third Order Franciscans, and their daughter Leonie became a Franciscan). Since “little flower” Therese, the youngest, was already in the convent, Celine stayed at home to care for their father. Celine had at one point made a private vow of perpetual virginity, and Therese was very concerned that she might change her mind if she stayed out of the convent too long. Other family members hoped that Celine would choose to marry, and encouraged her to socialize. She attended several dances and turned down several marriage proposals. During that time, Therese repeatedly begged her not to endanger her soul by going to dances. Of course, Celine ultimately did join her sisters at the convent of Lisieux, outliving them helping to not only contribute to her sister’s hagiography and legacy, but also to promote devotion to the Shroud of Turin.

Then there’s what Our Lord Himself said to St. Faustina about attending a dance–and I’m sure dances in early 20th Century Poland were nothing near so spiritually filthy as the “dances” today:

Once I was at a dance with one of my sisters and while everybody was having a good time, my soul was experiencing deep torments. As I began to dance, I suddenly saw Jesus at my side, Jesus racked with pain, stripped of his clothing, all covered with wounds, who spoke these words to me, “How long shall I put up with you and how long will you keep putting Me off?” At that moment the charming music stopped, and the company I was with vanished from my sight; there remained Jesus and I. I took a seat by my dear sister, pretending to have a headache in order to cover up what took place in my soul. After a while I slipped out unnoticed, leaving my sister and all my companions behind and made my way to the Cathedral of Saint Stanislaus Kostka (Lodz). It was almost twilight; there were only a few people in the cathedral. Paying no attention to what was happening around me, I fell prostrate before the Blessed Sacrament and begged the Lord to be good enough to give me to understand what I should do next.

(Diary 9-10, qtd. in www.faustina-message.com/saint-faustina-biography.htm).

Apparently, WordPress no longer permits video embedding, but here’s a link to a Protestant song on the same topic, Casting Crowns’ “Slow Fade”

It’s Official: Catholics Cannot Support Obama because Cardinal Mahony says so!

If you missed it, the Obama Administration has officially ordered the Catholic Church, as part of its “Health Care Reform” that so many “Catholics” supported, that Catholic organizations *MUST* pay for abortions and contraceptives as part of its insurance packages, that there will no longer be any “conscience exemptions,” and the same applies for doctors and hospitals providing these “services.”

The supposedly “Catholic” director of HHS, Kathleen Sebelius, made the announcement publicly last week that this decision was final, and there is no exception. Ironically, her announcement comes a week after the Supreme Court ruled against the Obama EEOC in a religious freedom case, with even Obama’s appointed justices ruling against the Reich, and hopefully, this precedent will help when this goes to court.

In the meantime, the US Bishops are making their ad limina visit to Rome, and the Holy Father on Thursday made an address talking about how America’s tradition of religious liberty under “Nature’s God” is facing grave threats from the forces of secularism, and while he doesn’t refer to Obama by name, he refers to Obama Administration policies:

In the light of these considerations, it is imperative that the entire Catholic community in the United States come to realize the grave threats to the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism which finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres. The seriousness of these threats needs to be clearly appreciated at every level of ecclesial life. Of particular concern are certain attempts being made to limit that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion. Many of you have pointed out that concerted efforts have been made to deny the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices. Others have spoken to me of a worrying tendency to reduce religious freedom to mere freedom of worship without guarantees of respect for freedom of conscience.

He refers to the Church’s authority to speak in the public square and advise governments on matters of morality. He also speaks of the need for an informed “an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity endowed with a strong critical sense vis-à-vis the dominant culture and with the courage to counter a reductive secularism which would delegitimize the Church’s participation in public debate about the issues which are determining the future of American society.” That’s a far cry from some people who say laity can think whatever they want, that laity can choose to believe contrary to what the Church teaches. It’s a far cry from people who say that we should embrace the culture uncritically.

If you’re not of the mindset to listen to B16, maybe two of the most liberal bishops in the country can sway you.

Bishop Robert Lynch of St. Petersburg–the guy who banned EWTN, said Terri Schiavo’s murder was just a family issue and no one else’s business, and said he was more alarmed by the “venomous” pro-life rhetoric than Obama speaking at Notre Dame–a guy who generally sided with Mahony, Weakland & co. on every issue–issued a statement in late November condemning the measure:

In my homily I chose to bring up a possibility arising from Health and Human Services regulations which bother me deeply precisely because I and many others find them violative of the religious liberty assured us by the first amendment to our Constitution and also of our personal moral consciences. These regulations will apply to the implementation of the soon to be fully implemented federal health care law.

The Diocese of Saint Petersburg has approximately 2300 employees who participate in a generous health care plan as part of their employment. While it covers almost everything, it excludes contraceptives, abortifacients, sexual enhancements like “Viagra”, etc. The first draft of the regulations for implementation issued by the Department of Health and Human Services mandated these and more services which I and others think violate the freedom of religion of our Church as regards procedures which we believe to be not in keeping with God’s law. Further, if a person is required by law to provide, perhaps in a hospital emergency room situation procedures violative of their individual conscience( in the past they have been exempt because of conscience concerns), they would be forced by this law to do so. Reacting to the first wave of complaints from the Catholic Church the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services modified the regulations slightly to exempt only Catholics working for a Catholic employer (other religions with serious moral concerns would also be included). Alas, I would still be required by law to provide the services to non-Catholic employees. What kind of sense does that make?

But there is an even larger problem for the Diocese of St. Petersburg. It is self-insured and our plan is only administered by a health care agency. Therefore the diocese by this law is an insurance company and all insurance companies must provide these services with currently no exemptions allowed. There are no exemptions to even include the situation outlined above. If the argument focused on abortion, a matter of public morality since the life of another person is involved, I suspect many more people would carry the fear which I have about this exercise of regulatory authority but because it seems to focus on contraception, a matter of private morality, lots of people do not understand what is at stake here. My genuine concern is that it is simply the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent. In my homily I outlined perhaps the only option left for the diocese as an employer if these regulations stand and believe me, colleagues in ministry and service and I will experience a marked loss of health care insurance coverage. A Church cannot be forced to violate its teaching, do something which is possibly immoral, and stand idly by and watch our Catholic doctors, nurses and aids forced to perform procedures which are both against their conscience and previously protected. That’s what involved in this and there is considerable opposition to the position of the Church coming from Planned Parenthood and other organizations which see this moment as an opportunity to close the conscience clause exemption which they have long despised. If you don’t believe me, read the blogs of those other groups. No one in yesterday’s congregation has the power to fix whats wrong with the Affordable Health Care and Patient Protection Act of 2010. Only the President of the United States and his Secretary for Health and Human Services can do that but a gathering for Mass such as yesterday’s does provide me a forum for vetting a serious question of the intersection of law and morality and learning from those far more skilled at interpreting and applying the law than myself. From the reactions which I immediately received and throughout the day yesterday by e-mail and personal contacts, posing the matter of religious freedom was appreciated and as you can see below, I asked nothing of those present but to listen, reflect and pray.

And if *he’s* not good enough, none other than Roger “I’m as infallible as the Pope” Mahony himself, archbishop emeritus of Los Angeles, the guy who nearly went to jail for his aiding and abetting of homosexual priests, the guy who was publicly criticized for a pro-life activist at a pro-life dinner for supporting nothing but pro-choice politicians, the guy who’s been photographed with numerous notorious Demonocrats, has also condemned Obama and says that while he “can’t” endorse a candidate (never stopped him endorsing Democrats), he will vote for the candidate who supports freedom of conscience:

For me there is no other fundamental issue as important as this one as we enter into the Presidential and Congressional campaigns. Every candidate must be pressed to declare his/her position on all of the fundamental life issues, especially the role of government to determine what conscience decision must be followed: either the person’s own moral and conscience decision, or that dictated/enforced by the Federal government. For me the answer is clear: we stand with our moral principles and heritage over the centuries, not what a particular Federal government agency determines.

As Bishops we do not recommend candidates for any elected office. My vote on November 6 will be for the candidate for President of the United States and members of Congress who intend to recognize the full spectrum of rights under the many conscience clauses of morality and public policy. If any candidate refuses to acknowledge and to promote those rights, then that candidate will not receive my vote.

This is a sad moment in the life of our country where religious freedom and freedom of conscience led to the formation of this new Nation under God.

So, Obama Catholics, how can you possibly support your support for this Communist???

A Carmelite Teaching Order!

I recently responded to some anti-Catholic bigot who denounced a picture of my patroness, St. Therese of Lisieux, on another blog by making a comment about nuns and rulers. I pointed out to this idiot that Carmelites are contemplative nuns and not teachers. Well, it turns out there is an order of Carmelites out of Los Angeles who are specifically a teaching order, the Carmelites of the Most Sacred Heart, and like other conservative orders, they’re thriving in vocations:
www.carmelitesistersocd.com

Why Catholic Education in America is Totally Screwed Up

Even in the 1990s, we were hearing of Catholic schools being closed left and right, and it’s gotten worse with all the lawsuit garbage of the past decade. Meanwhile, the sense of Catholicism in Catholic schools, the orthodoxy of teaching, and the spiritual life have all been steadily declining since the 1960′s. Some of this is due to intentional agendas like the ones Dietrich von Hildebrand addresses in _The Charitable Anathema_, but, these days, it has less and less to do with intentional malice as it has to do with a system that’s just totally screwed up by a variety of factors, such that people don’t even know where to begin to reform, and a lot of people don’t even have a clue that reform is necessary.

1. Lack of Religious, and severe lack of them living their vows:
Let’s face it; priests and religious used to be and should be the backbone of Catholic schools. Education is one of the top four reasons religious orders exist. Education is *how* Orders recruit. We hear too much of how horrible “the nuns” were. Whenever someone talks about how “bad” the nuns “were” with their discipline, I have to point out the contrast to today’s children.
Then, the ones we *do* have of course, are largely ideologically liberal and, worse, they’re using the “relative to your society” interpretation of “poverty.” It’s like the recruitment ad I saw a few years ago for one of the Daughters/Sisters of Mercy/Charity orders: “We’re just like ordinary people. We wear ordinary clothes and work ordinary jobs for ordinary salaries. We just live in a community with other unmarried women and come home at the end of the day to share community and prayer.” Basically, “Hey! Join us! We’re a Coven of Lesbians!”
The point is that, besides the question of orthodoxy and declining vocations, religious are basically demanding the same salaries and benefits that lay teachers make. This takes away the financial advantage Catholic schools used to have of religious teaching there for poverty-level wages.
[While rising orders like the Dominicans of St. Cecilia or Dominicans of Mary Mother of the Eucharist are handling the "vocations shortage" and "lack of orthodoxy" issues, and while the nuns are living in a much truer spirit of poverty--our friend who's a Nashville Dominican told us the motherhouse didn't have A/C the first few years she lived there--I can't say one way or the other if they're helping on the financial side. The schools they teach at tend to have pretty high tuition.]

2. Catholic identity: the basic criticism that Catholics like us have against most Catholic schools is that they aren’t Catholic in *all* aspects of life. A Catholic education isn’t just supposed to be about 1-5 hours of “religion” per week–let’s ignore the fact that such “religion” is usually watered down milquetoast mush about “Jesus is nice.” It’s about integrating prayer–Catholic prayer–into the daily life of the school: school Masses (with proper liturgy and proper homiletics), school Adoration, school Rosary and maybe even school Divine Office. It’s about talking about the regular subjects from a Catholic perspective (i.e., intelligent design in the science classroom, morality and religious symbolism in the literature classroom, discussing Catholic figures in the history classroom).

Catholic schools celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr., in January and talk about the pagan god Janus instead of talking about the Feast of the Most Holy Theotokos and what that means, or talking about the Saints of the month. They’ll talk about “Christian Unity Week” but not about the anniversary of _Roe v. Wade_. They’ll celebrate Native American History without talking about Archbishop Charles Chaput being the first Native American archbishop, or about Bl. Kateri Tekakwitha, or St. Juan Diego, or St. Martin de Porres. Do they talk of Chief Seattle being a convert to Catholicism? Does talk of African Americans or Native Americans deal with St. Katherine Drexel and the many other great Catholics who have worked to help minorities in this country who were being oppressed by the Protestant Overlords? What about Mother Mary Lange?

A Catholic school should teach the students to exemplify Catholic virtue in all aspects of life. What we usually get is “Christian virtue,” with the same “values” that are taught at public schools willing to teaching “values,” of the sort expressed by Thomas Merton’s teacher who said, “Being a Christian is much the same as being a gentleman.”

There are three reasons for this problem, but I’m listing it, and them separately.

3. “Accreditation”: Secular Accreditation, as many Catholic homeschool associations and independent Catholic schools argue, is a big hammer used to suppress faith formation. First, in order to be accredited, schools have to teach certain subjects a certain way. This leaves out the question of teaching them in the aforementioned *Catholic* way. We’re talking about Martin Luther King instead of Martin de Porres precisely because the accreditation rules require talking about MLK and forbid talking about subjects that aren’t on the approved curricula for accreditation. Accreditation requires having “accredited” teachers, which means Catholic schools are hiring teachers based upon secular credentials, rather than on those teachers’ credentials as members of the Catholic faith. That gets to my favorite statement by Bishop Vasa, regarding how he requires a mandatum of all employees and volunteers in his diocese: “If I let a known child predator serve as an Extraordinary Minister of Communion or a CCD teacher, people would rightly accuse me of neglect of my duties. If I require, though, that the people distributing Communion and teaching CCD actually believe in transubstantiation, they criticize me for it.”

As I noted in an earlier posts and in many posts in the history of this blog, I get so sick of hearing that I should praise a given principal or teacher or other school employee because of secular credentials. Tell me about the person’s moral practices, prayer life and personal habits.

Just as accreditation means the curricula have severe deficiencies from a Catholic perspective, so too does it mean that the teachers have adhered to a particular course of education that probably means they’re deficient in other areas. Everything I’ve said about “accreditation” applies to the EEOC and several other government entities, as well.

Even more deeply than that is that education is about formation of a person. We forget that theories of education are to be based upon philosophies of human nature and how best to form human beings. The Classical Theory, the Ignatian Theory, the Scholastic Theory, the Liberal Arts Theory, and the Great Books Theory are all very traditional or neo-traditional methods that in different ways conform to the Catholic view of the person. Today, they get lip service from having textbook snippets about Plato or something, and they get lumped into vague categories by the schools that even bother to try, so that no one bothers to explore their nuances or differences. In any case, a school that is following the rules for “accreditation” cannot, by definition, adhere to any of these methods of education. It can try to adapt some principles of those methods to fit the Modernist, Masonic view of education that “accreditation” comes from, but no “accredited” school can be truly Classical, Ignatian, Scholastic, Liberal Arts, etc., and therefore no “accredited” school can be truly Catholic.

4. The people running the schools are badly catechized. The declining Catholic education system of the last 50 years is the system that produced the people doing the teaching and administrating these days. First, they’ve been taught by their teachers, pastors, etc., to shun “that stuff that Vatican II got rid of,” like Saints, Feast Days, sacramentals, devotions, dogma, etc. They’ve been horribly catechized, so they often don’t know what to do even if they want to. For the most part, the people who *are* properly catechized, whether by formal or self-education, are some combination of a) resigned to ostracism, b) homeschooling, c) not “accredited” as teachers according to secular standards (see above).

They’ve been taught that evangelization is “forcing your religion on other people.” They’ve been taught that “all religions are basically the same,” that we’re “multiple boats on the journey to the same place.”

Again, most of them are well meaning–they’ve just been totally brainwashed by the institutional rot in our culture and in our Church, and they don’t know any better. They probably sincerely believe that birth control and chastity are optional, that women’s ordination is on its way, that the Eucharist is just a symbol, etc., but unless someone sits them down and corrects them, they won’t change.

5. GOVERNMENT MONEY:

A school operating according to Catholic principles shouldn’t need much money. Good old books don’t cost that much money–keeping up with the “latest curricula” costs money. Technology and facilities cost money, OK, but those are the kinds of things that can be directly donated. Hiring “certified” lay teachers who need to support their families costs a *lot* of money.

Getting back to point 1, hiring nuns and monks who went straight into the monastery out of high school and received their education and training from the Church would cost a fraction.

So, if it weren’t for the desire for secular accreditation or the lack of vocations, the cost of running Catholic schools would be a *lot* less.

The Supreme Court ruled at some point that government money can go towards religious schools so long as the money is applied to non-religious activities. This ruling helped destroy Catholic schools in the 1960s and helped create the long-term problem. Prior to that ruling, there were extensive publishing houses of Catholic textbooks–on all subjects. After that ruling, Catholic schools started using completely secular textbooks in all their non-religion classes. This killed the Catholic education textbook publishing industry, so the books aren’t even available except for a handful of publishers like Seton.

All the various ways that the government supposedly “helps” Catholic schools–tax exemptions, grants, vouchers, scholarships, Title Whatever, etc., serve as subtle tools with which to undermine a school’s ability to incorporate Catholicism into all aspects of academic life. (This is the argument against vouchers raised by Maggie Gallagher and others). Even when the government *doesn’t* forbid religious activities in connection with some funding, the schools still fear being audited or whatever, so they stand their guard.

6. Parish Money:

A Catholic school *ought* to be getting the majority of its money from the parish and diocese, from tuition and from donations from well-to-do Catholics. The goal of most parishes and diocese, however, is to minimize the money they have to pay, since their budgets are so strapped. Therefore, they rely on secular grants and the aforementioned government money.

7. Confusion of Mission:

Lastly, there’s the confusion of mission. Catholic schools exist for two reasons: to give Catholics a safe environment for raising their children and to provide a good education to poor children (hopefully evangelizing them and their parents in the process). All the factors I’ve previously listed point to the fact that schools are *not* in general evangelizing their non-Catholic students. We were once involved in a Catholic school where the priest told the kids, “God doesn’t want everyone to be Catholic.” Now, we’re at a school where the priest clearly teaches Catholic dogma in his school homilies, and encourages the students to take that home to their parents, and that’s a great blessing to have these days.

However, there’s still the problem that when you have Catholic kids mixing with non-Catholic kids, or even Catholic kids mixing with other Catholic kids, no matter how good the school is, there’s still the issue of peer pressure. This brings us to

8. PARENTS:

Dr. Z. is an OB/Gyn who prescribes birth control pills and gives a great deal of money to the parish.
Mr. Y. has 8 kids, is theological orthodox, and politically conservative, *BUT* tends towards the “preppy” view of education, and gives a great deal of money to the school.
Mrs. X. is on her third husband and has 2 kids in the school.
Mr. W. isn’t even Catholic but is one of the wealthiest people in town and sends his kids to Catholic school for the “quality.”
Ms. V. is a non-Catholic racial minority mom trying to get her kids a good education.
Miss U. teaches at the school, is a registered Democrat and “volunteers” at Planned Parenthood (and not by praying the rosary on the sidewalk) on the weekends.
Mr. and Mrs. T. have a number of kids in the school, they struggle to make ends meet on a middle class salary while adhering to the teachings of the Church. Z, X, W, V and U consider them to be “goody two shoes” and “judgemental” and “Pharisaical.” Y doesn’t like them because they don’t dress nice. They’re the constant gossip of parent meetings and teacher meetings. They bring up any topic about the Faith, and it’s “Oh, they’re at it again.” They get virtually ostracized from the school and parish community for being “troublemakers.”
Miss S. is a young teacher who grew up in a family like the T’s, or maybe even like the Y’s. She never went to Catholic school but was either homeschooled or public schooled, or a mixture of both. She recently graduated from Christendom or FUS. She chose to teach at Catholic school because of her commitment to the faith. She gets in the classroom, and here’s a kid who’s parents are divorced and remarried; that kid’s parents have a mixed marriage; that kid’s parent is Dr. Z; that kid’s parent is an *ex*-Catholic; that kid’s parent is a Baptist minister; that kid’s parent is fighting in Iraq; that kid’s parent is a stockbroker. One kid is from the T. family, and the rest are non-Catholics. Miss S. finds herself walking on eggshells on every subject.
Principal R. wants to run an orthodox Catholic school but most parents, particularly the ones with money, are only interested in an elite prep. school. If any of the alternatives I’ve suggested (i.e., dropping accreditation in favor of Catholic identity, dropping some of the trappings to save money, hiring all religious to teach there) is implemented, then they lose their “elite prep school” aspect. If they get more orthodox in their teaching or practice, the various parents I described get ticked off and pull their kids.
Fr. Q. has recently transferred into the parish and gives firebrand homilies.

Mr. & Mrs. P. have just transferred their kids into the school after years of homeschooling. Suddenly, their kids who grew up on VeggieTales and EWTN and a carefully selected dose of secular entertainment are talking about iCarly and Hannah Montana and boyfriends and jewelry and make-up and “Justice” clothes. They want to know why their parents won’t let them do the “fashionable” things. They aren’t interested in watching _VeggieTales_ or _EWTN_ anymore. Even the youngest kids in the family are saying that _The Wiggles_ is a “baby show.” They find that their second grader’s classmates are talking about Stephen King movies and playing “werewolves and vampires” on the playground. Their kids get teased for dressing up as Saints for All Saints Day, for not participating in “vampires and werewolves,” etc.

They appreciate that Miss S., Principal R and Fr. Q are really doing their best. They wish the school would do more to integrate a Catholic life in all aspects of the curriculum, but that, for the various reasons I’ve listed in this article, they know the school is afraid of losing its government money, accreditation, rich supporters, etc., if it does so. They realize that maybe the faculty and staff don’t even realize how much they *could* be doing, but fear that if they suggest anything, even constructively, they’ll be ostracized just like the T family.

In any case, it boils down to the bad influence the other kids are being on their kids. The P’s don’t really know any of the other parents well or know how to address things. How do you tell another parent, “The shows you’re letting your kids watch aren’t only endangering your children’s salvation, but they’re endangering *my* children’s salvation by your kids’ bad influence”?

The P’s know that, when they homeschooled, they could just steer clear of families in the homeschool association whose parenting methods they disagreed with. If their kids had issues with other kids teasing or fighting or whatever, they could go straight to the parents and get the issue resolved, where at the Catholic school, they have to go to the overworked teacher and bring it up and hope for the best.

So the P’s go back to homeschooling, and the cycle continues.

No, You Cannot Privately Disagree with the Church: “Dissent” is Heresy. It’s all or nothing

I was at Byzantine Vespers the other night, and it was the feast of St. Athanasius. The liturgy praised how he defeated “men of evil minds,” and that really struck me.

There’s a popular notion since Vatican II that Catholics can “privately disagree with” the Church, and that’s not the same thing as heresy. This particularly comes up across the otherwise spectrum of ideologies in regard to divorce and birth control.

Tortured dissent, which is supposed to be *tortured*, is not the same thing as plain old dissent, which is why it’s “tortured.” Further, the “I can disagree with the Church privately” thing doesn’t seem to hold water in people who are *talking* about their disagreements with the Church.

Even on theological matters, I generally find that “disagreements with the Church” tend to be to justify some personal sin the person wants to excuse. I always use the example of the great “Reformers”–Luther was after sex, Calvin was after money, and Zwingli was after food–not that there weren’t plenty of priests, bishops and Popes int those days after the same things, but if you compare those three to the great Counter-Reformers, it’s no contest. Peter of Alcantara lived in a cave for 30 years. Francis Borgia gave up all the wealth of the Borgia dynasty to be a Jesuit. Francis Xavier traveled the world, making disciples of all nations, and condemning the priests sitting back at the universities instead of evangelizing. Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross and Ignatius are obvious. Put those people up against Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and Henry VIII or even Elizabeth I. . . .

Anyway, prior to the 1960s, it was considered a pretty big deal that Catholics ought to conform to the Church’s teachings in mind, body and spirit. Prior to Vatican II, priests were required to preach on a rotation of specific doctrinal topics throughout he year (including contraception twice a year). Before Protestantism, it was understood that one had to adhere to a set of Christological principles to even be considered Christian. Now people insist that Mormons and JWs, who adhere to some of those very heresies, are “Christians.” Many Protestant denominations adhere to teachings on Christ that are condemned by the early Ecumenical Councils, and many day-to-day Catholics have practical beliefs that are objectively heretical–especially beliefs that have been filtered down to them by “spirit of Vatican II” clerics, religious and theologians.

When the great Dietrich von Hildebrand was converting, he told the priest, “I agree with the Church’s teachings on everything except birth control. That one just strikes me as totally irrational, and I cannot support it.” The priest told him, “Then you cannot be a Catholic. It’s all or nothing.” DvH replied, “Then I say with St. Augustine, ‘I believe in order to understand.’” He went on to be one of the greatest philosophical exponents on the Church’s teachings on sexuality and birth control, to the point that Bl. John Paul II credited him as one of the major inspirations for _The Theology of the Body_.

Bottom line: if you think you can get along with “privately dissenting” against the Church’s teachings, then think again. You’re gambling with your immortal soul. The Church’s teachings are a guaranteed path to Heaven. Jesus *may* give one a pass for sincerely disagreeing with the Church on some infallible teaching, based upon personal sincerity, invincible ignorance and all that, but it’s not worth the gamble. If you know what the Church teaches, you’ve gotta obey it or go to Confession. Period.

If Priests and Parishes Care About the Church’s Teachings, Why Don’t they Hold Up Catholics Who Exemplify Them?

This is one of those periodic “Older Brother on the Porch” rants. I see it over and over again: in parish council elections, biographies of Church employees, people who win parish or diocesan awards, etc.:

“X is a proud father of 2, military veteran, with a long history of volunteerism with various civic groups.” If you’re lucky, the person in question is a Knight of Columbus.

Then, on the flip side, your average liberal or “run of the mill” Catholic will say something like, “Do you think saying the Rosary every day makes you a better Catholic?” “Do you think having seven kids makes you a better Catholic?” “Do you think being in a Third Order makes you a better Catholic?”
Uh, yes, objectively, a person who prays daily, doesn’t use birth control or is a member of a Third Order is a better Catholic (especially the latter, since it involves scrutiny and evaluation. It doesn’t make one automatically a saint or “holy” or whatever, but it *does* make one objectively a better Catholic.

“But we’re not supposed to judge.”

Then why are you telling me that I should judge someone to be a “good person” because he’s a military retiree, Rotary Club member, successful worldly professional, etc.??

Conversions and reversions are great, but when we hold up secularly successful people as the models of parish life–because they’re the ones with the money, of course–it really enforces the idea that the other things don’t matter.

Just once I’d like to be told that I should support someone for parish council, or support some parish employee, because he or she is doctrinally sound and a person of great prayer.

Otherwise, it just sends the message that a) Catholic doctrine doesn’t matter and b) Money is all that matters.

Video Which Shows Medjugorje “Seers” “Not” In Ecstasy

I have blogged in the past about the many textual accounts of the time a journalist witnessed the alleged “ecstasy” of Medjugorje “seer” Vicka, where someone pokes her in the eye, and she recoils. A common response of Medjugorje supporters is that this account is made up. No, it’s not. Here’s the video:

When God says, “Shut up so I can talk”: 20 years of Prayer in 2200 words.

Recently, I’ve experienced the second great sea change in my prayer life.  Now, I’ve had a number of conversion experiences, major theological realizations, etc., over the years, as well as periods where I’ve been better about praying than others.  But, in essence, my prayer life has remained the same since I was a teenager.

I’ve always figured this meant I was either quite advanced or else hopelessly lost.  Every time I’ve read the Interior Castle, I’ve figured I’m stuck in Room 1.  At the same time, I have my bad habits and sinful tendencies that I’ve likewise figured were either hindering my prayer life or else were the proverbial “thorn in the side” God was using to keep me humble (fat lot of good that did).  So, I trudged along, just waiting for God to do what He needed to do.

In fact, I didn’t think there was anything “wrong” with my prayer life, because in my study of the writings of the Saints, it seemed like I was doing OK.  I recognized the experiences they described, to tell me I was doing things “right,” and I just figured it was a matter of time before I’d reach contemplation, or else I was already there and didn’t know it.

Christmas 1996, after my aortic root replacement, was our first Christmas with the Internet and Amazon.com.  I had made my mom a list of books I wanted, and categorized them into novels, philosophy, spirituality, etc., so she could pick a book or two out of each category.  Instead, she gave me the *whole* list.  Among these were many Saints whose writings I always wanted to read.  After my formal studies began as a Carmelite, I picked up several Carmelites I hadn’t read yet.

Prior to that, I’d read a lot *about* saints, but not a lot *by* saints.  I do remember reading the Life of HM Teresa of Avila when I was in high school, from the Catholic high school library, but I don’t remember when, exactly, or if I read any of her other books.  I just remember that that, like my various attempts to read her works over the years prior to 2008, left me feeling like I hadn’t gotten anything out of her.  She kind of tends to dance around things, and it wasn’t until I’d studied a other things, particularly Ignatian spirituality.  One of HM Teresa’s great mentors was St. Francis Borgia, the great Jesuit (yes, those Borgias–the infamous Pope Alexander VI was his great-grandfather; Francis was a wealthy Spanish prince who married and had children, then had a conversion experience after his wife’s death, signed over his title and fortune to his eldest son and became what we now call a second career vocation) .   Another great mentor in her life was St. Peter of Alacantara, the Franciscan.  So I had to get a deeper understanding of Jesuit and Franciscan spirituality in order to get a better foundation for reading Teresa.

Anyway, I know I read her in high school, and I know that, relatively early in life, I developed an understanding of the female mystics.

Again, I certainly read *about* them.  Even the Miniature Stories of the Saints by Fr. Daniel Lord, SJ, gave me a pretty profound insight into how Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Catherine of Siena, and Clare of Assisi saw their relationships with God.  Between them and the great Virgin Martyrs, all of whom seemed more interesting to me than the male saints, I often joke that I grew up wanting to start an order for “men who want to be nuns.”

Probably the only male saint who really spoke to me was John of the Cross, and I never *read* him because I allowed myself to be hindered by all the people who say not to read John of the Cross because he’s too “advanced”–HA!  When I finally *read* John of the Cross for the first time last year, other than quotations and short passages, I was like, “Nothing could be simpler than this!”

But God let me understand what He needed me to understand to steer me to the right vocation, and somehow my understanding of the female mystics led me to intuit the Theology of the Body and realize God was calling me to marriage, and, as Chesterton describes, when I began reading the “hard stuff” after that Christmas in 1996, I felt like I was reading stuff I already understood.

Now, maybe that high school reading of St. Teresa of Avila was right after I started high school–that much I don’t recall, Senator–but by Christmas 1990 I had developed an understanding of the importance of tears.  Teresa of Avila says that, out of all “consolations” one might receive in prayer, holy tears are the most important.  Other consolations are like God patting you on the back and saying “Good job.”  Tears–which most people don’t even think of as a spiritual experience–tell us we’re really appreciating what Jesus did for us, and short of spiritual or physical stigmata, are a sign that we’re fully understanding the Passion.

So the first of the two major “breakthroughs” was the first time I experienced Tears.  I’m pretty sure it was during my annual Infant of Prague novena in 1990.  My grandma sent me an Infant Jesus of Prague book in 1989, and I began making a Novena every year from the 16th to 25th of December (technically, two overlapping Novenas).  During those years, I’d dedicate an hour or more to prayer, saying not only all the prayers in the Infant of Prague book, but also the Rosary and other prayers.

I remember the experience, but I don’t remember whether I was praying the Sorrowful Mysteries or the Stations, but one day in prayer–again, I’m pretty sure it was during my pre-Christmas Novena–I was hit by the realization of the Passion, and I began crying.  I knew this was an important spiritual gift, and I got very excited, and told my brother, who thought I was weird.

And I know it was no later than 1991 because my brother was living at home at the time.

So, for 20 years (WOW), I’ve basically stayed at the same level in my prayer life, which I knew to be a fairly “advanced” level but wasn’t sure why I’ve stagnated.  On the one hand, gauged against the “average person,” there’s always a tendency to be like the Pharisee and the Tax Collector and say, “Well, I’m much more advanced than they are.’  However, gauged against the Saints, I knew I was on the right track but missing something, and thought it was just a matter of time.

Meanwhile, in my formal studies as a Carmelite, I’ve struggled with understanding certain aspects of Carmelite prayer.  Again, I thought I was “doing it right” by my reading of the Saints, but I have heard many different things from living people about it, and it’s really been a puzzle to me.

The OCDS Constitutions and Statutes (formerly the Rule of Life and Statutes) require a half an hour of  “mental prayer.”  I knew that all prayer is supposed to be “mental prayer,” and the “prayer of quiet” is supposed to be more of a gift from God.  I knew I *was* practicing mental prayer, particularly because of the experience of tears 20 years ago, but I was never sure if I’d achieved “prayer of quiet” or “contemplation,” but again some experiences I have fairly regularly in prayer match Our Holy Mother’s description of “contemplation.”  The one I like best is in _Way of Perfection_ where she calls it a “spiritual swoon.”

So my question started as a legalistic one: I always figured that as long as I was practicing “mental prayer,” which I was, I was on the right track and just had to wait for God.  Yet most Carmelites insist that the requirement in the Constitutions is for “mental prayer,” not “prayer of quiet,” that even though they’re separate terms, in Carmelite spirituality they’re basically the same thing.

So I had to hammer out some conversations with some of my most knowledgeable Carmelite friends, in person and online, and I kind of figured it out.

I don’t want to get into all the confusing details of the various issues I was trying to work through, but a few things were questions related to psychology and educational theory, a few had to do with terminology.  Some had to do with those “Catholic reflexes” about avoiding any practices in prayer that sound “too Protestant” or “too Buddhist.”

My President described Prayer of Quiet as being a state where one is in such deep meditation that it’s like sleep.  Now, he’s good about explaining the differences between authentic Christian prayer and Quietism or Buddhism, but his description of the method sounded very Buddhist to me, and I was confused a bit there.  Then a very good Internet friend explained how she sees it, and I said, “Sometimes, I just sit and hold a Crucifix in my hands and just adore Jesus.”  Her response was the online equivalent of Lucy van Pelt yelling, “THAT’S IT!”

So those observations helped me, and, a few Sundays ago (either First Sunday of Advent or Christ the King), I began saying a Rosary on our way to CCD.  I used the method which I find to be the most effective for meditation, where you break up the Hail Mary’s with reflections on the Mysteries (i.e., “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you as Gabriel said.  Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus, conceived by the Holy Spirit.  Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners to obey His Will, now and at the hour of our death, Amen.”)

I was praying as slowly as I could.  It took me about an hour and a half to say 5 decades.  Plus, I was holding in my hands a rosary as well as a big crucifix I sometimes carry with me in the aforementioned method of prayer.

During Mass, I got hit by the experience I recognize as the “Prayer of Quiet,” but, because of the various “Cradle Catholic Reflexes,” I always insisted on responding to with “vocal prayer.”  I always thought prayer needs “content” to be Catholic.  I also realized that a big misunderstanding in my Carmelite spirituality was that I’d confused “don’t be attached to consolations” with “avoid consolations,” so I was pushing consolations out of my mind–both my friends I was consulting said, “Heck, no.  John and Teresa teach that if you *have* a consolation, you should run with it.”  The third reason I would insist on “praying back” in that experience was just out of joy and Thanksgiving, like Peter saying “Lord, it is good for us to be here.  Let’s built 3 tents!,” “because he didn’t know what else to say.”

So, this time, I just shut up and let it happen, and I experienced Contemplation.

Now, this answered a major question about my prayer life I’ve posed from time to time but generally took for granted.  I’ve always found that, when I pray a certain amount, I hit what I call a “wall,” where my brain can’t think of the words any more.  I start to get a headache if I “try” to pray.

I always thought that experience was the Devil trying to stop me from praying, or else it was physical fatigue, so I’d either try all the harder with “vocal prayers” because I was trying to fight the Devil or fight the Fatigue.

Now, I realize that that “block” is God putting up His hand and saying, “Shut up.  It’s My turn to speak.”

So, tonight, Mary and I went to a Penance Service.  We got there after the “service” part and stood in line for 45 minutes.  We got in what appeared to be the shortest line but actually took the longest.  We weren’t sure if it was short because the priest was “fast” or because people were avoiding the priest.  Apparently, people were avoiding the priest, but depriving themselves of a great gift.  We both said it was the best Confession we’d had in years, and we experienced what Confession should be, Christ speaking to us through the priest.  Mary’s even pretty sure he addressed her by name even though she didn’t tell him her name.

In line for Confession, I prayed Vespers according to the Roman Rite, the Byzantine Rite and the Coptic Rite on my phone, plus the Confiteor in Latin, the Seven Pentitential Psalms, and just whatever daily prayers I could think of.   I planned to say a Divine Mercy Chaplet after I got out of Confession.

I could feel the “prayer of quiet” coming on even before I went into the Confessional and “shut up” in my prayers when that happened.  Then I had this profound Confession experience.  I began saying the Divine Mercy Chaplet.  I said the Our Father and Hail Mary that were my penance, anyway, and then I started the Creed, but tried to be slow and deliberate about.

Then I found that “block” happening in my head.  I couldn’t remember the words of the Divine Mercy Chaplet.  So I’d just stop.  I’d feel the prayer of quiet for a few minutes.  Then I’d pray another decade of the chaplet, feel God’s metaphorical hand go up, and stop and go quiet for another several minutes.

And all I can say is, “WOW.”

Invincible Ignorance or Lack of Faith?

I’ve been thinking lately about how much contemporary theology is prone to excuse sheer lack of faith.

For any given doctrine, including the very divinity of Christ, you’ll hear someone say, “I just don’t believe it.”  The Bible is very clear about the importance of taking God at His word.

For example, a video has been circulating Facebook of a Muslim imam saying that it’s a sin for a Muslim to say “Merry Christmas.”  Of course, technically, from the perspective of Islam, he’s absolutely right.  What strikes me most about this video, though, is that the imam insists that it’s not only heresy (from a Muslim perspective) but outright stupid to suggest that God would become Man.   He clearly *understands* what the Catholic Church teaches; he just don’t think it’s true because he refuses to believe it.

A similar discussion has gone on recently regarding an Irish bishop who told Catholics who are just filling up pews because they see the Catholic Church as a cultural tradition but they have no real commitment to their faith to be honest and leave (kind of like the words of Jesus in Revelation about “be hot or be cold, but if you’re lukewarm, I’ll spew you out”).

The concept of “Anonymous Christian” or “Baptism by Desire” suggests that a person who truly doesn’t *know* the Christian faith and has no opportunity to know the faith but would be open to it if he or she were taught it *might* possibly be saved through an extraordinary act of God’s grace.  The Feeneyites argue that such a person wouldn’t *need* an extraordinary act because God’s providence would provide such a person with a Christian missionary at the right time.

The next stage after that is someone who has “invincible ignorance,” a term which in most formal theology applies to those who are mentally or intellectually handicapped in a manner that impedes their right judgement.  Such a person may be told, “Jesus is the Son of God,” but not be capable of comprehending what that means.

OK, fair enough.  It is always important to remember, when dealing with these questions, that we’re talking about speculation regarding what *may* happen in extremely rare circumstances, to other people.  For the most part, the whole point of these hypothesized “extra-ordinary” means of salvation for those outside the Church is that the person in question has never met a Christian.  Many contemporary theologians speak of Rahner’s idea of the “invisible Christian,” or of “invincible ignorance” or of baptism by desire, and they apply it to people they know.

I’ve argued with some neoconservative Catholics who have a very interesting view of Islam.  On the one hand, they claim that Islam is an evil religion (as a religion, it is, but that doesn’t mean all its adherents are evil people), and they claim that all Muslims want to kill everyone else.  So they argue that Muslims should be killed.  *Then* they say, when confronted with the fact that they would be sending these Muslims to Hell, that, “Well, Muslims are invincibly ignorant, so they can still go to Heaven.”  So they’re Evil, and they deserve to be nuked because they’re so Evil, and they’re going straight to Heaven??

Some people seem to use “invincible ignorance” as a catch-all for *any* ignorance or any denial of God’s truth, and then basically use it as a catch all to say that just about everyone who isn’t Christian is going to be saved anyway.  This is exactly the mentality that RadTrads object to in post-Vatican II thinking.  It doesn’t really matter if someone is Catholic, except that it’s an easier way for that person to get to Heaven–supposedly.

To this mentality, a man can live your life as a Muslim, commit acts of terrorism, familial abuse, rape, adultery, incest and murder in the name of “Allah,” and then go straight to Heaven because he’s “invincibly ignorant.”
A baptized Catholic can use birth control her entire life, aborting who knows how many children via the Pill’s abortifacient effects, maybe have a surgical abortion or two, get divorced, shack up, et cetera  paribus, and never go to Confession because “She was probably badly catechized, so she’s invincibly ignorant.”
And so on.

A similar claim is that Protestants are Christians just as much as we are, and they have valid Baptism (which the do), so they’re OK without the Eucharist or Reconciliation.  Yet Catholic dogma clearly states that a person, once baptized, who commits mortal sin cannot be forgiven of that mortal sin without Reconciliation or at least the intention to receive the Sacrament.  Again, some Protestants may be forgiven for their ignorance, but all of them?  Doesn’t the validity of their Baptism put them in a precarious spot, especially versus the so-called “anonymous Christians” who don’t get sacramentally baptized at all?

Now, I’m willing to grant quite a lot in these regards.  For example, a Protestant who has grown up with a lot of biases against the Catholic Church and a lot of misinformation may be totally sincere in rejecting some aspects of Catholic dogma.  But it just seems to me to be taken way too far.  Certainly, again, the very valid complain of many RadTrads is that the generous teachings of Vatican II are used as an excuse by most Catholics–certainly laity but including priests and bishops–to *NOT* engage in their duty to evangelize and their duty to admonish sinners.  They’ll even argue that by not evangelizing, they’re helping to save souls by giving them the excuse of ignorance!

And what always strikes me when these topics come up is the importance of Faith in the Bible.  “Nothing is impossible with God,” we are reminded several times in the Bible.  The Bible treats it as a pretty serious crime when God promises or works a miracle and a person refuses to believe.  Indeed, it is precisely in this context that Jesus refers to the “sin of the Holy Spirit.” The different places where Jesus says that the “sin against the Holy Spirit” cannot be forgiven in this life or the next are when He’s talking about the Pharisees rejecting His miracles or His ability to forgive sins.

Another thought that brought this to mind was a discussion at my Carmelite meeting about St. Paul.  I pointed out that St. Paul, when he was persecuting the Christians, was being “righteous.”  He was not killing Christians sadistically; he was doing it because he thought it was what God wanted.  Out of all the Pharisees who were going around persecuting Christians at that point, Jesus reached out the Paul because Paul was sincere.  Paul was ignorant (not invincibly ignorant, just ignorant) of the truth of Jesus Christ.

Compare him to the Pharisees who actually witnessed Jesus’ miracles firsthand yet rejected Him.  They were *choosing* to reject what they saw before their own eyes.  Many of the Pharisees had enough knowledge of Christianity to at least make an informed choice, and perhaps knew full well it was true, but they simply refused to accept what they knew, and they reacted against it in anger.

Now, when it comes to what actually happens at personal judgement, I prefer to keep in mind that Our Lord is a Divine Person, and from His perspective, it is all about relationship and about love.  I think Judgement is more like C. S. Lewis’s idea of “God in the Dock,” that when each person dies, Jesus appears, and the person either greets Jesus with love or fear, and that’s it–St. Teresa of Avila says something similar.  The Sacraments dispose us to be more ready to receive Christ, but that doesn’t preclude some “anonymous Christian” from dying and seeing Jesus and saying, “Hey!  You’re the One I’ve hoped for my whole life but never knew about.”   But most people outside the sacraments are going to be bound by some kind of sin, and/or they’re going to be bound by some kind of insistence of the absurdity of the Truth.

I think of the amazing passage in Les Miserables when Javert commits suicide because he spent his life, he thought, serving God and found out that what he *thought* God wanted was wrong and that God actually wanted mercy.  Confronted with his “Road to Damascus” moment, Javert doesn’t change his ways like Saul/Paul did; he turns in his resignation to God and commits suicide.

It’s easy to say that maybe the YouTube Imam is missing something.  Maybe he is invincibly ignorant in the true sense of the word, incapacitated by mental handicap of some sort (in which it would be the duty of a Christian to pray over him to be healed).  But the plain fact of his video is that he is sitting there, claiming to be a Muslim theologian, insisting that he is *not* invincibly ignorant, saying that Christian teaching is that God became Man, which is true, and saying that he refuses to accept that God became Man.

Do you *really* think that such a person, so opposed to the notion of Jesus, when he dies and confronts Jesus in Person, will react the way Paul did?  And if he *would* react the way Paul did, then why doesn’t God reach out to him now and convert him to Christianity so he can be a missionary?  Or rather, when he dies, will he see Jesus and react in outrage that God would so condescend to become Man?  Would he say, “I want no part of such a God!”  After all, that’s what Satan said.

Happy Holy Days!!

One of the points I usually make about the “Holiday Season” is that, for Catholics, it really is.  Not only do we have Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Year’s, but we have Christmas for 12 days, Epiphany, St. Nicholas Day, Immaculate Conception, Guadalupe, etc.

However, something struck me recently about those who try to say “holidays” to be politically correct.  Just as “Christmas” means “Christ’s Mass,” “holidays” means “holy days.” I already *knew* this, but it just occurred to me that it’s a great irony that “holiday” has come to be a term to *avoid* the True Meaning of Christmas.  Indeed, calling Christmas “the Holiday” speaks to the point that it *is* “The Holy Day.”

So, Happy Holy Days to you, stupid secularists!

Finn, Cain, Paterno, OWS, and the War on the Catholic Church: Liberals and “Accountability”

An absolute moral code is great.  It makes sense.  It doesn’t require sophistries to explain why this is OK and that isn’t, when you have principles and apply them consistently.

That’s why I’ve said for the past 9 years that what outrages me most about the media’s attacks on the Church, besides how unfair they are, is that I don’t believe anyone who supports abortion, or “gay rights” or the so-called “sexual revolution” gives a rodent’s excrement about protecting children.

I was just watching a video someone linked on Facebook of Jon Stewart talking about the Joe Paterno business, and he made the comparison all media liberals are making of the Penn State situation to the Catholic Church.  “It’s about having some accountability,” he says, and that struck me. 

The “latest” permutation of “the Scandal” is the case of highly regarded “Benedict Bishop” Robert Finn of Kansas City, who became the first bishop indicted in a sexual misconduct case, in which the Diocese of Kansas City itself was indicted, both for a misdemeanor charge of “failure to report child pornography.”  The pro-death and anti-Catholic _Kansas City Star_ has been making a great deal of this case for months,  apparently, as it’s had a long standing beef with the unabashedly pro-life Finn.  The Catholic League has in turn been going up against the _Star_, and the radical abortion activist DA is trying to push the case to raise her own political star.  The case concerns a priest who had some photos which were admittedly disturbing but did not, according to the diocese’s Lay Review Board, meet the legal definition of pornography.  So the Bishop tried to handle the matter internally before going to the police.  He committed the priest–who attempted suicide–to an institution till the priest was declared “fit” by the psychiatrists, transferred the priest to a non-parish ministry, and banned him from having computer access or from being around children.  As soon as the priest violated both those restrictions, and began to use diocesan computers to access pornography, the bishop called the police and made a public announcement/apology.  He then hired an independent auditor to review their handling of the case to see how they could have improved it.  After the auditor concluded that he did mishandle the situation, Bishop Finn issued another apology.  Nevertheless, the DA indicted him.

Tying into another recent news story, at least two women with liberal political agendas (though I keep seeing reports that refer to “multiple” alleged victims) have claimed that Republican presidential hopeful and Tea Party favorite Herman Cain sexually harrassed them, suggesting that the crude term the Left has used for Tea Party supporters the past few years is true in Cain’s case.   Now, if true, of course, the allegations should rightly derail Cain’s campaign.  Even if false, many are saying he’s not handling this crisis well, and that that alone calls his suitability for office into question.  However, it’s definitely a planned political hit, like the Anita Hill thing, and some people are arguing that aspects of the alleged victim’s stories challenge their credibility.

In any case, one alleged victim claims she told Cain, “I have a boyfriend,” as if it’s OK to sexually harrass someone who’s single.  When “sexual harrassment” first became a big deal in the early 90′s, I wondered what the big deal was about behavior that was sinful to begin with.  Liberals like to suggest, thanks in part to Christians who have abused their religion, that things like sexual harrassment are part-and-parcel with “Christian hegemony”.   Any true Christian would reject sexual harrasment as obviously sinful, but question how liberals who support the “sexual revolution” can support it.

Then that brings up the other recent issue, “Occupy Wall Street,” and a document by the Pontifical office for Justice and Peace which seemed to suggest support for the “Occupy” movement and seemed to call for a world governing economic authority.  Now, there are also indications that Justice and Peace may have been metaphorically slapped on the wrist for issuing that doc. without the Pope’s approval, but that’s irrelevant because Benedict XVI has made similar statements.  However, what people miss is that, whenever the Vatican says that there needs to be some world authority on some moral issue, the Vatican is not calling for greater UN power: it’s saying, “hint, hint” and pointing at itself. 

For centuries, the Pope was the final authority in world affairs.  For centuries, the Catholic Church said that, for example, if slavery needed to be an institution, slaves needed to be given basic human rights and permitted access to the sacraments and family life.  Families should not be broken up, slaves should be allowed to marry, etc., and slave “owners” should not abuse their slaves.  These rights were guaranteed in areas that listened to the Church. 

After the Protestant revolt and the so-called Enlightenment, however, things began to change.  In the Protestant British Empire, slaves were treated much more cruelly, on the average, than in the Spanish Empire, and the British in general were more likely to brutalize native populations than the Spanish.  The Portuguese were officially Catholic, but the Portuguese kings were generally more defiant of the Church’s authority in secular affairs than the Spanish kings. 

For centuries, the Church was the arbiter of peace between nations, and the idea of permanent peace treaties was a Catholic notion.  Let’s not get into all the things like health care and education that the Church provided, or even law.

Sure, the Church is a hospital for sinners, and there have always been bad Catholics, and corrupt members of the hierarchy, and people who abused their offices or twisted the teachings of the Church to suit their personal agendas.  Today we call them Kennedy Catholics and Nancy Pelosi.  Back then it was the Borgias and Medici.  But imagine what things would have been like *without* the Church standing up as a voice of morality!

Wait: you don’t have to.  It’s what happened in the past 200 years since the so-called “Enlightenment,” and especially in the last 4 decades.

Sexual predator priests like John Geoghan said time and again that they were inspired by the Sexual Revolution and by the “Spirit of Vatican II” talk of doing away with priestly celibacy or even with chastity in general.   Yet somehow this is overlooked in the fervor to blame the Bishops or even the Pope for the evils these men committed.  It’s overlooked that the bishops were listening to psychotherapists who said the predators were “cured,” or to lawyers who gave them bad legal advice.  No one talks about going after the APA or the ABA for facilitating child molestation not only in the Catholic Church but in the public schools and numerous other institutions.

Yet it is the rebellion against objective morality that gives people the “freedom” to think they can engage in pederasty or sexual harrassment.  If random fornication is accepted, why shouldn’t bosses fornicate with their employees?  If sodomy is accepted, why shouldn’t grown men sodomize little boys?

Those who would otherwise tell us there’s no such thing as an objective moral law suddenly get all high-and-mighty on these matters, and their standard, echoed by the “I told him I had a boyfriend” lady, is this notion of “consent.”  You see, in the view of secular liberals, it’s OK to sin if you *consent* to it.  Indeed, they see no hypocrisy in attacking the Church and supporting Roman Polanski because Polanksi claims his drugged adolescent victim was consenting.  They see no hypocrisy in supporting abortion and opposing the Holocaust because, if pressed, they will say that what was wrong with the Holocaust was that Hitler took away the Jews’ freedom to choose.  According to secular liberals, it would have been OK for Hitler to kill Jews if they’d consented to being killed–no word on how the unborn baby is supposed to consent to being killed; they just care about the mother’s ability to consent to the killing.  It’s an absurd standard. 

If consent is the standard, then why should some arbitrary legal definition of age alter consent?  We know that liberals think it’s perfectly fine for underage kids to have sex with each other.  We know that the Clinton and Obama administrations have both promoted explicit sex education for kindergartners.  We know that the Planned Parenthood-designed “touching safety” program Good Touch/Bad Touch implies that there are good ways for children to experience sexual pleasure and, again, suggests that the main difference is the child’s consent.  We know that it is extremely common for sexually active underage girls to be sexually active with older males, and that Planned Parenthood covers up statutory rape.  We know that every so many years the APA redefines something (i.e., homosexuality is no longer a mental disorder).  We know that when the Demonocrats pushed through their changes to the federal protected classes for “hate crimes” to include “sexual orientation,” Republicans pushed the issue to get Democrats to acknowledge “pedophilia” as a legally protected “sexual orientation.”  So what’s to stop legislators from changing the age for legal consent to sex?  What’s to stop the APA from redefining pedophilia as being as acceptable as homosexuality?  Nothing.  Once they finish using pedophilia to attack the Catholic Church, that’s what these monsters will do.  This is not about protecting children, or else they’d be going after public schools, where sexual molestation by teachers and others abounds and goes unreported to this day. 

And that gets back to the other arbitrary standard these people use: so-called “accountability.”  They say they want the Church to be “accountable.” To whom?  To whom should the Catholic Church, founded by Jesus Christ and governed by the Holy Spirit, be accountable?  To godless secular authorities?  The State is accountable to the Church, as the Vatican is always trying to subtly remind everyone, not the other way around.

Yet that’s been the agenda since the Enlightenment: to overthrow the Church and create a supreme secular state with no accountability of its own.

On “Camels in Bed”: How do we Label our Children?

Einstein once said, “Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its life thinking it’s stupid.”  One of the stories my father would always tell when he went around the country giving talks on education reform was the “Camel in Bed” story.  When my brother Peter started kindergarten, he came home with a picture of a red circle.  “What’d you do at school today?”  “I drew an apple.”  Every day, Peter would come home with a picture of different colored round fruit: apple, orange, lemon, grapes. . . . Finally, Dad said, “Let me show you how to draw something different.  I’ll show you how to draw  a house.”  So, Dad showed Pete how to draw a square for the house and triangle for the roof.  The next day, Peter came home with more fruit.  Then Dad said, “Did you try drawing a house?”  “Yes, but I got it wrong.  All I got was a camel in bed.”  Puzzled, my dad said, “Here, let’s try it again.”  Once again, Dad demonstrated the square and triangle on top.  “Now, you try.”  Peter drew a square.  “Good,” Dad said.  “Now draw the roof.”  When he went to draw the roof, instead of a triangle, he drew a half circle, so  it was a square with a half circle on top.  “Oops!” Pete exclaimed, “There’s another camel in bed!”  The teacher, meanwhile, had drawn a big red “X” over the “camel in bed” Peter drew at school.  So, Dad would talk about how important it is to see things through the child’s eyes, how a teacher could look at Peter’s picture and say, “Fail,” because he didn’t succeed at “drawing a house,” or else see it as he saw it and praise his creativity in perceiving it as a “camel in bed.”

Similarly, last year, at the virtual charter school she was attending, Alexandra  had to do an oral reading exam with her teacher on the phone.  She had to read a text to her teacher, and then answer questions.  The story concerned a little girl in a wheelchair.  The teacher asked what was “unusual” about the girl in the story.  Now, I forget what Allie said, but the intended answer was “She used a wheelchair.”  At the time, Allie stated as her answer something that was unusual for her, such as that the girl rode the school bus or that she attended brick-and-mortar school, or something like that.  The teacher commented that she got that question “wrong.”  I said, “Well, you asked what was ‘unusual.’  I use a wheelchair, so being in a wheelchair and using a ramp and all those details were everyday things for her, but since she’s attending a virtual school, riding a school bus and going to a brick-and-mortar school are ‘unusual’ to her.”

There’s another story educators like to tell.  Maybe it was a true story, and I just heard it once, but I’m pretty sure I’ve heard it from multiple sources over the years.  The story concerns a teacher who had two students named “Johnny.”  There was a “good Johnny,” who got straight “A’s” and always listened, and a “bad Johnny” who got failing grades, refused to listen, and often skipped class.  On parent conference night, a couple came very early and walked up to the teacher.  Presuming such involved and well-groomed parents must be the parents of a “good” student, the teacher was pleased when they said, “We’re Johnny’s parents.”  She began to talk about a wonderful student “Johnny” was.  The parents—the other Johnny’s parents–were pleasantly surprised, having come to the conference dreading a lecture on their son’s problems.  They went home and praised their son for doing a good job.  “Bad Johnny” was shocked that his teacher thought so highly of him, and was touched that his parents showed approval for the first time ever.  So motivated, he went to school the next day with a new attitude, and he started to show his teacher respect, and listen, and do his work, and he became a “Good Johnny.”  Again, I don’t know if it’s really a “true story” or just a well-meaning parable, but it makes the same point as the “Camel in Bed” story.

We often say that nobody rises to low expectations in regard to setting high standards, but it’s also true in terms of how we “label” people.  Once someone is labeled “bad,” he or she has no motivation to improve.  Everything in secular culture is competitive.  everything in secular culture is “how can we get you.”  Among adults, we make various behaviors criminal and make no distinction between genuine mistakes or intentional malice.  Look at how society wants to punish not just the bishops who carelessly “shuffled” corrupt priests but even the bishops who tried to discipline those priests internally and see if they were capable of reform before involving the police.  Employers look for every way to find fault with potential and current employees.  Schools, governed by the same lawmakers and wealthy employers, operate under the same principle of “how can we get you”, so that they can raise people to conform to the world’s standards.

Yet the God who told St. Faustina, “My name is Mercy,” intends people to live under the same principle.  Jesus teaches that we will be forgiven based upon our own capacity to forgive, to see others through His eyes.  He tells us that love of Neighbor is the second greatest commandment, and, in the story of the Good Samaritan, that we should see our neighbor as the one we most consider to be our enemies.  He tells us that we should love our enemies and bless those that persecute us, that we should turn the other cheek, etc.

If we wish to raise our children to be Saints, and certainly if we wish to be Saints ourselves, then we must treat others, especially children, the way God wants us to treat each other.  While admonishing a sinner is most certainly a spiritual work of mercy, we should also remember the importance of forgiveness.  When mitigating circumstances are at work, we should be willing to accept them and try to address the problems in the circumstances rather than “punish” the “bad” person who fell in a difficult situation.  After all, when we come to Christ in the Confessional, is that not how we ask Him to deal with us?

The Church teaches that our human nature is corrupted by Original Sin, both spiritually and physically.  Not only do we pass on an inheritance of concupiscence, but we pass on an inheritance of genetic defects that effect our minds and bodies.  Some of these may not even be defects but are indeed authentic differences intended by our Loving Father, which we only see as defects because our society forces people to fit the same mold.

It is important that we recognize the difference between consequences of genetic diversity and intentional behaviors people commit and have control over.  While we must encourage people to do better in fighting against intentional actions resulting from disordered inclinations, we must also be willing to tolerate and show understanding towards weaknesses and disabilities.  In a storyline on _House, MD_, where the title character was under treatment for his Vicodin addiction, his psychiatrist observed, “You recognize the importance of taking pain killers to address pain or other drugs to treat physiological illnesses, so why don’t you recognize the importance of using drugs to treat physiological illnesses in the brain?”

Of my four children, two are diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, and the other two also probably suffer from some form of mental health issue or developmental disorder, in addition to the problems children experience just from having autistic siblings.  While we struggle to help our autistic children cope more functionally in society, we also recognize there are certain aspects of their behavior and temperament they have little control over, and that we must account for these and accommodate these problems.  The accommodation of these problems can lead to resentment on their siblings’ part, and an attitude, that “If he or she can ‘get away with’ this behavior, why  can’t I?”  This is a common attitude among siblings of children on the Spectrum.

People, even medical professionals, say to us, “Why do you want to label your children?”  People complain in general about children being overly medicated, while we can see the advantages that medication have had for our two children with diagnoses, such that the two who used to be our major discipline problems are now the easier ones to deal with.  Well, what kind of “label” would you rather have?  Is it better to “label” a child ADHD, or Asperger or autistic or bipolar or even schizophrenic, and to try your best to address issues in childhood that can be absolutely destructive in adults if not properly treated before it’s too late?  Or is it better to avoid those “labels” and choose instead labels like, “lazy,” “disobedient,” “wild,” “failure” and just plain “bad”?

Why is it that people are so willing to label children as “bad Johnny’s” and promote negative behavior by expecting it of children, rather than recognizing that, often, children’s inability to cope with society’s rules or expectations stem from genetic mental defects that are consequences of original sin, and then properly identify those disorders so as to treat them and work with them constructively, rather than simply punishing out of vengeance?

America’s #1 Killer

Every year, it kills more people than cancer and heart disease put together.

It kills twice the number of people as the remaining 8 of the top ten “official” causes of death put together (AIDS doesn’t even chart).

Every year, it kills twice the total number of Americans who’ve died from AIDS in the 30+ year history of the epidemic (approx. 18,000 year year die of AIDS).

Every year, it kills twice as many Americans as all of our war casualties in the last 100 years put together.

Since 1972, it has killed more Americans than the total number of people killed by Hitler and Stalin combined.

Since 1976, there have been a total of approx. 1260 executions in the United States.  Since 1972, there have been 50,000,000 legal abortions and counting.

Yet people say that the death penalty is a more important issue.  They say that war is a more important issue.  They say that “health care reform” is a more important issue.

People parade for veterans and for war memorials.  They parade for cancer and heart disease.  They parade for AIDS.  Do they parade for the unborn?

People protest violently outside of military bases in the name of “peace.”

They protest violently on Wall Street to protest corporate greed.

They protest outside prisons to protest the death penalty.

Heck, they protest outside monasteries to promote the “rights” of chickens!

Yet a handful of pro-lifers gather in front of Planned Parenthood to silently protest, pray, and/or engage in sidewalk counseling, and they’re labelled freaks, terrorists, or extremists.  They’re hit with racketeering lawsuits.

And *this* is what the George-Soros funded “Occupy” Protests are all about

TI know a lot of Catholics are supporting these George Soros funded “Occupy Wall Street/etc.” Protests because they rightly oppose the worship of Mammon, but the protests are nothing more than repackaged Communism, a repeat of what happened in 1789 and 1968.  To prove it, the so-called “Occupy Rome” protestors attacked Lateran Square, and desecrated a Catholic Church, pulling a statue of our Blessed Lady into the streets and shattering it.

These people are evil.  It breaks my heart to see such evil being celebrated by the media and the political Left.

“Phantom 25″ is THE definitive production!

I just got back from seeing the last theatrical showing of _Phantom of the Opera: 25th Anniversary at the Royal Albert Hall_.  WOW.

Sorry, Joel Schumacher, but this IS the definitive production of “Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera“.   As far as the production itself, I have one minor quibble: no “We’re ruined, Andre!  Ruined!”  Otherwise, it blew me away.

1.  My major criticism of the 2004 film is how they handle “The Point of No Return.”  If you only know the movie and/or the recordings, and you have never read the libretto, seen it on stage or watched a documentary, you might not realize that it’s not supposed to be “the Phantom” in that song.

The song is a show-within-a-show (technical term for that being “masque”) song.  They are performing the Phantom’s own opera, _Don Juan Triumphant_, per his demands, hoping to catch him when he shows up for it.  They’re *expecting* him to appear in his infamous Box 5, and they have a marksman trained on that box.

In _Don Juan Triumphant_, Don Juan, played by Ubaldo Piangi, is posing as his friend, Passarino, in order to woo his maidservant.  So the character on stage is wearing this big cloak and hood.  It’s “supposed to be” Piangi (in the show’s “reality”) playing the role of Don Juan himself posing as Passarino.  However, what the characters don’t know, and what the audience may or may not know, is that the Phantom kills Piangi between appearances and comes out dressed in the big cloak: so it’s the Phantom posing as Piangi playing Don Juan posing as Passarino.  There are multiple layers of disguise and trickery and unveiling involved: it’s brilliant.  By the end of the song, Christine realizes it’s the Phantom and removes the hood for all to see, but no one acts.  Then she rips off his white mask and shows his disfigured face to everyone, and he kidnaps her.

Of course, in the movie, there’s no disguise at all, for whatever reason, and the scene doesn’t make sense because no one bothers to shoot him.

In the live production I saw in 1994, and in the recordings, you can at least recognize that the guy singing is the Phantom and not Piangi, so you don’t understand why Christine, at least, hasn’t figured it out or why the other characters can’t at least tell it’s not Piangi.

That’s where the genius of this version comes in.  They actually cast a guy as Piangi who sounds a lot like Ramin Karimloo (albeit with an accent), and Karimloo (who originated the Phantom in _Love Never Dies_, played Raoul in an earlier production and played Msgr. Daae in a flashback in the movie, making him the only actor to play all three of the men in Christine’s life) mimicks an Italian accent for “Point of No Return.”  I was actually wondering if they were doing something different and it *was* Piangi singing.

2.  Sierra Boggess is AMAZING.  She impressed me on the _Love Never Dies_ album, but her performance here is top-notch, and it’s great that it’s preserved.  Her “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” is literally a showstopper: the audience cheer, encore style, for at least 2 minutes after she finishes.

Her acting is so good, she steals the show even she she’s not singing.

3.  Of course, at these kinds of events, it’s what happens “after” the show that’s almost as important.  I must admit some mild disappointment, here.
After the encores, Andrew Lloyd Webber came out and made a little speech.  He acknowledged some of the behind the scenes people who’d died since 1986, particularly designer Maria Bjornson.  Then he welcomes to the stage Sir Cameron Mackintosh, Charles Hart, Gillian Lynne, and somebody else, but there’s no mention of Richard Stilgoe.

Then he welcomes (most of) the surviving members of the 1986 original cast.  He pays respect to the original cast members who have died.  Then he introduces “one more person,” Michael Crawford, to much applause, joking that Crawford has run over from the London Paladium (where he is staring in “Andrew Lloyd Webber’s _The Wizard of Oz_,” which ALW is producing in the “tradition” _Sound of Music_ and _Oliver_, but, in this case, he has added music to make it a sung through music).   Apparently, to save his energy for playing the Wizard, Crawford did not sing, other than in groups.

Then his lordship starts with the infomercial “But wait, there’s more” bit, and introduces Sarah Brightman.  Then he says there’s “one more surprise” and that Sarah’s going to sing.  OK, but there’s still *one* more surprise that Andrew doesn’t introduce.

And here’s here I have to express a bit of disappointment: especially when I saw what they did, it would have been good to see Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum appear for the finale, as well as Steve Harley, who intended for the role when ALW was originally thinking of a rock opera, and he did the music video of the title song with Sarah B. in 1984.

In the absence of at least seeing those other two “Phantoms” or hearing Michael Crawford sing, they gave one more surprise who didn’t get vocal credit.

In the “show” part, the title song was done with more orchestral emphasis.  They had some electric guitar riffs in the very last part, but they downplayed the electric bass in the song.

So, after Andrew announced Sarah was going to sing and stepped aside, the electric bass started, then the organ, and then the electric guitar and drum machine for the 1984 single/2004 movie version.

Sarah started singing, and as she sang the first verse, the back doors of the stage opened, and four silouhettes walked out.  Four former Phantoms, the way they did the “Valjeans” in the two _Les Miserables_ anniversary concerts.  Three of them were not recognizable to the average person (which is why Butler or Harley would’ve been nice), BUT the most prominent of them was none other than Jean Valjean himself, Colm Wilkinson!!!  The four Phantoms alternated the second and third verses.   When it came to where the “ghostly voices” sing “He’s there, the Phantom of the Opera,” *everyone* sang: the 100 person cast of the show we just saw, plus the original cast members (and Michael), and even the writers and producers and directors.  I think the only one who wasn’t shown visibly singing was ALW.

The Four Phantoms alternated yelling “sing for me,” and then Ramin Karimloo came back over and sang the last one.

Then on the big screen behind everyone, they projected the time cover of Andrew Lloyd Webber holding the Phantom mask, and everyone singing,  “We have brought you to the seat of sweet music’s throne, to this kingdom where all must pay homage to music, music. . . . We have come here for one person and one alone: since the moment you first heard us sing, you have needed us with you to serve you to sing, all his music, his music . . . . “
And Colm steps forward and sings, “Nighttime, sharpens. . . . “
That time, it was the four and Karimloo, but still no singing from Michael Crawford.

I just can’t say enough how great it was.  The DVD comes out in the US in February.

I don’t know about the US, but in the UK, the weekend it opened, the live  _Phantom of the Opera 25th Anniversary_ was second ranked feature of *any* kind that weekend, and the highest performer on Sunday.  It was the highest grossing “alternative cinema event” ever in the UK.

The _Original London Cast Recording_ is still one of the all-time best selling albums of any kind in history, and the worldwide ticket sales for the stage production alone (much less the recordings and movie) still rank it as the highest grossing “entertainment production” in history, more than any other stage show or movie.

Sometimes, a Formica Table is Just a Formica Table

Last year, _Psych_ did a fantastic tribute to _Twin Peaks_ to mark the cult classic’s 20th anniversary.  Starting off as a huge hit and the topic of discussion around the country, it quickly plummeted in the ratings and was abruptly cancelled after a total of 30 episodes, but David Lynch’s groundbreaking series literally changed television.  Several series quickly came along to imitate some aspect or another of what made _Twin Peaks_ revolutionary.  Shows like _Northern Exposure_ and _Picket Fences_ played on the whole “quirky small town” motif.  _The X-Files_ picked up on the idea of paranormal mystery, unorthodox FBI agents and an overarching mystery (David Duchovony played a DEA agent on TP) . _Homicide_ picked up on the idea of bringing critically acclaimed film directors to TV and having an overarching story.  Many cable series of the past 20 years have owed a great deal to _Twin Peaks_, as have more recent (and more popular) paranormal mysteries like _Fringe_ and _Lost_.  Samantha Mulder, Adena Watson and Trudy Monk are all the younger cousins of Laura Palmer.  And perhaps its greatest claim to fame is how, for a short lived TV series, it introduced a number of then-young actors and actresses who went on to successful careers in TV and/or movies.

While the series has only made a few appearances over the years in reruns in the land of 500 channels, it has been very successful in the world of DVD and online streaming, and I’ve been watching it on Netflix this past few weeks.

David Lynch and Mark Frost hoped to use television to explore both artistic and social themes that interested them in a way that film was too limited to deal with, and they felt that the genres of mystery and soap opera were best suited to dealing with those themes.

Starting with the iconic image of a dead girl found wrapped in plastic along a riverbank, they captivated the country with a murder mystery that was supposed to symbolize “mystery” in the philosophical or theological sense: apocalypse, the continuously unveiling mystery of human existence.   While an untimely death triggers questions of “how” and “why” and “whodunit,” the deeper question is really, “What comes next?”  Indeed, at least two characters, the recluse Harold Smith and the villain Windom Earle, say that death is the great mystery, and that the dead are lucky because they get the answer to the greatest mystery of all.  We on earth will never get the answer to that mystery, and the series’ untimely cancellation is a fitting end to that theme.

While the cosmology of _Twin Peaks_ is decidedly New Age and shows more overt favor to Buddhist and Native American worldviews, it is still more easily compatible with Christianity than similar efforts.  Interestingly, where most TV shows (cf. _Little House on the Prairie_, _The Andy Griffith Show_) claiming to represent “small town America” avoid denominational questions and have most of the characters practicing some vague Protestantism (satirized on _The Simpsons_ as the “Western Branch of American Reform Presbylutheranism”), the residents of fictional Twin Peaks, WA, are apparently mostly Catholics (or very high church Protestants): many homes (most notably that of good guy Major Briggs) have crucifixes on the walls, the minister wears a collar and vestments, and Norma Jennings’ sister Annie comes back to town having left the convent.  Of course, it would still be nice to have a TV show or movie where Christianity is honored for more than just being one of many paths to “spiritual enlightenment” or getting it right about the Devil.

In any case, the creators never intended to solve the murder of Laura Palmer.  They funded the pilot as a standalone movie, released in Europe, and added some extra footage that resolved the mystery at the end of that film version, however abruptly.  An incident where a set worker named Frank Silva got trapped on set, and another incident where Silva’s image got accidentally caught on screen in a mirror, both inspired Lynch to create a character around Silva.  So, in the original film version of the pilot, Silva is “Bob,” a random hospital maintenance worker who turns out to be a serial killer, who lives above a convenience store with a one armed man named “Mike.”  This footage is reworked in the TV version as Agent Cooper’s infamous dream at the end of the second episode.  In the series, “Bob” and “Mike” are “inhabiting spirits,” but the series ended before anything further could be developed, and different interpretations have been floated: are they demons?  Are they spirits of dead killers from the past?  Reincarnated?  Aliens?  Many of the shows’ creators admitted that they made stuff up as they went, and that was perfectly in line with Lynch’s idea of ever-folding mystery.  Indeed, had _Twin Peaks_ survived, it might have been much like what _The X-Files_ became: a potentially straightforward fictional mythology unnecessarily complicated by the need to keep resolving *and* keep unraveling.

Many viewers grew impatient with how long it was taking to resolve the Palmer killing.  ABC demanded that they wrap it up.  In real life, the majority of murders are either solved in “the first 48″ or else can take years.  On television, viewers are used to getting the resolutions to murder mysteries in a week or two.  So on a series that would taken on many decidedly surreal and absurd aspects, the narrative “dragging out” of the Laura Palmer mystery was actually a realistic aspect.  The pilot aired on April 8, 1990.  The killer was revealed to audiences on December 1, 1990.  On the show, Laura Palmer’s body was found on February 24, 1989.  Her killer is identified and arrested on March 11, 1989.  Ironically, in some ways this is unrealistically fast.

Similarly, many of the aspects the show considered quirky or “unrealistic” or bizarre are quite mundane, just alien to our sensibilities of what a television show should involve.  Many of the “strange” personalities we encounter in _Twin Peaks_ are strange for a TV show but very similar to people we know in our own lives.  In one scene in the season 2 premiere, Agent Cooper and Sherriff Truman go to question a patient in the hospital, and Sheriff Truman fumbles with an adjustable stool that won’t work–the kind of thing that happens to all of us on a daily basis but never happens to TV characters.  The hospital food is oddly colored baby food, which may not be realistic of how hospital food *is* but of how it is often perceived.  Characters go to the bathroom.  Even strange dreams are something we all experience, and we talk about, and we try to derive meaning in our lives from what we see in our dreams.  Yet we just find it strange to see a TV show where characters have strange dreams, talk about them, and try to derive meaning from them.

In the creators’ original vision for the series, Laura Palmer’s many connections to the various residents of the town, with their various secret lives, would lead the police to numerous crimes.  As they sought out the identity of Laura Palmer’s killer, they would uncover various crimes and arrest various bad guys, much as _The X-Files_ would later alternate its “monster of the week” and “mythology” episodes.

For all the articles and websites, critics’ theories and fans’ theories, people often miss the mark entirely because the truth is so plain as day.

A few weeks ago, when I started my review of the series, what struck me was the inherent critique of evidence.   Agent Cooper, the FBI profiler who relies on Tibetan meditation, is skeptical of Dr. Jacoby, the Psychiatrist, calling Jacoby’s craft (which ought to be Cooper’s) “mumbo jumbo.”  One of the reasons that viewers found the Palmer case frustrating was that the kind of straight up circumstantial evidence that would lead to an arrest in a real life murder case or even in the average mystery story, was constantly undermined (as parodied in a _Saturday Night Live_ sketch when Kyle Machlachlan “hosted” in September 1990: Sheriff Truman comes to Agent Cooper with a video tape of Leo Johnson killing Laura Palmer, and Cooper refuses to accept it).  FBI forensics specialist Albert Rosenfield gives a minute analysis of all the fibers found at the scene, but while the physical evidence allows them to recreate the events of Laura Palmer’s last night, and to determine how she was killed, it tells them nothing of the killer.  Physical evidence pointing to particular killers is undermined by their unshakable alibis for related crimes.   At a  time when DNA evidence was just coming into common use, but when blood typing was the accepted method for discerning such matters, the police in this fictional murder were stymied  by a murder where the victim had had intercourse with multiple men on the day before she died and where the victim’s body was covered in blood from multiple individuals.  Testimony is equally untrustworthy, as so many of the town’s residence are living lies, yet certain people with seemingly bizarre stories and visions and oracles are accepted implicitly.  All of this goes to challenge our concepts of evidence and build on the whole point of how life is ultimately a mystery that we try to solve.

When we look at the ineffability of it all, and how, as I noted, most of what is considered “strange” about _Twin Peaks_ is only really strange because we don’t expect to see such ordinary life in a TV show, we really get to the point.  I came across a website with a lot of quotations from the creators, and in many of the quotations  from David Lynch, he talks about how the “point” is not the plot but the experience.  Just as T. S. Eliot said poetry is about painting a picture with words, creating a unique experience, Lynch argues that film does the same thing, and he challenges plot in order to emphasize experience.  _Twin Peaks_ is about coffee and pie, beautiful women and beautiful trees, warm family dinners and romantic interludes.  That’s what draws people in, and that’s what they’re supposed to get out of it: the feeling. I was formulating these thoughts and came across this article which gets to the same point: Lynch is often regarded as a surrealist, but he is also a Formalist (like Eliot), though particularly a Formalist of the Russian school.  In one of the dream sequences in the prequel movie, _Fire Walk With Me_, the Dwarf points to a table and says to Agent Cooper, “This is a formica table.  Green is its color.”

Sometimes, a formica table is just a formica table.  It doesn’t have to mean anything else, but we want to it mean something, and we want our fiction to “mean” something other than what it is.  This is the author’s frustration with the critic.  In the first dream sequence of the televised version, which, as I noted above, was constructed from material used in the European theatrical version of the pilot, “Mike,” the One Armed Man, says, “We lived among the people.  I think you say convenience store?  We lived above it.  I mean it like it is. . . . Like it sounds.”  Of course, where that footage was originally used, it was completely literal.  In the show’s context, though, spoken in a dream, it addresses that theme of formalism.

Most of the “codes” in Agent Cooper’s dreams are fairly straightforward.  Laura Palmer says in one dream, “Sometimes, my arms bend back,” and the next day they learn that Laura’s arms were tied behind her back.  In our own lives, the things in our dreams which sometimes seem the strangest and most memorable are, when we start to think, very clearly representations of what we experienced the day before.  In _Twin Peaks_, dreams are premonitions, sorting in code what one is going to experience in the next day or two, rather than what one has experienced in previous days.

And that, too, challenges our need for evidence and our need for explanations.

The Problem With Celibacy

I have been leaning in this direction for several years now, but I just recently put my finger on what it is.  For a long time, I have been fascinated with the theology and liturgy of the East, and the more exposure I have to it, the more enthralled I’ve become.  While I accept the theology of the Roman Catholic Church, I really think some serious errors have crept in over the past 1000 years where the Eastern Churches have it right.  One of these is the ban on ordination of married men (which is not the same thing as “allowing priests to marry”).  

I’ve long felt that celibacy breeds a certain demeanor among Roman priests–especially when compared to the Byzantine and Antiochene priests I’ve known–and I’ve been trying to figure out why.

We call a priest “Father” because he is supposed to be the “Father” of the community, and one of the arguments for mandatory celibacy is that the lack of a family frees the priest to be available to anyone, anytime. That is certainly a strong point, and a struggle that married Catholic priests endure. 

However, in practice, there’s a certain aloofness.  I recently heard a priest, talking about a Retrovaille weekend, say, addressing those still discerning, that one of the blessings of being celibate is that you can come home at night, and there’s no one there to bug you.  I thought, “Isn’t the whole point of celibacy that you are free to be ‘bugged’?  Isn’t a priest supposed to be ‘bugged’?”

I often say that there are many ways to assess a “good” priest: theological orthodoxy, liturgical correctness, moral uprightness, spirituality, and a loving and friendly demeanor.  Rarely does a priest demonstrate all of these characteristics. 

And of all the priests I’ve known, even the ones who were extremely orthodox or extremely spiritual, a loving and friendly demeanor is still a rarity.  I think the average layperson would agree with this assessment.  It’s one of the major reasons that Catholics defect for other religions: Catholicism often comes off as cold and unwelcoming compared to other religious communities, and that comes from the attitudes presented by priests.  When I first thought of this the other day, I phrased it as, “Generally speaking, the Catholic Church would function a lot better if _All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten_ were required reading in seminaries.”

Priests with a healthy spiritual life can come off as aloof because of their detachment and mystical nature.  Priests who are theologically and morally orthodox can come off as rigid.  Priests who are worldly or liberal can often feign a friendly manner or being “down to earth” in their preaching and liturgical practice but are usually reserved when dealing with people one on one.  Then there are those who get favored by the hierarchy for pragmatic reasons because they’re good managers or bookkeepers, regardless of their “people skills,” or the ones who see it as a power trip.

So, what does this have to do with celibacy?  Well, besides the psychological comfort having a wife or children can give a man, look at it this way:

1) As noted regarding those with healthy spiritual lives, a priest who is sexually and psychologically healthy needs to avoid temptation.  General aloofness is one of the strategies that holy priests use to protect their chastity.  It gets back to the whole idea of how priests are supposed to shun “particular friendships”, both male and female.  This ties in to both spiritual detachment and the sense of moral rigidity.  
2) Then there are those for whom celibacy “comes easy,” or for whom it’s an attraction in the priesthood, exemplified by the comment that inspired these thoughts.  If a man joins the priesthood because he doesn’t like people and doesn’t want to be bothered, what kind of priest is he going to be?  Indeed, any true expert on the priesthood or religious life says that lack of social skills is a sign that one does *not* have a vocation. Whether in a monastery or parish life, a priest has to deal with people.  But often in practice, men are drawn to the priesthood so they can be isolated.
3) Then again, we have those who often get mentioned in these discussions: the ones who use official celibacy as a cover for sexual license, regardless of their inclinations.  There is at least one city in Europe where the historic cardinal’s palace is literally across the way from the cardinal’s mistress’s palace.  Everyone knows that during the height of “Christendom,” most bishops had mistresses and children; they just weren’t “married.”  When my wife visited Haiti in college, the priest there said that the vast majority of priests kept mistresses or even had civil marriages!  Then there’s the whole “homosexual subculture” thing.  So, these priests living double lives maintain a certain aloofness in their priesthood to disguise their double lives.  And, often, it’s the priests who *are* gregarious and seemingly act the way a priest should act who turn out to be living double lives.  Consider the former Fr. Francis Mary, MFVA, of EWTN/_Life on the Rock_.

Conversely, when there are priests who are married, and when there is a thriving diaconate working side by side with the priests, at least the married clerics can serve the “loving and gregarious” role of pastoral life, and maybe some of that rubs off on the celibate clerics.  Indeed, in the Byzantine tradition, it is said that the priest represents the “spiritual” fatherhood of the bishop, while the deacon represents the actual fatherhood of the bishop, dealing more one-on-one with the parishioners and getting involved in their day-to-day lives.

Hour of Mercy for the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows: Stabat Mater

Latin

Stabat Mater dolorósa
iuxta crucem lacrimósa,
dum pendébat Fílius.

Cuius ánimam geméntem,
contristátam et doléntem
pertransívit gládius.

O quam tristis et afflícta
fuit illa benedícta,
mater Unigéniti!

Quæ mærébat et dolébat,
pia Mater, dum vidébat
Nati poenas íncliti.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shAweuuTPMc]

Quis est homo qui non fleret,
Matrem Christi si vidéret
tanto supplício?

Quis non posset contristári,
piam Matrem contemplári
doléntem cum Fílio?

Pro peccátis suæ gentis
vidit lesum in torméntis,
et flagéllis súbditum.

Vidit suum dulcem Natum
moriéndo desolátum,
dum emísit spíritum.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz9e1z80BHE]

Eia, Mater, fons amóris
me sentíre vim dolóris fac,
ut tecum lúgeam.

Fac ut árdeat cor meum
in amándo Christum Deum,
ut sibi compláceam.

Sancta Mater, istud agas,
Crucifíxi fige plagas
cordi meo válide.

Tui Nati vulneráti,
tam dignáti pro me pati,
poenas mecum divide.

Fac me tecum pie flere,
Crucifíxo condolére,
donec ego víxero.

Iuxta crucem tecum stare,
ac me tibi sociáre
in planctu desídero.

Virgo vírginum præclára,
mihi iam non sis amára,
fac me tecum plángere.

Fac ut portem Christi mortem,
passiónis fac me sortem,
et plagas recólere.

Fac me plagis vulnerári,
cruce hac inebriári,
et cruóre Filii.

Flammis urar succénsus,
per te, Virgo, sim defénsus
in die iudícii.

Fac me cruce custodíri,
morte Christi præmuníri,
confovéri grátia.

Quando corpus moriétur,
fac ut ánimæ donétur
Paradísi glória.

English

At the cross her station keeping
stood the mournful Mother weeping,
close to Jesus to the last.

Through her heart, His sorrow sharing,
all His bitter anguish bearing
now at lenght the sword had passed.

Oh, how sad and sore distressed
was that Mother highly blessed,
of the sole-begotten One!

Christ above in torment hangs,
she beneath beholds the pangs
of her dying, glorious Son.

Is there one who would not weep,
‘whelmed in miseries so deep,
Christ’s dear Mother to behold?

Can the human heart refrain
from partaking in her pain,
in that Mother’s pain untold?

Bruised, derided, cursed, defiled,
she beheld her tender Child
All with scourges rent.

For the sins of His own nation,
saw Him hang in desolation,
Till His spirit forth He sent.

O sweet Mother! fount of love!
Touch my spirit from above,
make my heart with thine accord.

Make me feel as thou hast felt;
make my soul to glow and melt
with the love of Christ, my Lord.

Holy Mother! pierce me through,
in my heart each wound renew
of my Savior crucified.

Let me share with thee His pain,
who for all our sins was slain,
who for me in torments died.

Let me mingle tears with thee,
mourning Him who mourned for me,
all the days that I may live.

By the Cross with thee to stay,
there with thee to weep and pray,
is all I ask of thee to give.

Virgin of all virgins blest!,
Listen to my fond request:
let me share thy grief divine;

Let me, to my latest breath,
in my body bear the death
of that dying Son of thine.

Wounded with His every wound,
steep my soul till it hath swooned,
in His very Blood away;

Be to me, O Virgin, nigh,
lest in flames I burn and die,
in His awful Judgment Day.

Christ, when Thou shalt call me hence,
by Thy Mother my defense,
by Thy Cross my victory;

While my body here decays,
may my soul Thy goodness praise,
safe in paradise with Thee. Amen.

“All have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God”–except babies and mentally handicapped people

OK, so the reasoning of many Fundamentalists, as embodied by the Baptists I mentioned in my previous post:

Baptist: “You must be born again”
Me: “Yep.  That’s what baptism is.”
Baptist: “The Bible says all are born into Adam’s sin.”
Me: “Yep. That’s why they need baptism.”
Baptist: “All have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God.”
Me: “Yep. That’s why they need baptism.”
Baptist: “Well, show me where Infant Baptism is in the Bible.”
Me: “You just said it.  All are sinners, and all are born into Adam’s sin.”
Baptist’s wife: “Well, not babies.  Babies and young children and people who are [adjusts her voice awkwardly] mentally retarded don’t have the ability to know that what they’re doing is wrong.  That’s called Age of Consent [actually, it's called Age of Reason, lady].  Those kinds of people have no sin, and they go straight to Heaven when they die.”
I replied that she was contradicting herself, because if all have been born into Adam’s sin, that *has* to include babies and mentally handicapped people.  Then they changed gears on me.
Here’s what I’d have liked to have said in different contexts:

1.  You have squarely contradicted yourselves.  My position is the age-old teaching of the Church, based upon the Bible, that all are born into the guilt of original sin that must be expunged by God’s grace through baptism for a person to even have a chance at knowing Christ and being, as you put it, ”saved.”  Your position is a mismatch of contradictory statements which boil down to, “We are convinced the Catholic Church is wrong, so we are going to say whatever contradicts the Catholic Church, even if we are totally making fools of ourselves.”  You tell me that all must be born again, but now you’re saying that babies, young children and mentally handicapped people are all exempt from the requirement to be born again.

2.  Where is your “Age of Consent” (which we call “Age of Reason”) in the Bible?  It actually comes from St. Thomas Aquinas.

3.  If I told you that Mary was born free from original sin, you’d tell me that Paul says all men are sinners and deprived of the glory of God, but now you tell me that babies and mentally handicapped people are *not* sinners.
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