The flash of light at conception.

Old news, but since someone once accused me of making this up . .

Help bring an at home progesterone test to market

As several blogs and Catholic media outlets have already reported, a microbiologist named Amy Beckley has developed “Ovulation Double Check” an at home fertility test that doesn’t just test for lh but also progesterone.  She’s teamed up with the Marquette Model people, and has started a crowdfunding campaign to bring it to market.  $100 donors will get a “lifetime supply.”  In a few weeks, the campaign has been 84% funded, but there are still 60 “lifetime supply” slots available.

Click here to support the campaign.

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Living the Good Samaritan

This afternoon, our younger two kids had an appointment at pediatric specialists at the over-renamed MCG/GRHSU/GRUHealth/AUHealth.  It was raining, so my wife was going to get the car. I hadn’t had lunch yet, and the kids were hungry, so we stopped at Subway with the intention of eating while she got the van.
As she was about to leave, we saw a lady walking down the sidewalk, crying and gesticulating.  She appeared to be having some sort of seizure.  My wife went out and talked to her and tried to calm her down, bought her a meal, got some of her story, enough to know she’d been at the ER and discharged somewhat prematurely, and had no one to pick her up.
Various professionals passed by.  A few stopped momentarily.  Three campus police officers arrived and seemed to be treating her as more a suspect than a victim.
My 8 year old daughter looked out the window and said the lady looked like she’d been beaten up.  My wife thought the same–she had recent injuries that had been bandaged by the ER.
The kids remained patient remarkably long for their temperaments, but as our son hit his limit, we had to slip away.  We drove past to see if she was still there, but she, and campus police, were gone, so hopefully they got her the help she needed.

But *why* does our society have to be so litigious and bureaucratic that no one can help anyone?  Doctors and nurses passed by, too “terribly busy” or too afraid of being sued or fired to help (cf. the story of the firefighters who got in trouble for using their truck to get the little girl to the hospital before EMS could get her).  And why do ERs discharge people when they’re clearly not treated??

I’ve had several occasions that I’ve been discharged with papers saying, “Come back if you experience XYZ,” and I’ve been like “Should I turn around and come back in since I mentioned that when I got here, and you didn’t do anything?”

 

 

Is the Catholic Church Infallible?

I have convert friends who rightly worry that traditional Catholics, in criticizing Pope Francis, tend towards a Protestant mentality.  I
Conversely, I have convert friends who feel that Pope Francis’s teachings and praxis–telling an Anglican friend *not* to become a Catholic for example–have undermined their reasons for conversion.
Many worry that criticism of Francis undermines their faith in the Church Herself.  Perhaps–but that criticism is only the symptom.  There is a point at which we have to stop saying “It’s a mistranslation,” or “It’s just the media.”  The Holy Father knows fully well what people are saying he said, and he’s had ample opportunity to correct misconceptions.  In many cases, he’s “doubled down” on comments like “Who am I to judge” and the infamous “promethean neo-pelagian” invective.
If he did not want to create certain impressions, he wouldn’t create them.
However, to say that Catholics who point out the problems, whether those who look at the implications of his phrasing while supporting the orthodoxy of his words or those who accuse the Pope of outright heresy, are the problem is proverbially shooting the messenger.
Instead of trying to understand the fears and concerns of many tradition-minded Catholics about the Pope’s words and deeds, many in the middle and conservative wings of the Church are merely joining the Pope in condemning “Older brothers on the Porch” who “don’t want to see converts returning to the Church” and “Just look for reasons to hate Francis the way the Pharisees looked for reasons to hate Jesus.”
Here’s my perspective, as a temperamentally traditionalist cradle Catholic who grew up in the 80s and 90s, who grew up with priests as frequent dinner guests, devout parents with devout friends, who was reading _Catholic Answers_ in my early teens.
For me, the Francis Papacy seems to be the fulfillment of two equal and opposite narratives/predictions I grew up with.  On the one hand there were the priests, “church ladies,” etc., who showed commitment to protecting the unborn, devotion to Our Lady and the Saints, etc., and spoke or recommended books about alleged and approved apparitions.  So on this side were the warnings (cf. _Pierced by a Sword_) of a time when a pope would be forced into hiding–either exiled from Rome or imprisoned in the Vatican itself–and replaced with a Pope who would be the first to change defined teaching, probably on matters of sexual morality.
On the other hand, there were the ones who said, “Vatican II got rid of that” about everything that seemed  “cool” about Catholicism–not just Latin, but popular devotions, Indulgences, Mary and the Saints, and so on–who were more concern about social activism than spirituality, and who spoke longingly of how, “A time will come when this old Pope [St. John Paul] dies and we get a Pope who will truly follow Vatican II and get rid of Canon Law, allow priests to marry, allow divorce and birth control, . . . .”
I heard nearly those exact words on more than one occasion.  A noteworthy example was a daily Mass “homily” in late 2002.  The priest claimed that the “only divine laws are the Ten Commandments, and everything else was man-made.”  He mocked the Church for having Canon Law, mocked the 1917 and 1983 codes, and expressed the aforementioned hope.  Before I could write to the bishop, the priest had resigned, amidst a pornography scandal in which, ironically, he had previously been protected by Canon Law.

So, now, we have a Pope who keeps hinting at such changes, who has brought back into the forefront cardinals and bishops like Walter Kasper, whose retirement Pope Benedict had readily accepted, and who keeps saying the same kinds of things the priests in the latter group would say.  It’s no wonder that many with a similar or more traditional background than my own are highly suspicious, at best, of the present Holy Father.

I’m still holding out hope that Pope Francis is like Pope Liberius, speaking ambiguously to hold the Church together, but that didn’t turn out well for Pope Liberius.

Regardless, after 3 years of trying to articulate my own concern, reading the synopsis of a recent homily that sounds like so many others, I finally got it.  My convert friends who don’t want to hear  Pope Francis criticized because they feel it undermines the Catholic faith are, as I said, putting the blame in the wrong place.

When the Pope says his critics are “following the Law” and ignoring the “Will of God,” when he says of changing an ancient ritual that copies something Christ did by saying, “It’s what Christ would do” (even though He precisely didn’t), the implication is clear: the Pope thinks, or sympathizes with those who think, that the Church before his Papacy, or at least before Vatican II, was *not* doing the will of God, was not doing what Christ would do.  He is the one saying the Church is not infallible, not those of us who question or challenge some of the things he teaches.

Oh, wait, saying the Church is infallible is “triumphalism.”  As a FB friend who’s a priest said, “A shepherd who pats a wandering sheep on the head and applauds his conscientious decision to leave the flock isn’t helping anyone but the wolf.”

“Joy of Love”–What’s missing

The media are abuzz with Pope Francis’s long-anticipated Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation _Amoris Laetitia_, and from what I’ve seen on Facebook, the following Bingo game could be quickly won:

I’ve read the first three chapters, and I’ve read that, like every other document from Pope Francis, the several assurances of orthodoxy in the first few chapters are followed up by a buried lied of “freedom of conscience” somewhere in the middle.

Let’s set aside that “freedom of conscience” and “Let’s adopt a new tone instead of authoritarianism” has been said over and over since  Vatican II.  Let’s set aside that some of the same people who, almost 20 years ago, were having conniptions over a very similar, but more more succinct, document from Rembert Weakland are now saying, “Let’s celebrate!  The Pope didn’t change doctrine!”

As usual, I sympathize, though don’t entirely agree with, the Pope’s critics from the “Right.”  My reaction thus far is really disappointment.  The document is the epitome of lukewarm.  It’s so insipid and boring I was outraged by the waste of time.  It really adds nothing to what previous documents have already said on any of the subjects at play.

When it comes to marriage and family issues, there are four groups of people:

1) Those who want a clear-cut, black and white moral code.

2) Those who “freedom of conscience” *from* the Church.

3) Those who simply don’t care.

4) Those who want to follow the Church but are struggling with difficult situations.

Group #2 are the only ones who have any cause for celebration in this document, and they are celebrating.  However, from what I’ve read directly or seen quoted, it *really* doesn’t say anything that isn’t somewhere in the post-Vatican II magisterium already.

Ostensibly, the whole point of the Synod was to address group 4, but so far it seems to be more of the same:

Yes, extreme circumstances may mitigate culpability.  However, this seems addressed in a way that’s more about alleviating the responsibility of pastors than providing mercy to those who struggle.  Emphasizing lack of culpability works out to the same as emphasizing sin in a punitive manner: both escape the Biblical responsibility of the clergy to help those who are in need.

This has always been my problem with group 2, the so-called “liberals” or “progressives”: too often, I’ve seen Acts of the Apostles cited by liberals to support socialism or communism rather than Christian community.

The Pope says we should “admire” and “be supportive” of families with disabled parents or children, single mothers, and so forth.  But “being supportive” is very different from “supporting”.  He mentions civic responsibility, but not clerical responsibility.

Instead, it’s the cop-out of “personal conscience.”  So much easier to say, “You’re not really responsible for the sins you commit out of  desperation” than to say, “We’re going to try to provide you with practical help so you don’t have to be put in a situation of desperation.”

 

The Truth about “The One Percent”

For “progressives” these days, the Great Evil seems to be the so-called “one percent”. They  want you to think that the “One Percent” are the “mega rich.”
They think the “1%” are this:

However, it shows their lack of understanding of math, statistics or even common sense.  The phrase “1 percent” came about because of the notion of _The Millionaire Next Door_, that 1 in every hundred Americans has a net worth of a million dollars or more in savings, and most of them live in middle-class neighborhoods.  That includes upper-middle class professionals like doctors and lawyers, and retirees.

If the “1 %” really means retirees with a million or more in savings, let’s look at that.  Let’s look at person retiring at 65 with a net worth of $1,000,000.  Let’s say the person’s home, originally purchased for $70,000 40 years ago, is now worth $250,000.  That leaves $750,000 in net worth from retirement investments.  So the person has that, plus Social Security, to live off of.

If a 65 year old has $750,000, and lives to be 95, for those of you who think that the 0.1% are the 1%, that’s $750,000/(95-65)= $750,000/30 = 25,000 per year, without interest.

The true “1 percent” look more like this:

Judge a Movie on Its Own Terms.

Hollywood makes polemical movies all the time.  When they’re liberal, everyone says, “Great movie.”  When they’re Christian and/or politically conservative, suddenly they’re “preachy.”  When a “Christian” movie has bad theology (_Noah_), Christian critics (rightly) complain. When a “Christian” movie has theology, it’s “Bible thumping” or “boring” or “unrealistic.”  When a movie has language, sex & violence, Christian critics complain.  When it has none of those, it’s too unrealistic or insipid.  . . .

Meanwhile, Hollywood has taken its agenda full-steam the past 8 years and has gone beyond brainwashing to using its economic might to strongarm elected officials.

Seeing on the horizon what the late Justice Antonin Scalia predicted last summer, several states have recently drafted legislation trying to back up the First Amendment protection of religion.  Bills that say, for example, that ministers cannot be forced to participate in weddings that go against their faith, or that religious organizations cannot be forced to hire people who do not practice their faith, have been cast by the media as “anti-LGBT hate laws,” and the consistent, age old principle that marriage is between a man and a woman for the sake of procreation is now being cast as equivalent to some Christians’ previous justifications of opposing miscegenation and supporting slavery.

So, Disney headlined a list of major corporations that threatened to boycott the entire state of Georgia if Gov. Nathan Deal signed its religious freedom bill.  Whatever happened to “big business” being supposedly “conservative”?  I know people who still cling to the myth that “Republicans are the party of the Rich,” even while Hollywood elites are using their money to pressure elected officials and manipulate the Democratic Primary itself (with those “superdelegates”).

So, speaking of “super” people, while Disney made headlines, Warner was another company behind the threatened boycott.  Last month, I bought a restaurant.com deal that came with 2 emovie tickets that expired March 31.  I saved them for Easter break.  I hoped the opportunity would come up for a “date,” or else I’d planned to see _Batman v. Superman_ and let my wife see whatever she wanted, as we did when the kids were really little.  Instead, I decided I didn’t want to see _Dawn of Justice_ in the theatre because I’d rather watch it when I can fast forward or multitask through the violence.  I didn’t want to see _Zootopia_ because I don’t want to give Disney any money, and as with most “kids” movie trailers, I was uncomfortable with some of the jokes they highlweighted.

 

So that left _God’s Not Dead 2″ and “Miracles from Heaven.”  Since I’d put it off so long, we had to go together and bring the kids.  We also had some fantastic news on a few fronts this week, and a bit of family celebration was in order.

Since we saw the first one, and all the kids enjoyed it and paid attention (which is unusual for them with live action movies that aren’t in the superhero, sci-fi or musical genres), we figured #GodsNotDead2 was “safe.”  We’re glad we went, and glad we spent the money on the extra tickets, instead of spending it on Disney.

1) ok, it’s not “high cinema.”  It doesn’t pretend to be.  It has its place.
2) As Eliot said, “Humankind cannot bear very much reality.”  As a character in _Twin Peaks_ says, voicing David Lynch’s Eliotic formalism, “This is a formica table.” Much of what makes the pilot and first season of _Twin Peaks_ “quirky” and “strange” is that it’s not.  I was struck, rewatching the series a few years ago, by a scene where Agent Cooper and Sheriff Truman are in the hospital to interview a suspect, and the sheriff tries to adjust a rolling desk chair to his height, and he struggles with it.  It’s funny to watch.  It disturbs our sense of narrative structure, so we call it weird, but it’s actually *real*.  It’s what really happens to real people.  People in movies toss ropes across ravines and catch them perfectly.  I toss a dog leash across the room to one of my kids, and it falls in the middle between us.  If the latter happens in a movie, though, we call it “unrealistic,” and depending upon what amounts to a biased perspective, that may or may not be “artistic.”

So with both _God’s Not Dead_ movies and similar Christian films.  They might be unrealistic from a fiction-writer’s or a cynic’s perspective.  They might not do the best job of depicting their characters, but they do reflect the real experiences of real people.  I read an article yesterday that looked back on the first movie and said it’s unrealistic for a freshman to take on a college professor. *I* did.  This movie is about a teacher.  I know several educators, myself included, who have had incidents in their careers like what happens in the movie.

So view them as quasi-documentaries of us weirdos who do think our faith should be more than just 1 hour on Sundays and should impact other parts of our lives.

3) Maybe they will attract or convince non-Christians to convert.  Maybe they’ll provide fodder for cynical non-Christians to mock or deride Christianity (but so wouldec, for example, an honset adaptation of _Narnia_).

But that’s not the audience.

Sometimes the choir *does* need to be preached to.  When we face challenges in the workplace or the classroom, we need to be prepared to give an account of what we believe in.

Action Movies tell us that one guy can take down a group of terrorists, aliens or supervillains.  Romantic movies tell us that it’s simple for the guy to get the girl or vice versa.  Dinosaurs, zombies, vampires, or people who get superpowers instead of cancer from radiation run amok, and that’s fine.  But when a  movie tells us that a Christian can stand up and witness his or her faith in public and win the challenge, suddenly that’s escapist and unrealistic.

I appreciate the critique.  I appreciate the call for movies that do what the works of O’Connor, Tolkien, etc., do.  But we also need the cinematic equivalents of C. S. Lewis and A. J. Cronin. So I don’t get the absolute vitriol directed at this genre by Christian critics, especially the ones whom I otherwise respect.

The goal of the movie is to encourage its intended audience, and I think it achieves that goal.  I came out not only strengthened and encouraged but also having learned a few things.

Meanwhile, there’s the wider economic front looming in the culture wars.

Hollywood has now made its complete contempt for Christianity public with this campaign against Christian freedom.  We’re told we’re paranoid and backwards and hateful and ignorant and accused of violating every principle of the Inverted Natural Law for saying that bathrooms should be about plumbing, and that having gender-assigned bathrooms and locker rooms is about people’s privacy and safety.  If a feminist complains about ogling, she’s speaking out for human rights.  If a Christian does so, she’s being outmoded and bigoted.

By pressuring governors not to protect ministers, they’re saying–by implication or even overtly–that they *do* plan to go after ministers and churches directly.

And we want to give these people our money *why*?

If you go to the movies this weekend, see _God’s Not Dead 2_ or _Miracles from Heaven_.  Better yet, put the money in the collection basket.