Faith and Culture

His Holiness Gets (Justifiably) Snarky

2006-09-21T23:08:00.000-04:00

Q.: What’s the difference between a terrorist and a theologian?

A.: You can negotiate with a terrorist.

It was a matter of some amusement when His Holiness, Benedict XVI said, “To an attentive reader of my text, it is clear that in no way did I wish to make my own the negative words pronounced by the medieval emperor.” In other words, “If you have half a brain, you realize that the remarks I made included this quote from Michael II Paleologus, a Byzantine emperor from the first quarter of the 14th century. Further, halfwit, this was an historical allusion made in an academic setting before an audience who, presumably, had brains enough to figure all this out.”

The ever-present Council on American Islamic Relations weighed in, of course, along with Zuhdi Jasser, chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Jasser takes offense at the statement - certainly not the Holy Father’s - that Mohammed forced conversions and found most expedient the sword in the work of evangelization. Jasser apparently is offended by historical fact.

From his perch at Duke University, Muslim scholar Ebrahim Moosa says the Pope’s text was meant to provoke a violent reaction. Mr. Moosa apparently can offer nothing more scholarly than this remark, which scarcely merits little more than the comment that he has not gone far into the scholar bank to withdraw this poor excuse for what can only be described - charitably - as the petulant frenzy of those who will do violence simply for the joy of it.

Muslim theologian Adnane Mokrani complains that the Pope explains does not apologize for his remarks. It would be intellectually dishonest for His Holiness to apologize for quoting an historic text. Unless I miss my bet, Benedict XVI is nothing if not intellectually honest.

In an earlier life, Benedict XVI was a professor and remains one to this day. He speaks in an academic voice despite his elevation to the papacy.

His Holiness has been accused, along with President Bush, of trying to reignite the Crusades. Of course, all the aggression - the bombing of churches, the murder of a nun - has been on the part of self-proclaimed Muslims who reputedly are messengers of a religion that proclaims peace.

To assuage their outrage over the remarks of His Holiness, perhaps our Muslim brethren might be better served by getting around to apologizing not only for the recent outrages committed in the name of Islam, but also for the historical record which amply demonstrates their ancestors’ use of the sword in their own brand of “peaceful” evangelization.

Mary Koechig, Fisherwoman Extraordinaire

2006-06-15T22:11:00.000-04:00

Fishing just isn’t the same anymore. For nearly 20 years, I was a solitary fisherman. I was on the road six months short of two decades and fished where I wanted when I wanted. No back of the boat for me. I was alone and treasured my solitude. Tonight, I am alone, my rods rigged and ready. Yet, there is a play in the light which has turned to shades of grayish white, gray and black. I don’t fish. I turn around and look the other way.

A flotilla of geese - four families of them - has left the northwestern shore of the lake and is headed over to the east side. Eight adults and 13 goslings out for their evening swim and bedding for the night. They are black shapes against that gray-white sky, sailing into the gray that eventually turns black on the other side of the lake.

Mary changed fishing for me forever. She didn’t even fish, yet she changed it. My first visit to a fishing lodge was at her suggestion. We went for our 15th anniversary a few years ago. She never wet a line. All Mary did was point out to me what should have been obvious. She showed me patterns of light coming through trees. Where I saw glare in the water, she saw works of art. While I concentrated on what should have been productive water, she saw the whole picture.

Phoebe, the hummingbird, has left for the evening but will be back in the morning to feed on the fuchsias Mary always wanted hanging. Fred, the Great Blue Heron, will come by in the morning for brunch over in the southwestern-most part of the cove where there are plenty of dead sticks to disguise his legs.

I was on the road for nearly 20 years, all on my own. It always seemed that when I met anyone they talked too much and said too little. While I fished, Mary offered a constant commentary on our surroundings, always seeing things through her art teacher’s eye. What might have been mindless chatter from others became powerful imagery from her. She talked a lot and said a lot more than her words seemed to imply. When she spoke, it paid to listen. If you listened, you were bound to be rewarded by seeing something you otherwise would have missed.

We bought this place on the cove five years ago and she insisted on spending every summer weekend up here. This is not remarkable except when you consider that she was undergoing chemotherapy for the last four and a half of those years. After the doctors and nurses had done their worst, she would say, “Get me to the cottage.” Once here, she would brighten as much as she could, and then lie in her lounge chair, waiting for Phoebe to come along. Every time that hummingbird came by, Mary was like a child on Christmas morning.

“Marc, would you please go and fish,” she would ask. Not wanting to leave her, I stayed up on the deck, looking longingly at the water. She insisted that I go fish. I would walk down to the dock and plant a chair there, fishing from the dock. Frustrated, she would tell me, “Go out in the boat.” I couldn’t leave her there, all alone. Last year she convinced me to buy a set of walkie talkies so I could use the boat and stay in contact with her and still use the boat. I went out once.

Truthfully, it was better for me to sit on the dock or on the deck and listen to her describe the surroundings to me. I saw everything but knew nothing of it without her describing it all. She brought it all alive for me. She also brought it all into perspective.

When I suggested we had found this place by accident, she said, “It was the grace of God that did it.” Watching me fish from the dock one day, she said, for no apparent reason, “God is good.”

To her great joy and embarrassment, the cove on which this cottage sits, was named, “Mary’s Cove,” in her honor on August 2, 2005.

Mary died on April 2, 2006 and I will never have another fishing partner as fine as her. I will still fish, and she still will be with me, but it just won’t be the same anymore.

The Death of Free Will

2006-06-11T20:10:00.000-04:00

Free will is dead. Long live free will.

Yes, free will has died after putting up a valiant fight against various plots against it for years. The final blow came sometime in the last couple of weeks when some headshrinker exposed road rage as the result of something he calls, "Intermittent Explosive Disorder." When you are driving down the highway and some fool begins to act violently, whether verbally or physically, have pity on him because, you see, he is the victim of a genuine psychiatric disorder. As entry 312.34, it actually is entered in the pages of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It simply is being applied to bad behavior.

Free moral agency has expired with the doctor's pronouncement. No longer able to control ourselves, we now have psychiatric authority to misbehave in whatever fashion we wish just as long as we remember to explain it all away with the IED defense. Responsibility has been defenestrated. Psychiatric rationalization has entered the room and thrown it out. This is not comforting, though.

Always of the opinion that psychiatry was in the business of doing away with cheap rationalization, we now find that our entire worldview of the subject must undergo radical change. None of us, apparently, is responsible for our own actions. Crime, therefore, cannot exist. Sin cannot exist. And what about that screaming baby in the next room? Infants likely suffer from this dire disorder and probably should be medicated from birth. Okay, then. Why not pre-natal meds for the kids? Nip this stuff in the bud is what I say.

In fact, let's all just medicate ourselves into a stupor and forget the whole deal. Let's all just forget what we owe to the world and concentrate on what the world owes us. If the world fails to pay up, we can always smack the daylights out of someone and know that we are covered in the shrinks' book. And if the shrinks say it's so, the courts will not be far behind.

More on The Da Vinci Code

2006-05-14T19:58:00.000-04:00

Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ - St. Jerome

Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence - I Peter 3:15 (Holy Bible, RSV, 2d Catholic ed.)

So much has been written and spoken about The DaVinci Code that to say anything at all runs the risk of redundancy. One thing that cannot be said too often, however, is that this is what the educators of the world call, “a teaching moment.”

For example, Mr. Dan Brown, in his resplendently flawed work, The DaVinci Code, repeatedly refers to the Vatican being active around 325 A.D. What the benighted Mr. Dan Brown fails to realize is that the Vatican did not exist in 325 A.D. How many Catholics really know that? After his claim that artistic and architectural references in the book are factual, it is laughable that he would talk about frescoes in Notre Dame. Look it up on the internet, for pity’s sake. Mr. Dan Brown can only count 12 cups in Da Vinci’s Last Supper. Most folks have no problem finding thirteen.

What really irks here, though, is the ignorance of Catholics when it comes to matters of their own religion. Catholics somehow have forgotten who they are, where they came from. Most don’t even know where they are going, in this world or the next. Catholics in this country today are intellectually no better off than they were in the 18th and 19th centuries. Gaudium et spes, states, “Believers can have more than a little to do with the rise of atheism. To the extent that they are careless about their instruction in the faith, or presenting its teaching falsely, or even fail in their religious, moral, or social life, they must be said to conceal rather than to reveal the true nature of God and of religion.” (quoted in The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), 2125). This is not merely instruction; it is a warning to not let our brains go to seed. We are responsible for our own intellectual health.

Catholics have gotten intellectually lazy, intellectually slothful. Sloth, you will remember, is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Remember those? You can find them CCC 1866. If you cannot name the Seven Deadly Sins, it is a safe bet you can name the last seven Oscar best actors, actresses, or the like. Think about it. Which matters?

If people have the time and inclination to open The Da Vinci Code or to go see they movie, they should at least grant the same time and attention to what the Church is all about.

The Da Vinci Code Brouhaha

2006-05-11T17:20:00.000-04:00

DISCLAIMER: I have not read The Da Vinci Code. I do not intend to read The Da Vinci Code. I simply do not have the time. And I really do not have the inclination to read bad history.

The success of failure of The Da Vinci Code will have little effect on society as a whole, yet the bother that is being generated by this book makes it seem as though the world is about to end not with a whimper, but a bang. There is so much publicity both positive and negative surrounding this book and movie that it is easy to imagine some publicist at Doubleday or Sony playing both ends against the middle in order to boost sales. That kind of conspiracy is nothing compared to what Mr. Dan Brown suggests in his book. So, what is the bother all about?

Quite simply, Mr. Dan Brown has taken some highly inaccurate history and made up a story of murder and intrigue with the Catholic Church as the arch-villain. Nothing new here. When Al Smith ran for president, the Ku Klux Klan spread rumors that if elected, Smith would have a tunnel built from the White House to the Vatican, thereby making a Vatican takeover of the country a simple matter. Anti-Catholic bias in this country goes back to pre-revolutionary times. So, casting the Church as villain does nothing to add to the originality mix in Mr. Dan Brown’s work.

People seem to be alarmed over what this cheap entertainment could possibly do to the Church. It is quite possible that some people would even leave the Church over this. That is their misfortune. That also is their sin. The Church requires us to remedy vincible ignorance. Invincible ignorance can be excused. However, when presented with malign comments about the Church it is our duty to investigate the facts of the case and to act upon the truth. In other words, the Church requires us to educate ourselves. We do ourselves harm when we blindly accept the first story that comes along. We must become our own fact-checkers, taking advantage of the brain God has given us, along with the resources available online or in the library.

All of this reminds me of the fuss with Napoleon. (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12132a.htm) The little Corsican had been trying to deal with Pius VII for years. Napoleon threatened, "I will destroy the Church.” Ercole Consalvi, Pius VII’s secretary of state, replied, “No, you will not. We have been trying for 1700 years and haven’t been able to do it.” (http://www.stpetersbasilica.org/Docs/seminarians2.htm) I doubt there is much any work by Mr. Dan Brown can contribute to Napoleon’s desire.

Shame on blogger edwardtheo80461805

2006-05-10T22:24:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday, April 26, I posted a memorial to my late wife on my blog. The blogger edwardtheo80461805 attempted to desecrate that blog by sending a spam message about two-week college degrees.

It would be gratifying to describe edwardtheo80461805 in the most despicable adjectives imaginable. It would be gratifying to understand how anyone could do such a thing. In fact, it would be gratifying to occasion a case of forced rectal cranial inversion upon this edwardtheo80461805 except for the fact that this hairball has a congenital case of RCI already.

I do not expect edwardtheo80461805 to understand this one iota, but I will be saying a prayer for his or her sorry soul.

By the way, I will do everything in my power to identify and expose edwardtheo80461805 for the criminally crass and despicable abscess on the lower posterior of society he or she is.

By the way, that really is me in the picture. If you see me, edwardtheo80461805, come up and introduce yourself. I'd love to meet you.

Mary Ethel Koechig, 1942-2006

2006-04-26T19:09:00.001-04:00

Mary Ethel Koechig died on April 2, 2006. Official cause of death: Cardiopulmonary arrest due to malignant pleural effusion due to metastatic breast cancer. Contributing factors: liver metastasis, neuropathy, and malnutrition. After four and one-half years of chemotherapy, her body could take no more. Two of her friends, one of her cousins, and her husband were with her when she died. It was a surreal moment, one in which time seems to invert itself, when everything is out of joint. It is a moment that sits with me every waking hour; one that interrupts my sleep. I am her husband.

Whether the treatments got too rough or she was having one of her best days, she would daily explain, "God isn't finished with me yet." She also would joke that any bad days she had could be chalked up to T.O.P. or, Time Off Purgatory. Mary's faith was that strong; she absolutely trusted that she was in the hands of God and that whatever came along would be taken care of by the grace of God. Hard as it was, that faith was - is - mine as well. Still, on the human level, and as her husband, I hated everything she went through and fretted because I could not fix it all.

It seems the only thing we had after our faith was humor. On the rare occasions when she would complain, I would tell her, "Walk it off, you sissy." This usually made her smile. She referred to her disease as "free-range cancer." Entering the oncologist's office, she would announce, "I'm here to have poison pumped into my body." We were sometimes referred to as the Friday afternoon entertainment at the doctor's office. A young seminarian who came for visits to our house brought Mary a bottle of holy water from Lourdes. Mary occasionally would liberally sprinkle herself while saying, "Okay, Bernadette, let's have another miracle here."

Looking back on some of the humor, I wonder why I did not console her more. Mary sat with a tube stuck in her chest, getting her sometimes weekly round of chemo, consoling others who were in much better shape than she. That is what she did all her life. She consoled and she helped when and where she could.

Mary loved me completely and without reservation. She understood my need to try to laugh off this whole mess and to try to keep things light. She also insisted that I was not the clown that others saw and sometimes would get angry with me when I failed to let others see any other side of me. She would tell me that it bothered her that others might not know any other side of me. For herself, she had few concerns. Mary lived for others. People speak of the quality of life. Mary lived a kind of quality of love for others.

Chief among Mary's disappointments were the time missed with Genevieve, her only grandchild, and the fact that her father treated her as if she were 12. Intimidated by her brain and independence, her father mistakenly confused these with foolishness. It is a tragedy in his life he never knew his daughter. Preferring his women dumb and dominated, poor TB probably was mostly scared of intelligent and independent Mary from whom he nor anyone had anything to fear.

We were going to go to Houghton Lake and Ortonville, Michigan and then we were going to go back to Rome for our fourth trip there. Now I am up here at Mary's Cove in Lebanon, Connecticut, wondering where to go, what to do. The enormity of this loss is suffocating. But suffocation is out of the question at the moment. Mary wanted more than anything to know that I would be able to take care of myself after she was gone. So, next month I shall proceed to Houghton Lake and thence to Ortonville to see Samuel Theodore, our brand spanking new nephew. Young Sam, and Genevieve, will know about their aunt and grandmother who loved them and loved them well as she did all others she knew.

Last year, some political highhandedness resulted in a blessing and an embarrassment for Mary. The First Selectman of the Town of Lebanon was contacted and told about Mary and her love for the cove on which our cottage sits. Mary long ago said that no matter how bad she felt, she wanted to be here at the cottage where she could look out on the water and feel God's peace around her. On August 2, 2005, the cove was officially named Mary's Cove. It truly is Mary's cove.

I moved up here the day after her funeral and have been here ever since. She is everywhere at this place. Yesterday, I took her paddle boat out on the cove for the first time this year and I could feel her beside me. She crops up at the most unexpected places and times as when, driving up to the main road, she suddenly entered my mind, just as a wild turkey hen brushed my windshield with her wing. When Fred, the great blue heron swoops in first thing in the morning to steal fish out of the cove, I think of Mary and the first time she saw him. Although the bullfrogs have not yet started, I think of the first time she heard bullfrogs. It was the first summer here. Asking what that ungodly noise could be, she found it difficult to believe bullfrogs could make such a racket. When she finally became convinced this was not another of my stories about barking spiders, she began to notice nights when the bullfrogs were quieter than usual. She came to love their sound.

A favorite memory of Mary and her cove is of her lying in her lounge chair, looking out at the lake, when suddenly she stage-whispered, "Marc! Look! It's a hummingbird!" She had never seen a hummingbird close up in her life. She was like a child on Christmas morning. That hummingbird became a twice-daily visitor. Once in the morning and once in the evening it came and each time was like the first time for Mary. Everything beautiful was new to her each time she saw it. She was a woman with a child's sense of wonder.

Loving Mary is a privilege. This privilege is not to be taken lightly, but is one to be respected and honored at every breath. Loving Mary is reason for hope and for life.

America's Blunder

2005-12-27T09:24:00.000-05:00

America, the official Jesuit publication is showing signs of confusion.

First, they promote the use of condoms.

Second, they run an ad featuring a condom-covered statue of the Virgin Mary.

Third, they run a disclaimer which states, in part, that the original review artwork submitted was in black and white, making it difficult to spot the condom. This is accompanied with a statement by the editor saying that they are a bunch of Jesuits over there and so they would have little idea of what a condom actually looks like.

Just a minor quibble, but if you promote the use of a condom, how is it possible that you not know what they look like?

If you can't get your theology straight you might try getting your story right.

Still, they do not answer

2005-09-28T09:04:00.000-04:00

According to the BBC News World Edition for Friday, July 25, 2005, the United Kingdom is looking for a new ambassador to the Vatican. The story reads, in part, "The new ambassador will deal with Pope Benedict's Vatican. The job of UK ambassador to the Vatican is being advertised in a newspaper in a break with diplomatic convention. It is the first time an ambassadorial post has been put out to open competition in an advert."

Let’s see, here. I sent the letter below as soon as I heard of the opening for this post It has been months and still, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has not gotten back to me.

Marcus W. Koechig
Stratford, Connecticut, USA

Foreign and Commonwealth Office
King Charles Street
London
SW1A 2AH
England

RE: B7986

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

Your web page for Capitas was unavailable

Having been advised that the Foreign Office has decided to look outside the career diplomatic corps for the position of Her Majesty’s ambassador to the Holy See, I offer myself as a candidate for this position.

As a fairly new arrival (putting the smackdown on heresy since 2001, to borrow a phrase) to Catholicism, I bring the zeal of a convert (“He’s more bloody Catholic than the Pope”). A large part of my conversion lies directly in the works of British Catholics such as G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, Ronald Knox, Robert Hugh Benson, Cardinal Newman, St. Thomas More, and St. John Fisher. My knowledge of Church history and tradition is broad and deep. While I can claim no ancestral connection to the recusants, why bring up that unhappy period?

My longstanding membership in the Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club will serve me well as HM’s Ambassador as I am well up on my reading of the Holy Father’s works official and general.

Value for money must be a concern. In that vein, I offer the following: While Lord Birt may be able to strategize about blue skies, I bring a sense of clearly stated analysis and solution, openly presented, to all problems placed in my path. Rather than blue skies, my concern would be what lies beyond the cerulean vault. As an added incentive, no one would be forced to read my biography detailing my penmanship prizes. There would be no mention of bluebells being added to my coat of arms since I do not have one, an oversight I am sure will be rectified once I am appointed. If none of that is enough, I will start at the low end of the pay scale and work my way up. I also can certify that I have never attended a McKinsey strategy session in my life and would sooner be strung up at Tyburn than allow myself to be tortured in such a manner.

“But what does this man know about Rome,” I hear you ask. Plenty. Go off the Piazza Navona in any direction and get your espresso for a fraction of the price charged in the tourist traps. Just up the hill from a nice convent is the best place to spend an evening with an espresso and gelato. I know the uses to which a parcheggio cane should be put. My wife and I ride the bus when we are there. My limited Italian would be built up in no time by constant contact with the local population. Latin also would come into play and I expect I would be learning that language before too long.

The question of citizenship can be resolved by granting me an honorary citizenship to the United Kingdom or, at least, to England itself.

Please let me know of my appointment as soon as possible since Mrs. Koechig does not like to be rushed when packing and I will need the requisite amount of time to file for a fishing license. Would you be able to suggest a suitable tailor for my diplomatic clothes?

Sincerely,

Marcus W. Koechig

The Emperor’s New Wall

2005-06-30T20:29:00.000-04:00

In an editorial Tuesday, The New York Times editorialized about Monday’s United States Supreme Court decisions regarding the public display of the Ten Commandments. Specifically, the Times was gratified to learn of the Court’s ruling that displays of the Decalogue in two Kentucky courthouses are unconstitutional. It was not all unalloyed joy over at the Times, however; the justices let stand the display of the Commandments on the grounds of the Capitol in Austin, Texas. In Texas, it seems to be numbers that matter most. The display of the Mosaic Law there is among around 40 or so other monuments reflecting what Texans hold dear. Apparently, there is enough of the secular around the statehouse to keep that religious nonsense from jumping out and assaulting some innocent passerby.

In its seven-paragraph editorial, the Times uses the term, "religious right" exactly twice. "Conservative groups" get a mention. The word liberal appears nowhere in the piece. The lead paragraph hails the Court’s rulings as "an important reaffirmation of the nation’s commitment to separation of church and state." No news of such a commitment has reached us here. Was there a poll? Did we vote on this commitment?

The final paragraph references "the founders, who came up with the idea of a clear wall of separation between church and state." This is a constitutional issue and as such should be tied to its proper historical context. Being otherwise occupied in France, Thomas Jefferson was not around for the writing of the Constitution. He did, however, write a letter on January 1, 1802 to the Danbury Baptist Association, assuring them that Congregationalism was not about to become the state religion. It was in this letter that Jefferson came up with the "wall of separation between church and state" we hear so ignorantly referenced to the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. That amendment, by the way, states that,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

That is no law; none. Neither for nor against.

But that is Congress. Those who do not wish to follow the law always seem to have the Supreme Court to circumvent it for them.

Corporate Capture the Flag, Moral High Ground Edition

2005-06-02T12:19:00.000-04:00

In The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for May 31, Ian Davis of McKinsey & Co. is quoted. “It is time for CEOs of big companies to recast this debate and recapture the intellectual and moral high ground from their critics....They need to articulate business’s social contribution and define its ultimate purpose in a way that has more subtlety than ‘the business of business is business.’” In other words, let’s find a way to say the same thing, but put a nicer shine on it, make it more palatable, make it sound more socially aware, and then go on with what we have done all along.

Capture of the moral high ground by the practitioners over at the secretive McKinsey will be a hard sell from where I sit. Remember, it was McKinsey who developed the strategic framework for Enron and Worldcom, enabling these companies to implode, causing untold damage to thousands. Of course, this brings us to responsibility. McKinsey only devised the strategy; the companies carried out that strategy in fairly egregious ways. In other words, one planned and the other executed. Nary a word of McKinsey appeared in the press coverage surrounding these stories.

And there you have it. Show a person how to kill someone and it is not a crime. When that person does eventually kill someone, the fault is all his. Let's just leave the consultants out of things for a while and see how much better off we will be.

Slice 'em and dice 'em; they're still people

2005-05-27T08:05:00.000-04:00

Yesterday’s online version of The New York Times carried an editorial titled, “The President’s Stem Cell Theology.” The title is interesting for what it tells us about The Times. Despite its frowning on President Bush’s alleged religious stance on the issue, it is the paper itself which seems to want to argue this issue only on theological grounds.

Mr. Bush has no policy on stem cells, according to the Newspaper of Broken Record; he has an entire theology. “His actions are based on strong religious beliefs on the part of some conservative Christians, and presumably the president himself,” the paper writes. Immediately after this, the editorial states that while these beliefs are deserving of respect, they should not be force-fed to our “pluralistic” nation. Likewise, without a clear statement by the president to the contrary, his motives should not be viewed in a purely religious light.

Natural law is that thing that allows us to know certain things are right while others are abhorrent and against our nature. When “pluralism” and “diversity” are brought into the debate, natural law is defenestrated in order to allow relativists free reign. This is the sin of pride, taken to the extreme, since men obviously know science is of greater moral value than any code of ethics.

Casting political terms into the debate, especially when using those terms to describe religious groups, seeks to politicize what is beyond the grasp of Caesar. However, The Times must be consistent, so it mentions “rising sentiment in Congress and the nation at large” for more government funds for what the paper calls “this fast-emerging field.”

“Rising sentiment” for the policies of Stalin never made them right, despite what many in this country wrote at the time. Put another way, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger says, “Truth is not determined by a majority vote.”

If the field of stem cell research is so quickly emerging, where are the venture capitalists with their record of not missing a sure thing? Venture capitalists tend to want to see at least a glimmer of hope for some return on their investment and you do not see herds of them running down to the laboratory to lay their money down. The reason is simple. There is not much to go on.

Describing as “tiny laboratory entities” the early stages of embryonic development, The Times dehumanizes a beginning life by refusing to see the potential stored in these miraculous bundles of cells. Ever the empiricist, the paper sees no human face, no arms, no legs, nothing at all recognizable as a fully formed human, and so determines there is no human there. These “entities,” the paper editorializes, are “routinely flushed” by nature. Just so. This is a natural process, not one designed by man to thwart nature. Finally, just what will these entities become if not humans? Sponges? Perhaps coelocanths?

Even The Times has a limit to its own empiricism, however, as it sees no human potential while seeing a host of possibilities to be achieved by bending nature to man’s will. This is what it comes to in the end. We have become creators and destroyers of life and therefore have become as gods. As the ultimate authority, man has no bounds and because he can do something, he should. Now that’s chutzpah.

Principal Bans God; Welcomes Banana

2005-05-25T07:28:00.000-04:00

According to a recent Reuter’s story, the Marple Newtown School District in Pennsylvania has banned a mother from reading aloud from her child’s favorite book. As part of something called “Me Week,” parents were invited to read from their child’s favorite book. Wesley Busch’s mom, Donna, had planned to read Psalm 118. However, an alert principal, on the lookout for just such seditious goings on, bravely took the initiative and immediately put a quietus to the entire affair. No child would be forced to hear such disturbing words as,

1Give thanks to the LORD, who is good, whose love endures forever.

2 Let the house of Israel say: God's love endures forever.

3 Let the house of Aaron say, God's love endures forever.

4 Let those who fear the LORD say, God's love endures forever.

5 In danger I called on the LORD; the LORD answered me and set me free.

6 The LORD is with me; I am not afraid; what can mortals do against me? [1]

What we have here in this particular psalm is an acknowledgement of thanksgiving to God or, more to the point, an acknowledgement that there is something in the universe much greater than our own puny efforts and ourselves. No particular religion is being promoted.

We have a peculiar way of determining what is important to our children’s education. On the one hand, in the name of “diversity and tolerance,” we have no problem detailing what goes on between homosexuals and even less problem demonstrating proper condom application on various fruits and vegetables. On the other hand, we recoil in absolute horror whenever even the hint of God is brought up. Uttering, “Blessed are the meek,” is nearly treasonous, but the use of a banana to acquaint kids with various sexual practices is considered a sort of virtue.

The American Civil Liberties Union has a record of getting a case of the vapors whenever it gets wind of anything vaguely Judeo-Christian in the public square. Whenever its orthodoxy is challenged, the ACLU charges bravely into the fray. The funny thing is, these are the people who defend the speech of Nazis and other hate groups. The ACLU rushed to the defense of the North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). According to the story quoted at the beginning of this piece, the ACLU is now fighting the inclusion of Intelligent Design in the curriculum of another Pennsylvania school district.

In honor of the ACLU’s efforts, and for the valor he has shown in the face of incredible danger, the principal mentioned above will be given one of our very own Selective Comstockery Awards. As for the ACLU, let them be visited by the Nazi members of NAMBLA; they should get along just fine.

[1] This is the New American Bible version from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. It is not my favorite translation but it will do for now.

Let's Hang the Pope

2005-05-24T07:42:00.000-04:00

Bewailing the election of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, my co-workers seem completely misinformed and certainly intolerant. People who claim “tolerance” is needed for us all would do well to spread some around, especially when it comes to matters of which they know nothing. People with whom I am unacquainted but who speak within earshot of me and who are ignorant of my penchant for gathering fodder by eavesdropping tell horror stories of our new Pope when he occupied the Prefecture for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Cardinal Ratzinger has written 22 books. His critics, for the most part, cannot even name one. Those who can, for example, John Allen of The National Catholic Reporter, take pains to gloss over these works and bring up the fact that the young Ratzinger did not take part in any resistance movement during World War II, even though groups were at work against the Nazis in his area. Allen cites other Catholics, but also includes the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Communist party as viable options for the German Catholic youth.[1]

Allen also writes that after seeing totalitarianism at work in the state, Ratzinger’s answer is totalitarianism in the church or, what Allen calls “ecclesial totalitarianism.” Allen also brings up Georg Ratzinger, a relative of the Pope’s, who was a model of 19^th-century liberation theology and, by the way, may have been anti-Semitic. One wonders at the purity of Allen’s ancestors who apparently were products of a sort of mass Immaculate Conception. Did any of his ancestors fight on the wrong side in any war? Did any of them seize Indian land? What about their business practices?

To finish up with Mr. Allen, he will not find much to admire in Benedict XVI and that is his loss. He wants to find scandal, so he will find scandal. He wants to find dirt, so he will find scandalous amounts of dirt. In his search for scandal and dirt, Mr. Allen will allow innuendo to stand on its shaky legs, but he will not let the facts get in his way.

As goes Mr. Allen, so goes the mass of Benedict XVI’s critics, walking blindly about, parroting what they have heard third- and fourth-hand from “people who know about this stuff.” This is why I do not worry about His Holiness’ reputation. It is secure with me simply because I have taken the time to inform myself about him. It is secure among those who are honest and willing to look at facts uncolored by some ideological agenda at odds with Church teaching.

My co-workers will continue to mimic the line put out by America, The National Catholic Reporter, and the mainstream secular media. They will not bother to inform themselves so I pray for them in their ignorance.

[1] Cardinal Ratzinger: The Vatican’s Enforcer of the Faith. Continuum International Publishing Group.

Natural Law is Unconstitutional

2005-05-02T13:33:00.000-04:00

In her April 28, 2005 column, Helen Ubinas of The Hartford Courant, makes a number of points about those who would defend the traditional concept of marriage. Her column covers a number of issues, but they all point to the same conclusion: anyone who is against civil unions or same sex marriage is some sort of bigot.

How, Ms. Ubinas wonders, would civil unions or same sex marriage affect the “wedded bliss” those opposed to these ideas? She never once introduces the possibility that perhaps people are able to think beyond themselves and look forward to future generations who might be saddled with the decisions we make for them today.

Ms. Ubinas hearkens back to the days “when blacks and whites couldn’t marry, and before that when blacks couldn’t marry at all.” Not to put too fine a point on it, but Ubinas is comparing apples to wing nuts. Those changes had to do not with changing the rules of natural law but with righting civil wrongs. The absence of civil wrongs in this case is proven by the fact that the rights homosexuals say they are denied outside the marriage bond are legally available to them by the filing of legal documents such as wills, living wills and trusts.

To Ubinas, this is all about religion. Ubinas needs to apply for a tuition refund from wherever it is she went to school since, obviously, they never taught her a thing about the natural law and how all law ultimately is derived from natural law. What the more primitive societies early in man’s existence knew instinctively, we seem to have forgotten as we have become increasingly independent of nature.

One thing that really sticks in my craw here is Ubinas’ use of the term, “homophobia.” This is the slur du jour for anyone who fails to march in lockstep with the homosexual agenda. In the first place, we must agree on terms and phobias, by definition, are psychiatric illnesses. In her use of the term, Ubinas is consigning a whole group of people to the category of the mentally ill. When Ubinas presents proof of a board certification in psychiatry, she may use that term with impunity, I suppose. Until then, she appears to simply be parroting what others in her camp have to say.

Her remarks on Senator Rick Santorum’s alleged “lumping homosexuality with incest and bestiality” are not only way off the mark but misleading as well. Santorum used the passage of one bill to state that one thing will lead to another. He never said homosexuals are incestuous or bestialists.

Finally, toward the end of her snit, Ubinas finds “homophobic and hateful” the “statement by Rev. Moses Mercedes of the Greater Bridgeport Clergy Council that, “Even the animals respect their boundaries.” Once again, the poor lady misses the point and wonders whether it is even worth it to tell her the Reverend was making a point about natural law.

But then, maybe whoever came up with that nasty natural law thing was hateful and homophobic, too.

Babies reach $15,000 on open market

2005-04-29T07:32:00.000-04:00

If the commoditization of human life is not obvious up to this point, perhaps this will help convince those who doubt the fact. The lead sentence in an Associated Press story appearing on The New York Times website (www.nytimes.com) on April 27 says it all. “A woman who agreed to be a surrogate mother for a childless couple gave them five babies, all boys, for less than the price of one on Tuesday.” The going rate for the donor mother would have been $15,000; nevertheless, she decided to forego payment when she learned that she was not with child but with children. Her altruism is to be applauded.

However, we now know that the market value of one child is around 15 grand, give or take. At that price, a child comes in as being worth less than a new car and even some used cars, for that matter. Speaking of cars and babies, how many people do you know who will gladly let someone mind their children but who will adamantly opposed to the babysitter using their car?

People speak of accepting God’s will for themselves. Yet, when it comes to childbearing, not many seem able to accept that God’s will may be that they not procreate. This certainly does not preclude adoption, but the ego demands children in one’s own image. This is what comes of so-called “reproductive rights.” Like so many newfound “rights,” the basis is in power and the denial of God’s role in everyday life.

The argument that God has provided us with the intellect and the technology arising out of that intelligence to fertilize the infertile and to make fruitful the barren usually concludes with the statement that whatever one wants seems to be God’s will. A convenient argument as well as being arrogantly presumptuous, it does not hold water. It is presumptuous and arrogant to assume one knows God’s will for us, especially in this case since God is the author of life. In taking that authorship into our own hands, we demonstrate our denial of divine power.

As we become so enamored of our ability to do things, we become confused, and come to the conclusion that ability is moral authority. Since we can do something, we ought to do it. This is the problem with the purely scientific or secular mind. Demanding empirical evidence for everything, it has faith in nothing. Absent absolute proof of an ultimate power and authority over the universe, we assume for ourselves kingship of the cosmos, blindly, tragically unaware of the gift of faith.

Constitutional fiction and the Berlin Wall of Separation Between Chruch and State

2005-04-26T07:42:00.000-04:00

In an editorial in today’s New York Times (variously known as “The Newspaper of Record,” “The Gray Lady,” and “The House Organ of the Democratic Party”), President Bush’s administration is taken to task for attempting to breach the wall of separation between church and state. Mr. Bush is all but accused of starting a state religion, something like what happened with the lamentable Henry VIII, except this time there is no inconvenient marriage to annul and no issues with Vatican City.

The Times, no less than most people in this country, to be fair, in its fevered imagination, has conjured up a bogeyman that just does not exist. There is no denying that Mr. Bush is a man of faith and that he has close ties to churches of all stripes. The bogeyman in this case is that “wall of separation between church and state.” That wall appears nowhere in our constitution and was, in fact, only mentioned in a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury (Connecticut) Baptists who were afraid the Congregationalists were about to take over the government. Jefferson may have been referring to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution when he wrote that letter, so let’s see what that amendment is all about. Here it is.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Right there, in the first 16 words, is all anyone needs to know about the issue. First off, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” is an especially important clause. “No law” means none, zero, zilch. They are not allowed to do that. Congress also may not prohibit the free exercise of religion. As many before have said, it is all about freedom of religion and not freedom from religion.

Yet we have become so afraid in this country of hurting the feelings of others, of making others not feel included or, worse, of making them feel excluded, that we censor ourselves into nonexistence. This is what comes of programs promoting self-esteem, diversity, and inclusiveness run amok.

If Congress does not make these laws, how are they enacted in the first place? Someone, in many cases with the aid of the American Civil Liberties Union, goes to court and gets a decision stating that this or that is unconstitutional. These cases usually stem from someone who has had their feelings hurt in one way or another and are what can most fittingly be called spiteful nuisance cases. “Oh, look! There’s a creche. Those idiot Christians are celebrating a holiday and they have not properly honored the million and one other gods that are worshipped all over the world. We can’t allow them to honor their God if they don’t honor all the others, especially mine.” The plaintiff files a suit and the courts take care of the rest.

A fine example of this business is in the case of the sacred right to privacy we enjoy in this country. Unfortunately, this right does not exist in the Constitution; it exists only in the “shades and penumbras” of that document. These “shades and penumbras” are visible only to the members of the Supreme Court, it seems, so one must assume that the nine judges there have been granted a divine wisdom beyond all human understanding. “Shades and penumbras” simply is a figure of speech so deliberately vague as to assume any form necessary to move any agenda along to a favored outcome.

We had our own example – albeit not court-sanctioned - here in Connecticut last weekend when Governor Jodi Rell signed into law the civil union legislation allowing homosexual couples the “same rights” as married couples. Never mind the rights sought in this legislation were already available to anyone not so insufferably lazy to go to an attorney like anyone else and file the necessary papers. What Governor Rell signed was nothing less than a homosexual marriage bill and she knows it. At the state capitol, a demonstration was held. Homosexuals were on one side of the building and pro-family groups on the other. There were three thousand pro-family demonstrators and 80 homosexual demonstrators. The pro-homosexual marriage people were dressed as if for a costume party while the pro-family people wore regular clothes. I don't know what this signifies, but I do know that our clothing reflects to some extent who and what we are. Only one arrest was made and that was someone heckling the pro-family groups. However, the numbers are interesting.

Homosexuals claim to be 10 per cent of the population. Others put that figure much lower. When it came time to demonstrate for a cause they hold so dear to their hearts, the homosexuals could not get up three per cent of the pro-family numbers. Tyranny by minority rule is where we are and where we have been for quite some time.

Catholic "expert" on laity is disingenuous, at best

2005-04-22T07:38:00.000-04:00

The sniping against His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, has begun in earnest. Chief among the suspects here in Fairfield County, Connecticut is a professor of religious studies at Fairfield University. Paul Lakeland's official university biography lists him as an "expert on the laity in the Catholic Church." Funny how this description pops up all over the place when one does an internet search of his name. Another funny thing is how none of his biographical information informs us that he seems to be quite the shill for the Voice of the Faithful. I am one of the faithful and do not remember giving anyone permission to speak for me. At any rate, what do we have against the good professor? Plenty, but one thing overshadows all others.

The primary thrust of Professor Lakeland's commentary about the Church in general and the Holy Father in particular has to do with power. Professor Lakeland likely missed that part where Jesus said to his followers that the first must be last and the last first. Love for and service to others is what the Church is about. A papal title not often heard is The Servant of the Servants of God.

Professor Lakeland is looking for the Church to become something it never has been; that is, a democracy. We do not even live in a democracy here in the United States. We live in a republic. The democracy Professor Lakeland looks for would have the Church run by opinion poll and popularity contests. If the Church stands for eternal truth, then Professor Lakeland's ecclesiastical utopia cannot be since, as then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger once said, "Truth is not determined by a majority vote."