Entranced by Reality
by Ian Marcus Corbin (The American Conservative). A review of Robert Zaretsky's A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning. Camus' Le Chute was one of the major influences in my initial conversion.
A first and second look at «Mitis Iudex»
by Dr. Edward Peters (Catholic World Report). «I think these five canons and the official explanation that accompanies them raise several serious questions for ecclesiastical marriage law.»
Full Text Of Pope Francis’ Address To Congress
(uCatholic). «A nation can be considered great when it defends liberty as Lincoln did, when it fosters a culture which enables people to “dream” of full rights for all their brothers and sisters, as Martin Luther King sought to do; when it strives for justice and the cause of the oppressed, as Dorothy Day did by her tireless work, the fruit of a faith which becomes dialogue and sows peace in the contemplative style of Thomas Merton.» Watch the video.
The Decline And Fall Of American Political Debate
by John Daniel Davidson (The Federalist). «[Camille Paglia said] ‹But here’s my point: it is everyone’s obligation, whatever your political views, to look at both liberal and conservative news sources every single day. You need a full range of viewpoints to understand what is going on in the world.› That Paglia would say this at all is a sign that most Americans no longer read news sources that span the ideological spectrum. This is of course part of a larger problem... [We're] separated, increasingly, by the news and commentary we read and watch. To the extent that it informs us of what’s going on, and why, and what to expect, our fragmentation and insularity has reached a dangerous tipping point: we no longer agree on what’s real...What this means in practice is that we tend to seek out news and commentary that more or less reflects our own opinions back to us. Reading the news becomes an exercise in confirmation bias.»
Friday, September 25, 2015
Saturday, September 19, 2015
Mass Propers for the Solemnity of International Talk Like a Pirate Day
Introit:
Let them that sail on the sea, tell the dangers thereof: and when we hear with our ears, we shall admire. Ps. There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein. Glory be…
Collect:
Disturb us, Lord, when we are too pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little, when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wilder seas where storms will show Your mastery; where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. Through the same…
Epistle - a Reading from the Acts of the Apostles:
Ye brethren, when the ship was caught, and could not bear up against the wind, giving up the ship to the winds, we were driven. And we being mightily tossed with the tempest, the next day they lightened the ship. And the third day they cast out with their own hands the tackling of the ship. And when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small storm lay on us, all hope of our being saved was now taken away. And after they had fasted a long time, Paul standing forth in the midst of them, said: You should indeed, O ye men, have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete, and have gained this harm and loss. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer. For there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but only of the ship. For an angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, stood by me this night, saying: Fear not, Paul, thou must be brought before Caesar; and behold, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer; for I believe God that it shall so be, as it hath been told me.
Gradual:
Again, another designing to sail, and beginning to make his voyage through the raging waves, calleth upon a piece of wood more frail than the wood that carrieth him. For this the desire of gain devised, and the workman built it by his skill. R. But thy providence, O Father, governeth it: for thou hast made a way even in the sea, and a most sure path among the waves, shewing that thou art able to save out of all things, yea though a man went to sea without art.
Alleluia:
Alleluia, Alleluia. Fine broidered linen from Egypt was woven for thy sail, to be spread on thy mast: blue and purple from the islands of Elisa, were made thy covering. Alleluia.
The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke:
And it came to pass on a certain day that he went into a little ship with his disciples, and he said to them: Let us go over to the other side of the lake. And they launched forth. And when they were sailing, he slept; and there came down a storm of wind upon the lake, and they were filled, and were in danger. And they came and awaked him, saying: Master, we perish. But he arising, rebuked the wind and the rage of the water; and it ceased, and there was a calm. And he said to them: Where is your faith? Who being afraid, wondered, saying one to another: Who is this, (think you), that he commandeth both the winds and the sea, and they obey him? And they sailed to the country of the Gerasens, which is over against Galilee.
Offertory:
And they cried to the Lord, and said: We beseech thee, O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood: for thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased thee. And they took Jonas, and cast him into the sea, and the sea ceased from raging.
Preface:
Thou thyself, O Lord alone, thou hast made heaven, and the heaven of heavens, and all the host thereof: the earth and all things that are in it: the seas and all that are therein: and thou givest life to all these things, and the host of heaven adoreth thee, singing the triumphant hymn...
Communion: O God of the heavens, creator of the waters, and Lord of the whole creation, hear me a poor wretch, making supplication to thee, and presuming of thy mercy.
Friday, August 7, 2015
Items of Interest: Week of Dominica X Post Pentecosten
Why Our Children Don’t Think There Are Moral Facts
by Justin P. McBrayer (Opinionator NYT). «What would you say if you found out that our public schools were teaching children that it is not true that it’s wrong to kill people for fun or cheat on tests? Would you be surprised?»
Is a New Political System Emerging in This Country?
by Tom Englehart (TomDispatch). «Out of the chaos of this prolonged moment and inside the shell of the old system, a new culture, a new kind of politics, a new kind of governance is being born right before our eyes. Call it what you want. But call it something. Stop pretending it’s not happening.» The question becomes one of how well we, as Catholic and Orthodox Christians, are going to step into the fray.»
Liberal Christians try to Nuance Abortion
by Rachel Lu (Crisis Magazine). «People who think they have reasonable, moderate views on abortion should consider how honest they are really being with themselves. This choice is starker than they want to believe. If we accept the bonds of natural obligation as binding, then people will sometimes be pressed into service without their consent. If we don’t, we will sometimes find it “necessary” to kill our own children. No amount of social tinkering will make this problem go away.»
Thanks Bunches, Techie Pagans!
by Doug Wilson (Blog & Mablog). «When Roe was first decided, the national dialog was dominated and controlled by the big three television networks, and by the old guard print media. If they wanted to bottle up a groundswell opposition movement to anything, it was the easiest thing in the world for them to do so...We are living in a time that is remarkably, strikingly different. A cynical and world-weary response on the basis of how it used to go for us back in the dinosaur days is a remarkably short-sighted response.»
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Calls ‹Choice› An Empty Concept For Poor Women
by Samantha Lachman (Huffington Post). «Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the concept of ‹choice› is an ephemeral one for low-income women who live in states that pass laws limiting access to abortion, as they may not be able to afford to travel to a state with less onerous restrictions.» Thanks be to God.
Planned Parenthood Videos: What You Need to Know
by Sam Sawyer, S.J. (America). A remarkably fair assessment, considering the liberal Jesuit source.
by Justin P. McBrayer (Opinionator NYT). «What would you say if you found out that our public schools were teaching children that it is not true that it’s wrong to kill people for fun or cheat on tests? Would you be surprised?»
Is a New Political System Emerging in This Country?
by Tom Englehart (TomDispatch). «Out of the chaos of this prolonged moment and inside the shell of the old system, a new culture, a new kind of politics, a new kind of governance is being born right before our eyes. Call it what you want. But call it something. Stop pretending it’s not happening.» The question becomes one of how well we, as Catholic and Orthodox Christians, are going to step into the fray.»
Liberal Christians try to Nuance Abortion
by Rachel Lu (Crisis Magazine). «People who think they have reasonable, moderate views on abortion should consider how honest they are really being with themselves. This choice is starker than they want to believe. If we accept the bonds of natural obligation as binding, then people will sometimes be pressed into service without their consent. If we don’t, we will sometimes find it “necessary” to kill our own children. No amount of social tinkering will make this problem go away.»
Thanks Bunches, Techie Pagans!
by Doug Wilson (Blog & Mablog). «When Roe was first decided, the national dialog was dominated and controlled by the big three television networks, and by the old guard print media. If they wanted to bottle up a groundswell opposition movement to anything, it was the easiest thing in the world for them to do so...We are living in a time that is remarkably, strikingly different. A cynical and world-weary response on the basis of how it used to go for us back in the dinosaur days is a remarkably short-sighted response.»
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Calls ‹Choice› An Empty Concept For Poor Women
by Samantha Lachman (Huffington Post). «Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the concept of ‹choice› is an ephemeral one for low-income women who live in states that pass laws limiting access to abortion, as they may not be able to afford to travel to a state with less onerous restrictions.» Thanks be to God.
Planned Parenthood Videos: What You Need to Know
by Sam Sawyer, S.J. (America). A remarkably fair assessment, considering the liberal Jesuit source.
Monday, June 15, 2015
Items of Interest: Week of Dominica III Post Pentecosten
Information Theory And The Origin of Life
Published in the Physics arXiv Blog. «The nature of information places important new limits on how the first living things must have emerged.»
Humor in Defense of Virtue
by Kaye DeMetz (First Things). «Hrosvitha of Gandersheim wrote her six short comedies in a German convent. An educated woman, she constructed the theatre pieces in response to the ‹licentious› women depicted in the plays of the Roman playwright Terence. By her own admission she imitated his style: ‹I ... have not hesitated to imitate in my writings a poet whose works are so widely read, my object being to glorify ... the laudable chastity of Christian virgins in that self-same form of composition which has been used to describe the shameless acts of licentious women.›»
De Montfort: Mary in the Struggle Against Satan
by Kathleen Beckman (Catholic Exchange). «It is to our purpose to explain this here for the glory of the most holy Virgin, for the salvation of her children and for the confusion of the devil: ‹I will put enmities between thee and the woman and thy seed, she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel› (Gen. 3:15).»
This Flowchart Will Tell You When Cooperation with Evil is Immoral
by David Rummelhoff. «Imagine you own a custom t-shirt shop, and you are approached by a customer asking you to print her shirts that say “LEGALIZE GAY MARRIAGE”. What would you do? What are you obliged to do, if anything? Or perhaps you really like a particular web browser, but then the company that built that browser starts to publicly advocate for no limits on abortions. What do you do? What should you do? Maybe your buddy has asked to borrow your car after he received a suggestive txt from his girlfriend. Can you give him the keys? Should you refuse? These are all questions related to the concept of cooperation with evil, and the graphic below is meant to help you understand how a Catholic moral theologian would begin to answer these questions.»
Red State Families: Better Than We Knew
by W. Bradford Wilcox & Nicholas Zill (Institute for Family Studies). «The conventional wisdom among scholars about family in America suggests the red state family model has failed to deliver the stability that boosts children’s odds of thriving in today’s world. But we find that the reddest states in America are more, not less, likely to raise their children in a stable, married home, other things being equal.»
Catholic Education and the Cult of Theistic Evolution
by by Thaddeus Kozinski (The Imaginative Conservative). «The movement to accommodate traditional Catholic doctrine, as well as the traditional interpretation of the accounts in Sacred Scripture, to the supposed ‹fact› of the evolution of man from primitive matter by a relentless process of spontaneous transformations of species over an enormous period of time has become so widespread in Catholic intellectual circles that it has now assumed the appearance of a ‹mainstream› point of view. The assumed ‹fact› of biological evolution, as pictured in contemporary biological theories, has moved in our time from a far-out to a central theological position and is now threatening to become a supposition of the updated ‹teaching of the Church,› with all the inevitable consequences of such a development, not only as regards the two-thousand-year-old teaching of the Church on such issues as Original Sin, but also as regards the very credibility of Church teaching as such. At this moment in the historic assault of modern secular humanism upon Catholic belief, we are witnessing to our dismay more and more heretofore ‹solid› defenders of Catholic tradition ceding to Darwinism and its progeny ground without which they cannot survive for long as orthodox thinkers.»
Does It Matter If Medjugorje Is Real or Not?
by Simcha Fisher (National Catholic Register). «Those are the fruits of Medjugorje: disobedience, a disregard for legitimate authority, and -- possibly most shocking of all -- statements like what my Facebook friends made: that it doesn't even matter if it's true or not, because look at the good fruits! Well, the Holy Spirit can bring good fruits out of any situation, no matter how rotten. Auschwitz produced converts and repentance, too. Good fruits alone are no sign that God's will is being done. When we're willing to disobey, when we're willing to say, "Why does the truth matter?" then these are fruits of Medjugorje, as well.»
Silent Action of the Heart
by Robert Cardinal Sarah (Catholic World Report). «Fifty years after its promulgation by Pope Paul VI, will the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy finally be read? Sacrosanctum Concilium is actually not just a catalogue of “recipes” for reform, but a veritable Magna Carta of all liturgical action.»
Published in the Physics arXiv Blog. «The nature of information places important new limits on how the first living things must have emerged.»
Humor in Defense of Virtue
by Kaye DeMetz (First Things). «Hrosvitha of Gandersheim wrote her six short comedies in a German convent. An educated woman, she constructed the theatre pieces in response to the ‹licentious› women depicted in the plays of the Roman playwright Terence. By her own admission she imitated his style: ‹I ... have not hesitated to imitate in my writings a poet whose works are so widely read, my object being to glorify ... the laudable chastity of Christian virgins in that self-same form of composition which has been used to describe the shameless acts of licentious women.›»
De Montfort: Mary in the Struggle Against Satan
by Kathleen Beckman (Catholic Exchange). «It is to our purpose to explain this here for the glory of the most holy Virgin, for the salvation of her children and for the confusion of the devil: ‹I will put enmities between thee and the woman and thy seed, she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel› (Gen. 3:15).»
This Flowchart Will Tell You When Cooperation with Evil is Immoral
by David Rummelhoff. «Imagine you own a custom t-shirt shop, and you are approached by a customer asking you to print her shirts that say “LEGALIZE GAY MARRIAGE”. What would you do? What are you obliged to do, if anything? Or perhaps you really like a particular web browser, but then the company that built that browser starts to publicly advocate for no limits on abortions. What do you do? What should you do? Maybe your buddy has asked to borrow your car after he received a suggestive txt from his girlfriend. Can you give him the keys? Should you refuse? These are all questions related to the concept of cooperation with evil, and the graphic below is meant to help you understand how a Catholic moral theologian would begin to answer these questions.»
Red State Families: Better Than We Knew
by W. Bradford Wilcox & Nicholas Zill (Institute for Family Studies). «The conventional wisdom among scholars about family in America suggests the red state family model has failed to deliver the stability that boosts children’s odds of thriving in today’s world. But we find that the reddest states in America are more, not less, likely to raise their children in a stable, married home, other things being equal.»
Catholic Education and the Cult of Theistic Evolution
by by Thaddeus Kozinski (The Imaginative Conservative). «The movement to accommodate traditional Catholic doctrine, as well as the traditional interpretation of the accounts in Sacred Scripture, to the supposed ‹fact› of the evolution of man from primitive matter by a relentless process of spontaneous transformations of species over an enormous period of time has become so widespread in Catholic intellectual circles that it has now assumed the appearance of a ‹mainstream› point of view. The assumed ‹fact› of biological evolution, as pictured in contemporary biological theories, has moved in our time from a far-out to a central theological position and is now threatening to become a supposition of the updated ‹teaching of the Church,› with all the inevitable consequences of such a development, not only as regards the two-thousand-year-old teaching of the Church on such issues as Original Sin, but also as regards the very credibility of Church teaching as such. At this moment in the historic assault of modern secular humanism upon Catholic belief, we are witnessing to our dismay more and more heretofore ‹solid› defenders of Catholic tradition ceding to Darwinism and its progeny ground without which they cannot survive for long as orthodox thinkers.»
Does It Matter If Medjugorje Is Real or Not?
by Simcha Fisher (National Catholic Register). «Those are the fruits of Medjugorje: disobedience, a disregard for legitimate authority, and -- possibly most shocking of all -- statements like what my Facebook friends made: that it doesn't even matter if it's true or not, because look at the good fruits! Well, the Holy Spirit can bring good fruits out of any situation, no matter how rotten. Auschwitz produced converts and repentance, too. Good fruits alone are no sign that God's will is being done. When we're willing to disobey, when we're willing to say, "Why does the truth matter?" then these are fruits of Medjugorje, as well.»
Silent Action of the Heart
by Robert Cardinal Sarah (Catholic World Report). «Fifty years after its promulgation by Pope Paul VI, will the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy finally be read? Sacrosanctum Concilium is actually not just a catalogue of “recipes” for reform, but a veritable Magna Carta of all liturgical action.»
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Items of Interest: Week of Dominica Post Ascensionem
Contraception and Chastity
by Elizabeth Anscombe (OrthodoxyToday.org). «Roman Catholic thinker Elizabeth Anscombe relfects on the theological implications of contraception and chastity. Writing as a Roman Catholic, Anscombe offers a penetrating moral analysis of marriage and sexuality that will benefit any reader who rejects the secularist reduction of marriage as merely a union that sanctions sexual activity between partners.».
How to Drink Like a Saint
by Michael P. Foley (Crisis Magazine). «With the age of post-modern nihilism upon us, the question is not whether Christians should enjoy a drink festively; the question is whether they will be the only ones left capable of doing so.»
by Elizabeth Anscombe (OrthodoxyToday.org). «Roman Catholic thinker Elizabeth Anscombe relfects on the theological implications of contraception and chastity. Writing as a Roman Catholic, Anscombe offers a penetrating moral analysis of marriage and sexuality that will benefit any reader who rejects the secularist reduction of marriage as merely a union that sanctions sexual activity between partners.».
How to Drink Like a Saint
by Michael P. Foley (Crisis Magazine). «With the age of post-modern nihilism upon us, the question is not whether Christians should enjoy a drink festively; the question is whether they will be the only ones left capable of doing so.»
Saturday, May 16, 2015
Items of Interest: Week of Dominica V Post Pascha
Light from the Christian West: Aquinas and Eastern Orthodoxy
by Robin Phillips (Unpragmatic Thoughts). «Modern theologians, Orthodox and Catholic alike, have tended to take this disintegration of Christian universalism as a given, reading back into the last years of Byzantium a theological gulf that is simply not in evidence at the time. The Byzantine reception of Thomas must prompt us to seriously reconsider the whole issue of theological incompatibility between East and West.».
Love as Magic vs. Love as the Center of Life
by Roger Thomas (Ignatius Press). «All around us we have seen the tragic aftermath of the seductive tales whispering to us that love is a magical force, and will obviate the need for proper choices, perseverance, and moral effort. Perhaps part of the reason the lie is so effective is that it skates so close to the truth. Love is powerful, and it does lie at the center of life. But love in a fallen and sin-damaged world is a dicey thing, and it needs to be informed and guided by deeper, more stable things like moral laws, family responsibilities, and cultural traditions.»
The Power Elite
by Patrick Deneen (First Things). «Today’s cultural power elite is entirely aligned with the economic power elite, and they’re ready to steamroll anyone in their way. In the case of Indiana’s RFRA, corporate and gay activists combined to bring to heel conservative Christians in a rural, Rust Belt state that struggles at the margins of America’s global economy. The threat to demolish Indiana’s economy is only a more explicit expression of a project that corporations like Apple and Walmart have been carrying out with the assistance mainly of Republicans (as well as free-trade Democrats) for a generation.»
The Atheist IQ: Why St Thomas Wouldn’t Approve
by John Clark (Seton Magazine). «Not only do today’s geniuses lack an exclusive or special aptitude for determining whether God exists, they can expect a celebrity status if they deny Him. What I have discovered is that the most interesting truths about God have nothing to do with whether He exists, but Who He Is. Because once you reason to the idea that God exists, you can then explore ideas like what it means that God loves us infinitely and how His love makes us happy.»
by Robin Phillips (Unpragmatic Thoughts). «Modern theologians, Orthodox and Catholic alike, have tended to take this disintegration of Christian universalism as a given, reading back into the last years of Byzantium a theological gulf that is simply not in evidence at the time. The Byzantine reception of Thomas must prompt us to seriously reconsider the whole issue of theological incompatibility between East and West.».
Love as Magic vs. Love as the Center of Life
by Roger Thomas (Ignatius Press). «All around us we have seen the tragic aftermath of the seductive tales whispering to us that love is a magical force, and will obviate the need for proper choices, perseverance, and moral effort. Perhaps part of the reason the lie is so effective is that it skates so close to the truth. Love is powerful, and it does lie at the center of life. But love in a fallen and sin-damaged world is a dicey thing, and it needs to be informed and guided by deeper, more stable things like moral laws, family responsibilities, and cultural traditions.»
The Power Elite
by Patrick Deneen (First Things). «Today’s cultural power elite is entirely aligned with the economic power elite, and they’re ready to steamroll anyone in their way. In the case of Indiana’s RFRA, corporate and gay activists combined to bring to heel conservative Christians in a rural, Rust Belt state that struggles at the margins of America’s global economy. The threat to demolish Indiana’s economy is only a more explicit expression of a project that corporations like Apple and Walmart have been carrying out with the assistance mainly of Republicans (as well as free-trade Democrats) for a generation.»
The Atheist IQ: Why St Thomas Wouldn’t Approve
by John Clark (Seton Magazine). «Not only do today’s geniuses lack an exclusive or special aptitude for determining whether God exists, they can expect a celebrity status if they deny Him. What I have discovered is that the most interesting truths about God have nothing to do with whether He exists, but Who He Is. Because once you reason to the idea that God exists, you can then explore ideas like what it means that God loves us infinitely and how His love makes us happy.»
Saturday, May 9, 2015
Items of Interest: Week of Dominica IV Post Pascha
Junipero Serra and God’s Tender Mercy
by Kathryn Jean Lopez (National Review). Encountering the founding father of the California missions.
Thomas Aquinas Tells a Joke
by Matthew Schmitz (First Things). A delightful example of St. Thomas’ sense of humor, from Quaestiones Quodlibitales.
Synod. The Proposal of a “Third Way”
by Sandro Magister. «Unbending against divorce, merciful with sinners. Suggested by a Thomas Michelet, of the theological faculty of Fribourg, Switzerland. It is a new form of the sacrament of penance, following the example of the ancient Church »
Beyond Our Ken: Henri de Lubac's Paradoxes of Faith
by Thomas Van (CatholicCulture.org). «Love of truth never goes without daring. And that is one of the reasons why truth is not loved.».
Archbishop Romero and Liberation Theology
by Filip Mazurczak (National Catholic Register). «As May 23 approaches, we can expect a flurry of commentary about how the Vatican was hostile towards Archbishop Romero’s cause until the “enlightened” Francis took over and that Rome has now exonerated liberation theology. We will also likely hear of Archbishop Romero as a “leftist” prelate... These claims are unfounded. They are but myths that have been propagated by Catholics of a certain ideology, who, paradoxically, have dragged out Romero’s cause in time by politicizing and distorting his legacy.»
by Kathryn Jean Lopez (National Review). Encountering the founding father of the California missions.
Thomas Aquinas Tells a Joke
by Matthew Schmitz (First Things). A delightful example of St. Thomas’ sense of humor, from Quaestiones Quodlibitales.
Synod. The Proposal of a “Third Way”
by Sandro Magister. «Unbending against divorce, merciful with sinners. Suggested by a Thomas Michelet, of the theological faculty of Fribourg, Switzerland. It is a new form of the sacrament of penance, following the example of the ancient Church »
Beyond Our Ken: Henri de Lubac's Paradoxes of Faith
by Thomas Van (CatholicCulture.org). «Love of truth never goes without daring. And that is one of the reasons why truth is not loved.».
Archbishop Romero and Liberation Theology
by Filip Mazurczak (National Catholic Register). «As May 23 approaches, we can expect a flurry of commentary about how the Vatican was hostile towards Archbishop Romero’s cause until the “enlightened” Francis took over and that Rome has now exonerated liberation theology. We will also likely hear of Archbishop Romero as a “leftist” prelate... These claims are unfounded. They are but myths that have been propagated by Catholics of a certain ideology, who, paradoxically, have dragged out Romero’s cause in time by politicizing and distorting his legacy.»
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