Curtain

After many years of delay, I'm finally reading Curtain by Agatha Christie. Being a huge Hercule Poirot fan, I was never comfortable picking up the last of his adventures. I'm finding it a tad different from the others.

What is most intriguing is that Dame Agatha apparently wrote the book in the 40s. She wasn't old or in poor health that I can tell. However, euthanasia is a lot of the plot's context. As you may know, Poirot is in wretched health for this case. While he's not directly addressed as a case for extermination, that whole evil, mythical standard of "quality of life" rears its filthy head on a regular basis.

Of course, Dame Agatha was a devout Catholic. If you don't know the story of her support for the Traditional Mass, take a look here.

The most striking comments thus far:

To begin with, I don't hold life as sacred as all you people do. Unfit lives, useless lives- they should be got out of the way. There's so much mess about. Only people who make a decent contribution to the community ought to be allowed to live. The others ought to be put painlessly away.

There's a whole chapter that centers around this argument. I don't guess I really have a point here. It's just another example that there's nothing new under the sun. The roots of the eugenics movement are deep, and we've been dealing with them for a long time. Interesting, though, to see it being played out against the backdrop of an Hercule Poirot murder mystery from 70 years ago.

Sacrosanctum Concilium, Pt. 7

When we last left the Constitution on the Liturgy (which, yes, was a while back), we had just gotten to the bit about how Latin was to be preserved as the language of the liturgy. I wanted to carve out some discussion about this because the context seems very important to understanding what was going on and what more than a few bishops might have been thinking in going along with it. We know, for example, that the wholesale replacement of Latin by the vernacular was regarded as a joke. Literally. So what was the discussion about?

Mostly, it seems to have been focused on the mission fields. For example, as Fr. Wiltgen relates in The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber:

Archbishop D'Souza [of Nagpur, India] . . . added: "The use of the vernacular in the administration of the sacraments is a must, for the simple reason that the beautiful rites are completely lost on our people if they are in Latin." If local languages and customs were not introduced into the liturgy, the Church would "never make the impact it should on our country. . . "

This is all very interesting coming from a Indian bishop. First off, I'm not sure how significant the whole Latin issue would be for someone in his situation. Aren't most Catholics in India of the Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara persuasion? I'm having trouble finding information on this, but all indications are that the Indian liturgies wouldn't have been in Latin anyway. Second, it's kind of weird to hear these kinds of comments given that one of the primary proponents of the TLM is Cardinal Ranjith of Sri Lanka. Third, I have to wonder how legitimate these concerns are. The major evangelical global evangelical pushes were from the Latin Church. This would mean the TLM as the primary liturgical expression. Was the culture of the indigenous folks in South America really so different from Southeast Asia that entirely new liturgical practices were necessary? To my knowledge, the vernacular wasn't introduced to make it any easier. Saying that one group of people is just way too unique to be open to something carries an air of hubris.

There's no doubt, though, that the mission fields were heavily promoted in the conciliar debates about the liturgical reform. Was there perhaps a ulterior motive for eliminating Latin? Fr. Wiltgen, somewhat approvingly, seemed to think so:

As long as Latin texts and Latin rites were universally used in the Church, the Roman Curia would be competent to check and control them. But if hundreds and even thousands of local languages and customs were introduced into the liturgy, the Curia would automatically lose this prerogative. Episcopal conferences with knowledge of the local languages and understanding of local custom would then become the more competent judges in the matter. And this was precisely what the evolving majority was insisting upon.

We've been over the Curia-hate as a major force behind the conciliar reforms already. This looks to have been another manifestation somewhat clothed in the trappings of concerns for potential converts. However, we can't chalk the whole movement up to such motives. There were clearly some legit concerns over this, expressed by parties as conservative as Bishop Antonio Castro de Mayer who Fr. Wiltgen reports as being willing to permit a limited use of the vernacular in "certain cultural areas."

Let's be clear here that I'm discussing this because of the overall collapse of Latin in the liturgy. Whether or not local customs or rituals can be incorporated into the liturgy strikes me as a completely different topic. This has been done successfully in the past and without major incident (the Chinese Rites stuff being a notable exception). For the areas already accustomed to the Latin Rite, why was any accommodation needed? I'm not really finding any explanation for that, other than some comments by Bishop Zauner of Linz, Austria, who was a figure in the Rhine alliance of bishops.

He emphasized that the vernacular was a necessary condition for the active participation of the people. If that was the case, then why does the Council say otherwise both directly (in preserving Latin) and indirectly (by emphasizing the contemplative aspects of participation)? As we've been focusing on, how much stock can we put into the exaltation of participation in the Pauline Mass when the whole liturgy of the Church has been put in permanent workshop mode after its implementation?

The other thing I wanted to point out in all this is the popular "knowledge" of the Council's stand on language. MacAffee Brown, Blanshard, and MacEoin take it for granted that all liturgy will be in the vernacular after the Council. Why would they do this given the actual text of the Constitution and the positioning of Latin as primary and vernacular as an exception to the rule? Their own works don't explain. It's just how they reported on it, which is more proof that you can't trust secular sources for honest news about Catholic events.

Hopefully, my recovery will give me the chance to get back on track with my review of the Council. I know I'm not the kind of guy Msgr. Gherardini had in mind for conducting this kind of study, but I know some of you ask about it and enjoy, so I'm working on getting back into it again.

More to come...

Book Review: Interview With An Exorcist

This was a book that garnered some notice around the time that The Rite was getting big. It's written by Fr. Jose Antonio Fortea, who is introduced as an experienced exorcist from Spain and the author of several works on the subject.

I've been through a few books on the subject of exorcism, and they all tend to follow the pattern of starting with the author's experiences and then building in Church teaching based on those experiences. Interview With an Exorcist stands out by barely touching on experiences. It's almost a catechism of sorts, written in standard Q&A format. It's very short and stays away from dense language and concepts. For this reason, it's probably going to the top of my list to give to non-Catholics and unbelievers who perhaps have a more sensational interest in the subject.

This isn't to say that there aren't problems. I'm not an exorcist, but some of the stuff Fr. Fortea says seemed wrong. For example, he indicates that God's presence extends even to hell. While I've heard this sort of thing before, primarily from Eastern brethren, he presents it as fact, rather than speculative. He also claims that God still loves Satan and the demons, which doesn't seem to jive. Does God will any good for the demonic? He allows them to exist, so that's one thing, but the book seems to suggest that it's more than that.

There are a couple of other items, but I think they are minor points overall. The real bottom line is that exorcism is one of those things that Catholics get a lot of questions about, even if it's just because of a movie or TV show. Handing somebody a copy of Hostage to the Devil or An Exorcist Tells His Story right off the bat probably isn't a good idea. Even The Rite, which is a much more ideal introduction, might be tainted by the abominable movie. What you get in Interview With an Exorcist are basic and fundamental concepts, with all the fluff taken away. You give this to someone, then work them up to the other books.

Let me reiterate that I think all these books are valuable and should be read by Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Milk before meat, though. Interview With an Exorcist is as close to milk as you're going to get with exorcisms

Pardon Any Mistakes

I'm writing a lot of this stuff in the midst of recovery. Needless to say, there will no doubt be an increase in errors. Please excuse my addled brain's sloppiness.

Priorities: Man Or Message?

I'm submitting this as part of the Fr. Corapi saga, again with the intent of making a point without discussing the issue directly. Others can talk about it better than I anyway. My only comment remains that we should pray for all parties involved, as well as for the priests, bishops, and religious all over the world.

As for my attempt at a point:

One of the things that is supposed to set Catholicism apart from false religions is that it is insulated from the moral short-comings of its leaders. We all know, for example, that there have been bad popes. Rather than being a weakness, we instead can look upon it as a sign of the Church's divine constitution. If the Church were a purely human construct, having so many incompetent and immoral leaders would have destroyed Her a long time ago. Based on The Master's promise in Matthew 16:18, we know that the message of the Gospel and the proclamation of the One Faith (Ephesians 4) is not subordinate to the whims of men. Quite the opposite, actually. The leaders safeguard and protect the Faith and are therefore subservient to it.

It is a very sad thing when Catholics (or anyone else, I suppose) forgets this. The fact that I really like a person isn't determinative on whether or not their words are true or their actions appropriate. A refusal to acknowledge this is especially dangerous in spiritual matters. We cannot allow a personality, no matter how strong or charismatic to blind us to the realities of their actions. Sometimes, this can be easy. Nobody is going to write any kind of glowing memoir of Benedict IX. Other times, it's more difficult. Consider Tertullian.

Tertullian is one of my favorite Church Fathers. He's a decent enough theologian, but his apologetic works are phenomenal. If you haven't read his Prescription Against Heretics, you are seriously missing out. He was one of the greatest defenders of the Faith for his time and faced down any and all threats that came around.

But he lost his way. Tertullian was seduced by the "new revelations" of the Montanist sect. He wrote works defending these teachings and was therefore likely to have led others astray as well. People would have followed him just because he was Tertullian and had always been trustworthy in matters of faith and had given Montanus & Co. his stamp of approval. In other words, he put people's souls in danger and might have contributed to someone's damnation, for no other reason than his pride got away with him.

I've heard some say that he reconciled with the Church before he died. I very much hope that is the case. It doesn't change the big issue. Affection for a person cannot be an excuse for submitting to sin of any kind. This might come up with public figures like Tertullian was. It could be the case with a parish priest accused of some crime. The response to such things should be to embrace the reality that the Church remains a hospital for sinners, rather than a hotel for saints. It will be so until the End of Days. Pray for these people. Understand their weakness and that it is the further weakness of pride that draws them away from Holy Mother Church or that inspires them to conflict instead of submission.

The Gospel is the Truth. It is the priority. It's messengers come and go, with some going by very wrong paths. Do not follow them there.

Vatican Council II: A Much Needed Discussion

As I continue my recovery, I was finally able to read this. It's an excellent work written by Msgr. Brunero Gherardini, a Canon of St. Peter's Basilica. The foreword is by Cardinal Ranjith. I mention these things so that folks don't jump to the usual conclusion that such works are the domain of schismatics or some other variety of whack-job.

Anyways, it's good stuff. Granted, it's dense at times, but I think a lot of that might have more to do with the translation than anything else. Essentially, Msgr. Gherardini is calling for a thorough analysis of the 16 conciliar documents (overkill, IMO) in order to properly establish them in the hermeneutic of continuity demanded by the Holy Father. This is all very reasonable, and as the Msgr. demonstrates, something that has been frustrated for decades by folks who are too busy trying to claim that VII said everything there was to be said and did so in a fashion so awesome that anyone denying it would have to be insane. He makes some points that were new for me and that I'll have to think about quite a bit, especially re: Dei Verbum and Lumen Gentium.

The tone is one that I think most here would appreciate. We're not talking about some kind of hyper-polemical screed here. The book is written with a lot of humility, which is especially needed given the topic. He skips over the procedural abnormalities and the hijackings that took place at VII and sticks almost exclusively to textual analysis. This reduces the potential for people to ignore his arguments as some kind of exaggeration. Granted, he does mention the theologians who made it their business to "re-interpret" the Council (Kung, Schillebeecx, Rahner, etc.) but he does so without ad hominem.

In the final analysis, Msgr. Gherardini asks the simple questions that have been answered many times, without anyone paying attention to the answer. What was VII and what was its measure of authority in light of prior Church teachings? This is all well and good, but he doesn't move past that and acknowledge that answering these questions means an exercise of authority. Until those denying the answers are made to pay attention and accept them, they will refuse to do so.

Check it out. It's worth your time. Also, if you own a Nook, the biography of St. Thomas More written by his son-in-law William Roper is free. It closes with letters between Thomas and his daughter Margaret. Wonderful stuff.

Expect Some Delays

Sorry for the lack of material lately. I've been having some health difficulties which will be requiring surgery on Wednesday. I hope to return as soon as is possible.

Thank you all for your patience and prayers during this time.

Re: Corpus Christi

Anybody have a procession at their parish? A 40 Hours Devotion?

Has your parish ever had one of these? Has your diocese?

As for here, the answer to all these questions is no. I wonder why that is. I'll have to ask.

Jesuit Universities At The Forefront Of The Euthanasia Debate

Unfortunately, they happen to be on the wrong side. From Crisis:

Even as the nation’s bishops react with alarm to a recent Montana Supreme Court ruling allowing physician-assisted suicide, their efforts are being undermined by ethics and law professors at several Jesuit universities.

I've been reading a lot of Jesuit material this month. It's depressing stuff. Reading the examples from that article, then contrasting such a posture (not to mention those taken by the Cardenals, Segundos, O'Keefes, etc. of the world) with what you would see from Bellarmine, Canisius, Francis Xavier, not to mention St. Ignatius himself.

Let me take this time to once again plug The New Jesuit Review, where there seem to be at least a few faithful sons of Loyola left.

My family and I are planning to do an Enthronement in the next could of weeks. I think the above-mentioned article is one of the things that we will be doing reparation for, along with the last couple of decades of disobedience permitted by the Society.

An Observation On Accusations

Between the latest bit with Fr. Corapi, the indictments in Philadelphia, and the business in Kansas City with Bishop Finn, I've noticed something of a trend. A report is issued. The bulk of people immediately presume the guilt of the cleric in question, whether it's an accusation of being a child molester or tolerating molesters or just doing something else that was bad. This reaction almost always entails excoriating anybody who might defend the accused or even just suggest that we wait until all the facts come out before passing judgment. The ones treated the worst are people who offer anecdotal evidence of how they know the priest/bishop personally and can't believe they would do such a thing.

This lasts right up until a darling of the mob is accused of something. I still get defenders of Archbishop Weakland telling me that he didn't really do anything bad, and that's now that we know what he was into (presumably all of it). Not saying anything about whether he was guilty, but Cardinal Bernardin was accused of a whole lot of stuff, yet he was/is immediately granted the presumption of innocence apparently based on nothing more than the same sort of personality cult that the mob claims is the source of the aforementioned anecdotal sympathies.

The great masses very much enjoy focusing on the hypocrisy of bishops not taking care of their flocks in these circumstances. No doubt, there is justifiable criticism that needs to be made. However, there seem to be a lot of folks who need to clear out the planks in their own eyes along the way. The hypocrisy from the mob is just as nausea-inducing.

How Father Corapi is an excuse for my sparse blogging.

If you have been hanging around the Catholic neighborhoods of the internets, you may have come across the story of Father John Corapi, a very talented preacher, who has become embroiled in an accusation of impropriety from an employee and has since renounced his priesthood. I don't know all the details of his case, and make no judgment, but suspect it will cause many to lose faith.

I think that this affair underlines the dangers of being a public Catholic. If you evangelize, you must be aware that you will be a target of powers and principalities. If you are successful, then you will be even more of a target. I've seen it happen with priest friends of mine who have fallen away from their vocation, with former pastors, and with stars of the Catholic "blogosphere." I remember one young man who had a marvelous blog detailing his attempts to live a chaste Catholic life despite of a same-sex orientation, who was so upset at the failure of another online Catholic evangelist's marriage, that he abandoned all of his efforts. I have another friend, a former Catholic priest and pastor, who has left his vocation and joined the United Church of Christ because of an inability to keep faith. Another had a blog about his journey to monasticism, but lost his vocation and I believe also his faith. All of this was made worse because it was public. In hindsight, none of these people should have been living their lives of faith in such a public manner, because of the spiritual dangers. Furthermore, because all of these people were to some degree well-known, their spiritual failures don't just affect themselves, but everyone who followed them. If these people can't do it, one thinks, then how could I?

The faith certainly needs defending, and you should defend it, if you are able. But be very careful. Pray always, and let Jesus Christ be the story, not yourself. Don't put your interior castle on Facebook. Keep your temple of the Holy Spirit off Twitter.

The Feast of Sts. John Fisher and Thomas More

First, take time to watch the movie clips I previously posted here. They are from The Tudors and moving beyond anything I would have ever expected from a cable TV show.

Second, please take the time to read this excerpt from St. Thomas's beautiful work, The Sadness of Christ. It is so important to our spiritual lives. Such a simple observation would change the world if people actually took it seriously.

Just as our minds are inattentive when we set out to pray, so too we proceed to do so with an equally careless and sprawling deportment of our bodies. True, we pretend that the worship of God is our reason for wearing better than everyday clothes on feast days, but the negligence with which most of us pray makes it utterly clear that we have utterly failed to conceal the real motive, namely a haughty desire to show off in the eyes of the world. Thus in our negligence we sometimes stroll around, sometimes sit down on a stool. And even when we kneel down, we either place our weight on one knee, raising up the other and resting it on our foot, or we place a cushion under our knees, and sometimes (if we are especially spoiled) we even support our elbows on a cushion, looking for all the world like a propped up house that is threatening to tumble down.

And then our actions too, in how many ways do they betray that our minds are wandering miles away? We scratch our heads, clean our fingernails with a pocketknife, pick our noses with our fingers, meanwhile making the wrong responses. Having no idea what we have already said and what we have not said, we make a wild guess as to what remains to be said. Are we not ashamed to pray in such a deranged state of mind and body -- to beseech God's favor in a matter so crucial for us, to beg His forgiveness for so many monstrous misdeeds, to ask Him to save us from eternal punishment? -- so that even if we had not sinned before, we would still deserve tenfold eternal torments for having approached the majesty of God in such a contemptuous fashion.

Imagine, if you will, that you have committed a crime of high treason against some mortal prince or other who has your life in his hands but who is so merciful that he is prepared to temper his wrath because of your repentance and humble supplication, and to commute the death sentence into a monetary fine or even to suspend it completely if you give convincing signs of great shame and sorrow. Now, when you have been brought into the presence of the prince, go ahead and speak to him carelessly, casually, without the least concern. While he stays in one place and listens attentively, stroll around here and there as you run through your plea. Then, when you have had enough of walking up and down, sit down on a chair, or if courtesy seems to require that you condescend to kneel down, first command someone to come and place a cushion beneath your knees, or, better yet, to bring a prie-dieu with another cushion to lean your elbows on. Then yawn, stretch, sneeze, spit without giving it a thought, and belch up the fumes of your gluttony. In short, conduct yourself in such a way that he can clearly see from your face, your voice, your gestures, and your whole bodily deportment that while you are addressing him you are thinking about something else. Tellm e now, what success could you hope for from such a plea as this?

Certainly we would consider it quite mad to defend ourselves in this way before a mortal prince against a charge that carries the death penalty. And yet such a prince, once he had destroyed our bodies, could do nothing further. And do we think it is reasonable, when we have been caught committing a whole series of far more serious crimes, to beg pardon so contemptuously from the king of all kings, God Himself, who, when He has destroyed our bodies, has the power to send both body and soul together to hell?

Still, I would not wish anyone to construe what I have said as meaning that I forbid anyone to pray while walking or sitting or even lying down. Indeed I wish that, whatever our bodies may be doing, we would at the same time constantly lift up our minds to God (which is the most acceptable form of prayer). For no matter where we may turn our steps, as long as our minds are directed to God, we clearly do not turn away from Him who is present everywhere.... but... besides such prayers for which we prepare our minds more thoughtfully, for which we dispose our bodies more reverently, than we would if we were about to approach all the kings in the whole world sitting together in one place.

Comic Books, Aquinas, Law, And Liturgy

Bear with me on this. Despite the weird title of this post, I will work everything in.

A lot of you have probably heard by now that DC Comics has re-launched pretty much every book they have. They are kicking off 52 new titles and doing so in the name of "innovation" and "surprise" and a whole bunch of other stuff.

This isn't nearly as innovative, creative, or whatever as they claim it is. Both DC and Marvel have had major "re-boots" like this in the past. Many times. If things get stale, they just restart everything. People, being suckers, run out and buy the new crap without wondering if it will be good or not. It's just new, ergo, good. Things will rock along for a while. Then the newness wears off, and readers start drifting away with the realization that what they've been reading is crap.

Time for another re-boot! And so forth.

For the purposes of our discussion today, by the way, let's leave aside that these re-boots (or re-launches or whatever you want to call them) are, on their substantive merits, typically events of the most awful caliber. There are exceedingly rare exceptions, but for today, let's just think about the point of a re-boot itself.

I'm saying that re-booting things this way lends itself to a complete lack of respect for the stories and characters. It's sort of like killing off a character then bringing them back to life. It cheapens the character. Nobody can take any threat to them seriously anymore, whether it's a super-villain or some sort of internal conflict/angst. They just have to wait for the writer to retcon or re-boot the badness into oblivion.

Indulging in such practices is one of the many reasons why Dan DiDio and Joe Quesada are scourges upon the literary world and should be banished from civilized society until they have done sufficient penance for the crimes against the comic book world and good taste in general. But I digress...


Novelty is a dangerous drug. People crave it without even knowing they do so. Stuff is old. Stuff is therefore seen as dull or tiresome. Rather than looking inward and realizing that the problem might not be with what is old but instead with ourselves, we look for something new to stimulate our senses back into enjoyment. Especially in an age driven so much by entertainment and titillation, we are constantly looking for something to feed our appetite for innovation.

Chesterton put it this way:

All the towering materialism which dominates the modern mind rests ultimately upon one assumption; a false assumption. It is supposed that if a thing goes on repeating itself it is probably dead; a piece of clockwork. People feel that if the universe was personal it would vary; if the sun were alive it would dance. This is a fallacy even in relation to known fact. For the variation in human affairs is generally brought into them, not by life, but by death; by the dying down or breaking off of their strength or desire. A man varies his movements because of some slight element of failure or fatigue. He gets into an omnibus because he is tired of walking; or he walks because he is tired of sitting still. But if his life and joy were so gigantic that he never tired of going to Islington, he might go to Islington as regularly as the Thames goes to Sheerness. The very speed and ecstacy of his life would have the stillness of death. The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning; but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction. Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.


I wonder if the idea has ever occurred to any of these empirical thrill-seekers that perfection is changeless and therefore rejects novelty.


Back to the main issue. It's the same thing with the law. St. Thomas states the following:


Objection 1. It would seem that human law should be changed, whenever something better occurs. Because human laws are devised by human reason, like other arts. But in the other arts, the tenets of former times give place to others, if something better occurs. Therefore the same should apply to human laws.

Objection 2. Further, by taking note of the past we can provide for the future. Now unless human laws had been changed when it was found possible to improve them, considerable inconvenience would have ensued; because the laws of old were crude in many points. Therefore it seems that laws should be changed, whenever anything better occurs to be enacted.

Objection 3. Further, human laws are enacted about single acts of man. But we cannot acquire perfect knowledge in singular matters, except by experience, which "requires time," as stated in Ethic. ii. Therefore it seems that as time goes on it is possible for something better to occur for legislation.

On the contrary, It is stated in the Decretals (Dist. xii, 5): "It is absurd, and a detestable shame, that we should suffer those traditions to be changed which we have received from the fathers of old."

I answer that, As stated above (Article 1), human law is rightly changed, in so far as such change is conducive to the common weal. But, to a certain extent, the mere change of law is of itself prejudicial to the common good: because custom avails much for the observance of laws, seeing that what is done contrary to general custom, even in slight matters, is looked upon as grave. Consequently, when a law is changed, the binding power of the law is diminished, in so far as custom is abolished. Wherefore human law should never be changed, unless, in some way or other, the common weal be compensated according to the extent of the harm done in this respect. Such compensation may arise either from some very great and every evident benefit conferred by the new enactment; or from the extreme urgency of the case, due to the fact that either the existing law is clearly unjust, or its observance extremely harmful. Wherefore the jurist says [Pandect. Justin. lib. i, ff., tit. 4, De Constit. Princip.] that "in establishing new laws, there should be evidence of the benefit to be derived, before departing from a law which has long been considered just."

Reply to Objection 1. Rules of art derive their force from reason alone: and therefore whenever something better occurs, the rule followed hitherto should be changed. But "laws derive very great force from custom," as the Philosopher states (Polit. ii, 5): consequently they should not be quickly changed.

Reply to Objection 2. This argument proves that laws ought to be changed: not in view of any improvement, but for the sake of a great benefit or in a case of great urgency, as stated above. This answer applies also to the Third Objection.

New for the sake of being new isn't a good reason to change the law. In fact, even if the new law would be better, that isn't enough. It has to be so good that the goodness in the change will exceed the damage done to the overall respect for the law as a whole. After all, who would appreciate a law that changed all the time? I've often wondered what a session of Congress or our state legislatures would look like if they decided not to pass any new laws. Was their previous year/years of work so shoddy that all these new laws and changes were required? Why are they always trying to pass new laws or change old ones?

My opinion is that they do so just for the newness. They can go home and tell everyone about all the laws they passed. They can't really state a case for these new precepts having any utility. They won't have been in effect long enough. Many will probably get repealed before they have an effect at all. People hear all the shiny newness, though, and are led to think that something was actually accomplished with all this statutory diarrhea. To the contrary, the Angelic Doctor says, the only thing accomplished is a deterioration of the legal system and the public perception of their lawmakers.


Where else do we see this addiction to the new played out most palpably? You've probably guessed from my post title. It's the liturgy of course. The fact that the Gregorian Mass went pretty much unchanged for 1500 years wasn't a sign of life or vitality as Chesterton might point out. It was a sign of stagnation and death. What was needed, in direct contradiction to Vatican II's Constitution on the Liturgy, was a completely new Mass, with all sorts of new stuff. This was called reform.


You see it even today. Liturgical committees get together to decide what kind of Mass they want to have. Clown Mass, Halloween Mass, Gay Mass, LifeTeen Mass, Contemporary Mass, etc. If attendance is down, what's the solution? Bring in secular music. Liturgical dance. The list goes on. How odd that Mass attendance was at 80% back when we had the stodgy and dull "Old Mass." I still recall how the "expert" in my wife's RCIA group spoke about how the "Old Mass" just wasn't fun enough to enjoy.


Don't think that lust for novelty was at the root of the alleged reform? Consider the words of Fr. Joseph Gelineau, SJ, one of Archbishop Bugnini's foremost liturgical consultants in his work The Liturgy Today and Tomorrow:

It would be false to identify this liturgical renewal with the reform of rites decided on by Vatican II. This reform goes back much further and goes forward far beyond the conciliar prescriptions. The liturgy is a permanent workshop.



At the root of all this is the same gluttony for sensations that drives all the other stuff I mentioned. Whether it's Justice League Dark, or the latest change in trapping regulations, or Disco Liturgy, it's all about people being addicted to the new. We look to feed our senses instead of our souls. More tragically, many think these are the same thing.


In the words of Archie Bunker, we need to stifle ourselves. Whether in terms of our literary, legal, or liturgical preferences, some acknowledgement of stability, tradition, and custom is needed. This is why the Extraordinary Form is so vital to the future of the Church. It subdues our appetite for this sort of stuff. We are decreased so that He may increase. And not just us, but the priests as well. You can't have Disco Liturgy in the Extraordinary Form. Priests making themselves the center of attention is impossible. Everything is degraded in favor of God's Presence.


Humans have a bad habit of screwing things up. We're fallen, so it's understandable. Let's not give ourselves so many opportunities, though.

Ecumenism And Pentecostals

There appears to be an organized effort for ecumenical relations with one of the most disorganized religious groups out there.

The Vatican's ecumenism council initiated a sixth phase in conversation with Pentecostal groups, saying a final report should be ready by 2015.

A sixth phase? With a report out in 4 years? Holy smokes. How much money and resources are poured into this kind of stuff? All these folks who want the Vatican to sell its artwork and stuff should look here if they want to find a waste of money.

The goal is not "structural unity," the Vatican statement clarified, but "to promote mutual respect and understanding in matters of faith and practice."

So we're spending all this money and it's not even for evangelization? How much is "mutual respect" worth? The bill for this must run in the thousands easily. Do we really need six sessions of this to have proper respect?

I just don't get the point of all these exercises. Where is the fruit of such ventures?

Happy Father, Son, and Holy Spirit Day

It's Trinity Sunday. Even if it's just for a little while, reflect today on the mystery that is our God. Not that you'll actually understand it, but it's good to be reminded just how unfathomable He is and how grateful we should be that He deigned to reveal Himself to us in the first place.

As for Father's Day. Dad, I love you, but nonetheless: Humbug.

Karl's Wife Is Out Of ICU

Please continue to pray for all of them.

St. Gerard and St. Gianna, pray for them.

Every War Has Casualties

Ours is no different.



I'm not going to comment on this directly because I've noticed that people who have been doing so appear easily infected with pride and prone to calumny or worse.

I will simply pray for Fr. Corapi and all other parties affected by this nonsense.

On a broader note, we must ask ourselves how many good priests may be harmed by the procedures (or lack thereof) for Church investigations. The Adversary is cunning and has no qualms about leveling false accusations. Good priests have and will continue to suffer for such things. We ourselves must be careful of assuming guilt on the part of anyone.

And yet again, I wonder how much of these events are a real and organized effort.

Prayer Request

Karl, our friend and fellow contributor, was made a father for the fifth time today. His wife is now in the ICU, though, and having a tough time recovering.

Please remember them in your prayers.

Happy Birthday, Dear Church!

The Robber Synod Of Detroit

Or something like that.

In sharp words, a wide range of Catholics blasted their church's leadership Friday at the opening of a three-day conference in Detroit that seeks to reform what they said is an outdated and secretive club of men out of touch with reality.

"They are like the Kremlin in the last decades" of communist rule in the Soviet Union, said the Rev. Hans Kung, a priest from Switzerland, in a taped address to about 2,000 people at Cobo Hall. "This system has no future."

Hey, look at that! Hans Kung made a tele-appearance! Still playing at being Pope, by the looks of things.

"We cannot go on like this, " said Kung, whom the Vatican has ruled can no longer teach theology. "It's a Potemkin church. You have thousands of parishes without priests anymore."

Yeah, I know you can't, Hans. The article is kind enough to mention why:

Kung, who could not attend in person because of health reasons, was applauded by the audience, a mostly elderly crowd disappointed at what they see as the church's rightward turn.

I hope someone notified the local nursing homes.

Archbishop of Detroit Allen Vigneron has asked Catholics to stay away from the conference and said priests and deacons could be defrocked if they attend a Sunday mass at Cobo. But that didn't deter local Catholics. Attendees included former seminarians, antiwar activists and those calling for women and married priests. . .

Westfall and others also were upset at Vigneron's warning to clergy to stay away. "To make that threat is very anti-Christian, " he said.

I'd love to see the logic behind that gem.

And what would any such event be without liberation theology:

In another keynote address, Jeanette Rodriguez, a theology professor from Seattle University, praised Latin American liberation theology - which has been criticized by the Vatican - and said the church must side with the poor and oppressed.

Looks like Matthew Fox showed up too. Not the guy from Lost. More like the guy who tried to legitimize Teilhardism as a Dominican and wound up getting expelled from the order back in the early 90s. All the old guard are there. I didn't references to Chittister or McBrien, but I'm betting they make an appearance.

Man, what did Detroit do to warrant this? Things are bad enough as it is there without having to put up with this massive influx of whack-jobs.

Re: Rahner

Since I've been on a bit of a Jesuit kick lately, let me go ahead and do a post that I've been meaning to do for a while now.

Let's talk about Fr. Karl Rahner, SJ.

If you've never heard of him, he's a German theologian who was the biggest thing in the whole science back in the 60s and 70s. How big of a deal was he? So big that he almost single-handedly reshaped Catholic theology So big that there are some who call him the greatest genius ever produced by the Catholic Church in Her entire history.

I've mentioned him a few times before in other posts, usually connected with Vatican II stuff. This is because he was the chief theological expert for the "Rhine group" bishops who hi-jacked the Council. Consider Fr. Wiltgen's description of him in The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber:

Since the position of the German-language bishops was regularly adopted by the European alliance, and since the alliance position was regularly adopted by the Council, a single theologian might have his views accepted by the whole Council if they had been accepted by the German-speaking bishops. There was such a theologian: Father Karl Rahner, SJ.

Technically, Father Rahner was Cardinal Konig's consultant theologian. In practice, he was consulted by many members of the German and Austrian hierarchy, and he might well be called the most influential mind at the Fulda conference. Cardinal Frings, in private conversation, called Father Rahner "the greatest theologian of the century."

This doesn't really begin to make the point, though. The book goes on to provide many examples of Rahner's sway over the conciliar proceedings. For example, he pretty much led the way in de-railing the proposed schema on Our Lady. Why was the schema so threatening? Because:

... unimaginable harm would result from an ecumenical point of view, in relation to both Orientals and Protestants...

And that

... all the success achieved in the field of ecumenism through the Council and in connection with the Council will be rendered worthless by the retention of the schema as it stands."

These are Wiltgen's quotes from Rahner, so please pardon the lack of context. Anyways, the point is that there was no separate schema. Its contents were heavily redacted and instead moved over to Lumen Gentium. On a side note, I have to wonder what all this "success" is that the Council had to this point. It was January of 1963. The first session had just closed. Was there some kind of mass conversion to the Faith or huge breakthrough that somehow nobody noticed except Rahner?

Like I said, he was a big deal. But back to the real point of this post.

For over a decade now, I've been reading Rahner's stuff. Off and on for years, I've constantly gone back to his writings to check his thoughts on things. I've come to a few conclusions.

First off, the man was frightfully smart, but he wasn't a genius. This might be a personal idiosyncrasy of mine, but the hallmark of genius is the ability to make the complex more understandable to the average joe. Geniuses are people who are lucid and coherent when talking about their chosen subject.

Some might think that my criticism here is a product of my own pride and frustration. After all, I'm not a theologian or even frightfully smart. Maybe I'm just mad that my inferior intellect can't grasp Rahner's awesomeness.

I don't think so. Rahner's lack of lucidity is a joke. Literally. His own brother, Fr. Hugo Rahner, SJ, once commented that someone should work on getting Karl's works translated into German. It's probably not all his fault. He takes a lot of his views, including epistemology, from Martin Heidegger, who was probably more incoherent than Rahner, if such a thing is possible.

This lack of clarity winds up throwing one's work open to interpretation, which no real genius would want to tolerate. If you're bright enough to come up with an idea, why would you allow somebody else to screw up what you were saying? Then you look like a jackass all because of someone else's mistake. This kind of ambiguity and poor rendering of thought (not to mention sometimes completely making words up) makes it easy for a lot of folks to label Rahner as a heretic.

But was he?

I resist the idea of flinging h-bombs at people. Really, I do. In charity, everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt. So when I read his writings on the Trinity and all this "the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity, and the immanent Trinity is the economic Trinity" and try to figure out how he says such things without completely ditching the doctrine of appropriation (as very lucidly taught by Pope Leo XIII) and coming up with a bizarre tritheism (even though others say it's modalism), I shrugged and let it go. Hey, it's the Trinity. It's complicated stuff. It's easy to be wrong about, right?

Then I picked up something like the Theological Investigations and read, say, the passages about Christ's human knowledge, which essentially amount to a denial that Christ always held the Beatific Vision. Or bits like this about the Resurrection:

Secondly we should achieve for ourselves a clear understanding of what really can be meant in theological terms by resurrection. The moment we picture to ourselves a dead man returning once more into our temporal dimension, with the biological conditions belonging to it, we have conceived of something which has nothing whatever to do with the Resurrection of Jesus, and which cannot have any significance for our salvation either. In fact to say that any individual has risen from the dead must be precisely tantamount to saying: "This man in this fate of his which seems so absolutely negative, has in a true sense, as himself, and together with his history, really attained God." What it does not say, however, is this: "He has once more extricated himself from the process of death, and is once more there on the same plane as ourselves."

My first thought was "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Then I progressed to trying to figure out how this isn't gnostic what with the apparent denial of a dead man coming back to life and all. Even then, I figured that maybe I'm missing something. He IS frightfully smart, after all. I'm not. Let's move on.

Anonymous Christianity. I'll be honest. I don't even come close to understanding this one. It seems to involve Rahner's very confused muddling of nature and grace, where sanctifying grace comes off as some sort of elemental force that just pops in and out with no real connection to the Church. The supernatural is brought down to the level of nature, which I always thought was weird for a guy whose thought is referred to as "Transcendental Thomism." It's neither of those things.

I continued to ramble through Fr. Rahner's stuff with absolutely no idea how the bulk of it fits in with Catholic dogma. Still, I never used the h-bomb in describing him.

Then I stumbled across a work called The Unity of the Churches: An Actual Possibility. He wrote this with a guy named Heinrish Fries. I'm making an appeal to all the Fr. Rahner fans out there. Can you please explain to me how this book isn't heretical? I've tried to come up with some impressive mental gymnastics to get around it. I'm done. Whatever comments you've got, I'll be happy to post. I won't even argue. I'm just looking for a defense that doesn't involve junking Catholicism to make it work.

Ultimately, I have realized that there's way better stuff out there to read than Fr. Rahner's work. Way better. Like actual Church documents or MAD Magazine or the back of a soup can or Green Eggs and Ham or . . .

Manny Pacquiao

You might not like boxing, but you should like Manny Pacquiao for standing up to the culture of death over in the Phillipines. Per CNA:

Champion boxer Manny Pacquiao has sided with the Philippines’ Catholic bishops in a continuing controversy over a reproductive health bill that would fund access to free contraceptives.

Pacquiao said he would never have been born or become an international boxing champion if his poor, unemployed parents practiced birth control.

“God said go forth and multiply. He did not say go and have just one or two children,” the boxer said after a May 17 meeting with officials of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.

In addition to being an eight-division world champion and the first boxer in history to win 10 world titles, Pacquiao is also a member of the Philippines House of Representatives.

He said that life is God’s gift that no man or government can rip asunder, according to CBCP News. He blamed poverty on corruption, not population size.

The boxer called on his fans to rally behind the Catholic Church and “follow God’s command, not man’s.”

Can someone get Don King to work up a match between Pacquiao and the Filipino president? I'd buy that PPV.

More Lines Being Drawn

In Malta, people have voted to legalize divorce.

The Phillipines now has a president that prefers getting excommed over defending life.

I would ask "What the hell is the world coming to?" but then realized I would have answered my own question.

Speaking Of Jesuits . . .

I was looking for Sacred Heart material for posts. I figured that surely there would be something on the Society's web site.

Nope. Not a thing. Not shocking, I guess. Certainly disappointing.

The good news is that the New Jesuit Review has a great bit from Blessed Claude de la Colombiere on the subject in their aptly named Ressourcement section. Check it out at the link.

It's June.

That means it's the month of the Sacred Heart. Which is good given that I was reading Jesuit stuff anyway.

Reparation is the now completely neglected point. What sacrifices do you make for Christ? Or are you one of the folks He described to St. Margaret Mary?

Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love; and in return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of Love.

Notice who He's talking about. The greater part. That was back in the late 1600s. How do you think the situation compares to nowadays? Would there more or less need of reparation to our Blessed Lord?

It's a scary thing, yet it's also a testament to God's mercy that He is still putting up with us after our having built a world so thoroughly saturated by sin.