The Virtual Abbey

In today's First Things.

I have been thinking of Tolkien the last few days because my wife and I watched the entire Lord of the Rings movie trilogy on DVD. It was the first time that I have seen Peter Jackson's work in its intended, uncut form, and I have to say that I was pleased with much of what ended up left out, and bothered by much of which was left in.

Tolkien's mythos is an incomparably rich source of inspiration; I know many otherwise quite unreligious people who would nevertheless make excellent citizens of Middle Earth. As the article in First Things makes clear, the reason that Chesterton and Tolkien's writings ring so clear is that they enable us to see the world as it really is, by presenting it to us in a reflected and fantastic form.

I think the world we live in is an incredibly strange place, bustling with so much meaning and life that we are often blind to it.

I'm a little behind in keeping my church calendar and saints' days. Christmas season and its aftermath left me in a little bit of a state of religious collapse; I'm just now beginning to get caught up. I'm still a few days behind in my reading of the Hours, but I'm closing the gap.

I'm still slogging through the Latin version of the Liturgy of the Hours, and what has me in a profound state of irritation is that the Latin hymns in the Liturgia Horarum are not replicated in the English Liturgy of the Hours, which leaves me in need of a Latin-English hymnal if I want to keep the hymns in Latin (and to understand what I'm reciting). The Latin hymns are beautiful, and I want to learn them, but I'm stuck hunting down translations on the web or substituting English hymns for them. And I realize that this also means if I travel, instead of carrying one "Breviary", I'd have at a minimum three books -- Latin, English, and a hymnal.

I may have to compromise and just do English when I travel, but I am loathe to do that, as I have so far kept the entire liturgical season of Advent and Christmas in Latin. It may be a vanity, but I fear that if I get lazy and revert to English only, I won't go back -- and those four volumes of the Liturgia Horarum I had shipped from the Vatican will become expensive paperweights.

In a sense, I suppose, I must be making progress, because I've got my sin of miserliness working against my sin of sloth. My miserable black heart has become a kingdom divided against itself, so to speak. So, to paraphrase Carl Spackler, I got that going for me, which is nice.

All that being said, my Latin is getting better, and as I get caught up, I'm feeling my dicsipline return.

I've been meditating today on the title of Mary given in the Litany of Loreto as "The Tower of David", the Turris Davidica. It is a mystical appeciation of the Virgin Mary as a tower of refuge and strength against the enemy.

It is an idea which entered church thinking in the Middle Ages, as is outlined in this ebook from Project Gutenberg by Dr. John R. Effinger, written in 1907:

In the eleventh century, the successful struggle which had been made by Gregory VII., with the aid of the Countess Matilda, for the principle of papal supremacy exerted a marked influence upon the religious life of the time and gave an undoubted impetus to the idea of conventual life for women, as during this period many new cloisters were established. It will be readily understood that the deeds of the illustrious Tuscan countess had been held up more than once to the gaze of the people of Italy as worthy of their emulation, and many women were unquestionably induced in this way to give their lives to the Church. In the Cistercian order alone there were more than six thousand cloisters for women by the middle of the twelfth century.

It was during this same eleventh century, when a woman had helped to strengthen the power of the Church, that the influence of the Madonna—of Mary, the mother of Christ—began to make a profound impression upon the form of worship. A multitude of Latin hymns may be found which were written in honor of the Virgin as far back as the fifth century, and in the mediæval romances of chivalry, which were so often tinged with religious mysticism, she often appears as the Empress and Queen of Heaven. All through the mediæval period, in fact, there was a constant endeavor to prove that the Old Testament contained allusions to Mary, and, with this in view, Albertus Magnus put together a Marienbibel in the twelfth century, and Bonaventura edited a Marienpsalter. Therein, the gates of Paradise, Noah's ark, Jacob's ladder, the ark of the Covenant, Aaron's rod, Solomon's throne, and many other things, were held up as examples and foreshadowings of the coming of the Blessed Virgin; and in the sermons, commentaries, and homilies of the time the same ideas were continually emphasized. A collection of the Latin appellations which were bestowed upon the Madonna during this time contains the following terms, which reveal the fervor and temper of the age: Dei genitrix, virgo virginum, mater Christi, mater divinæ gratiæ, mater potens, speculum justitiæ, vas spirituale, rosa mystica, turris davidica, domus aurea, janua cœli, regina peccatorum, regina apostolorum, consolatrix afflictorum, and regina sanctorum omnium.

A pretty good summary of the concept's imagery can be found here:

The main characteristic here is that of a sturdy tower surrounded by fortifications, hung with many shields and build on rocky foundations.

The medallion superimposed on the tower shows the half-image of Mary in the posture of the young and meek Orante. The medallion is decorated with the tools and symbols of war: sword, banner, helmet, shield, trumpet. . .even what looks like the head of Holofernes.

The symbol of the Tower of David is taken from the Song of Songs 4:4. It was applied to Mary, and symbolizes Mary's womb giving life and protection to Jesus (Richard of St. Laurent). Mary also gives protection to all those who seek refuge against temptation and danger (Abertus Magnus). The tower is further a symbol of Mary's undefiled virginity (Salzer 12:21), later also of her Immaculate Conception. The fortifications of the tower are a symbol of Mary's virtues, the many shields (1,000 shields) are virtues or signs of heavenly protection against the devil.

Using Psalm 61, this illustration paraphrases the following verse and attributes it to Mary, "You are a tower of strength against the foe" (Psalm 61:4).

I've been looking for some mediations on it from great Catholic thinkers; I've found this from Cardinal John Henry Newman:

A TOWER in its simplest idea is a fabric for defence against enemies. David, King of Israel, built for this purpose a notable tower; and as he is a figure or type of our Lord, so is his tower a figure denoting our Lord's Virgin Mother.

She is called the Tower of David because she had so signally fulfilled the office of defending her Divine Son from the assaults of His foes. It is customary with those who are not Catholics to fancy that the honours we pay to her interfere with the supreme worship which we pay to Him; that in Catholic teaching she eclipses Him. But this is the very reverse of the truth.

For if Mary's glory is so very great, how cannot His be greater still who is the Lord and God of Mary? He is infinitely above His Mother; and all that grace which filled her is but the overflowings and superfluities of His incomprehensible Sanctity. And history teaches us the same lesson. Look at the Protestant countries which threw off all devotion to her three centuries ago, under the notion that to put her from their thoughts would be exalting the praises of her Son. Has that consequence really followed from their profane conduct towards her? Just the reverse—the countries, Germany, Switzerland, England, which so acted, have in great measure ceased to worship Him, and have given up their belief in His Divinity while the Catholic Church, wherever she is to be found, adores Christ as true God and true Man, as firmly as ever she did; and strange indeed would it be, if it ever happened otherwise. Thus Mary is the "Tower of David."

I know a lot of Protestants are wary of Marian devotions because they feel it leads to Mary worship, and idolatry, but I have never found that to be the case. I think that meditating on the life of Mary and the devotion she held for her son is a great way of coming to understand Christ's love for us. I do not believe she is idle in Heaven; and to venerate her is to honor Him whom she accepted, gave birth to, raised, followed, interceded with (specifically at Cana), tended lovingly after his death on the cross, and whose Holy Spirit she received with the Apostles at Pentecost.

I believe she truly was, and is, a tower of strength.

According to Fr.Zuhlsdorf, quoting CNA, "beatification is imminent."

I'm an admirer of Cardinal Newman, particularly for his sermons. He had a real gift for the English language, and for explaining Catholicism, that makes him one of my most trusted sources for inspiration and quotes.

I took the Belief-o-Matic.

My results:

Your Results:

The top score on the list below represents the faith that Belief-O-Matic, in its less than infinite wisdom, thinks most closely matches your beliefs. However, even a score of 100% does not mean that your views are all shared by this faith, or vice versa.

Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in order of how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, the more closely it aligns with your thinking.

1. Eastern Orthodox (100%)
2. Roman Catholic (100%)
3. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (87%)
4. Seventh Day Adventist (80%)
5. Orthodox Quaker (78%)
6. Hinduism (62%)
7. Orthodox Judaism (60%)
8. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (60%)
9. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (54%)
10. Islam (53%)
11. Jehovah's Witness (51%)
12. Sikhism (45%)
13. Liberal Quakers (42%)
14. Jainism (35%)
15. Bahá'í Faith (35%)
16. Mahayana Buddhism (34%)
17. Theravada Buddhism (34%)
18. Reform Judaism (32%)
19. Unitarian Universalism (30%)
20. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (22%)
21. Scientology (20%)
22. New Thought (19%)
23. Neo-Pagan (17%)
24. Taoism (17%)
25. Nontheist (14%)
26. New Age (11%)
27. Secular Humanism (10%)

If they threw in a couple of questions on Papal Authority and the Filioque clause, then certainly Catholicism would have come in first.

I was asked recently by a niece how I viewed other faiths, and I responded to her as follows.

I am a Catholic. If I could not be a Catholic I would be Orthodox. If I could not be Orthodox, I would be an Anglican. If I could not be an Anglican, I would be a Lutheran. If I could not be a Lutheran, I would be a Presbyterian. If I could not be a Prebyterian, I would be a Methodist. If I could not be a Methodist, I would be a Baptist. If I could not be a Baptist, I would be a Congregationalist. If I could not be a Congregationalist, I would be a Unitarian. If I could not be a Unitarian, I would be a Mormon.

If I could not be a Mormon, I would be a Jew. If I could not be a Jew, I would be a Muslim. If I could not be a Muslim, I would be a Buddhist. If I could not be a Buddhist, I woud be a Taoist. If I could not be a Taoist, I would be a Hindu.

And if I could not be a Hindu, I would worship the Sun.

I suppose there are other things I could have named. I suppose Zoroastrianism and various flavors of African Pantheism are also still practiced on the Earth; I suppose that Gardnerian or Celtic-style wicca is also a theoretical possibility, though more likely I would create an Elvish liturgy around the works of Tolkien, if I had to pick a mid-twentieth century British writer to base a religion on.

And I honestly do not know enough about Methodism to determine whether to place it ahead of Presbyterianism in my schema of Protestant faiths. But that's a rough breakdown.

I judge every faith by its decree of accord with Catholicism; because I believe that Catholicism is true. Put simply, I believe in two things. I believe that Jesus Christ is who He says He is. And I believe the Catholic church is what it says it is. If you accept those two things, then everything else follows.

Joy Behar promotes a stunningly ignorant stereotype of Catholic sainthood on The View.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by this, for anti-Catholic bigotry is still broadly socially acceptable.

But to her point, I'd like to make some observations. The first is a simple one. Catholics do not worship statues. Nor do we worship saints. I suppose I could walk through the explanation of the difference between dulia and latria which St. Augustine -- who was not known for hearing voices in his head, by the way -- made in the fourth century, by way of explanation to the ignorant Romans, but I think I'll leave that for Ms. Behar's homework assignment. She clearly is in need of doing some reading on theology and history; she makes no new arguments here, but simply rehashes things which were answered in ancient times by men more educated than me. That Joy Behar is as ignorant as a Roman should not surprise me; we are all born into ignorance. Some of us choose to educate ourselves, but there is no compulsion to learn; a freedom for which I suppose I ought to be thankful.

But more importantly, she makes a characterization of Catholic saints as simply being in need of anti-psychotic medications. The reason we have no saints, in her argument, is because there is now sufficient medication to prevent otherwise psychotic people from hearing voices in their heads.

By way of rebuttal, I'd make two observations.

First of all, there are many types of Catholic saints. Some are known for having visions and hearing voices, certainly. Some were educators. Some chose to help the poor. Some founded hospitals. Some advanced philosophy to the point where their works are still considered relevant today. Some renounced worldly things to show mercy to the dying. Some wrote books about architecture. Some of them have names that are virtually synonymous with kindness and charity.

In short, there are as many different types of Catholic saint as there are types of people; I read about the saints every day as I do my Liturgy of the Hours, and I am most impressed by the sheer catholicity of Catholic saints, above all else. They come in all types, from all walks of life. They are recognized for service in all manner of human endeavor. To dismiss them as simply being in need of medication displays a poverty of understanding and knowledge that frankly, is sad.

They are not in need of medication.

They are the medication.

They are the medication for a world in which we think only of ourselves, care only about how we look, and think only of money and our own pleasure. They are the medication for a world which is so bored, rich, ignorant, and dismissive that it can employ people like Joy Behar to tell us how to be bored, rich, ignorant and dismissive.

The world is in need of the Catholic saints. Profoundly so. Now more than ever.

Second, I would also suggest a reason why there are so few saints today. It is because too few of us do anything of merit for our fellow human beings, and so few of us are holy, that God cannot speak to us. We harden our hearts and we speak of His lack of pity. We blind ourselves and we speak of His invisibility. We think only of ourselves, and claim He cannot be seen in others.

I pray to the saints every day and ask them for help. And today, I ask them to help remove the terrible shackles of ignorance that blind Joy Behar to their merits.

Hat tip to Hot Air.

Since the beginning of Advent, I've been reciting the Liturgy of the Hours in Latin, having obtained from Paxbooks, the Vatican's publisher, a copy of the Liturgia Horarum. I am not fluent in Latin by any means; and it has been a learning process. Typically I will sight-read a paragraph in Latin, translate it in my head, and correct my poor translation against the English language version of the Liturgy of the Hours, which has a more or less perfect correspondence with the Latin, although there are some minor layout differences. This has worked well for the Antiphons, Psalter, the Proper of the Seasons, the Proper of the Saints, and the Readings.

But where it hasn't worked is with the hymns. The Liturgia Horarum has in it the ancient Latin hymns, and the Liturgy of the Hours has more modern English hymns. What I've been in need of is a Latin-English hymnal that has all the old Latin hymns in it, with a good side by side English translation.

Thanks to the site MusicaSacra, I have now found what I needed -- a PDF copy of The Hymns of the Breviary and Missal, a 1922 work by Fr. Matthew Britt, O.S.B., which not only has a side by side translation of the hymns, but a Latin first-line index. It is also set up along the church calendar (granted, it is the old Tridentine calendar, and not the calendar of Vatican II, but that is only a minor problem as I can find the major feasts, solemnities, and memorials easily enough). It also gives, for each hymn, a history of the hymn and a history of the various translations of it. All in all, a rather remarkable work. They also have republished it in book form, and I will put it on my list of Catholic books to buy. As the site notes, it does not contain the music for the hymns, but as I recite the hymns and do not sing them, this is not a problem for me, and the book meets my current liturgical needs just about perfectly.

In reading it, though, I confess to becoming a little angry. The old Latin hymns are of great antiquity; some of them being written by St. Ambrose himself in the fourth century. They are in beautiful, poetic Latin, and more importantly, are profoundly theological in their character. There is none of the mawkish sentimentality or artificially dumbed-down personality that so many modern hymns have.

The ancient hymns are like a grove of thousand-year old oak trees that have been bulldozed in order to put up a McDonald's. I feel a little like Treebeard the Ent surveying the damage done by Saruman when I consider some of the liturgical reforms of the 1960s. No serious person could consider a hymn like Te Lucis Ante Terminum or the Pange Lingua against, say, "Here, I am Lord" and consider the substituting of the latter for the former to be anything other than a sickening act of vandalism -- the musical equivalent of the madness of Laszlo Toth. Once again, I look at the 1960s generation and can only say "What were you thinking?"

I read the old hymns, and I weep for my birthright, which was traded, like Esau's, for a bowl of lentils.

UPDATE: OK, to be fair, the English hymns in the Liturgy of the Hours don't feature the warblings of the St. Louis Jesuits, and the English hymns in it are fairly staid. But I sincerely wish that more of the ancient Latin hymns would find their way back into the Mass.

The Pope faces east, the media freaks out.

The Pope, or a university?

The answer's here.

The protests are set to culminate with a 'sonic siege' involving music played from loudspeakers mounted on a truck in the campus' main square during Benedict's main address, students said.

Who's silencing dissent? The Pope, or scientists?

Sixty one Italian scientists have signed a letter protesting against a planned visit this week by Pope Benedict XVI to Rome's Sapienza University because of his stated views on Galileo.

In a letter to Renato Guarini, the university rector, the scientists said the visit was "incongruous". The signatories include distinguished physicists such as Andrea Frova, author of a study of Galileo's persecution by the Church, and Carlo Maiani, the recently appointed head of the Italian National Council for Research or CNR.

The letter said scientists felt "offended and humiliated" by a statement made in 1990 by the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - the modern descendant of the Inquisition - suggesting that the trial of Galileo for heresy because of his support for the Copernican system was justified in the context of the time.

Oh, boo hoo. Poor scientists, offended and humiliated by something that happened four centuries ago.

Such brave freethinkers!

Lots of good information at Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam on the Jesuits' GC35 in Rome, where the Society of Jesus is meeting to pick a new General, including this tidbit:

Four of the last seven theologians admonished by the Vatican are Jesuits: Roger Haight, Jacques Dupuis, Anthony De Mello and Jon Sobrino. The dilemma between the call to obedience and dialogue "with the street" is something the Company ought solve in these crucial days.

The best thing that could happen, in my view, is that the Jesuits get a General who returns them to the intent of their founder and to the traditions of their order, namely:

1. Absolute loyalty to the Pope.
2. Absolute fidelity to the Magisterium of the Church.
3. A return to the Spiritual Exercises and traditional Jesuit formation.
4. A re-engagement with the Scholastic theology of St. Thomas Aquinas.
5. A re-embrace of the Sacred Heart as a Jesuit devotion.

I view this as unlikely. The Jesuits have this romantic notion of themselves as the intellectual vanguard of the church (instead of simply following the Pope, as Ignatius of Loyola founded them to do), and in my view, have collectively fallen to the terrible sin of Pride. They think of themselves as being the Church, rather than of themselves as soldiers of the Church -- or, they define the Church according to the tenets of Liberation Theology, as some sort of collective unconscious of the people, rather than seeing it as an organization that is hierarchical, and built on the rock of Peter.

I do not doubt that there are good Jesuits in the order, but I despair that there are far too few to save their order from the radicals. I'd like to see a Jesuit General take the five steps outlined above, but suspect they'll do the exact opposite.

In which case, I hope that the Pope does what Paul VI should have done in the 1970s, which is to suppress the order. I say that with some sadness, for my father was Jesuit-educated, and I owe much of my understanding of the faith to him and to his teachers.

It's a shame, because I think an order set up as Ignatius originally founded it is a) desperately needed, and b) would be hugely successful.

But I think the Jesuits have lost interest in that.

I have fallen too far behind in my reading of the Liturgy of the Hours to keep going in Latin; so for the few weeks of Ordinary time coming up before Lent, I'm going to return to saying the Hours in English only.

I've found that while the Hours in Latin are, for me, more powerful, they also require more time as I translate/refer to the English -- particularly the Office of Readings, with its long passages of difficult Latin from Scripture and from the Saints. Time-wise, I've decided that humility is the better part of valor for now. I'll get caught up, and then I'll break out the Liturgia Horarum as preparation for Easter.

I do this with some sadness, but I have come to recognize that keeping the hours is more important to my spiritual well-being than doing it in Latin. And by doing it in English, I can carry one simple Breviary around with me to pray from when I get a few minutes, rather than carrying around English, Latin, and a Hymnal.

I am currently a full week behind, and am still in the week of the Epiphany.

Another suggestion I've received is that I simply omit the week of the Epiphany, but I do not want to miss any of the readings. Silly, perhaps, as in a pure sense, I've already missed them -- and my soul feels it. But I intend to get caught up by reverting to my mother tongue until Lent, at which time, I'll break out the Latin. It is a fine language in which to be penitential.

Clear Cleek, outside Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Their website is here, with plenty of pictures.

Gerald Augustinus has more, including a link to this story in the Tulsa World.

I think that the recovery of the contemplative is the first step in healing the ills of the world. Our life is so filled with distractions that we miss out on the spiritual. But the spiritual, compared to the physical, is more than three to one, to adapt a maxim of Napoleon's to better use.

Rorate Caeli, which is a vast treasure trove of information, has a link to a translation of Pope Benedict XVI's letter to the Jesuits, which is up on Creighton University's site.

Like much of Benedict XVI's writing, there is steel beneath the velvet. He reads like a kindly old professor who nonetheless makes sure that his student understands the lesson. He is patient and thorough.

He makes some of the same points I suggested in this post as the first two things the Jesuits need to do -- so, I guess the Pope and I are on the same page at least.

To my first point, on the absolute fidelity to the pope:

Indeed regarding this theme, how can one not recognize the valid contribution which the Society offers to the Church’s activity in various fields and in many ways? Truly a great and meritorious contribution, one which only the Lord will be able to rightly reward! As did my venerated Predecessors, the Servants of God Paul VI and John Paul II, I too gladly wish to take this opportunity of a General Congregation to bring such a contribution to light and, at the same time, to offer for your common reflection some considerations which might be of encouragement for you and a stimulus to implement ever better the ideal of the Society, in full fidelity to the Magisterium of the Church, such as described in the following formula which is well familiar to you: “To serve as a soldier of God beneath the banner of the Cross and to serve the Lord alone and the Church, his spouse, under the Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ on earth” (Apostolic Letter Exposcit debitum, 21 July 1550).

One treats here of a “peculiar” fidelity confirmed also, by not a few among you, in a vow of immediate obedience to the Successor of Peter “perinde ac cadaver”. The Church has even more need today of this fidelity of yours, which constitutes a distinctive sign of your Order, in this era which warns of the urgency of transmitting in an integral manner to our contemporaries — distracted by many discordant voices — the unique and immutable message of salvation which is the Gospel, “not as the word of men, but as it truly is, as the word of God”, which works in those who believe.

In other words, "We appreciate everything you've done. Now, it is time to be loyal." Perinde ac cadaver -- which is the guidance of the Jesuits' founder, Ignatius of Loyola, on the subject of fidelity, I translate as "like unto a corpse", i.e., even unto death. As the body responds to the mind, so the Jesuits should respond to the Pope.

As for the second point, fidelity to the Magisterium,

That this might come to pass, it is indispensable — as earlier the beloved John Paul II reminded participants of the 34th General Congregation — that the life of the members of the Society of Jesus, as also their doctrinal research, be always animated by a true spirit of faith and communion in “humble fidelity to the teachings of the Magisterium” (Insegnamenti, vol. I, pp. 25-32). I heartily hope that the present Congregation affirms with clarity the authentic charism of the Founder so as to encourage all Jesuits to promote true and healthy Catholic doctrine. As Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, I had the opportunity to appreciate the valid collaboration of Jesuit Consultors and experts, who, in full fidelity to their charism, contributed in a considerable way to the faithful promotion and reception of the Magisterium. Certainly this is not a simple undertaking, especially when called to announce the Gospel in very different social and cultural contexts and when having to deal with different mentalities. I therefore sincerely appreciate such labor placed at the service of Christ, labor which is fruitful for the true good of souls in the measure in which one lets oneself be guided by the Spirit, remaining humble as regard the teachings of the Magisterium, having reference to those key principles of the ecclesial vocation of the theologian which are delineated in the Instruction Donum veritatis. The evangelizing work of the Church very much counts on the formative responsibility which the Society has in the areas of theology, of spirituality, and of mission. And, really so as to offer the entire Society of Jesus a clear orientation which might be a support for generous and faithful apostolic dedication, it could prove extremely useful that the General Congregation reaffirm, in the spirit of Saint Ignatius, its own total adhesion to Catholic doctrine, in particular on those neuralgic points which today are strongly attacked by secular culture, as for example the relationship between Christ and religions; some aspects of the theology of liberation; and various points of sexual morality, especially as regards the indissolubility of marriage and the pastoral care of homosexual persons.

In other words, we aren't changing church teaching, so it's time for you to do your job and start teaching it.

And now a bit of a digression, which is a little silly, but perhaps you will indulge me . . .

A point the Pope doesn't make is an observation that's come to my mind in the last few days. Remember, that in any anti-Catholic literature, the Jesuits are supposed to be the bad guys. For instance, in the detestable, but nevertheless always inadvertantly amusing Chick tracts, they are the secret force motivating the Nazis, as revealed in the Alberto comic book series (I've really got to do a panel by panel fisking of the Chick tracts; it would truly be entertaining).

Now think of recent anti-Catholic literature. In The Da Vinci Code, who are the bad guys? Not the Jesuits, but Opus Dei. Opus Dei isn't even a religious order, and Dan Brown had to invent the idea that Opus Dei has assassin monks. How badly have the Jesuits lost their way? They're no longer feared by the Church's enemies, or painted as bogeyman to scare small children. That job now belongs to Opus Dei.

Why criticize the Jesuits? No one's afraid of the Jesuits anymore.

If the Jesuits want to regain their status, they really have to get that bad guy mojo working again.

UPDATE: The Jesuits choose Father Adolfo Nicolas as their general. He's largely unknown outside the Jesuit order. Here's hoping he acts as an agent of reform within the order. It surely needs it.

St. Paul will not be exhumed this year.

That is all.

UPDATE 2: Made a slight edit to my phrasing because my original wording was a little too uncharitable.

UPDATE: I have set up a category for arguments against Islam called Arguments Contra Islam. I will try to make here my case, as a Catholic, for why I believe Islam is false. For a Catholic, this a relatively simple logical proposition, as there is, in both religions, a core doctrine of teaching which is said to be infallible. Finding area where those doctrines disagree will naturally highlight areas where one of them must be false. The arguments assume that Catholicism is doctrinally correct in all of its pronouncements that are creedal, promulgated by an Ecumenical council, are made Ex Cathedra by the Pope (which is a very limited body of work), or come from the clear meaning of Scripture, also held to be infallible. In other words, the argument is made from a Catholic point of view, so they are theological arguments, not philosophical ones. Some people reject such arguments because they maintain you have to argue everything from first principles; e.g., prove that I exist or that you exist, prove that there is a God, etc. I would argue that you can spend your time arguing in that direction if you wish, but that we won't get very far in this lifetime unless we start by stating what we believe, and argue from there. My starting point is Catholicism (as, I certainly hope, is my ending point). I still expect that the arguments generated will still be of interest to those who do not accept Catholicism and may even be useful to a non-Catholic who is also not a Muslim, who is trying to reason against Islam. I expect the arguments will be useful because I am confident they are true whether you accept them or not. Naturally, I will invite commentary, criticism, and attempts at rebuttal.

The First Argument

Islam can be shown to be false because of Sura 3:59-3:60 of the Koran, which states:

[3:59] The example of Jesus, as far as GOD is concerned, is the same as that of Adam; He created him from dust, then said to him, "Be," and he was.

[3:60] This is the truth from your Lord; do not harbor any doubts.

The Nicene creed, of course, says otherwise:

Begotten, not made, one in being with the Father . . .

The Nicene Creed is infallible; it was promulgated by the ecumenical council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. To view Christ as being a mere creature is heresy, and therefore the Koran cannot have been dictated by an angel of God, as angels who are not fallen are incapable of speaking falsehood, participating, as they do, in the Beatific Vision.

If the Koran is false, then Islam is false.

Q.E.D.

CWN's Off the Record alerts us to the following: the Church of Ireland doesn't think the Pope is the Antichrist:

Attention has been drawn in the media to a remark attributed to Mr Wallace Thompson, secretary of the Evangelical Protestant Society, suggesting that the views he expressed, in which the Pope is described as “the Antichrist" does not conflict with the main teachings of the main Churches. The Church of Ireland wishes to point out that no such description of the Pope is contained in any of the formularies or the historic documents of the Church of Ireland.

Jack Chick will be disappointed -- evidently the Beast has subverted another Protestant denomination:

Must be those pesky Jesuits.

Contrary to the historical information you might get from some of Hollywood's sillier efforts, the last days of Marie Antoinette were not filled with buying shoes and eating candy.

Christine at Laudem Gloriae has translated a series of essays called Les Aumoniers de la Guillotine (The Chaplains of the Guillotine) by French writer Jacques Herissay that shed some light on how the Catholic monarch spent her last days. They are a fascinating account of the revolution, its antipathy toward religion, and how fragile the practice of religion truly is if the state ever throws its weight against it. I do not imagine things are much different today in places of the world where the Church is persecuted; that such things could happen in France, at one time the most Catholic of countries, should be a warning that it could in theory happen anywhere.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

I use the term "theologians" advisedly.

Here's what they were arguing:

Last June, three Dominican theologians in the Netherlands issued a pamphlet entitled Kerk en Ambt ("Church and Ministry"), which was fashioned as a response to severe shortage of priests in that country. The pamphlet, which was circulated widely among Dutch parishes, argued that in the absence of an ordained priest, any Catholic-- male or female, married or unmarried, homosexual or heterosexual-- could preside at the Eucharist. That role, the pamphlet said, "is not a prerogative reserved to the priest." The pamphlet was circulated with the approval of Dominican provincial leaders in the Netherlands.

This is clearly contradictory to Church teaching; Christ gave the Eucharist to the Apostles at the last supper, and the Church has always maintained, from its earliest times, that the priesthood derives its authority to consecrate the host as a part of their apostolic succession; the priest being delegated that authority from his bishop, who, in Catholic ecclesiology, is the heir to an Apostle. A layperson lacks the authority to consecrate. Period.

The relevant passages from the Catechism have been gathered and summarized here, at the Adoremus site.

Just because one is a Dominican, and a "theologian", does not mean one can simply make stuff up. You can't simply say "Nuh uh" to the Catechism and decide that the old rules no longer apply. The hubris of these Dominicans is shocking; frankly, I think the entire leadership of the Dominican order in the Netherlands needs to be summarily sacked for this outrage.

While not going quite that far, the Vatican did act swiftly:

The Dutch pamphlet drew calls for a response from the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which in turn asked the leaders of the Dominican order in Rome to address the matter. The resulting report from Rome-- of which La Croix has obtained a copy-- is frankly critical of the Dutch pamphlet, saying that the authors distort the teachings of the Church and particularly the documents of Vatican II.

The report from Rome, dated January 23, does not call for disciplinary action against the Dominicans responsible for the pamphlet. But it directs the Dutch Dominicans to publicize the response in all the parishes where the original pamphlet was circulated last year-- as many as 1,500 parishes.

The best response to pride is to enforce a little humility, I suppose.

The Dominicans in Rome would probably done well to leave it at that, but they did manage to slip in a little coded message to the Dominicans in the Netherlands that said "We sympathize."

The Roman response acknowledges the severity of the shortage of priests in the Netherlands, and the need to make plans to serve the pastoral needs of parishes without priests. However, the document remarks, any such pastoral plans must be made with an eye to the teachings of the Church and the need for unity among the faithful.

The author of the Roman response, the French Dominican Hervé Legrand, does express some sympathy for the Dutch Dominican theologians on one issue: the question of priestly celibacy. On that issue "there must be a debate," the document says, noting that "the current situation for priests is not the only one possible."

Sometimes loyalty means keeping your mouth shut. Yes, the Dominican theologians have to eat their pamphlets in front of 1500 parishes. But why do the Dominicans' superiors in Rome open an issue that the current pope has already considered? Wouldn't the better answer simply be to say "As a matter of doctrine you're wrong; retract the pamphlets in front of the 1500 parishes" and leave it at that? This "discipline" practically bats the Order's eyes and says "Oh, you're so right, but we can't say that publicly."

Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but that's what the Dominicans in Rome really seem to be saying here.

And I'd like to pose this question to the Dominicans in the Netherlands -- you complain that recruitment to the priesthood is down, and yet you're doing everything in your power to say that the priesthood has no meaning, anyway. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you might be contributing to the problem?

I have an RSS feed that monitors information on the Pope; this morning it rewarded me with this neat British documentary on YouTube in which then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger takes the filmmakers on a tour of the Vatican (the film was shot when he was still a Cardinal, though before it was released, he became Pope, so the film references that fact). It's pretty interesting. Unfortunately, it's only the first ten minutes of the 45 minute documentary. The entire thing is available on DVD at their site.

It is a little amusing because the filmmakers come at the subject with very little knowledge of the Church -- or are presenting it to viewers whom they assume have very little knowledge of the Church -- so it is a little gossipy and conspiratioral in its tone. Still, some good photography and some neat behnd-the-scenes stuff.

The new Jesuit General meets with the Pope . . .

ROME: The new leader of the Jesuits met Saturday with Pope Benedict XVI and told him the religious order would study the pontiff's invitation to confirm their "total" adhesion to Catholic teaching, including on divorce, homosexuality and liberation theology.

Consider: the Society of Jesus contains some of the most educated men on Earth. Fr. Nicolas reportedly speaks five languages, fluently. Yet the Society is so baffled by a simple call for obedience that it has to study the letter.

What's to study? The letter is here. Its meaning cannot be missed, even by the simpleminded.

The Jesuits have had a tense relationship with the Vatican on issues of doctrine and obedience. The Vatican occasionally disciplines Jesuit theologians and issues reminders of the their vows of obedience to the pontiff.

The operative word being "occasionally." If the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith really wanted to, they could probably censure a different Jesuit every week.

The Rev. Adolfo Nicolas, a Spanish missionary and theologian with extensive Asian experience who was elected as superior general Jan. 19, had a "warm and friendly conversation" with the pontiff, the Jesuits said on their Web site.

Shortly before Nicolas' predecessor, Dutch priest Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, handed in his resignation for reasons of age, he received a letter from Benedict in which the pope said it could be "extremely useful" if the Jesuits reaffirm "total adhesion to Catholic doctrine."

The pope wrote Kolvenbach that he was particularly concerned about "those neuralgic points which today are strongly attacked by secular culture," according to the text released by the Jesuits.

The pope cited "aspects of the theology of liberation, and various points of sexual morality, especially ... the indissolubility of marriage and the pastoral care of homosexual persons," the letter said. Church teaching forbids divorce. It also says homosexual acts are sinful.

In past decades, some of the Jesuits' work with the poor in Latin America left the Vatican worried that some Jesuits were embracing liberation theology and Marxist political movements.

Kolvenbach, elected leader in 1983, was widely credited with improving the Jesuits' tense relations with the Vatican.

The Jesuits said Benedict was pleased to hear from Nicolas that Jesuits had formed a committee to study his letter to Kolvenbach.

I wager he was less pleased than he let on . . .

A committee of Jesuits is needed to study the letter? Are the Jesuits really so unfamiliar with the concept of obedience that they need more than one to ponder the mysteries and nuances of the idea? "Strange idea . . . this obedience . . . we will have to study it . . . "

Benedict and Nicolas also discussed Japan, where the Jesuit had served for 33 years. Nicolas has said the West doesn't have a monopoly on meaning and spirituality and that Asia has much to offer the Church.

I'm curious as to how the Pope responded to that. My response would probably have been something along the lines of "It does have a lot to offer. Namely, converts."

It is a strange world we live in when the Jesuits are ready to embrace odd spiritual notions out of Asia, but have to form a committee to understand the simplest concepts out of Western spirituality.

One of my favorite saints has his feast day tomorrow, on January 28th. I'd be remiss if I didn't point out the feast day of the Angelic Doctor.

A fairly staid and sober biography of him and a summary of some of his thought can be found here.

But my favorite stories about him are the ones found in the Golden Legend, the great medieval repository of saints' stories.

We sometimes overthink the problem; and want to look at the medieval saints through modern eyes. It is good to peruse the Golden Legend from time to time to get an idea of how a man's contemporaries saw him.

CWN's Off the Record points out that a Jesuit columnist is calling for reopening the discussion of women's ordination.

The article is penned by Fr. Raymond A. Schroth, S.J., at Nj.Com, whose biographical sketch notes that he is professor of humanities at St. Peter's College. You may remember St. Peter's College from the recent news coverage; where the most pro-choice candidate in the upcoming Presidential election was recently allowed to hold a pep rally. It is perhaps too much to expect the college's faculty to simply teach Catholic doctrine.

In the list of issues which have alienated otherwise faithful Catholics -- the sex scandal, the bureaucracy resistant to change, the lack of moral leadership concerning torture and the war -- the leadership role of women is bubbling to the surface.

I'll tell you what has most alientated me, a faithful Catholic -- the refusal of teaching orders such as the Jesuits to display the proper degree of obedience to church teaching and to the Pope. But I digress . . .

In some ways, their leadership is ascending: More women than men go to college, women are university presidents, catechists, liturgists, eucharistic ministers; but the glass ceiling is low. The rule that the issue of women's ordination is "closed" hits like a club. So, in reaction, women are ordaining one another. Is this good?

News stories -- a personal account of 12 ordained on a Pittsburgh riverboat in August, a program for the ordination of four at Judson Memorial Church in New York last July -- and the National Catholic Reporter's (Dec. 7) comprehensive study of the Womenpriests movement ordaining 50 since 2002, hitting its peak with 23 in 2007. For dramatic effect, and because no parish would welcome them, the rituals have taken place on the Danube river, the Saint Lawrence Seaway, and in a synagogue.

I don't know that "more" fake ordinations are occurring than did previously. I don't know what goes on in every Wiccan prayer circle in the world. But I think the press is giving these blasphemies more credulous attention than they did in the past.

Who presides? What bishop, needed for validity, administers the sacrament? On the Danube, an Argentine bishop regarded as a schismatic provided "validity." A leading woman bishop, South African Patricia Fresen, says the document validating her place in the apostolic succession is notarized and sealed in a bank vault. But the ordaining male prelates will not reveal their names.

Just because a bishop lays hands on her does not mean she necessarily has valid Apostolic succession. I'm no Jesuit, but I believe she would have to be canonically eligible to be ordained and she would also have to demonstrate that she holds to church teaching -- which, ipso facto, she does not, in that part of Church teaching is that women cannot be ordained.

Does the church need woman priests? The evidence rises that it does. The evidence begins in the New Testament: the prominence of women at the cross and resurrection, Christ's friendship with Mary and Martha and other women; women church leaders in th Acts of the Apostles. The Biblical Commission declared over 30 years ago that Scripture raised no obstacles to women's ordination.

And the Pope, in this case, John Paul II, declared fewer than fifteen years ago, that Scripture did indeed raise obstacles:

In the Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem, I myself wrote in this regard: "In calling only men as his Apostles, Christ acted in a completely free and sovereign manner. In doing so, he exercised the same freedom with which, in all his behavior, he emphasized the dignity and the vocation of women, without conforming to the prevailing customs and to the traditions sanctioned by the legislation of the time."

In fact the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles attest that this call was made in accordance with God's eternal plan; Christ chose those whom he willed (cf. Mk 3:13-14; Jn 6:70), and he did so in union with the Father, "through the Holy Spirit" (Acts 1:2), after having spent the night in prayer (cf. Lk 6:12). Therefore, in granting admission to the ministerial priesthood, the Church has always acknowledged as a perennial norm her Lord's way of acting in choosing the twelve men whom he made the foundation of his Church (cf. Rv 21:14). These men did not in fact receive only a function which could thereafter be exercised by any member of the Church; rather they were specifically and intimately associated in the mission of the Incarnate Word himself (cf. Mt 10:1, 7-8; 28:16-20; Mk 3:13-16; 16:14-15). The Apostles did the same when they chose fellow workers who would succeed them in their ministry. Also included in this choice were those who, throughout the time of the Church, would carry on the Apostles' mission of representing Christ the Lord and Redeemer.

Surely Father Schroth remembers John Paul II, right? I'd also point out to Father Schroth that John Paul closed Ordinatio Sacerdotalis with these words:

4. Although the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents, at the present time in some places it is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or the Church's judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is considered to have a merely disciplinary force.

Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful.

Invoking an abundance of divine assistance upon you, venerable brothers, and upon all the faithful, I impart my apostolic blessing.

When the Pope invokes Luke 22:32 and says "this judgment is to be definitively held", well, this judgment is to be definitively held. Not questioned every few years. Not raised again and again. You cannot have a cookie, so stop asking. But ask he does . . .

Finally the silence on women's ordination has been broken by the American bishops -- specifically the South American bishops of Brazil, who last spring issued a document pointing out that 75 percent of their weekly celebrations were without a priest. "We must have the courage to change . . . Conservative tendencies," they said, "must not stop the church from making prophetic gestures. The access of women to the ordained minister is a pending debt."

Is the women's current strategy of defying authority and ordaining one another, sometimes in dubious circumstances, good for the church? I don't think so. As Cardinal Avery Dulles told the New York Times, "If I could get a friend to swear me in as governor of New York, would that make me governor?" These talented women, better educated than most priests, lose their current jobs where they are doing good in order to say home masses for friends who will forsake their parishes, to perform marginal apostolates without institutional approval or support. They consider themselves Catholic, but they become, in effect, one more Protestant sect.

Worse, they effectively silence themselves by cutting themselves off from the institution. They give the bishops one more excuse to ignore the value of their cause.

Do we really need priests if they are going to promote things contrary to the teaching of the church? I will argue that we certainly need more good priests. But someone who ordains themself a priest illicitly and pronounces themselves Catholic, to the confusion of the faithful, is hardly someone we want teaching the faithful. I would argue that by their very act of disobedience they are demonstrating exactly the reason why they ought not to be priests.

But the women have reminded the silent bystanders of the whole church's responsibility to speak for them. The big univesities -- like Fordham, Notre Dame, Boston College, Catholic U., and Georgetown -- have the opportunity to sponsor public hearings, to bring together scholars to lay out the scriptural, sociological, and theological arguments on both sides. There are practical as well as theoretical problems. If the arguments of the opponents hold water, let them demonstrate that in open discussion. Get the bishops to listen and say what they really think, not just what Rome wants to hear.

Check the Acts of the Apostles, 5:38, when the apostles are imprisoned and the famous elder Gamaliel says to the council, let these men go: "If this plan or this undertaking is of human origin it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them -- in that case you may even be fighting against God."

Ah yes, public hearings at the big universities -- many of them who no longer hold to any sort of Catholic doctrine. This would quite quickly descend into a liberal show trial complete with protestors and fawning media coverage.

And as for the quote by Gamaliel, I'd point out that using Father Schroth's own reasoning, this passage could be used to justify just about anything. Why not temple services to Moloch while we're at it? If God doesn't strike us dead, it must be permitted, right?

I think it would simply be better if Jesuits like Father Schroth accepted the Pope's decision, and taught the doctrine of the Catholic Church. That doctrine does not need to be changed by the opinion of the world -- that doctrine needs to go forth and transform the world.

It isn't my intent to make this blog a polemic against Jesuits in general, or Fr. Schroth in particular. But in reading some of his entries at nj.com, I came across his rather interesting endorsement of Barack Obama, entitled "Why Obama Now."

Naturally, I thought to myself, "A Catholic priest endorsing Barack Obama. This ought to be very interesting, especially in light of the fact that Barack Obama is the most pro-choice candidate in the election." I wondered how Fr. Schroth would successfully reconcile Obama's tireless support of abortion (100% NARAL rating) with the guidance from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on the subject:

To make such intrinsically evil actions legal is itself wrong. This is the point most recently highlighted in official Catholic teaching. The legal system as such can be said to cooperate in evil when it fails to protect the lives of those who have no protection except the law. In the United States of America, abortion on demand has been made a constitutional right by a decision of the Supreme Court. Failing to protect the lives of innocent and defenseless members of the human race is to sin against justice. Those who formulate law therefore have an obligation in conscience to work toward correcting morally defective laws, lest they be guilty of cooperating in evil and in sinning against the common good.

But, I read the whole post and abortion is not even mentioned.

Consider also that Obama is not only 100% with NARAL in his voting record in the U.S. Senate, he also has shown hostility to babies who somehow manage to survive abortion, as pointed out in this article by Amanda Carpenter at Human Events, which is appropriately titled "Obama More Pro-Choice Than NARAL".

In 2002, as an Illinois legislator, Obama voted against the Induced Infant Liability Act, which would have protected babies that survived late-term abortions. That same year a similar federal law, the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, was signed by President Bush. Only 15 members of the U.S. House opposed it, and it passed the Senate unanimously on a voice vote.

Both the Illinois and the federal bill sought equal treatment for babies who survived premature inducement for the purpose of abortion and wanted babies who were born prematurely and given live-saving medical attention.

When the federal bill was being debated, NARAL Pro-Choice America released a statement that said, “Consistent with our position last year, NARAL does not oppose passage of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act ... floor debate served to clarify the bill’s intent and assure us that it is not targeted at Roe v. Wade or a woman’s right to choose.”

But Obama voted against this bill in the Illinois senate and killed it in committee. Twice, the Induced Infant Liability Act came up in the Judiciary Committee on which he served. At its first reading he voted “present.” At the second he voted “no.”

The bill was then referred to the senate’s Health and Human Services Committee, which Obama chaired after the Illinois Senate went Democratic in 2003. As chairman, he never called the bill up for a vote.

Naturally, you read things like that and you begin to wonder what beef Barack Obama has with children? I would think, that as a minimum, any Catholic even considering support of Obama would have to have some pretty grave reasons for supporting him, if Obama's position on abortion did not immediately disqualify him from consideration. Considering the reputation -- justifiably earned -- that members of the Society of Jesus have gained for their ability to make coherent, rational arguments, I expected something of substance from Fr. Schroth's post endorsing Obama.

But I guess I was expecting too much. Here's what we got.

This afternoon I came more-or-less face-to-face -- along with 3000-4000 others -- with Barack Obama at his stick-of-dynamite rally here at Saint Peter's College, and now I know clearly for myself why he must become the next president of the United States.

I have covered five Democratic National Conventions since 1968 and grew up listening to FDR. These media and personal encounters help us decide who should lead us.

My students and I arrived at 1:30, informed that we had to go in and sit tight until the candidate would arrive at about 3:45. The choir girls from Saint Dominic's Academy down the street sang beautifully. At 4:55, an hour late, partly because he had paused to work the crowd of 2000 outside who could not get in, Obama, to wild applause, jogged up the steps to the podium.

Reason 1: he's dynamite. Actually, in reading that last sentence, I actually retched a little. Obama was receiving wild applause from an audience at a Catholic college. A Catholic college, that, if one actually listens to the Catholic bishops, he should not even be addressing:

The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.

No platforms for pro-choice politicians.

And yet, at St. Peter's, we have this thing. This rather platform-looking thing.

But I guess the Bishops didn't mean a literal platform; they only meant a metaphorical platform. I was not Jesuit educated, so perhaps these fine distinctions elude me.

But back to Fr. Schroth:

You know what he said. He's running now, not later, because now we have been deceived into an unjust war, the planet is in peril, we work harder for less and less, and young men stand on the street corners rather than go to college or do meaningful work. His mother died at 53 of cancer and never saw her grandchildren and should have had better medical care. And he runs because we are a decent and generous people willing to work hard for the common good.

Whether the war was unjust or not can be debated. Whether we were deceived into it (presumably by a malicious Bush administration) or whether the CIA simply got a lot of the data wrong (which would also explain President Clinton's and Vice President Gore's repeated assertions that Iraq had and/or was seeking weapons of mass destruction) can also be debated. Fr. Schroth believes that; I won't argue with him on that point.

As for young men standing on the street corners rather than going to college or work, I am rather struck by the fact that there are far fewer of them due to our liberal abortion laws, which disproportionately kill children who are poor and black. In fact, if Obama is elected President, I rather wonder if he won't eliminate the poverty among our urban youth by simply eliminating our urban youth. The policies he has embraced seem to be making a rather unfortunate head start on it.

And as for that last sentence -- Obama runs because "we are a decent and generous people willing to work for the common good"? Are we to believe his ambition plays no part in this? I would hate to think that Obama is running for President because of any virtue of mine; please, Lord, if that is the case, then let me have more vice.

Why Obama? He is very intelligent. There is no substitute for intelligence. His experience as a community organizer, as well as in the Illinois legislature and the U. S. Senate has given him the political skills to be a true bridge between parties who disagree with one another. This bridge-building, I conclude from reading a lot about him, is a virtual religious conviction. And he has demonstrated this by declining to throw mud in his campaign.

Well, there are a lot of intelligent people out there. I think John McCain is pretty intelligent. And we are told by our betters in the media that Hillary Clinton is the smartest woman who ever lived. Mitt Romney seems pretty bright. And despite all their tent-preacher rhetoric, I have to assume that John Edwards and Mike Huckabee are far more intelligent than they let on. As for bridge building, I guess I'd have to say "show me the bridge." It is part of American lore, however, that not everyone who offers you a bridge necessarily owns it. As for throwing mud, well, the election isn't over quite yet.

His instincts on foreign policy are obviously saner than those of the so-called "experienced" people now in power who, for ideological or economic reasons, have dragged us into the Iraq war and can't wait to start another with Iran. Today the United States is universally reviled for its aggressive, domineering foreign policy. He would present a fresh face to the world.

He's agin war. I get it.

He is the only candidate in either party with the courage to address the problem of the young black men on the street corners who drop out of school and drift into lives of crime.

As discussed above, indeed he is addressing it. Indeed he is.

He is the only candidate whom I have heard say parents must turn off the TVs and take away the video games and get their children to read and that the school curriculum must include art, music, and literature.

Finally, watching him when he engages a crowd, either from the podium or one-on-one, he appears to be a genuine, idealistic human being, at ease with who he is, both charismatic and humble, who speaks beautifully crafted sentences without a note, which he really believes. He looks people in the eye, he pays attention, he listens, he at least tries to answer. He is what he presents himself to be. We need that.

I'll wager he's even kind to strangers, visits his Grandmother on weekends, and never saw a puppy he didn't want to hug.

But I look at Barack Obama, and I see a guy who will continue the policies that kill a million children a year. Those are hard numbers -- the hardest numbers of all. And unless I am presented with a choice of two candidates whose views are equally evil on the subject of abortion, there is no way I could ever endorse Barack Obama.

I think Fr. Schroth ought to look deep in his heart and ask himself whether he ought to be endorsing him, either. I think he at least ought to offer an argument as to why abortion does not immediaely disqualify this man.