The Virtual Abbey

I know: excuses, excuses. Just sent my new school a theology paper, and have been working like a Jesuit in a Chick tract to subvert humankind in my day job.

The adage "no rest for the wicked" seems incredibly apt to me.

More soon.

Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, PA, is often criticized by more conservative Catholics for his work on the English translations used in the liturgy, which are seen by many (myself included), as not being faithful enough to the Latin.

So it pleases me to be able to praise him.

Mercyhurst College, a Catholic college in his diocese, hosted a Hillary Clinton campaign rally. Bishop Trautman informed them he would not be attending their commencement.

Yet another platform . . .

I am proud that the bishop's are beginning to rally in defense of the faith. I am proud that Bishop Donald Trautman is defending the faith.

A new "voodoo pope", so to speak.

Time to stock up on sacramentals, I suppose.

And, for the record, is it me or is the New York Times speaking out in support of zombies here?

The movie industry is another focus of Mr. Beauvoir’s wrath. And he speaks as something of an insider, having helped the anthropologist Wade Davis with his investigation of voodoo, which first became a book, “The Serpent and the Rainbow,” and later a Hollywood movie. On the big screen, zombies are scary monsters, Mr. Beauvoir complained, and not the carefully controlled subjects of voodoo science that he believes them to be.

Zombies always get a bad rap . . .

“The voice of Hollywood has grown beyond the border of the United States,” he said. “It’s everywhere. The voice of Max Beauvoir is very small compared to that.”

Amen to that, Mr. Beauvoir. Amen to that.

This post is really only tangentially about the movie No Country For Old Men, so I won't call it a movie review. Somebody told me that No Conutry For Old Men recently won the Academy Award for Best Picture. I saw the movie recently, and frankly, I flat out refuse to believe it.

I'm not even sure that No Country For Old Men is a movie. I'm not sure what it is, exactly. I usually consider myself a fan of the Coen brothers, who made it, primarily because of my appreciation fo their entertaining film The Big Lebowski. I was somewhat less enchanted by Fargo, considering it to be too bleak.

But in No Country, I'm afraid the Coen brothers have gone too far. Lebowski, despite the fact that it is, on many levels, an amoral and debased thing, at least managed to mock nihilism. And Fargo, despite its great emptiness, managed to convey some hope of a normal society in the form of its pregnant sheriff. But No Country is dark, empty, and nihilistic.

The basic premise of the story is that a trailer-dwelling Texas hunter named Llewelyn Moss, played by Josh Brolin, stumbles across a drug deal gone bad in the desert. A dying victim of the shootout, presumably one of the drug dealers, is dying, and asks him for water. The hunter ignores the man. He finds a suitcase containing two million dollars, and takes it. He feels a sense of remorse later that night and returns to the crime scene, bringing a gallon of water for the man. Unfortunately, other parties have also arrived on scene, presumably from the organizations involved in the drug deal, and Moss has to flee on foot, leaving his truck on the scene.

He knows this means he will be pursued by the drug lords, who will track him down from his vehicle information, and so he goes on the lam.

Throughout much of the movie, he is pursued by a professional killer, named Anton Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem. Chigurh is so completely evil that there are absolutely no traces of humanity remaining in him. He is as impersonal as the shark in Jaws. Basically, he kills everything in his path while pursuing Moss.

Following behind both men is a sheriff, played by Tommy Lee Jones. He is a somewhat sad and thoughtful character, and he simply cannot understand what motivates the two men. He does not know why Moss does not come clean and turn himself in, and he does not know why Chigurh is so completely evil, although he undertsands that he is.

The problem with the movie is the problem of our culture. It is one of focus. The Coen brothers follow the three men, and we're not sure who the hero of the movie is. We'd like to think it's Tommy Lee Jones, but of the three, he spends the least time on screen. We'd like to think that it's Josh Brolin, but it really isn't. He ends up dying rather stupidly, killed in a shootout with secondary characters.

The problem of the movie is that the real hero is Javier Bardem's character, the serial killer, Chigurh. Like Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, he escapes at the end of the movie, presumably to go on killing people for no good reason. Tommy Lee Jones's character just retires at the end, fed up with a world that no longer makes any sense.

Now, to a point, I sympathize. I too am getting to an age where the world no longer makes any sense, and like Tommy Lee Jones's character, I too consider just simply walking away.

But that's not an answer to the problem. We do that, and no one stops Chigurh.

I look at our culture and I see what it is becoming. It is becoming a breeding ground for monsters. That much anyone can see.

The reason I fear that Hollywood made this movie best picture is because they are, secretly, rooting for the monsters.

Anton Chigurh is, like Hannibal Lecter, a monster on the loose. Both movies end with a serial killer escaping. Both movies have a problem of moral focus, of seeing a killer in a light that if it is not sympathetic, it is at least neutral.

Both movies win Best Picture.

Of course, the differences between Silence of the Lambs and No Country for Old Men are also plain to see. In Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter is a rather interesting side character, but he is not the hero. And in Silence of the Lambs, the bigger monster, Buffalo Bill, is caught and killed. In the Silence of the Lambs, the law, as personified by Jodi Foster, is young, callow, and manages to triumph, if not completely, then at least partially.

How far we've progressed in 16 years. How much we've grown.

I shudder to think what Hollywood will teach us next.

I am, as I have related, studying Catholic theology. And I am beginning to see that Catholicism is not merely a part of our culture, or a part of our history, or a system with a lot of truth in it.

Catholic theology is our culture. Catholic theology is our history. Catholicism is the truth.

Now those may seem like rather sweeping statements. But the more I read, the more I am convinced it is so.

The problem with our society is that we have cut ourselves off from our roots. At the root of Western civilization is a lot of Caholic theology. It is the system that makes Western civilization work. It is the thing by which everything else in society can be measured, for good or for ill. It is the culture complete; from creation myth to eschatology, with a good deal of moral thinking and corproate structure in between. Nothing else approaches its scope, nothing else tries to explain the entire universe, nothing else is a system of everything.

Where society ails, Catholicism has not been tried.

Now in my studies i'm slogging through the Cathechism. The Catechism was produced during John Paul II's pontificate, and is the first major overhaul of Catholic teaching in four hundred years. It refers a lot to the documents of Vatican II, but also makes extensive use of Scripture, previous Catechisms, church councils, and the writings of the saints and the church fathers. It is a big, ponderous tome.

But rich. Full of truth. Full of answers.

It was overseen, naturally, by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is, of course, now the Pope. I am convinced that both John Paul II and Benedict XVI are not only historical figures, but I am convinced that they are pivotal historical figures. I'm convinced that if our culture and our society pulls itself out of the tailspin it is currently in, what with its best pictures that are apologias for serial killers, it will be seen as the work of these two men, these two old men, who lived through enough of the horrors of the twentieth century that they wanted to set something down that could guide people back to what our culture used to be, to what it used to value. If our culture is indeed, unfit for old men, then the Catechism is a book that is a roadmap to a country where both old and young might yet live.

I was recently reading the section of the book on the clergy and the laity, which is near the end of Section I of the catechism, and I came across the interesting section on Catholic lay organizations:

Secular institutes

928 "A secular institute is an institute of consecrated life in which the Christian faithful living in the world strive for the perfection of charity and work for the sanctification of the world especially from within."470

929 By a "life perfectly and entirely consecrated to [such] sanctification," the members of these institutes share in the Church's task of evangelization, "in the world and from within the world," where their presence acts as "leaven in the world."471 "Their witness of a Christian life" aims "to order temporal things according to God and inform the world with the power of the gospel." They commit themselves to the evangelical counsels by sacred bonds and observe among themselves the communion and fellowship appropriate to their "particular secular way of life."472

Societies of apostolic life

930 Alongside the different forms of consecrated life are "societies of apostolic life whose members without religious vows pursue the particular apostolic purpose of their society, and lead a life as brothers or sisters in common according to a particular manner of life, strive for the perfection of charity through the observance of the constitutions. Among these there are societies in which the members embrace the evangelical counsels" according to their constitutions.473

I was thinking that church reform comes about through renewal movements, often through monastic movements. In barbarian Europe, the monasteries were built to be islands of Christian civilization in a sea of monsters, self-contained communities that reformed the countryside around them.

I was thinking that it might be time to start thinking along these lines.

Our society is breeding monsters; what we need to do is form communities that fight those monsters. Seriously -- you turn on the news and it is like reading Beowulf -- each week, someone else is snatched from their bed and murdered by some fresh monster. I'm tempted to set up a Secular Institute or a Society of Apostolic Life that is devoted to, like Beowulf, finding the monsters, fighting them, tracking them back to their lairs, and killing them before they kill us.

Not that I'm sure that the Vatican would approve of that.

But seriously, our society is getting so crazy that we're going to have to start organizing communities that agree to live by a certain set of rules. We rise for morning mass, we do our jobs, we say vespers, and at nine o'clock, the doors are barred and a few of us keep watch to keep so that the monsters are kept at bay.

We cannot trust that our neighbors are good people, that the police will even answer the phone, or that society even cares to keep the monsters from growing. Make no mistake -- our culture is growing monsters, and we need to start thinking about the common defense.

At First Things . . .

In November 2007, the Committee on Ethics of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) published Committee Opinion # 385 entitled, “The Limits of Conscientious Refusal in Reproductive Medicine.” The committee opinion sought to “maximize accommodation of an individual’s religious or moral beliefs while avoiding imposition of these beliefs on others or interfering with the safe, timely, and financially feasible access to reproductive health care that all women deserve.”

Unfortunately, the balance struck by the committee between the right of conscience of physicians and the reproductive health care of women so emphasizes patient autonomy that it turns physicians into medical automatons forced to act against their best ethical and medical judgment. As pointed out on March 14, 2008, by Health and Human Services secretary Mike Leavitt: “The ACOG ethics report would force physicians to violate their conscience by referring patients for abortions or taking other objectionable actions, or risk losing their board certification.” Put simply, committee Opinion 385 could be the end of the pro-life doctor.

According to the ethics report, physicians objecting to abortion or contraception must refer patients desiring such services to other providers (recommendation # 4); may not argue or advocate their views on these matters though they are required to provide prior notice to their patients of their moral commitments (recommendation #3); and, in emergency cases or in situations that might negatively affect patient physical or mental health, they must actually provide contraception and/or perform abortions (recommendation #5, emphasis added).

Read the whole thing . . .

I seriously think we are approaching a time where Christians will simply have to live apart.

Taylor Marshall gives us a checklist of heresies. See how many of them you recognize today.

Docetism teaches that Jesus only appeared to be human as a phantom. On the contrary, the Catholic Church teaches that Christ if fully God and fully human.

Arianism teaches that Jesus not fully God, but only like God in a subordinate way. On the contrary, the Catholic Church teaches that Christ if fully God and fully man.

Nestorianism teaches that Jesus is two “persons” - Jesus the human son of Mary and Jesus the divine Son of God. On the contrary, the Catholic Church teaches that Christ is one person with two natures: divine nature and human nature.

Monophysitism teaches that Jesus is fully God but not fully man, the humanity of Christ being swallowed up by His divinity. On the contrary, the Catholic Church teaches that Christ has two natures: divine nature and human nature.

Monothelitism teaches that Jesus has only one divine will. The Catholic Church teaches that Christ has two wills: a divine will and a human will belonging to His human soul.

Iconoclasm teaches that images are idolatrous. On the contrary, the Catholic Church defends the use of Christian (not pagan) images since Christ became visible through the incarnation.

Pelagianism denies original sin and teaches that grace is not necessary for salvation. On the contrary, the Catholic Church teaches that we are born in original sin and saved by grace through faith and works.

There are no new heresies. There are only old ones dressed up in new forms. Sometimes they combine to attack God from a number of angles, but they can usually be broken down into their component parts.

If there's one missing from the list, it's Gnosticism. Gnosticism does not believe that the world is inherently good; it believes that matter is the creation of a fallen being known as the Demiurge, and that we are chained to matter. We are only freed because of illumination, or wisdom, sent by the benevolent creator God to free us from this world. Usually Gnosticism allies with Pelagianism and Docetism.

Gnosticism is supposedly the latest rage again, but I doubt very few admirers of The Da Vinci Code who think of themselves as Gnostics really understand its implications. I had a friend praise Gnosticism to me and I simply replied, "Yes, matter really is evil, isn't it. Curse our evil human bodies."

Naturally, this answer surprises so-called modern Gnostics, who don't understand anything about true, historical Gnosticism. In reality, modern Gnostics are a form of Pelagians, who believe in the perfectability of man without any sort of divine intervention, or Arians, who simply want to deny the divinity of Christ. Probe what they believe, and you'll usually find that their philosophy consists of the premise that any cudgel is good enough, provided it is used to strike Mother Church.

Ever wonder why conservative Catholics get frustrated with liberal Catholic universities? You need look no further than yesterday's Washington Post. Dr. Patricia McGuire, the president of Trinity College, argues that what Catholic colleges need is yet more freedom to explore . . . .

Mindless dogmatism is not part of the Catholic intellectual tradition. As stewards of that tradition, Catholic colleges and universities engage in the robust "dialogue of faith and reason" that the church expects of us, exploring the complex mysteries of God, the profound meaning of human life, the social-justice imperatives of the Gospel.

Critics of Catholic higher education, however, seem to expect us to be submissive disciples of some lesser religion, obedient to a doctrinaire laundry list of "Thou Shalt Nots" -- e.g., "Thou Shalt Not" stage a play about women's body parts ("The Vagina Monologues"), allow gay students to form clubs or allow speakers whose political views diverge from church teachings.

Actually, we were hoping you would proclaim the faith.

We know that there must be a dialogue between faith and reason, but why is it that on Catholic campuses, that dialogue is always to the detriment of faith? Catholic colleges act as though the faith is unclear in its teachings, that the faith is some great unkown, and that reason is the only light to guide us. Actually, the faith is quite simple -- you need only buy yourself a copy of The Catechism of the Catholic Church to see what faith teaches us. After reading it, Dr. McGuire, you can easily see what the dialogue between the faith and, say, The Vagina Monologues must be -- a simple declaration that the play is beneath the dignity of consideration by Catholics. Put the two next to each other, Dr. McGuire, and see which has more intellectual merit.

But we don't ever get that discussion, as much as Catholic college presidents like to say we do. Instead, the truth is hidden under a bushel, and the worthless trash of our culture is paraded around and celebrated for all to see. This is what we object to. We're not moralists, Dr. McGuire -- or better, we are not just moralists -- we are intellectuals. The Vagina Monologues are trash. If you cannot see that, you have no business being a college president, or even, frankly, in considering yourself to be literate.

When Pope Benedict XVI visits Washington this week, he will have a special meeting to address the presidents of Catholic colleges and universities. Critics have swung into full smackdown mode, predicting that the pope will lambaste the presidents for failing to prohibit activities the critics deem offensive.

The image of us presidents as wayward boys and girls assembled before the pope for chastisement feeds into the most pernicious anti-Catholic stereotype of mindless adherence to theocratic rulers. For Catholics to encourage the kind of actions that bolster such banal stereotypes is the real scandal.

Really, doctor, you mustn't deprive us of our fantasies. Indeed, we'd like to imagine that the Pope will issue a statement criticizing the universities' abandonment of the faith. We find that easier to believe than that a Catholic university president will ever protect and defend that faith. We must have the first dream, for some fantasies are beyond even our imaginings.

The pope and the presidents have more serious and urgent business to consider together in the name of our faith. Civilization itself is beset by profoundly consequential choices among radical forms of religious and political beliefs, creating deep chasms within the global community and threatening long-term war and violence that undermine the peace essential for true human dignity.

Most of this is, of course, pure nonsensical academic cant. But notice how Dr. McGuire slips in the inference that the pope and the university presidents are somehow working together? They're considering the urgent business, we lesser mortals mustn't interfere with them. Pure nonsense. The problem is a simple one -- on the great issues that divide us, the Pope and the university presidents are on opposite sides. And as for the radical forms of religious beliefs causing great chasms, Dr. McGuire, let's be honest -- surely you can see that there is only one religion that is causing the great chasms -- and that religion is Islam. I don't see too many radical Catholics strapping bombs to themselves and walking onto buses in Tel Aviv, do you? Don't lump conservative Catholics in with the nuts in the world, Dr. McGuire.

Ours is a world with extreme economic disparities in which a small percentage of the planet's inhabitants consume almost all of the resources while billions lack even the most fundamental sanitation, shelter, food or education. The mission of Catholic higher education is to educate citizen leaders to enable them to address these grave moral and social challenges with conscience, conviction and intellectual strength.

So, in other words, the Catholic church is merely a form of socialism. There is no spiritual or moral dimension for it to address. It has nothing to say on, say, sexual morality. It is only about the redistribution of wealth.

If that's your view of the faith, Dr. McGuire, then I'd simply ask, why bother? Why not worship the wax figure in Lenin's tomb rather than the living God whose tomb is empty? If Christ only came to redistribute wealth, he needn't have bothered -- we've figured that all out by ourselves.

The seminal Vatican document on Catholic higher education, known as Ex Corde Ecclesiae, posits a remarkably contemporary view of the purpose of Catholic higher education. The document reflects the lively intellectual life of its author, Pope John Paul II, who had long experience as a university professor before moving into the hierarchy. Ex Corde Ecclesiae embraces the fundamental nature of a university as a place of free research and true higher learning leading to the discernment of truth, which is the heart of our faith. To suggest that Catholic universities are not places where intellectual freedom can flourish betrays the very teaching of the church itself, which is respect for our academic freedom.

There is truth to be discerned, to be certain, Dr. McGuire, but you seem to have forgotten that certain truths have also been revealed. There is Scripture, there is tradition, there is the teaching Magisterium of the church. In your quest to discern the truth, have you forgotten about the truths which the Catholic church holds as revealed, truths revealed by God himself? Are we to ignore the truth we know in pursuit of the truth that the meager light of reason might yield to us, contemplating, arguendo, the many slang terms for the vagina?

Nothing in Ex Corde Ecclesiae expects Catholic universities to diminish our identity as normative institutions of higher learning. On the contrary, Ex Corde calls us to an active life as real universities with the additional distinctive dimension of taking the dialogue of faith and reason into the culture, with all of the complex problems that may pose.

Of course, church leaders, including institutional presidents, also expect Catholic colleges and universities to manifest clear respect for the church and its moral teachings across the spectrum of issues in human life and moral conduct. How we manage that expectation within our respective communities of diverse scholars and students exercising their free-speech rights is at the white-hot center of many controversies. Controversy itself is sometimes the most fruitful way to teach about our faith.

I'm sorry, but that's just simply wrong. Catholic universities mustn't simply show respect for the church and its moral teachings -- though that would be a nice start. There isn't some kind of neutrality or agnosticism allowed here. The Church is not merely something to give lip service to, while teaching whatever we damn well please. A Catholic university must proclaim the faith and defend it. It must examine all knowledge in light of the truths that have been already revealed. These truths are not unknown to us, and are not mere academic conjectures. They are there in plain print. Read the Catechism and hold to it. Any knowledge gained by a Catholic university along the way is a great and wonderful thing, but realize that the truth is found in the person who died on Calvary. All other knowledge, next to Him, is really just gravy. And if a Catholic university leads away from him, it is simply no longer a Catholic university. Period.

The critics would have us ban plays, speakers, student clubs, faculty members and alumni guests whose words or deeds run contrary to the most orthodox interpretation of Catholic teaching. A great silence would descend on most Catholic campuses if we did that. Rather than being afraid of the expression of contrary ideas, we should leverage the teaching opportunities inherent in the free and open exchange of ideas that is essential to university life. If our faith is as strong as we claim it to be, we should not fear the cacophony that emerges during the struggle of learning.

So instead of a silence in which, perhaps, the voice of God might be heard, we must ceaselessly bleat whatever the culture tells us to bleat? How about simply saying that the culture is badly in need of reform, and we will not contribute to its demise by going along with what everyone else is doing? Is that really so hard?

We needn't be silent when it comes to our culture. In fact, I think we are obligated to speak. But that speech shouldn't always be in agreement. In light of the bankruptcy of today's culture, I'd say that we must not be silent. We must speak in opposition.

Hat tip to Diogenes, whose own take is, of course, priceless.

I will try to be charitable, but this Newsweek article by Lisa Miller is the most idiotic thing I've read all week.

The cameras will begin to roll on Tuesday, and despite what's sure to be wall-to-wall coverage of ceremonial events, punctuated by mind-numbing dissections of the pontiff's veiled pronouncements, the truth is that among American Roman Catholics, excitement about this pope and his trip is remarkably low. It's not just that Benedict pales in comparison to his predecessor John Paul II in almost every respect, including looks, vitality, charisma, showmanship, tenure and popular appeal—facts so obvious that even Benedict's defenders concede them immediately before trying to spin their man's "timid" temperament and essential "humility" as spiritual assets. It's that Benedict himself has done very little to win the hearts of his American flock at what may be the most critical moment in their history.

This is the pope we're talking about, here. Not Leonardo DiCaprio. Not the American Idol contestants. What is his job? To be the central point of unity and the authoritative teacher for the world's nearly 1 billion Catholics. Catholicism, if you haven't noticed, isn't based on showmanship, charisma, or popular appeal. It is a pretty stoic and conservative religious tradtion, based on the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Son of God, who took on humanity in order to overcome sin and death through an expiatory sacrifice.

And if the author of this post had any insight into that religion, she'd understand that humility is indeed a spiritual asset. In fact, it is a requirement for approaching God.

Ever since the Second Vatican Council, the gap between what the church teaches and what the American laity practices has been growing ever wider. According to a 2005 survey by Catholic University sociologist William D'Antonio and his colleagues, 58 percent of American Catholics believe you can be a "good" Catholic and disregard the church's teachings on abortion. Sixty-six percent believe you can ignore its position on divorce and remarriage. Seventy-five percent believe you can disregard the ban on birth control. Seventy-six percent think you don't have to go to church every week.

So, what is it we need? Charisma? Showmanship? Maybe we need someone who knows how to teach theology. Maybe we need someone who knows how to uphold the teaching of the church, like someone with a little Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith experience.

Oh, right.

In 2005, the number of Catholic laypeople who said their leaders' credibility had been hurt "a great deal" by the crisis rose to 42 percent from 33 percent two years earlier. What American Catholics want now—to generalize for a minute—is to feel something, a catharsis, a connection to their tradition, a sense that their leaders see and hear how difficult it can be to be a Catholic in this imperfect and chaotic world.

Or maybe we need to stop feeling and start thinking. Maybe we need to excommunicate the guilty and remove a few more bishops. Maybe we need to remind people that there is, indeed, a hell. Maybe all this mushy feeling nonsense is part of what got us in trouble in the first place. Maybe if a few more seminaries had protected the priesthood from the congenitally disordered back in the 1950s and 1960s, or a few more bishops had the backbone to not tolerate predators but to ruthlessly and systematically eliminate the miscreants instead of sending them for "counseling" and "treatment," we wouldn't be having this discussion. And maybe a nice little catharsis party where we all hold hands and sing "Kumbaya" isn't the answer.

Maybe, instead, we need a fellow in charge who has proven that he is clear-thinking.

It's not just his unfortunate visage that puts people off, or his predilection for the more outré aspects of papal fashion (antique chapeaux and ermine-trimmed capes), or his decades employed as John Paul's theological enforcer. It's that Benedict is a Christian believer first and an intellectual second, a man who shows little comfort on the global stage with the messiness of human life and politics. The Rev. Keith Pecklers, a professor at Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, recalls Benedict's early efforts to connect with the masses in St. Peter's Square. "He didn't know what to do with his hands," Pecklers says. "He doesn't naturally reach out and touch babies or anything."

Personally, "not touching babies" is actually somewhere near the top of my list of qualifications for a priest. This is a bad thing?

In fact, one could argue that Benedict has been engaged in a lifelong battle against the supremacy of feeling—against the idea, so popular in America today, that feelings about God come from within. "If the church … is viewed as a human construction, the product of our own efforts, even the contents of faith end up assuming an arbitrary character," Joseph Ratzinger told an interviewer in 1985. For Benedict, God is Truth with a capital T and exists before and outside humans and institutions. That Truth is the only authority, and that authority requires obedience. Benedict's fans say he is at his most eloquent and inspiring when teaching about that Truth. His theology is hardly radical, but it is orthodox. It's not that he doesn't care about people, it's that he wants people to care more about Jesus.

More Jesus, less self absorption. Sounds like a plan to me.

John Paul believed in the same truth, of course. His genius lay in his ability to inspire and lead a billion Catholics—in all their various and contradictory permutations—with his own humanity. He hiked, he skied, he grew infirm and then more infirm before our eyes. "When he prayed it was physical," a Dominican priest in Poland told NEWSWEEK after John Paul died. "He sighed deeply and made grunting sounds like a lion." No matter what Benedict's defenders say about his sense of humor or his love for Mozart, no matter how they explain away his impolitic comments at Regensburg, they cannot convince the American church that he, in any but the most abstract way, resembles the people he was chosen to serve.

Funny, but "grunting like a lion" wasn't, to me, a major qualification for the job. That's not a knock on John Paul II. His papacy had a different mission, which was to convince the world that Catholicism was not dead. He did more to revive the faith than anyone could have imagined; he will doubtless be named a saint within the next year or two, and for good reason.

But Benedict's job is different. John Paul converted people. Benedict has to catechize people. And if Benedict doesn't resemble the highly dysfunctional American church, than in my view that is a plus, not a minus.

The majority of American Catholics are not naive. They don't actually believe that Benedict will overhaul church teachings on birth control, on the ordination of women or the celibate clergy—many of them don't want him to. What they want, at the communion rail and in the person of their Holy Father, is the unity their church promises them, a sense of connectedness through God with all the other Catholics—indeed, all other people—in the world and in heaven. This is not a shallow or frivolous desire but an urgent one, and when it comes to Benedict, so far these Americans aren't feeling it.

I'm sorry, but I disagree. If you want to feel connected to other Catholics and to the communion of saints, there is a very simple formula for it. It is to confess one's sins, receive communion regularly, and devote oneself to regular and serious prayer.

It doesn't start with the Pope being glamorous. It starts with the individual being humble.

Res ipsa loquitor.

Welcome, Holy Father.

I could not improve on this post by Diogenes if I tried. I will not then try, but will simply link it and thank him for writing it.

Read it in full.

UPDATE: The post makes reference to this excellent post by Father Neuhaus, too. Fr. Neuhaus has been providing some of the color commentary on EWTN, and his coverage there has been measured and polite, but he makes his opinions more fully known here.

Also well worth reading in full.

A while ago, I was thinking about St. Joseph. It has been a few weeks since I first started thinking about him in more than a cursory way, but I wanted to share some of my thoughts on this remarkable man because I was impressed by certain aspects of his character which became manifest to me while reading Scripture.

I think he is an underrated saint. By which I mean that while he is certainly a well known saint, and certainly one whom the Catholic church recognizes as being important, he has not captured the imagination in a way that many lesser saints have.

I first started thinking about him because I was thinking of two other saints who have always impressed me, the sons of Zebedee, James and John. Scripture recounts that either the sons of Zebedee themselves, or their mother, depending on the Gospel account you prefer, ask to be seated at Christ's right and left hand in paradise.

Mark's account, from Mark 10:35-38:

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him and said to him, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." He replied, "What do you wish (me) to do for you?" They answered him, "Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left."

You will perhaps see why I am impressed with James and John. They do not lack boldness. Matthew's account (Matthew 20:20-21) of the incident is somewhat different -- in this account, it is the saints' mother who makes the request:

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee approached him with her sons and did him homage, wishing to ask him for something. He said to her, "What do you wish?" She answered him, "Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your kingdom."

Again, a somewhat bold request. In both cases, Christ tells the requestor that the decision is not his, but rather belongs to his Father.

Well, I started thinking as to who might be seated at Christ's right and left in Paradise. It of course occurs to me that if the Good Lord didn't answer the question, then perhaps it is better left unasked, but I started thinking to myself, "Who ranks above St. James and St. John in Heaven?"

Three immediate names suggested themselves. First, in my thought, Christ's mother, the Virgin Mary, would certainly be accorded one of those two seats; given that she was uniquely involved in His mission. In Catholic doctrine, she among human beings is unique in that she was accorded the privilege of being born without sin and remained sinless her entire life. She gave birth to the Savior; he was, incarnate, begotten from the Father but made from her flesh. I would have to think that the seat on Christ's right belongs to her.

The second name that immediately jumped to mind was John the Baptist, for the Lord himself said (Matthew 11:11)

Amen, I say to you, among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

I do not take the Lord to mean that John the Baptist is not in Heaven, but rather that at the time, he was still alive, and therefore not yet in Heaven. I would have to think that John the Baptist, as the herald of the Lord, would indeed have a very high seat in Heaven.

The third name that occurs to me is the foremost of the apostles, St. Peter.

It took awhile, but then a fourth name occurred to me -- St. Joseph.

St. Joseph's reputation suffers from the fact that he only appears very early on in the Gospels. By the time of Christ's public ministry, most Bible scholars assume, that from his absence, St. Joseph must have already passed away. But consider his merits.

1. He was betrothed to the Virgin Mary. This indicates that at the time, he must have been considered a very worthy man indeed, for certainly the Virgin Mary's merits must have been apparent to her family. I would have to think that St. Anne and St. Joachim would have understood that their daughter was very special by the time she was of marrying age. For them to have consented to a marriage must have meant that St. Joseph was a very great and good man indeed.

2. St. Joseph, being pledged to the Virgin Mary, who must have been, in his eyes, the greatest of potential spouses, nevertheless accepted from God a commission that involved him foregoing ever marrying her in other than a nominal sense. In that, in Catholic doctrine, Mary remained ever virgin, it can be presumed that St. Joseph was also called to be chaste. A lesser man would have rejected both God's call and the already pregnant Mary. St. Joseph was able to accept from God a mission that must have been immensely humbling.

3. God put into St. Joseph's care two persons who were forever free from sin -- the Lord, and His mother. In raising the Lord, St. Joseph, we have to assume, was a good parent. While not himself free from sin, he must have been an inordinately good man for God to trust him to raise His son.

4. God trusted St. Joseph, upon hearing the voice of an angel in a dream, to leave Israel and to take the Lord and Mary to Egypt. This, to me, is the most telling piece of evidence. Presumably, the angel is not warning Joseph without good reason; although the Lord as an adult can call upon more than twelve legions of angels to defend Him, as an infant, he is very much in the care of his parents. The threat from Herod is presumably real; Herod could, were St. Joseph to fail in his charge, presumably kill the Lord.

Think about that for a moment. God the Father, at that moment, put the future salvation of mankind in the hands of a fallen man. Had St. Joseph simply ignored the dream, out of simple human frailty, the incarnation might have come to nought, and man's salvation might have died on the point of a soldier's spear.

Now yes, we have to presume that God would not have let that occur; that He would not have put the salvation of mankind at that ultimate risk, and would not have let His desire to save mankind fail. Had St. Joseph failed, perhaps the twelve legions of angels would indeed have issued forth to protect the Lord.

But I am nonetheless struck by the fact that St. Joseph did not fail. He did as he was asked, and left his country behind, crossing Sinai and going to Egypt. Like his namesake, he left his land in exile and went to Egypt; while not a slave sold to Ishmaelites, he was nonetheless a prisoner of necessity.

5. I am also struck by the story in Luke of Christ being found in the temple.

Each year his parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom. After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances, but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, "Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety." And he said to them, "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" But they did not understand what he said to them. He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus advanced (in) wisdom and age and favor before God and man.

Christ, although by his very nature subservient to no man, nevertheless subjects himself to the obedience of both his parents -- he was obedient to them. For a number of years, Christ delayed his mission, and was obedient to St. Joseph, honoring, in fulfillment of the law, his father and mother.

I have to think that St. Joseph, while not a perfect man, was nevertheless a man worthy of great honor and praise.

And I have a suspicion that the seat on Christ's left belongs to him.

I had a conversation this weekend with a number of friends this weekend who do not yet believe in Christ. They do not necessarily deny him, they simply do not embrace him. I tried a different tack and two new arguments, neither of which are probably new, but both of which were new to me.

1. An argument from antiquity. I argued that if there were a God, and he had revealed himself to mankind, he would probably do so from an early time on. This got no objections. So I argued that if one were to look for God, one would look for him in the oldest religions. Again, no objections. I then said that a religion that contained the truth would likely survive from ancient times to this day, for an all-powerful God could certainly nurture his religion. Skepticism, but no real objections. I then said that to me, the choice would be either Buddhism or Judaism (I did not consider Hinduism, because I believe pantheistic religions to be inherently incoherent). About the nature of the universe, I said that Buddhism and Judaism believe essentially contradictory positions. Buddhism believes there is no God, that the universe essentially revolves around primordial nothingess, to which it is seeking to return. Judaism believes there is a loving God at the heart of it all. So I said that this seemed to me in accord with the universe, because my experience of the universe has been that it is benign. So then I said the central proposition of whether one believes in Judaism per se or the religion that grew out of it, Christianity, is the question of whether God has sent a Messiah. I said that I read the Old Testament, particularly the book of Isaiah, and I see a messiah in it, who is personified by the new testament accounts of Christ. In Christianity, I hold to the oldest path, so among Christian religions, I am a Catholic.

2. The argument from free will. I said to my friends that there is a problem with God making himself too manifest in the world (in response to a point I often face, which is that God, if he exists, ought to make himself more manifest). I said that if there was a place you could go and see God face to face (say, a building or church), what would happen? They said there would be a line out the door of people waiting to see Him. I agreed. I said that also, so many people would walk away utterly convinced of God's existence that such a thing would destroy free will. Instead, I suggested, God places enough evidence in the world of His existence that he forces us to make a choice. There will never be and can never be a scientific proof for God, because such a proof would destroy our right to choose Him freely or not. Faith, then, for me, always begin with a choice. One examines such evidence as there is, and decides. I have looked at the claims of Christianity and am impressed with it. I believe that in the heart of the Catholic sacraments is God himself, hidden under a veil, but present enough to be seen if one chooses to see Him.

Good arguments? Bad arguments? Let me know what you think.

In my theology class, I had an assignment on how the church views the operation of grace and sin in Section Three of the Catechism.

I was very much taken with the description of the virtues. I think the examination of the virtues is a good way to examine oneself.

In looking at myself, I find that I am most deficient in the theological virtue of charity, and most deficient in the cardinal virtue of temperance.

So I am praying for both of these things; that the Holy Spirit fill me with both.

I have no proof of Denmark's existence.

I have never been to Denmark. I have never even met anyone from Denmark; though if I did they might not convince me that they were not a Swede pulling my leg.

I have read about Denmark's existence, to be sure. But I know it from both non-fiction and fictional works, so its existence in the World Book encyclopedia (the 1955 edition of which I read quite a bit of when I was a child) is counterbalanced by its being also setting for Shakesepeare's play: Hamlet: Prince of Denmark. Hamlet's Denmark might be based upon an actual Denmark, but the play is rather short on facts; the play could just as easily be based in Germany, unless gloominess is a characteristic Danish trait. Shakespeare did not base his account on World Book; but World Book's details of the place might be a colorful embellishment on a place invented by Shakespeare.

But I know of Denmark being accounted for in works which pre-date Shakespeare; the Danes were said to be fierce occupiers of Britain; the Danelaw is the place which was given to them when the Danegeld proved insufficient to keep them at bay. So Shakespeare may not have been the inventor of the fiction that is Denmark; it may be a carefully contrived conceit of historians from antiquity. It certainly seems so.

Of course you might show me things -- coins, stamps, souvenirs, and so forth. I would simply sigh and show you my collection of Galleons, Sickles and Knuts, and ask you if you've been to Hogwart's.

In exasperation, you would buy me a ticket. Go there, you would say. Go to Travelocity and book yourself a flight, and you could be there in the morning.

But alas, I shrug. I have no passport. And why should I book a plane that will certainly go to no such place, but merely to the place where those citizens who persist in the Denmark delusion are confined?

At this point, you may begin to lose your patience with me.

And you would be quite right to do so. I accept the existence of Denmark. I accept it because I have read about it, and do not believe that there is any motivation for authors who write about it to lie about it. In other words, I accept its existence based on the testimony of others.

I have no particular love of Denmark. I have no particular aversion to Denmark. If you show me pictures from your recent trip to Denmark, I will look at them patiently, ask you how the food and weather were, ask if you saw the city of Copenhagen, and so forth. You might tell me of the stangeness of the place or its relative familiarity; if you told me it was like Germany, I would have some idea of what you meant. If you told me they had strange dietary practices or the people were unusually rude, I would certainly weigh that against other testimony I have received. In my own experience, people have often told me that the French people are rude; I have traveled in France a few times and have not found that to be the case.

The Danes may well be beasts, or they may well be the exemplars of Christian charity. I can say that in my day to day existence, it matters very little to me.

Suppose you came to me and told me that you wanted to live there. That you had heard stories of the place from another friend who had told you how Denmark was better that any place on Earth; and having come to believe this, you were saving up your retirement money to eventually move there. You would dine on Danish delicacies such as Rullepølse and Ribbensteg and would spend your remaining days singing Danish songs and dancing Danish dances as the sun set in the background.

I might express a degree of surprise, and I might even think you somewhat eccentric, but would generally wish you well. I doubt I would try to talk you out of it. I certainly wouldn't argue with you, or tell you that the Danes are a filthy, backward people whom the Germans should have exterminated years ago -- even in jest. I would expect that you might take offense at this.

Now having said that . . . .

I have heard of a country called Heaven. I have read sufficient testimony of its existence to believe in it. I am working diligently to prepare myself to live there. I am acquainting myself with its peculiar customs, and trying to eliminate things in myself that might give offense to its denizens once I reach there. There are a number of vehicles that are said to go there, but I've done some due diligence and believe in the travel agent who is based in Rome; he's the one my family has used in the past and he has given me the most material to consider.

if I pester you with tales of heaven, I ask that you forgive me. It's just that what i hear of the place makes me want to share it. Maybe I'm looking for company on the journey, for I do not want my days there to be spent entirely in the company of strangers.

Tolerate me as an eccentric if you must. Humor me if you will. For if my journey seems Quixotic, it may be yet that I may be convinced of my error.

And If I'm wrong, we're headed to the same place anyway, so what difference does it make?