Catholicae Testudines

"What Benedict XVI Means"

George Weigel has a good article out. (And it's in the LA diocesan newspaper.)

Ever since the Second Vatican Council, some Catholics and most of the world media have expected --- and in certain cases, demanded --- that the Catholic Church follow the path taken by virtually every other non-fundamentalist western Christian community over the past century: the path of accommodation to secular modernity and its conviction that religious belief, if not mere childishness, is a lifestyle choice with no critical relationship to the truth of things

...it was expected that the Catholic Church would, indeed must, take the path of accommodation: that has been the central assumption of what's typically called "progressive" Catholicism. That assumption has now been decisively and definitively refuted. The "progressive" project is over --- not because its intentions were malign, but because it posed an ultimately boring question: how little can I believe, and how little can I do, and still remain a Catholic?
...
The conclave of 2005 also repudiated what might be called "50-yard-line Catholicism" --- the attempt to find the safe, comfortable, unthreatening "center" between "the extremes." Pope Benedict XVI, like his immediate predecessor, is emphatically not a 50-yard-line bishop. If one end zone is the truth of the world, and the other embodies a false story about the world and about us, you can't split the difference and rest comfortably at midfield. Benedict XVI, to press the imagery a little further, will not play to avoid the interception; he'll play for the touchdown.

B16's Coat of Arms

Triple crown, bear, seashell, keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, Moor's head, what more could you want in a Papal coat of arms?

Ever heard of Jack Van Impe?

Noted anti-Catholic Protestant tv preacher.  Formerly anti-Catholic Protestant preacher, that is.  Moved by the witness and preaching of Pope John Paul II, he and his wife have recently converted (Cor ad cor).

Update: Dave Armstrong, from whom I heard the report now says it was a false alarm.  Though he isn't actively anti-Catholic anymore, he hasn't converted yet.  But maybe if we pray for him he might.

Pope Benedict on the reform of the sacred liturgy

Reform of the reform, from Chiesa online.

Oh, yes, the Diamondback

Now that I'm done with my papers and take-home tests and such (for this week, at least), I remember what I was going to say.

I can't find the article right this second but someone told me something they read in the Diamondback.  The background of the discussion I was having about it was about how cold Dr. Mote, the President of the University, seems toward religion.  You see, a few weeks ago, we had a memorial Mass for Pope John Paul on the day of his funeral (a Friday) and made it a big event on campus, with announcements and everything, and it was well-attended because as you know, Pope John Paul was loved by Catholics and non-Catholics alike and respected even by those who didn't love him.  Anyway, Dr. Mote was invited, but not only did he not come, but he did not send anyone to represent the University, and did not even write a note saying thank you for inviting me but I decline to attend (which even if he had only done that Fr. Bill would have been happy, so to speak).  Fr. Bill eventually wrote to him, but when he didn't get any response, he wrote a letter to the editor of the Diamondback (the sort where clueless students [most of them] would only see the polite phrasing but people who understood would understand what was going on).  Also there is Mary's anecdote that she blogged about.

Anyway, someone was telling me that a Diamondback reporter was conducting an extensive interview of Dr. Mote which involved following him around all day on a work day.  And one thing he happened to remark to this reporter was that he didn't think too highly of any religion because he didn't see how he could be happy in heaven if his dog couldn't come with him.  My friend, upon reading this sought out the reporter and asked if maybe he was joking or being half-serious or funny, and got the reply, no, to all appearances he was deadly serious.

I am reminded of the part in the Baltimore Catechism where it is observed that if a little child has learned the first lesson of his catechism and taken it to heart, then he is wiser than a professor at the university who does not believe in God.

The Diamondback

Mary has informed me that the Diamondback, of which she is the editor of the opinion page (it is everyone's loss that her opinions only rarely get to be expressed therein), has requested (as many employers do) that she please not talk about the Diamondback on her blog.  However, as she pointed out, I am under no such strictures.  As I said, I could write a heroi-comedy about her and the Diamondback if I wanted.  But heroi-comedies are not that easy to write, even relatively short ones, and my standards for them are pretty high, as I have been reading Pope's Rape of the Lock lately.  Therefore you will have to settle for a haiku:

Gentle May zephyrs
Rustle the opinion page
Mary S. edits.

Now that I've gotten off on a tangent, what was it in the Diamondback that I was going to comment on?  Stay tuned for a later post.

Some irrelevant comments follow:

If only I spoke Japanese, then you could see the point of haiku structure.  You see, 5-7-5 syllables sounds arbitrary in English because of the varying syllable length, but even without knowing the language I can appreciate how felicitous and poetic combinations of five and seven syllables are in Japanese, so much so that people like to phrase aphorisms, slogans, and all manner of other things in such form.  For instance, I am told that a police notice once said: "kono dote-ni [5] noboru-bekarazu [7] keishichou [5]" ("Do not climb this levee --The Police Department").

Anyway, Peter has a really funny story about haiku.

Make sure you read Archbishop Chaput's latest offering

"A moment of grace."

One of the lessons from last year that too many American Catholics still don’t want to face is that it’s OK to be Catholic in today’s public square as long as we don’t try to live our beliefs too seriously; as long as we’re suitably embarrassed by all those "primitive" Catholic teachings; as long as we shut up about abortion and other sensitive moral issues and allow ourselves to be tutored in the ways of "polite" secular culture by experts who have little or no respect for the Christian faith that guides our lives.

And you thought Barbies might give your daughters the wrong idea

James Lileks tells us of a commercial he saw while watching tv with his young daughter, for a type of doll called "Bratz," a kind of fashionable glamorous sleazy-floozy doll for young girls.  Apparently they now have a line of sultry hoochie babies.  Babies.

“It’s just a commercial, daddy. Oh! Look!” 

I froze. The Bratz are now Baby Mommaz. Yes, the hooker-in-training dolls have children. Bratz are the main reason I do not keep a supply of bricks around the house, because everytime the commercials come on I wish to pitch something kiln-fired through the screen so hard it beans the toy exec who greenlighted these hootchie toys. The Baby Bratz are as bad as you can imagine: “Bottles with Bling.” Judas on a stick, why not just refit the Bratz so they have Real Oozing Gonorreal Flow Action?
 
“They know how to flaunt it, and they’re keeping it real in the crib.”
 
What exactly is the penalty for failing to keep it real in the crib? Someone busts a cap in yo Pamper? I know I am old and so out of step it’s a wonder I don’t just appear as an indistinct smear, but was it really necessary to push the Age of Sultry Hussyism down to the infant stage? And who, exactly, are the Babyz flaunting it for? Are we going to see a commercial with Elmo in sunglasses, sitting with his legs sprawled, spanking some pliant Babyz with one hand while gumming down some mashed crack?
 
Reminds me of something I saw in the Fun Store I wrote about last week: Homies Dogs. Anti-social gangster dogs.

 

The latest trend: lookin' weird

This raises the question: who is stupider, women who do this to get attention from men who like it, or men who like it?  What am I talking about?  "Corset piercing," the "latest summer fashion" for people dumb enough to do whatever they're told the latest fashion is.  It's kind of gross, so you'll probably regret looking, but now that I've mentioned it, you kind of have to.

Use the comments boxes to tell me what next summer's fashion will be.

Bad Prayer

I brought this idea up in the CSC today, and no one seemed to understand my point: How many people do you think are praying that abortion remains legal?

Seriously.

If people who are pro-abortion or even pro-choice are following their consciences, shouldn't they be praying for God to preserve the sanctity of abortion laws?

Next, how feasible is it that God gives people bad things that they ask for? This sounds whacky and far-fetched, but it certainly has Biblical precedent. The ancient Hebrews begged for a king, and God gave them one even though He said it was a bad idea. Job demands a reckoning from God, and God gives it to him, even though it was a stupid thing to ask for. Of course, all the suffering that these bad things cause leads to an even greater good and glorification of God.

Even though Jesus says that no parent hands his child a scorpion when he asks for a fish, so one should expect good things from God when you ask for them...Jesus doesn't say what a parent will do when a child asks for a scorpion. He might say no, but he might also teach the child why it's bad to ask for bad things.

Obviously, God can do no evil. But think of it like The Christmas Story. Ralphie spends the whole movie begging for a Red Rider beebee gun, but he's constantly told he'll shoot his eye out. [SPOILER] His dad, wanting to please him and see him make the rite of passage to manhood, buys him the Red Rider beebee gun...but what happens when he finally gets it?

From the very beginning, man has been whining that he wants more autonomy and more freedom to make his own choices. Would it be that out of character for God to grant us our wish just to teach us a lesson? Or maybe answering a wicked prayer is not the right way of looking at it. Perhaps we should consider the possibility that God will withdrawal his protection if we start asking for wicked things.

At the very least, I hope this little meditation inspires people to place even more value on the importance of praying for an end to abortion. We need to remind God of our faithfulness and our wisdom to ask for good things--otherwise, the only voices He will hear are those that speak evil.