Shameless Popery

Disingenuous Arguments for the HHS Mandate

2012-02-15T08:45:00.066-05:00

I've more or less said my piece in response to the HHS Mandate -- it's about all I blogged about last week, and I'm pleased to move on to other topics, short of any major developments. But I wanted to say one thing in passing: the arguments I've heard in favor of the HHS Mandate haven't just been bad. In many cases, they've been outright disingenuous.

For example, the Times has descended to putting religious liberty in scare quotes and claiming that opposing the Mandate would “deprive [the Church's] followers or employees of the right to disagree with that teaching.” That argument is utterly asinine: a fine example of false parallelism. Consider. It's a functional violation of my right to be pro-life, if I'm conscripted to pay for what I believe is murder. But in what world is it a violation of a pro-choicer's right to be pro-choice if I don't pay for her abortion? Is anybody willing to defend the Times' editorial here? Or are they just assuming their readers won't think too hard about what they're being fed?

Others have responded to some of the howlers (like the idea that 98% of Catholic women use contraception), but I wanted to directly tackle those who claim that we're just against the HHS Mandate because we're (a) conservative, (b) Catholic, or (c) against birth control:

Cardinal Mahoney at the “May 1st Immigration Rally”

This isn't a Left / Right Issue. The New York Times referred to this as “a phony crisis over "religious liberty" engendered by the right.” That's just not a serious claim. Prominent liberal pundits like E.J. Dionne, Michael Sean Winters and Chris Matthews came out against the HHS Mandate. Even within the Obama Administration, numerous high-profile figures tried to stop the Mandate from going forward: Politico names Vice President Joe Biden and then-Chief of Staff Bill Daley as two who tried to stop Obama from doing this, while ABC also mentions Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. And neither the USCCB nor the American bishops can be pigeonholed as simply conservative. For example, Cardinal Mahoney, who appears to have been the first to voice his objection, is a beloved icon of the religious left for his work marching with Cesar Chavez, and encouraging civil disobedience over Bush-era immigration laws (in fact, the New York Times even permitted him an Op-ed for this latter cause).

Albert Mohler

This isn't a Catholic / Non-Catholic Issue. Just as the opposition to the HHS Mandate cuts across party lines, so too does it cut across religious lines. Numerous non-Catholic religious leaders have spoken out, like Rick Warren (Saddleback Church), Chuck Colson (Prison Fellowship), Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik (Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary), Richard Land (Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty commission), Albert Mohler (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), and so on. Nor is it just religious leaders. James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal, who has come out swinging against the Mandate, is an agnostic. Evangelical former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee captured this well by declaring, “We are all Catholics now.”
This isn't a Birth Control Issue. Many of those folks that I just mentioned, whether non-Catholics or liberal Catholics, are fine with the use of contraception. They oppose the HHS Mandate because it's a violation of religious freedom, whether they share those same religious beliefs or not (Chris Matthews captures this well in his reaction).

This is about religious freedom, pure and simple. James Taranto captured this well, calling one of his editorials against the Mandate, “Birth Control Yes, Government Control No.” So did Paul Gleiser, who wrote:

If a practicing Catholic or a Catholic institution in the United States can be compelled by the government to act against religious faith, it’s only a matter of time before some equally offensive compulsion is brought down upon you by the same heavy hand of a government that refuses to respect its limits.

That’s why we’re all Catholics now.

Ironically, Obama finally seems to have achieved his dream of uniting people of every race, creed, and political affiliation -- but this is probably not how he envisioned it playing out.

The Arab Spring's Pietà

2012-02-14T08:17:00.006-05:00

The 2011 World Press Photo of the Year is this one, by Samuel Aranda:

The caption: “A woman hugs a wounded relative inside a mosque used as a hospital during clashes in Sana, Yemen on Oct. 15, 2011.” You can read more about why this photo was chosen from World Press Photo or the New York Times.

It's hard to look at this photo and not think of the Pietà. While Michaelangelo's is the most famous, in my opinion, the photo is actually closer to Luis de Morales', or this one, an 1876 painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau:

Both images are high-resolution, so feel free to click on them to make them larger. Personally, I've found the comparison between the two images fascinating, both in terms of what they depict in common, and in how they differ. That's all I'll say for now.

Cardinal Wuerl: HHS Mandate - Nothing Has Changed

2012-02-13T18:51:00.001-05:00

This arrived in my inbox this evening, from Cardinal Wuerl. It's consistent with the comments he made at Mass on Friday, and I'm thrilled to see someone with his prominence speaking out so forthrightly. The only edits I've made were bolding a few parts that I thought were particularly important:

February 13, 2012

Dear Friends,

       Last Friday President Obama attempted to respond to the strong objections that have been raised by the Catholic Church and other faith communities to the Department of Health and Human Services’ unprecedented mandate that would force religious institutions, in violation of their religious beliefs, to provide and pay for abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives and sterilization. Unfortunately, the “accommodation” that the President announced still presents grave moral concerns and continues to violate our constitutionally protected religious liberty.

       The administration’s proposal continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions, particularly in the definition of who is and who is not a religious employer. Despite last month’s unanimous Supreme Court decision upholding the right of religious institutions to choose whom they appoint to teach their faith and carry out their mission, the administration remains unwavering in its attempt to assert control in matters of religion. Our Catholic schools, social service organizations, hospitals and universities are no less Catholic than our churches, but apparently, these institutions are not considered to be Catholic enough to meet the definition required by the HHS mandate for a religious exemption.

       As for the insurance-related provisions themselves, the federal mandate remains essentially unchanged. The only “fix” offered by the President was to propose that insurance companies, instead of religious institutions directly, be required to cover procedures and products they find objectionable at no cost in their insurance policies. Regardless of how it is characterized, shifting the cost of these drugs and procedures to insurance companies does not make their requirement any less objectionable or lessen the infringement on our religious liberty and rights of conscience.

       For example, President Obama’s announcement does not provide any accommodation for the Archdiocese of Washington. Like many large organizations, both for-profit and non-profit, this archdiocese does not purchase group health insurance from insurance companies. In order to provide insurance consistent with our religious beliefs, our health benefit plan is a self-insured plan that extends coverage to 3,600 employees. This means that the archdiocese is the insurer and the archdiocese covers all claim costs. There is no insurance company involved. Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the HHS mandate, self-insured organizations like ours are treated the same as regular insurance providers. This means that like Aetna or Blue Cross, the archdiocese and other self-insured religious organizations would be required to both provide and pay for drugs and procedures we consider morally wrong in our employee health plans.

        Even for religious institutions who are employers and who purchase group health insurance from insurance companies, the problem created by the mandate remains unresolved. Those institutions will still be compelled to purchase insurance policies that provide free abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives and sterilization. Since these additional drugs and procedures will be automatically provided by the insurer by virtue of the insurance policy (even though not expressly listed in the policy), it is no response to our moral concerns to say that religious employers will not have to pay for them because their insurance companies will. Catholic institutions will be forced to pay for and maintain policies that enable their employees to receive insurance coverage of products and procedures that violate our religious convictions.

        At this point, it appears that nothing has really changed. Religious employers are still being compelled to provide insurance plans that offer free abortion-inducing drugs, sterilizations and contraceptives in violation of their religious freedom.

        What is at stake here is a question of human freedom. The authors of the Bill of Rights enshrined freedom of religion as our nation’s first and founding principle. We should not be reduced to petitioning the government for rights that the Constitution already guarantees. The only complete solution to the problem that this mandate poses for religious liberty is for Congress to pass legislation to protect our freedom. The Respect for Rights of Conscience Act is one of several bills that have been introduced for this very purpose.

        We cannot become complacent or allow ourselves to be distracted by incomplete proposals presented as definitive solutions. The Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty is working on a formal response and action steps. In the weeks and months ahead, please continue to pray and share this information with others so that we may reverse the effects of this misguided regulation.

In the hope that this information is helpful and with every good wish, I am

Faithfully in Christ,

Donald Cardinal Wuerl

Archbishop of Washington

Is it Idolatry to say that Mary Saves Us?

2012-02-13T11:58:00.001-05:00

A Protestant friend e-mailed me, troubled by something he'd read in an article about the Rosary, in which the author said:

The will of the Blessed Virgin is completely conformed to that of Her Son, in other word – God. She is the most humble and chaste spouse of the Holy Ghost and will never do anything contrary to the will of God. Thus, we ought to trust the Blessed Mother just as God has, because She ultimately brings us to God. Mary is our Salvation, and Christ is the source of our Salvation. Mary is the Gate and Christ is the Key. It is only through Her that we are saved.

This, he said, sounded like pure idolatry. Is it? Let's consider (1) what this claim doesn't mean, (2) why it's not blasphemous or idolatrous to say that Mary saves us, and (3) the manner in which Mary saves us.

I. Christ's Unique Role in Salvation

Cristo Rei of Dili

As the Catechsim explains (CCC 613-14), Christ's Sacrifice on the Cross is both the definitive redemption of men, and utterly unique. No sacrifice before or after can ever compare with God the Son giving His Life for the sins of the world:

613 Christ's death is both the Paschal sacrifice that accomplishes the definitive redemption of men, through “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29; cf. 8:34-36; 1 Cor 5:7; 1 Pet 1:19), and the sacrifice of the New Covenant, which restores man to communion with God by reconciling him to God through the “blood of the covenant, which was poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt 26:28; cf. Ex 24:8; Lev 16:15-16; 1 Cor 11:25).

614 This sacrifice of Christ is unique; it completes and surpasses all other sacrifices (Cf. Heb 10:10). First, it is a gift from God the Father himself, for the Father handed his Son over to sinners in order to reconcile us with himself. At the same time it is the offering of the Son of God made man, who in freedom and love offered his life to his Father through the Holy Spirit in reparation for our disobedience (Cf. Jn 10:17-18; 15:13; Heb 9:14; 1 Jn 4:10).

So Christ is simply irreplaceable. You couldn't just crucify Mary, or any of the Saints, in His Place. In fact, the very reason that we have Mary and the Saints is through the merits of Christ.

So before we speak of the sense in which Mary saves us, we need to speak of the sense in which she doesn't. Mary doesn't perform Christ's role. Only He can do that.

II. Is it Idolatrous to Say that Mary Saves Us?

Masaccio, Baptism of Neophytes (1425)

Given what I've just said, it seems as if there's not room to speak of anyone saving us but Christ. But in fact, Scripture is quite clearly to the contrary. True, Christ's Atoning Death on the Cross, and that alone, has the power to save us. But the application of His Atonement are applied in our lives in various ways, and Scripture properly speaks of these things as salvific, too.

So, for example, we hear about Baptism saving us (1 Peter 3:21), as well as grace (Acts 15:11), our faith (Luke 7:50), and so on. In fact, Scripture refers to individuals other than Christ as saving us, and refers to our ability to save others. For example, Jude 1:22-23 says:

Be merciful to those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.

Obviously, St. Jude isn't suggesting that we're going to die upon the Cross for our neighbor, personally atoning for their sins. So we don't save them in that way. Rather, we save them by bringing them to Christ. It's not dissimilar from Ezekiel 3:18-19, in which God says:

When I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade them from their evil ways in order to save their life, that wicked person will die for their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the wicked person and they do not turn from their wickedness or from their evil ways, they will die for their sin; but you will have saved yourself.

Raphael, St Paul Preaching in Athens (1515)

And St. Paul says in 1 Timothy 4:16,

Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

What do all of these things have in common? In each case, what's meant is that these are the means by which salvation reaches us. It's similar to how we can say both that Oswald killed Kennedy, and that a bullet killed Kennedy. One was the instrument of the other, so there's not even a slight tension between those two claims.

Whether they recognize it or not, this is a distinction that Protestants recognize all the time. Nobody (at least, nobody I've heard), says, “I got saved in 32 A.D.” But, of course, there's a sense in which that's when Christ saved all of us. Rather, people speak of the point in their lives in which they were saved (whether at the moment of their conversion, or at their Baptism), they're pointing to the application of Christ's Atonement in their lives.

So yes, Christ saves you, but also, Baptism saves you, faith saves you, the Gospel saves you, perseverance in sound living and doctrine saves you, those who bring you the Gospel save you, and so on. To treat any of this as idolatrous or blasphemous would be completely absurd. So why is it wrong for Catholics to say the exact same thing of Mary? The problem here seems to be Protestant Mary-phobia, rather than any coherent problem with speaking of someone or something other than Christ saving us.

III. How Mary Saves Us

Okay, so it's not blasphemous to say that Mary saves us, as long as we don't mean that she occupies Christ's place. She saves us by bringing us to Christ -- which is probably what the original commenter meant by saying that “Mary is our Salvation, and Christ is the source of our Salvation.” She's the nurse bringing us the antidote to sin. Christ is the Antidote.

Here's how Lumen Gentium describes Mary's role in saving us:

Antonio da Correggio, Adoration of the Child (1520)
61. Predestined from eternity by that decree of divine providence which determined the incarnation of the Word to be the Mother of God, the Blessed Virgin was on this earth the virgin Mother of the Redeemer, and above all others and in a singular way the generous associate and humble handmaid of the Lord. She conceived, brought forth and nourished Christ. She presented Him to the Father in the temple, and was united with Him by compassion as He died on the Cross. In this singular way she cooperated by her obedience, faith, hope and burning charity in the work of the Saviour in giving back supernatural life to souls. Wherefore she is our mother in the order of grace.

62. This maternity of Mary in the order of grace began with the consent which she gave in faith at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, and lasts until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect. Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this salvific duty, but by her constant intercession continued to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation.(15*) By her maternal charity, she cares for the brethren of her Son, who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and cultics, until they are led into the happiness of their true home. Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked by the Church under the titles of Advocate, Auxiliatrix, Adjutrix, and Mediatrix.(16*) This, however, is to be so understood that it neither takes away from nor adds anything to the dignity and efficaciousness of Christ the one Mediator.(17*)

For no creature could ever be counted as equal with the Incarnate Word and Redeemer. Just as the priesthood of Christ is shared in various ways both by the ministers and by the faithful, and as the one goodness of God is really communicated in different ways to His creatures, so also the unique mediation of the Redeemer does not exclude but rather gives rise to a manifold cooperation which is but a sharing in this one source.

The Church does not hesitate to profess this subordinate role of Mary. It knows it through unfailing experience of it and commends it to the hearts of the faithful, so that encouraged by this maternal help they may the more intimately adhere to the Mediator and Redeemer.

So while merely human (unlike her Son), Mary aides in our salvation in the following ways:

Caravaggio,
Madonna Palafrenieri (detail) (1606)

Her earthly life: If we can speak of a preacher as saving us by bringing us the Gospel (1 Tim. 4:16), we can surely speak of Mary as saving us by participating in God's plan of salvation. St. Paul brought Jesus to the Gentiles, figuratively speaking. Mary brought Jesus to the entire world, literally. Just as Eve took the fruit of sin from the tree and gave it to the first Adam, Mary took the fruit of her womb, the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45), and led Him to the Tree (1 Peter 2:24; John 2:4-5).

Her Motherhood: Mary is the Mother of Christ (Luke 1:43), and the Mother of Christians (Gen. 3:20; John 19:26-27). Having God as Father means having Mary and the Church as Mother (Rev. 12:17), and other Christians as brothers and sisters (Matt. 12:48-50). So you can't have Jesus without Mary, any more than you can love God while hating a brother or sister in Christ (1 John 4:20). God doesn't just invite us into a one-on-One relationship with Him. He invites us into a family, and Mary plays a vital role in that family.

Her Intercession: As a good mother, Mary intercedes on our behalf, just as Abraham did for his nephew Lot (Gen 18-19). James 5:16 says that “the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective,” tying the effectiveness of intercessory prayer to the sanctity and righteousness of the person praying. All of this points strongly towards Mary. After all, which of Christ's followers was more righteous than Mary? And which of Christ's followers loves the Church and Her fallen members more than Mary?

So Mary plays a unique role in our salvation, because of her role as Mother of God, bringing Jesus Christ to the world; as Mother of Christians, prayerfully caring for her children; and as a sinless Saint in Heaven, interceding for us all constantly. None of these diminishes the Cross - not even a little bit. On the contrary, these are all ways that Mary leads us to the Cross. So yes, Mary saves us, and no, we can't have Christ without Mary, and no, this isn't idolatry, or anything like it.

Why the HHS “Compromise” Doesn't Work

2012-02-10T13:54:00.002-05:00

The announced HHS “compromise” requiring insurance companies, rather than religious institutions, to pay for abortion, contraception, and sterilization, may be a step in the right direction, but it still has huge problems that need addressing:

Caspar Isenmann, Betrayal of Christ (15th c.)
The Church will still be footing the bill: Fr. Andrew's initial response to this was perfect: “Do insurance companies have magic money they don’t get from clients?” So Catholic institutions will still be paying for abortion, contraception, and sterilization, just slightly less directly. We went from paying for abortion to paying someone else to pay for abortion. That's supposed to assuage our consciences?
This makes it illegal to be a pro-life insurance company. Instead of violating the consciences of pro-life religious organizations, the government will now violate the consciences of pro-life insurance companies. So if you want to start a health insurance company, but don't want to fund abortion, sterilization, and contraception, forget it.
This still tramples the rights of businesses and individuals. Plenty of ordinary businesses operate consistent with their religious principles, from Chik-fil-a to Walmart. A bevy of individuals running smaller businesses fit this description as well. As announced, it appears that these employers are ineligible for any sort of exemption.
Pieter Pietersz,
The Three Young Men in the Blazing Furnace (1575)
This still gives the HHS the right to favor certain religious institutions over others. One of the most troubling (and obviously unconstitutional) aspects of the HHS mandate was actually the exception itself. As Bishop William Lori explained in a Washington Post editorial, “for religious institutions to claim this exception, they must serve primarily members of their own church, synagogue or mosque, and so choose not to feed or clothe, heal or educate practically anyone of another faith or creed.” The supposed compromise actually makes this worse: it provides this compromise for certain “non-exempt religious groups,” reinforcing the government's ability to favor specific religious groups over others. Specifically, it favors non-evangelizing religious groups over evangelizing ones.

Today, at Mass, Cardinal Wuerl pointed out the absurdity of forcing Catholic homeless shelters to stop people at the door to ensure they're Catholic before helping them. But the USSCB has pointed out a greater absurdity: that even “Jesus and his apostles would not have been ‘religious enough’ for the exemption, since they healed and served people of different faiths. The exemption provides no protection at all to sponsors and providers of health plans for the general public, to pro-life people who own businesses, or to individuals with a moral or religious objection to these procedures.”
This is divide and conquer. Let's not be naive. When even the Administration's senior officials deny that it's really a compromise, it's not a compromise. Instead, the Obama Administration is seeking to fracture the united opposition to the HHS Mandate from Catholics, Evangelicals, and people who care about religious freedom. As a divisive tactic, it seems to be working.

In addition to all of this, there's still the fact that the government is now encouraging mortal sin through the power of the State. And, of course, it's still claiming that contraception is a preventive service, treating pregnancy as a disease. As the USCCB notes:

The Institute of Medicine committee that compiled the “preventive services” list for HHS said in its report that unintended pregnancy is “a condition for which safe and effective prevention and treatment” need to be more widely available – setting the stage for mandated coverage of abortion as the “treatment” when prevention fails. Note that women who suffer from infertility, which really is an illness, were ignored in this mandate.

This isn't an olive branch. It's a smallpox blanket. It looks like this fight is far from over.

Update: The USCCB, after reviewing the proposed compromise, rejected it for all of the reasons listed above.

Day of Prayer and Fasting

2012-02-10T10:36:00.001-05:00

Ary Scheffer, The Temptation of Christ (1854)

Some of the Catholics in the Diocese of Arlington called for today to be a special Day of Prayer and Fasting in solidarity with the US Bishops against the HHS mandate. It's a very good idea. If you can't do a traditional fast today (two small meals and a normal sized one), I encourage you to substitute something else in its place (give up TV or music or something). Fill those gaps with prayer for the bishops, for President Obama and his Administration, for religious freedom, and for a conversion of hearts and minds.

The timing is perfect. There are rumors that the president will announce an alternative plan today, requiring insurance companies, rather than religious organizations, to pay for contraception. This is certainly better, but it's still a violation of conscience rights. I said in an e-mail yesterday that it's almost as if the prospect of the public and the Church paying for contraception and abortion is so severe that we're willing to accept the public paying for contraception and abortion. We shouldn't be.

Today, we might find out whether that's the case.

Update: It's as bad as I feared. My reaction here.

Contesting the HHS Mandate - A Panel Discussion

2012-02-09T15:46:00.000-05:00

Last night, at the Catholic Information Center, there was a fantastic panel discussion on the HHS Mandate, featuring:

Richard Doerflinger

James Capretta, Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) (and a former Associate Director of the OMB),
Richard Doerflinger, Associate Director of the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops,
Kyle Duncan, General Counsel of the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty,
and moderated by Ryan Williams, a doctoral candidate and teaching fellow in the School of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America.

The panel was fantastic. And fortunately, you don't have to take my word for it. C-SPAN was there, and you can watch the whole thing online. This may just be the most interesting thing C-SPAN has shown in a while (if you can believe that).

Altars to Un-Religion?

2012-02-09T11:02:00.008-05:00

In today's readings for Mass, we hear proclaimed both the apostasy of Solomon (1 Kings 11:4-13) and the casting out of the demon from the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7:24-30). In the first reading, we see the swapping of the one, true God for false Gods. In the Gospel reading, we see the swapping of a false god (the demon) for the one, true God. While we are fortunate that Jesus Christ is still making the latter type of swap in the hearts of those who seek Him, the swap of Solomon is still all too prevalent.

In 1 Kings, we find:

When Solomon was old his wives had turned his heart to strange gods, and his heart was not entirely with the LORD, his God, as the heart of his father David had been. By adoring Astarte, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom, the idol of the Ammonites, Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD; he did not follow him unreservedly as his father David had done. Solomon then built a high place to Chemosh, the idol of Moab, and to Molech, the idol of the Ammonites, on the hill opposite Jerusalem. He did the same for all his foreign wives who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods. The LORD, therefore, became angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice (for though the LORD had forbidden him this very act of following strange gods, Solomon had not obeyed him).

The act of turning to false gods is disturbing in itself, but the truly horrendous nature of the gods Solomon chose to honor should be eye opening. One of the gods chosen was Moloch. Moloch was worshiped through child sacrifice. Parents would turn their children over to be burned. Solomon's apostasy had dire consequences for Israel. For example, in 2 Chronicles 28:1-3 we see the fall of Ahaz:

Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. He did not do what was right in the sight of the LORD as David his father had done. He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and even made molten idols for the Baals. Moreover, he offered sacrifice in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, and immolated his children by fire in accordance with the abominable practices of the nations whom the LORD had dispossessed before the Israelites.

The Valley of Ben-hinnom is also known as the Hinnom Valley or Gehenna. It is remembered as a place where a King of Israel "immolated his children by fire." At the time of Christ, Gehenna was a garbage dump where refuse was burned. Jesus refers to the flames there as an "unquenchable fire" (Mark 9:43).

When the Syrophoenician woman comes to Jesus, it's no shock that her daughter is plagued by a demon since one of the idols the Phoenicians worshiped was Moloch. Phoenician parents had handed their children over to Moloch for generations. In turning to Jesus, this desperate mother was breaking that trend. She gave her daughter to the one, true God. By healing her daughter, Jesus demonstrates his absolute authority over Moloch and all the powers of Hell.

Here's the troubling truth underlying the encounter: we all worship something. Solomon and Ahaz knew the names of the idols they turned to when they turned away from God. Just because we don't hear the names of the idols the Syrophoenician woman worshiped before Christ, doesn't mean they don't exist. While the names of certain idols and demons are no longer prominent, they are still being worshiped today.

When we remove God from His rightful place, the place of honor does not remain vacant. Something fills the void. Today in America and many parts of the world, God is being swapped out. Some would like to frame this trend as simply a shift toward neutrality. However, what is really happening is a shift in honor from God to realities that just go unnamed. Bishop William Lori put it this way when he addressed the US bishops last November as the head of the USCCB's Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty:

But let us make no mistake. Aggressive secularism is also a system of belief. In failing to accommodate people of faith and religious institutions, both law and culture are indeed establishing un-religion as the religion of the land and granting it the rights and protections that our Founding Fathers envisioned for citizens who are believers and for their churches and church institutions.

There is no such thing as being "religiously neutral." We no longer have the luxury to pretend that secularism is neutral. Secularism has its own altars and we are still sacrificing our children.

Does the HHS Mandate Go Further than the States'?

2012-02-08T11:27:00.000-05:00

The Obama Administration is seeking to defend the HHS Mandate by claiming that the federal government is doing nothing more than what the states are already doing. HHS Secretary Sebelius argued in USA Today:

The 28 states, according to NARAL
In choosing this exemption, we looked first at state laws already in place across the country. Of the 28 states that currently require contraception to be covered by insurance, eight have no religious exemption at all.
The religious exemption in the administration's rule is the same as the exemption in Oregon, New York and California.

The Administration's allies have been trotting out the same argument. For example, Michelle Goldberg at Daily Beast condescendingly dismisses Catholics' “enraged response” to the HHS mandate as “displaced,” by arguing that:

From all the hysteria over the administration’s insistence that Catholic institutions provide insurance that covers birth control, you’d think it was a big change—but 28 states already have such laws on the books.

Is that true? No, not really, according to the USSCB's Sister Mary Ann Walsh:

The federal mandate is much stricter than existing state mandates. HHS chose the narrowest state-level religious exemption as the model for its own. That exemption was drafted by the ACLU and exists in only 3 states (New York, California, Oregon). Even without a religious exemption, religious employers can already avoid the contraceptive mandates in 28 states by self-insuring their prescription drug coverage, dropping that coverage altogether, or opting for regulation under a federal law (ERISA) that pre-empts state law. The HHS mandate closes off all these avenues of relief.

Osmar Schindler, David and Goliath (1888)

I haven't investigated this myself, but that sounds right. If so, it's a huge difference. A conscience-violating plan that forces Catholic institutions to self-insure or opt for ERISA is one thing; a conscience-violating plan that leaves no relief (other than dropping insurance completely, or ending social services completely) is quite another. It's also worth mentioning that the Catholic Church fought these state plans in court, too.

So the Administration can pretend it's going no further than the states have gone, but that's just not true. Of course, it's also worth seeing this as a pattern. According to Sebelius, the government actually looked to what the states got away with, in crafting their own policy. That is, the battles which may have seemed insignificant (whether New York could or couldn't require Catholic employers to provide contraceptive coverage) weren't, since they paved the way to this point. And even now, we're not at the limits to what the Administration wants to do. If it succeeds here, that'll be used as a precedent for more and more religious encroachments in the future.

My prayer is that this marks a turning point: that we succeed in beating the federal mandate, and use that momentum to attack the states' contraceptive mandates. Ideally, I'd like to see a nation which doesn't force anyone (whether a religious institution, or simply a conscientious employer) to purchase contraception, abortion, and sterilization. Is that too much to ask?

Outrageous Discipline-Only Health Education: Let's Move!

2012-02-07T10:32:00.017-05:00

The Obama Administration is celebrating the second anniversary of the controversial Let's Move! campaign to combat the rise in obesity in the United States. If you don't think it's controversial, you should. Even a cursory glance at the many initiatives undertaken through the guidance of First Lady Michelle Obama should note a frightening trend: health education in America is not comprehensive. The Administration is so wrapped up in making healthy food choices and fitness that one could get the impression that a Discipline-Only approach to health education is the best approach to health education. Has no one considered how focusing only on discipline and not all options to address obesity is misguided? Shouldn't a nation with such a diverse population with a plurality of views expect a federal campaign to at least mention all the options available? Are we going to be forced to live under a system that doesn't provide a comprehensive approach to "preventative services" when it comes to health?

Obesity is a very serious problem in the United States. Studies show that almost 10% of all health care costs are related to obesity. It is difficult to imagine a more serious threat to the health of our nation than obesity. Since that is the case, should the Federal Government really be so narrow-minded in its approach to educating the young about obesity? That's exactly what the Administration has chosen to do by embracing the stringent and old-fashioned Let's Move! campaign. If we want to really take obesity seriously, we should look to a more comprehensive approach**. Such an approach could include, but shouldn't be limited to:

Greater availability of diet pills and other diuretics for young people and the poor
Free shots of insulin in all school vending machines
More affordable access to Lap-band Surgery and Liposuction
Sensitivity training about the positive contributions of eating disorders
Give people the option to execute unwanted obese children***

If we are going to take obesity seriously, we need to take a seriously comprehensive approach. It is close-minded to think that Discipline-Only Health Education is the best public policy. As long as we cling to regressive and unrealistic approaches to health, we have little hope for real change. Health Education is too grave a responsibility to pin our hopes on kids eating better and embracing exercise. Unless we start framing a comprehensive approach that values preventative services like diet pills and weight loss surgery, America will be stuck in our obese tracks.

**It seems the Administration has no problem embracing a comprehensive approach to sex education so a more comprehensive approach to health education seems appropriate. If it's deemed a fundamental right to have "preventative services" like contraception, abortifacients, and sterilization, why should combating obesity be any different? If it's unrealistic to think abstinence-only sex education is sufficient, why should health education be based on a discipline-only approach of eating right and exercising?

***This post is of course sarcastic. I just wish the absurdity of the Culture of Death was more readily seen.

Religious Liberty: Mapping the Developing Landscape

2012-02-07T01:37:00.017-05:00

As the debate regarding religious liberty gains attention and momentum, it is prudent to regularly examine the landscape and tone of this crucial discussion. Clarity and proper emphasis are of paramount importance when sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They are just as crucial in politics. The White House Blog has made one attempt to map the developing landscape. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops quickly responded. Here's my take on some themes worth noting:

Muddling of Conscience – The term "conscience" is being thrown around a lot already. Unfortunately, it's being used inappropriately in regards to the discussion at hand concerning the HHS decision to mandate coverage of morally evil procedures and products. Instead of focusing on the conscience rights of employers (like the Church services), some are trying to make this a discussion of the individual consciences of those who would receive the mandated coverage. I expected the National Catholic Reporter to muddy the waters in this regard (and they surpassed expectations here and here and here. Though to be fair, even NCR speaks out against the HHS decision here, and maybe, sorta, I'm still not sure: here). However, I'm still not sure why the Administration is making that appeal. On the White House blog, the claim was made: Contraception is used by most women: According to a study by the Guttmacher Institute, most women, including 98 percent of Catholic women, have used contraception. The USCCB responds to the validity of this claim here, but it is worth noting that this line of reasoning is extremely inappropriate and dangerous in this discussion. By appealing to the behavior (not belief) of a particular religious group, the Administration (and others) are trying to indict the validity of an actual well-formed Catholic conscience. The claim might as well be: No one really holds that religious view so why should we respect it? This is how a government begins to form a litmus test for who's conscientious objection is worth respecting. We must all be extra careful to not muddy the "conscience" pool further.

Playing the Blame Game – After I read Archbishop Joseph Naumann's letter about the HHS mandate at Mass this past Sunday, I was surprised that I began receiving email blaming the bishops for getting us in this mess. Supposedly, even Rick Santorum claims, "I took issue with the Catholic Bishops Conference, because..., you may remember, they embraced Obamacare." While some see this whole situation as the bishops getting their "just desserts," that is a totally unfair characterization. One: Obamacare did not meet the bishops criteria for just health care reform and did not receive an endorsement from them. Two: while some Catholic groups dissented, the bishops were quick and clear to admonish such behavior. Three: some people have a problem that the Catholic Church does support universal access to health care for all people. However, just because we support universal health care access does not mean that the bishops supported Obamacare (universal access doesn't have to come through only the government). That would be like saying that since the Catholic Church supports women's health they must be supporting Planned Parenthood. We all need to look in the mirror. There is enough blame to go around. As one priest I respect put it: we've been fornicating, contracepting, and aborting ourselves to death. We all need to preach, practice and embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a fuller way. We can have a big blame game party, but it will just get in the way of the real work to be done right now.

Denying Holy Communion: Some of the Catholic faithful think that if the bishops would just be more sweeping in denying Holy Communion to Catholic politicians that obstinately support grave evil then we wouldn't have these types of headaches. I can see the reasoning, but let's remember that the Secretary of the HHS, Kathleen Sebelius, has been banned from receiving Holy Communion in both Kansas and Washington, D.C.. Obviously, more needs to be done than simply what the bishops have direct control over regarding the Sacraments.

Conceding “Preventative Services” – Here's something really scary to consider: a trap is being set to get the Catholic faithful to support groups like Planned Parenthood. Bear with my wild speculations for a moment. No one is making a really strong case that the new HHS mandate is essential to ensure access to contraceptives, abortifacients and the like. An effective argument can probably be made that without the mandate there are still ways women can have access to "preventative services." Here's when I start to get afraid. If we want to make the claim that the new mandate violates religious liberty, that's one thing. However, we must be careful in becoming bedfellows with Planned Parenthood by claiming that the mandate is also unnecessary because women will still have access to contraceptives and the rest. DON'T GIVE IN TO THE TEMPTATION. Our ground is solid when it comes to religious liberty. There is no need to even discuss how people can obtain moral evils if they so choose. I'm starting to get paranoid that all this is a political game to see if Catholics will somehow admit the necessity of Planned Parenthood and "preventative services." If that happens, a political victory can still be had for the Culture of Death even if the HHS mandate is repealed.

Based on those observations, here are some recommendations on where we go from here:

Storm Heaven and Earth – Remember, this is not merely a political contest. We must of course seek recourse to all the political tools we have at our disposal: Letters, Emails, Phone Calls, Blogs, Votes, etc. However, we must also make a real commitment in prayer to combat this new expression of the Culture of Death: Mass intentions, Rosaries, Holy Hours, Novenas, etc. Personally, I'm going to mention "religious liberty" in the petitions at Mass until this HHS mandate is changed.

Support the Services at Stake – For as long as we're able to publicly practice our faith, we should take full advantage. I'm going to make a special effort to support those Catholic groups and activities that are particularly affected by the mandate. Even if you have a concern with some of these groups, this is the time to actively address them and become involved. We don't have the luxury to take the following for granted anymore: Catholic Charities, Catholic Relief Services, Catholic Schools, Catholic Hospitals, Catholic Campus Centers, Catholic Cemeteries, Catholic Media, Catholic Hospice, and many others.

Get Educated – We need to be better informed. It's time we delve into our history, politics, and faith. I know I still have a lot to learn. Already silly phrases are being tossed around like: "well if the Catholic Church wants to get involved in health care and education..." A new story is trying to be woven. We must announce the truth boldly. Even a little research can bring up gems like the fact that the first non-military hospital in Kansas was a Catholic hospital. We were here before government over-regulation and we'll be here after it as long as we know what we're talking about and are willing to share it effectively. The USCCB has a site up to help specifically with the current religious liberty debate and they put out a helpful article on Six Things Everyone Should Know About the HHS Mandate.

Get Ready – We are in the midst of a long endeavor for religious liberty. Don’t be surprised when other challenges start to emerge. Marriage is obviously already under attack and the assault will only intensify. If the story is starting to change about defining who can be licit employers, the story about who can licitly sign marriage licenses and for which couples is coming.

UPDATE 2/7/2012: Archbishop Joseph Naumann and Benedictine College have started a Memorare Army with the intention: We hope to gather a million memorares for the intention of religious liberty and stronger Catholic identity in public life in the United States. Please consider going to the site and making your pledge for 1,000 memorares.

UPDATE #2 on 2/7/2012: The St. Gianna Physicians Guild has a great petition worth signing that is endorsed by Cardinal Burke.

UPDATE #3 on 2/8/2012: Another petition that is worth checking out is on the White House site itself. It does require registration (name, email, zip code). At the time I signed, there were 27,281 signatures.

A Disturbing New Day for American Religious Liberty

2012-02-06T14:50:00.001-05:00

As I've mentioned previously, the federal government (specifically, the Department of Health and Human Services) is trying to force Catholic hospitals, charities, and schools to pay for abortion-causing drugs, sterilizations, and contraception -- all of which directly violate our right to conscience.

In my previous post, I compared it to a law attempting to force Jewish food kitchens to carry bacon. But there's another analogy that I can't shake: after the totalitarian Chinese government executes political prisoners, they are alleged to send a bill for the bullet to the victim's family. It's awful enough to have a loved one killed, but to be forced to pay for the indignity is an extra slap in the face. The United States government is now demanding that we “pay for the bullet,” essentially, to assist employees at Catholic institutions to kill their children.

I also mentioned that the U.S. bishops are fighting back. In the past two Sundays, in pulpits around the countries, statements from the bishops denouncing the HHS mandate have been read.

Incredibly, the Army prevented Catholic chaplains from reading the unredacted letter from Archbishop Broglio at Mass:

On Thursday, January 26, Archbishop Broglio emailed a pastoral letter to Catholic military chaplains with instructions that it be read from the pulpit at Sunday Masses the following weekend in all military chapels. The letter calls on Catholics to resist the policy initiative, recently affirmed by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, for federally mandated health insurance covering sterilization, abortifacients and contraception, because it represents a violation of the freedom of religion recognized by the U.S. Constitution.

Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, the bulletproof (h/t)
The Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains subsequently sent an email to senior chaplains advising them that the Archbishop’s letter was not coordinated with that office and asked that it not be read from the pulpit. The Chief’s office directed that the letter was to be mentioned in the Mass announcements and distributed in printed form in the back of the chapel.

Archbishop Broglio and the Archdiocese stand firm in the belief, based on legal precedent, that such a directive from the Army constituted a violation of his Constitutionally-protected right of free speech and the free exercise of religion, as well as those same rights of all military chaplains and their congregants.

Following a discussion between Archbishop Broglio and the Secretary of the Army, The Honorable John McHugh, it was agreed that it was a mistake to stop the reading of the Archbishop’s letter. Additionally, the line: “We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law” was removed by Archbishop Broglio at the suggestion of Secretary McHugh over the concern that it could potentially be misunderstood as a call to civil disobedience.

The AMS did not receive any objections to the reading of Archbishop Broglio’s statement from the other branches of service.

Kathryn Jean Lopez, who drew attention to this, comments on it,

So not only were chaplains told not to read the letter, but an Obama administration official edited a pastoral letter . . . with church buy-in?

Didn’t people flee across an ocean-sized pond to be free of this kind of thing?

Indeed. This is a rather startling development. My hope is that the Army realizes it overreacted, and we can chalk this up to a one-off mistake, rather than setting a precedent that Catholic chaplains can only say what the military permits them to say.

Meanwhile, the New York Times scoffs at Catholics for believing that they're entitled to “religious liberty”:

Even in his victory speech Tuesday night, Mr. Romney hinted darkly at the tone of the campaign to come. He accused President Obama of ordering “religious organizations to violate their conscience” and vowed to defend religious liberty.

It was a reference to the Obama administration’s requirement that large religious institutions, like hospitals and universities, provide insurance coverage for birth control. He was promising to defend the Roman Catholic Church’s “religious liberty” to deprive its tens of thousands of employees and university students of their own liberty.

James Taranto's reaction (in the Wall Street Journal) is apt:

Those scare quotes around religious liberty constitute the most shocking act of punctuation since the early days of what Reuters deemed “the ‘war on terror.’” The New York Times editorial board--and, to judge by his actions, the current president of the United States--has as little respect for religious liberty as this column has for Keynesian “stimulus.”

The “liberty” that the Times thinks trumps the First Amendment isn't a right to abortion, although that would be awful enough. It's your “liberty” to force your religious employer to purchase abortions or contraception for you. What can be said about this argument, other than it is intellectually vacuous, morally repugnant, and a legal absurdity?

Catholics need to wake up to this reality. We live in a day and age in which it's increasingly becoming thinkable to step upon basic freedoms of religion, to force Catholics to pay for the killing of their children, and to control what they can and can't preach in Mass. Abortion isn't just killing millions of children, it's killing the soul of our nation, destroying the very principles we were founded upon.

What can we do in response to all of this? The bishops have uniformly encouraged three things:

Pray.
Fast, and do penance for the nation.
Contact Congress.

You can everything you need to get informed and to write Congress here.

The Sacrificial New Testament Priesthood in Malachi 3

2012-02-03T18:43:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was Candlemas, also called the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple. The First Reading, fittingly, is a prophesy about how the Christ will visit the Second Temple (Malachi 3:1-4):

Michael Pacher, Presentation of Christ (1481)

Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the LORD, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.

But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap:

And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.

Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the LORD, as in the days of old, and as in former years.

I've spoken about this passage recently, in the context of Christ's fulfillment of it. But yesterday, my dad mentioned something staring me in the face, which I'd repeatedly overlooked: Malachi 3 says that Christ established a priesthood. And not just any priesthood, but a sacrificial one. And this sacrificial priesthood is clearly made up of more than just Him. All of this points pretty clearly to, not only the Catholic priesthood, but the Eucharist and the Sacrifice of the Mass.

Nor is this passage some sort of outlier. Rather, on multiple occasions, this New Covenant priesthood was prophesied. My favorite example comes from the last chapter of Isaiah (Is. 66:18-21):

Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, Extreme Unction (1846)
For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory.

And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles.

And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the LORD out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the LORD, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the LORD.

And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the LORD.

That last line is even clearer in the NIV: “And I will select some of them also to be priests and Levites," says the LORD.”

These passages are a real problem for Protestants, who tend to claim either that every Christian's a priest (due to the priesthood of all believers), or that only Christ is (since He's the sole High Priest). Here's a typical anti-Catholic site arguing, without any sense of irony, that the Catholic priesthood is invalid both because we're all priests and none of us are:

St. Josemaría Escrivá at Mass (1971)
Jesus Christ’s unending priesthood cannot be transferred to any other person, as stated in Hebrews 7:24, “But this man [Jesus Christ], because He continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood.” Thus Rome’s sacrament of “Holy Orders”, which claims to pass on Christ’s sacrificial priesthood by “sacerdotal consecration”, is a tradition of men that contradicts revealed Biblical truth.

The Roman Catholic church does not have Christ’s New Testament sacrificial priesthood let alone any higher grade of bishop. The Catholic priesthood is created in order to perpetuate her seven physical sacraments, which she claims are necessary for salvation. The whole life of the Church of Rome revolves around her Bishops and Priests and the sacraments that they perform.

According to the Bible all believers have immediate access to God in the Lord Christ Jesus; all share in the royal priesthood of praise. (I Peter 2:9)

This argument basically refutes itself. If believers sharing in the royal priesthood aren't sharing in Christ's priesthood, whose priesthood are they sharing in? Is there some other source of priesthood other than Christ in the New Covenant?

But in any case, that's just not what Scripture says. Sure, nobody but Christ is the High Priest. And sure, all Christians, through Baptism, have some share in Christ's priesthood. But Scripture is just as clear that there's also a sense in which some (but not all) believers take part in a sacrificial priesthood like what the Levites had in the Old Covenant. I've addressed this point in more depth before, but had never realized that Malachi 3:3-4 was directly on point.

On one narrow point, I do agree with the anti-Catholic site I quoted above: the whole life of the Church of Rome does revolve around the Sacraments. And these Sacraments (particularly the Eucharist) require a sacrificial priesthood. It just so happens that Christ gave us just that, as Scripture promised He would.

The Anti-Choice Backlash to Susan G. Komen

2012-02-03T11:58:00.004-05:00

There's been a huge media outcry over Susan G. Komen's decision to cut off funding to most Planned Parenthood affiliates. Set aside whatever you may think about the morality of abortion, or whether it should be legal, or whether you love or loathe Planned Parenthood.

Since money is fungible, the millions of dollars that Susan G. Komen has given to Planned Parenthood over the years has helped subsidize innumerable abortions, whether we want it to or not. That's just the way money works: if someone picks up the tab for dinner, you can use your dinner money to buy something else, like dessert. Only in Planned Parenthood's case, that money's going towards abortion, not dessert. And according to a recent Congressional investigation, PP may also have been using that money to violate a slew of laws.

Quite sensibly, pro-lifers who want to joint the fight against breast cancer are unhappy about this. There should be a way to fight breast cancer without undermining the pro-life movement. It's just that simple. Certainly, a person can hate both cancer and abortion, right?

But it isn't just that pro-lifers couldn't donate to Komen without donating to Planned Parenthood. It's that all sorts of products, from Kellogg's Cereal to Dannon yogurt to Quilted Northern toilet paper are connected with Komen. So unless you were incredibly careful, picking up groceries resulted in money getting sent to Planned Parenthood. I realize that this sounds indirect, but Kellogg alone has given Komen $11 million. So in the aggregate, we're talking about a huge transfer of wealth from consumers (many of whom are pro-life) buying everyday goods to Komen, and from Komen to Planned Parenthood.

If those who are for legalized abortion take the “pro-choice” label serious (rather than considering themselves “pro-abortion”), this should be troubling. People who just want to buy cereal or fight breast cancer are being dragged into supporting Planned Parenthood against their will. The response is that a number of pro-lifers responded by boycotting Komen, and any products supporting Komen.

What Komen's done now is very simple:

Where there's an alternative to Planned Parenthood, Komen is funding that alternative instead. So the money is still going to fight against breast cancer. It's just going to less controversial providers. So the Planned Parenthood claim that Komen is cutting off mammograms is a lie. The mammograms will still happen . PP just won't get their usual cut.
In fact, in many cases, the money will be better spent, because Komen will be paying for services directly, rather than paying for what are called pass-throughs. Right now, Komen frequently pays PP for mammograms that PP doesn't even provide -- PP then pays someone else to actually do the work (essentially, sub-contracting the work). By paying these people directly, Komen's just cutting Planned Parenthood out as a middle-man. If we're really concerned about money going to fight breast cancer, that's a good thing, right?
In areas where the only provider of breast cancer services is Planned Parenthood, Planned Parenthood still gets the money. The three areas where this is the case are Northern Colorado, Waco, Texas, and Orange County, California.
In the process, Komen becomes substantially more attractive to pro-life consumers and donors.

So just to recap: Komen isn't slowing down the flow of money to fight breast cancer; and nobody is stopping pro-choicers from donating to Planned Parenthood as much as they please. Komen's not even cutting all ties to Planned Parenthood. Everything it's done is completely sensible, regardless of one's views on Planned Parenthood or abortion.

Given this, the response has been ridiculous. Top Susan G. Komen officials have resigned in protest, and panicked pro-choicers have given hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations, with huge donations by the 1%:

Michael Bloomberg

Planned Parenthood Federation of American received $400,000 from 6,000 donors as of Feb. 1, said Shawn Rhea, a spokeswoman, and the group said yesterday pledges were coming at such a pace they couldn’t immediately update the amount. Three large donors also surfaced: The Amy and Lee Fikes’ Foundation, run by the head of closely held Bonanza Oil Co. in Dallas, promised $250,000; New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he would match the next $250,000; and Credo, a phone company, pledged $200,000.

Meanwhile, boycotts of Komen (and of all of the companies who donate to Komen) are being formed, and even a former Komen board member is now trying to get people to stop donating to the cause. So more money to Planned Parenthood, and less money to fight breast cancer. Am I the only one who finds this response insane, even for those who are for legalized abortion?

One of the editoralists for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has noted that this is egregious behavior:

To act as if stopping the funding is any more “political” than the original decision to begin the funding is absurd.

If you disagree, tell me this: How exactly could Komen have decided to part ways with Planned Parenthood [t]hat wouldn’t have been decried as “political”? Having giv[en] to Planned Parenthood once, was Komen bound either to continue giving forever or to suffer a smear campaign by Planned Parenthood and its supporters once it stopped?

If so, that’s not advising Komen to “stay out of politics.” It’s mob-style blackmail. Nice little charity you’ve got there. Shame if anything happened to it.

So if Komen won't give huge amounts of money to the nation's largest (and extremely profitable) abortion provider, breast cancer suffers.

Now, the obvious objection is that pro-lifers did the same thing, right? Wrong. If the Komen foundation started funding Operation Rescue or a similarly avidly pro-life organization, I'd completely understand why pro-choicers wouldn't want their breast cancer donations going there. I'd disagree, but I'd understand it. But that's not what's happening. Komen's simply trying to get out of abortion politics, and make themselves a charity that anyone can support, regardless of their views on abortion.

Today, the side calling itself pro-choice has made it clear that Komen support the nation's largest abortion provider or else. They're trying to twist the arm of the breast-cancer charity into “donating.” Already, numerous members of Congress have applied pressured to Komen to try to force them to reverse their decision, and the Susan G. Komen website was hacked. This is not pro-choice. It's anti-choice, and pro-abortion.

Update: Komen Stupak'd. Sad to see.

Update 2: Maybe not? News reports are mixed as to what Komen's stance is on Planned Parenthood right now. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Air-Conditioned Atheism, the U.S. Bishops, and the HHS Mandate

2012-02-02T10:46:00.001-05:00

Archbishop Chaput's talk at the Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life this year is a must-read for anyone concerned with abortion, or with religious freedom. In it, he speaks rather movingly about children with Down Syndrome, and about the increased risk they face of being aborted (a theme I hit on here). But one of the most jarring things he said was about religious freedom in America:

Catholics need to wake up from the illusion that the America we now live in – not the America of our nostalgia or imagination or best ideals, but the real America we live in here and now – is somehow friendly to our faith. What we’re watching emerge in this country is a new kind of paganism, an atheism with air-conditioning and digital TV. And it is neither tolerant nor morally neutral. [...]

My point is this: Evil talks about tolerance only when it’s weak. When it gains the upper hand, its vanity always requires the destruction of the good and the innocent, because the example of good and innocent lives is an ongoing witness against it. So it always has been. So it always will be. And America has no special immunity to becoming an enemy of its own founding beliefs about human freedom, human dignity, the limited power of the state, and the sovereignty of God.

(h/t Giovanni's Notizblog).

Two days prior to Chaput's speech, the intolerance of evil was on full display, when the Department of Health and Human Services mandated that religious charities and hospitals must provide coverage for contraception, sterilization, and abortion, starting next year:

Birth Control Review (1919)
On Jan. 20 the Department of Health and Human Services finalized a rule requiring “preventive care” insurance coverage for sterilizations and contraception, including the abortifacient drug Ella. While the mandate has a religious exemption, the exemption will not cover many Catholic health care systems, colleges, and charities.

Over one hundred Catholic bishops have published statements objecting to the mandate and asking Catholics to voice their opposition.

The mere fact that over a hundred bishops have already spoken out on this issue should tell you just how severe it is. Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska, describes the situation bluntly:

As you know, the buying of health insurance by every citizen of the USA is now compulsory by federal law. The same law gives to the Cabinet Secretary of Health and Human Services the authority over all health insurance. The present Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, a bitter fallen-away Catholic, now requires that all insurance, even when privately issued, must carry coverage for evil and grave sin. This means that all our Catholic schools, hospitals, social service agencies, and the like will be forced to participate in evil. The Catholic Church has pleaded with President Obama to rescind this edict, but all pleas have been met with scorn and have fallen on deaf ears.

And Roger Cardinal Mahony, who was perhaps the first to respond, said, “I cannot imagine a more direct and frontal attack on freedom of conscience than this ruling today.”

And that's exactly right. Regardless of what you think about contraception and abortion, forcing a religious organization to act in opposition to its religion is diabolical, and affront against the First Amendment. (After all, forcing a Jewish food kitchen to carry bacon is repugnant, regardless of your views on the merits of bacon).

Wojciech Stattler, Maccabees (1842)
Secretary Sebelius, in an act of mockery, said that those who might qualify for a conscientious exemption (almost no one), have one year to comply, but during that year, they must “refer” people to the insurance that covers wicked deads. We cannot and will not comply with this unjust decree. Like the martyrs of old, we must be prepared to accept suffering which could include heavy fines and imprisonment. Our American religious liberty is in grave jeopardy.

All Catholics are asked to pray and do penance that this matter may be resolved. All should contact their elected representatives to protest this outrage and to insist on the passage of the “Respect for Conscience” act which is now before Congress.

I note in passing that Sebelius only has the power to do this because of Obamacare. So to those Catholics and pro-lifers who claimed that the law would be fine, now might be a good time to rethink your support.*

*I say this not as a smug “Toldya so,” although I did (and more importantly, the bishops did), but as someone who made the mistake of voting for Sebelius as governor of Kansas back in 2004, deluding myself into thinking that her views on abortion would be irrelevant as governor of a red state. Mea culpa!

Is Prayer to the Saints Pointless?

2012-01-31T20:39:00.001-05:00

In my experience, Catholic-Protestant dialogues about praying to Saints tend to have two steps. In the first stage, prayer to the Saints is viewed as something suspect, or even evil. In the second stage, prayer to the Saints seems harmless, but also pointless. Let's address each stage in turn.

Is Prayer to the Saints Evil?

Nikolay Ge, Witch of Endor (1857)

The first of these objections is simple enough. The Old Testament prohibits divination, witchcraft and mediums (Deuteronomy 18:10). This is why King Saul was sinning when he visited the witch of Endor, and persuaded her to conjure up the spirit of the deceased prophet Samuel (1 Sam. 28).

But the difference between praying to the Saints and conjuring up the dead is exactly the same as the difference between magic and miracles. Magic is condemned in Scripture as well (Rev. 21:8), and precisely for this reason: it seeks to achieve the supernatural by working around God, or by trying to force His hand. J.K. Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, admitted as much in an interview with Oprah, saying, “I'm not saying I believe magic is real—I don't. But that's the perennial appeal of magic—the idea that we ourselves have power and we can shape our world.” That's a good definition of magic, and also what makes the appeal of magic so dangerous. It's Lucifer's non serviam all over again: we've got magic, who needs God?

Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh: An Allegory of the Dinteville Family (1537)

With miracles, you accomplish the exact same things, but going through God, rather than around Him. The clearest contrast is when Moses faces off with the Egyptian magicians in the Book of Exodus. When Moses and Aaron unleashed the ten plagues, the magicians would attempt to imitate it through magic -- sometimes successfully (Exodus 7:10-12; 20-22; Ex. 8:6-7, 16-19; Ex. 9:10-11). My point is that the godly and the sinful thing may look similar, but they're very different morally. Since miracles involve working through God, they're tied to faith, and seeking God's gifts. Since magic involves trying to work around Him, they're tied to rebellion, and trying to steal God's power. Even if the end result is the same, it makes a big difference whether we got there by seeking a gift or stealing.

Having said all that, I understand that to Protestant eyes, a Catholic praying to Mary probably looks a bit like Saul conjuring up Samuel. But with Catholic prayer, we're going through God, not around Him. For example, the Rosary begins, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” followed by the Apostle's Creed, and the Our Father. The only way that the Saints can hear us is through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Is Prayer to the Saints Pointless?

Even assuming the person you're speaking to can accept the idea that going around God is sinful and going through God isn't, you're not quite home free yet. More than once, I've found myself explaining this, only to have the other person say something along the lines of, “So let me get this straight. When you pray a Hail Mary, you're offering up prayer through God to Mary, asking Mary to pray to God for something. Why not just ask God yourself, directly?” The whole thing seems needlessly indirect.

Philippe de Champaigne, Anne of Austria and Her Children
at Prayer with St. Benedict and St. Scholastica, (1646)

One answer to this is simply that we think that the prayers of the Saints in glory are more efficacious than the prayers of those of us still mired in sin. Certainly, James 5:16 ties the effectiveness of prayer with the righteousness of the person praying it.

But perhaps the better answer is simply this: all prayer is indirect. The clearest example comes from Matthew 6:7-13, in which Jesus says,

And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this:

Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
And forgive us our debts, As we also have forgiven our debtors;
And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil.

Did you catch that? Immediately before introducing us to the Lord's Prayer, Jesus reminds us that our Father already knows what we need before we ask Him. If we're concerned with efficiency, then, that sounds like a good reason to cut out prayer all together. After all, God doesn't just know what we need before we ask. He also knows what we need better than we do. But Jesus doesn't say, “Therefore, don’t worry about praying.” He says, “Pray, then, like this.”

Philippe de Champaigne, The Annunciation (1644)

Or to take another example, think of all of the times that God communicates with man through angels. Does an omnipresent God need to send a messenger? Of course not. But He routinely does so in both the Old and New Testament.

Clearly, then, prayer isn't simply about identifying the solutions to problems as efficiently as we can: God can do that just fine on His own. Rather, it's a transformative process that helps to do at least two things: conform our wills with God's, and draw us into closer union with one another. With that in mind, consider a few examples of prayer from Scripture:

Genesis 18:17-19:29. God tells Abraham that He plans to destroy the city of Sodom for its sinfulness. Abraham then intercedes on behalf of the city, essentially bartering with God until He agrees that if there are even ten righteous people in the entire city, He won't destroy it. There aren't, so Sodom gets destroyed, but as a blessing to Abraham, God saves his nephew Lot, along with Lot's family. This is captured beautifully in Gen. 19:29, “So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, He remembered Abraham, and He brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.” So rather than God negotiating directly with Lot, He goes to Lot's holier uncle, Abraham. Abraham's intercession saves Lot.

Deuteronomy 9:16-21. When Israel, including the high priest Aaron, fall into idolatry, it's through the intercession of Moses that they're saved, after Moses fasted and prayed for forty days and forty nights.

Albrecht Dürer, Mary Praying (1518)

1 Kings 2:13-25. When Adonijah has a big favor to ask of his brother, King Solomon, he accomplishes it by asking Solomon's mother, Bathsheba, who then asks Solomon on his behalf. In this case, things don't work out well for Adonijah (he's asking for Abishag's hand in marriage, and Solomon immediately realizes that he's plotting a coup and has him killed). But it's clear why he chooses such an indirect way. By going to the king's mother, Bathsheba, the king is more likely to grant the request. Indeed, when Bathsheba enters the room, King Solomon honors her by rising from his throne and bowing to her, telling her that he'll grant her whatever she asks (1 Kings 2:19-20). Christ is greater than Solomon (Mt. 12:42), but doesn't love His Mother any less.

Luke 16:19-31. The parable of Lazarus and the rich man, in which the rich man prays to Abraham, asking him for relief from the torments of Hades, and asking Abraham to send Lazarus to warn the man's brothers of the consequences of their sin.

Luke 22:31-32. Jesus tells Simon Peter that Satan desires to sift all of the Apostles like wheat. Jesus then says that He has prayed for Peter (personally), “that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” Clearly, Christ could have prayed for all of the Apostles directly. But He chooses to fortify them through Peter instead.

Philippe de Champaigne, St. Paul (1640s)

Romans 15:30. Paul asks the Roman Christians to pray for him. And look at the way he describes it: “I urge you, brothers and sisters, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me.” So intercessory prayer draws Christians closer together with one another in Christ. Just as Paul sought to have the Roman Christians united to his struggles through intercessory prayer, Catholics today seek to have the Saints in Heaven united to their struggles in the same way.

This final point gets us to the heart of an often-overlooked part of salvation. We're not just saved as individuals detached from one another. We're part of a larger Body of Christ, as St. Paul tells us (1 Corinthians 12:27; Ephesians 3:6). Trying to have Christ without the Church is trying to have the Head without the Body (Eph. 5:24), or trying to dissolve the mystical union between the Bridegroom and the Bride (Eph. 5:25-32). It can't be done. For the same reason, Communion with Christ is Communion with the Saints (1 Cor. 10:16-17).

But the Church doesn't just consist of those on Earth: She's also present in Heaven (Revelation 21:2). Given all of this, and particularly in light of Paul's description of the unifying effects of intercessory prayer in Romans 15:30, we should unite ourselves with the rest of the Body of Christ through prayer. We should freely ask others (whether in Heaven or on Earth) for their prayers, and we should offer our prayers for their intentions as well. In this way, we grow closer to bother God and our neighbor.

This, I think, is the key to understanding prayer. It's not about efficiency, or of drawing the shortest distance between points A and B. Instead, it creates a beautiful and complex web, enveloping us ever-tighter within God's saving grasp, and drawing us nearer to one another.

Three Prophesies About Christ That Couldn't Have Been Made Up

2012-01-30T13:55:00.001-05:00

In the New Testament, Jesus is depicted as fulfilling numerous Old Testament Messianic prophesies. These prophesies provide objective verification that He is Who He claims to be. But how can we know that these things really happened? In other words, how do we know that the New Testament writers didn't just make up these details, to make Jesus look like the Messiah?

I want to suggest three sets of prophesies that the New Testament writers couldn't have manipulated, because they were outside of their control.

(1) Israel Would Be Under Roman Control

Julius Caesar

In Daniel 2, the prophet Daniel interprets a dream that the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar had. In the interpretation, Daniel prophesies that there will be four succeeding kingdoms (starting with the Babylonians). In the fourth of these, “the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people” (Dan. 2:44). Historically, we can say that the four kingdoms to rule over Israel are Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome.

Rome, the fourth kingdom, rules Jewish Israel from 64 B.C. until about 70 A.D.(when the Jews are sent into Diaspora, and Israel is crushed). That's a fairly tiny window for the Messiah to arrive, yet Christ lived, died, and was resurrected during this span. Now, obviously, the New Testament writers couldn't have controlled whether or not the Romans controlled Israel during this period. More on that here.

(2) The Christ Would Die from Crucifixion

Callisto Piazza,
Nailing of Christ to the Cross (1538)

Psalm 22 is one of the Messianic Psalms, and the one that we're told that Christ quoted on the Cross (Mark 15:34, quoting Ps. 22:1). The Psalm was written centuries before the advent of crucifixion. Yet a Crucifixion scene seems to be vividly depicted. In Ps. 22:16-18, the Speaker cries out,

Dogs surround me,a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce my hands and my feet. All my bones are on display; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my clothes among themand cast lots for my garment.

That sounds a lot like Crucifixion: after all, how many other forms of capital punishment involve being stripped, having your hands and feet pierced. and being put on public display? What's more remarkable is that we know that the Romans relied heavily upon crucifixion in the first century.

So Psalm 22 appears to predict a form of capital punishment that wouldn't exist for centuries, this form of capital punishment was used by the Romans in the first century, and would certainly have been used upon Christ for His alleged crimes. None of these are facts that the New Testament writers could have controlled. Put another way, had the Death of Christ taken place at virtually any other time or place, it's hard to imagine a scenario in which His Death would have fit Psalm 22 so believably.

Matthias Grünewald, The Crucifixion (1515) (detail)

Nor is it just Psalm 22: one of the constant themes of the New Testament is that Jesus is the sinless Lamb of God (John 1:36; Revelation 7:17), prefigured by the Passover lamb (Exodus 12; 1 Corinthians 5:7). Yet one of the requirements of the Passover Lamb is that none of its bones could be broken -- this symbolized its perfection (Ex. 12:46). The Apostle John tells us that Jesus fulfilled even this detail at the Crucifixion (John 19:36). And with a Crucifixion, that's quite believable. But what other form of execution would have so neatly fit all of these prophesies?

Here, the evidence is so strong that it was once thought that the evidence was forged. Psalm 22:16 literally says that “they dug my hands and my feet,” a very graphic image of being nailed to the Cross. Skeptics used to think that Christian forgers had changed the Hebrew (from ka’ari, “like a lion,” to ka’aru, “they dug”) to make this sound prophetic. Today, we know that isn't true: a first-century parchment was found, proving that the passage wasn't some later forgery.

(3) The Second Temple Would Still Be Standing

The Dome of the Rock (background) and the Wailing Wall (foreground)

The Old Testament contains a number of prophesies about the Second Temple. The most important of the prophesies are these two:

Haggai 2:1-9 promises that, while smaller in size than its predecessor, the Second Temple would exceed the First Temple in glory.
Malachi 3:1 tells us that the reason for this is that “the Lord you are seeking will come to His Temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come.”

We're told in the New Testament that Christ fulfills this, entering the Temple, driving out the money-lenders, and declaring it His House, and a House of prayer (Matthew 21:12-13). Again, the fulfillment is perfect: He is both the Message and the Messenger, and He's the only possible Messiah who could call the Second Temple His Temple, since it was created for Him (and at His command).

But the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. All that remains is the Wailing wall, what used to be the western wall of the Temple. So if the Messiah didn't come by 70, it seems these prophesies were wrong. Once again, whether the Temple stood or fell was outside of the New Testament authors' control. But we again see a clear Messianic window: if the Messiah didn't come by 70, He wasn't coming.

Conclusion

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Plenty of other prophetic passages pointing to the same time period (Dr. Taylor Marshall mentions another: the 490 years from King Artaxerxes to Christ prophesied in Dan. 9:24-27). If the New Testament authors were con men, they were insanely lucky con men, since the stars aligned just perfectly for them to convincingly claim that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophesies. To be sure, we can't go back and verify that each of the events that they're describing occurred. But the events which we do know -- for example, that the Old Testament predates the time of Christ, that Someone named Jesus lived in the early first century, that the Romans used crucifixion to punish certain crimes, that the Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., etc. -- all match up perfectly.

My challenge, to anyone who thinks that the Gospel accounts are mythologies, and that Jesus is simply a fictional character created to fulfill these events, duplicate it. Who else in history (either real historical figures, or someone imaginary) fits these prophesies, and the innumerable other Old Testament Messianic prophesies?

Steve Martin v. John Dominic Crossan

2012-01-26T09:46:00.003-05:00

A while back, I wrote a post on the historical accuracy of Luke 2:2. In a nutshell, some Biblical critics claim that the global census that St. Luke describes (in Lk. 2:1-2) as occurring during the reign of Herod the Great didn't happen. I think that Mark Shea does a great job of answering this, using a stand-up sketch by comedian Steve Martin to show the absurdity of the skeptic's argument:

Comedian Steve Martin used to do a routine in which he smiled broadly with that distinct smile of his and said, “Remember a couple of years back when the earth (wry pause)... exploded? Remember how they built that giant space ark and loaded all of humanity into it, but the government decided not to tell the stupid people what was going on so that they wouldn’t panic…..” The light of understanding would then break across his face as he surveyed the faces of the audience and he would quickly backtrack saying, “Oooooooh! Uh….. Never mind!”

I can’t help but think of that as I read [John Dominic] Crossan’s take on Luke. We are being asked to believe that the gospels are works of cunning fiction by people laboring under some huge need to bring others under the spell of their delusion of a Risen Christ. Part of their messianic delusion requires them to link the Nazarene carpenter with King David by portraying him as born in “the city of David”, Bethlehem. And so they do what to get Jesus there in time for his birth and debut as the Son of David?

Well, a lot of options are open to the creative gospel writer whose only goal is to write a tall tale. You could just say that Mary’s grandmother took sick and she went to visit her. You could claim that Joseph bought a plot of land and didn’t want to leave Mary behind while he went to inspect it. You could cook up an angelic visitation commanding the Holy Family to go to Bethlehem and wait for their son to be born. Any of these stories have the tremendous advantage of being extremely hard to refute decades after the event. And since you’ve already stuffed your gospel full of miracles, what’s one more angel?

But no, according to Crossan, Luke tells the equivalent of Martin’s space ark story: “Remember, a few decades back when the entire world was enrolled for taxation?” He invites, not just somebody to refute it, but everybody in his entire audience. That’s an awfully strange thing to do if the enrollment never happened and an awfully odd way to establish the bona fides of your main character.

Now, realize that even Crossan admits that the Gospel of Luke was written in the first century. So the people reading it would know whether or not this enormous event had or hadn't occurred. And this is true for countless other New Testament historical claims: these claims were easily falsifiable in the first century: that hundreds of people claimed to have seen the risen Christ (1 Cor. 15:6), that St. Peter preached about the Empty Tomb in Jerusalem, on Pentecost, only a few months after Easter (Acts 2:14-40), etc. That they were taken as historical fact is evidence that they were, in fact, historical fact. And this, in turn, makes a solid case in favor of Christianity.

Ten Tips for Successful Catholic Blogging

2012-01-25T16:10:00.001-05:00

A couple of readers have asked for tips in starting out in Catholic blogging. I don't have any great secrets, and can think of plenty of people more qualified than myself to answer, but here are the things that I wish I had known (or thought of) back when I was first beginning. I'll mention up front that I haven't always done everything on this list -- some of these are areas where I'm aware I need to improve.

5 Tips for Starting Your Blog

Lionello Spada, St. Jerome (1610)

Why do you feel called to blog? Start by asking yourself this question. What do you feel like God is calling you to do? What are you hoping to get out of it? How serious are you in your commitment? Pray on this.
What do you love or hate about other blogs? This is the easiest way of figuring out which things to do, or to avoid. Chances are, the things you really like or really hate are going to be things other people really love or hate. Regardless, you don't want to be the kind of blogger that you can't stand. I believe it was C.S. Lewis who pointed out that true humility is a trait we admire in others, while neglecting it in ourselves. Whoever it was, it's a sound point. We can often see the flaws and the strengths of our neighbor more clearer than we can see them in ourselves.
Figure out your “genre.” Sin is monotonous: the pleasures of the earth are finite, and end in nihilism, as nearly any addict can tell you. Sanctity, in contrast, is vibrant and unbounded, since it's a love affair with the Infinite. Are you going to write about canon law? Parenting? Art and beauty? Apologetics? Catholicism and politics? Liturgy? Pro-life and social justice issues? Before you write a masterpiece, you need to figure out your “genre.” Some blogs are able to cover multiple genres well, but many aren't. For example, think long and hard about getting into the weeds on political issues on which Catholics can take either side. This can be either a good way of stimulating discussion on the dual roles of faith and politics, or a quick way of alienating even other Catholics.
Set a tone. I think that the most successful blogs are somewhat predictable: regular readers have a feel for what they're getting. This includes the topics or genres covered, but it also includes how you cover them. For example, how much of the blog will be able your own experiences? Figure out if you're more like Augustine or Aquinas. But it's much more than that. Look at the contrasts in how John the Baptist and John the Apostle present the Gospel. Same content, different tone.

Jacob Wrestles with the Angel (1866)

Choose a name wisely. Names are incredibly important in Scripture (e.g., Gen. 17:4-5, Gen. 32:28, Mt. 16:17-19, Rev. 2:17), and in the life of the Church (particularly at Baptism and Confirmation), and should tell us something about you. The same holds true for your blog's title and for the titles of your posts, particularly since these are the things people see before they enter your site. This is usually all the advertisement you get.

Personally, I try to keep things relatively lighthearted, while addressing serious topics. The original names I was mulling over for this blog (like Catholic Defense or Catholicism Contra Mundum, etc.) sounded too boring, stern, or pretentious. Finally, I asked my Calvinist friend Don for suggestions, who without skipping a beat, answered, “Shameless Popery.” That name captured the feel of the blog better than anything I could have come up with.

My point is this: a blog named To View the World Through Blood-Colored Lenses evokes a very different feel than a blog named Little Catholic Bubble. It's likely to appeal to a different crowd, even before anyone opens the page.

5 Tips for Keeping Up Your Blog

The internet is filled with abandoned blogs, tiny ghost towns lining the sides of the Information Superhighway. What do you need to do to avoid consigning your own blog to an early death?

Diego Velázquez, Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (1618)

Fill up. You can only give what you've received. When I find myself getting snarky, or running out of ideas for things to talk about, or finding myself unable to turn my idea into a a coherent post, that's usually a good sign that my tanks are running low. I need to step away from the computer, spend some time at Mass, in prayer, or doing some spiritual reading, and fill up those tanks. This both revitalizes the spirit, and frequently inspires good posts. Martin Luther is reported to have said, “Work, work, from early until late. In fact, I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.” We could benefit from a similar attitude: everything, including blogging, goes better with prayer.

Cutting out prayer time with God because you want to blog about Catholicism is like saving time on a long roadtrip by not stopping for gas: it may seem smart in the moment, but it won't end well. Worse, it may be a sign that you're trying to be the Messiah -- trying to save people through your own intellect or rhetorical skills. You can't. Only God saves. The best we can hope for is that, like St. Paul in today's First Reading, we can be a “chosen instrument” in God's plan of salvation (Acts 9:15).
Consistency. This is the single most important distinctive in blogging, in my opinion. I try to post daily (or nearly so) every Monday through Friday. Missing a day or two is fine, but if you don't post anything for a few weeks, people will move on. The reader base that you spent months building up can be lost very quickly through inactivity. So if you do need to take an extended break (eventually, almost everyone does), and want readers to be there when you get back, try to let them know ahead of time.

This also means that you can't afford to be a perfectionist. You can't spent two weeks on each post to make sure they're perfect. Give what you can, and leave the rest to God. You'll surprised by the results. I have posts that I spent hours painstakingly researching that nobody seemed to care for, and posts that I rushed through in a few minutes that took off like hotcakes. For example, one of my more popular recent posts was this one: it's only four paragraphs long, and consists primarily of my reaction to a First Things article and a Catholic Vote post. I almost didn't publish it, because it didn't seem to have a point. I suspect this is all another way of God reminding me that He's the one in control, not me.

Valentin de Boulogne, Saint Paul Writing His Epistles (1620)

Content. This is hopefully obvious, but your blog isn't all sizzle. It needs some steak for people to come back for more. Keeping your audience in mind, along with your purpose in writing the blog (see above), write the posts that you would want to read. Write the posts that you think other people need to hear.

Don't wait until you're the perfect Catholic Saint / encyclopedia: this blog has helped me grow as a Catholic. Things that seem obvious to you may seem insightful to those just discovering Catholicism. Those who are spiritual infants, just learning to walk in the faith, may find it easier to learn from a toddler than from a sprinter. Keep the Catechism and Catholic Encyclopedia close if you're not sure about what you're saying (or just don't say it), be prepared to apologize and fix errors, and cast out into the deep. Having said that, don't contradict or undermine the Church, and don't dwell on disciplines you wish She would change. You should be building up the Body of Christ, not grumbling (1 Cor. 10:10).

You should aim for a mix of your own content, and your reactions to other people's posts. You also don't have to dominate the discussion. Sometimes, it's enough to just get the conversation going.

Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, The Ecstasy of St. Theresa (1652)

Beauty. This is something I realized far too late in the game. If you read my older posts, they're often just walls of text. Now, I try to enhance the post with Catholic art and even the occasional video. You can find plenty of art for free, from places like Wikimedia Commons. If nothing else, just use a site like Biblical Art, and find relevant art by Scripture passage. And remember, we're Catholics; we believe that all beauty points to God. On a related note, see how your blog looks in different Internet browsers, different sized windows, and on smart phones.
Marketing. Even if you're doing everything perfectly, you may be ignored. It helps to talk to more successful bloggers, particularly those who are good about promoting upstarts. Mark Shea, for example, was the first to plug my blog, and Pat Madrid linked to me early on (on his old blog).

Two people you should know about, who do an amazing job of directing traffic towards Catholic blogs: Tito Edwards, who runs The Pulp.it, and has a recurring Register feature highlighting Catholic blogging, and Kevin Knight of New Advent. You'll know when they link to you because hundreds (or even thousands) of people suddenly show up. I was blessed in that they found me, but I don't think it's wrong to send your particularly good posts to them in the hope of getting a plug. After all, you're writing this stuff for people to read, right?

There's much more that can be said: how active to be in the comments, how to handle rude or blasphemous commenters, whether sleep is really as important as people claim, etc. Feel free to continue the discussion in the comments. Honestly, though, Jen Fulwiler understands this all better than I do, and wrote a two-part series on blogging here and here. So maybe you should check her out, instead?

Finally, heed the words of St. Peter: “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).

P.S. Please, feel free to post links to your own Catholic blogs in the comments, particularly if you're just starting out! If you'd prefer, link to a specific post or two you'd especially like to share.

The Annual March for Life Media Blackout

2012-01-24T11:57:00.003-05:00

This picture is one of numerous great shots highlighted by Matt Cassens on his blog St. Blogustine (which I note in passing is an excellent name for a blog). Contrast it with Newsweek's spin from 2010, in an article entitled, Who’s Missing at the 'Roe v. Wade' Anniversary Demonstrations? Young Women. The article rhetorically asked, “where are the young, vibrant women supporting their pro-life or pro-choice positions? Likely, they’re at home.”

In lieu of doing their own reporting, Christian Science Monitor shamelessly regurgitated Newsweek's outright false claims: “According to Newsweek, demonstrators on both sides were mostly from the baby boomer generation.” I mean, just look at all those Baby Boomers. Wait, I don't actually see any in that shot. In fact, I'm not sure I've seen a single March for Life picture from the last ten years containing more than a few dozen people in which most of those in the shot were Baby Boomers. And in the four years that I marched, I can attest that the ratio of young people to Baby Boomers is staggering. The youth own this movement.

So the media coverage has long been riddled with lies and distortions. If you ever want to be in the press, an easy way to do it is to be a pro-choice counter-protester at the March for Life. Each year, a few dozen show up, and each year, seemingly every one of them gets a close-framed shot that make them seem to be part of a huge pro-choice contingent. In the Monitor article I mentioned above, the accompanying photo showed four pro-choicers and a single pro-lifer. That huge protest of hundreds of thousands of people? Ignored in favor of a few dozen (literally!) counter-protesters.

But as bad as media distortions are (and they really do seem intentional here: the photographers had to have noticed an enormous procession of people passing them by), the worst is the outright media blackout. For five years straight, the New York Times has refused to run anything on the March for Life. This year, they were forced to indirectly acknowledge the March's existence, because Senator Rand Paul was detained on his way to the March, after he refused a TSA patdown. The last thing Senator Paul had tweeted before his detainment:

@SenRandPaulSenator Rand Paul
Today I'll speak to the March for Life in DC. A nation cannot long endure w/o respect for the right to Life. Our Liberty depends on it. #ky

So you can't really cover Senator Paul's detainment without acknowledging the March for Life, since it's part of the story. Unless you're CBS:

Paul said he was "detained" at a small cubicle and couldn't make his flight to Washington for a Senate vote scheduled later in the day.

And where was Paul headed before that vote, I wonder? CBS doesn't give us any clues. Because this isn't news (be sure to watch the time lapse video -- it's the best way of grasping just how enormous the March actually is):

P.S. My friend Matt Balan offers an extreme example from this year's coverage.

March for Life 2012, Byzantine-Style

2012-01-23T11:11:00.001-05:00

Today is the March for Life. While much of the press (local and national) ignores the March, our local NBC affiliate did a good job covering the basics:

Monday marks the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that removed many state and federal restrictions on abortion.

Thousands will gather in the District for the annual March for Life.

It’s been deemed the largest and longest-running peaceful human rights demonstration for the unborn, with more than 100,000 expected to attend. [...]

The National Prayer Vigil for Life is scheduled to begin at at 6:30 p.m. Sunday in the Great Upper Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The vigil, which will last through the night and into Monday morning, typically draws about 20,000 people and is organized by the Basilica, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Catholic University.

The rally begins at 12 p.m. on Monday on the National Mall near the Smithsonian Castle. The actual march is scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. The march will follow its traditional route up Constitution Avenue to the Supreme Court building.

While I'm not able to attend the March itself this year, due to some work-related commitments, I was able to attend part of last night's National Prayer Vigil for Life. Specifically, I made it to the Byzantine Catholic Compline (Night Prayer), which was amazing. Here's the description from the schedule:

Night Prayer (Byzantine Rite) - Crypt Church, Led by Most Reverend William C. Skurla, Bishop of Passaic and Metropolitan Archbishop-elect of Pittsburgh; Homilist: Most Reverend Stefan Soroka, Metropolitan Archbishop for the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia; Cantors and Slava Men's Chorus from Epiphany of our Lord Church, Annandale, VA

The prayers were unspeakably beautiful, in large part due to the Slava Men's Chorus, who lead sung chant of a number of Psalms. Archbishop Soroka gave a touching personal homily about his twin brother, who nearly died in infancy. Their father, an immigrant who spoke nearly no English, fought for the young boy's life, even in the face of doctors who encouraged the family to give up and just be thankful for the son that they had. Today, that sickly infant is a police officer, and a father himself. Abp. Soroka then described how an assault on the unborn is an assault on God Himself, and we prayed for His Mercy.

I shot a few videos towards the end, just to give some sense of how beautiful this all was, including the Crypt Church itself. One:

Two:

And three, showing both Archbishop Skurla and Archbishop Soroka recessing from the church:

There are many more events going on tonight, including an Advocates for Life reception featuring Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood director turned pro-life activist. I'm looking forward to that!

P.S. Speaking of the March for Life, it brought Brock Smith, who comments here from time to time, into D.C. We met in person for the first time. Here's a picture of us with my friend Carlos, who comments under the name Grimaud:

I'm the one in black.

Does the Pope Believe in the Resurrection?

2012-01-20T19:34:00.001-05:00

Hans Multscher, The Resurrection of Christ (1437)

That's the title of an article written by Matthew Vogan, who appears to be an elder of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Incredibly, he claims that Benedict denies the historical Resurrection of Christ, and “flatly denies the fundamental biblical truth of the resurrection of the body.” That's obviously absurd, and shouldn't even pass the laugh-test. How stupid would Catholics have to be to not notice if the pope rejected the Resurrection?

Really, Vogan's article is essentially asking, is the pope Catholic? But what's remarkable is that (a) the article appeared in Free Presbyterian Magazine, which puts on scholarly airs, and (b) nobody seems to have bothered fact-checking (or answering) the accusations Vogan raises. So just to clear the air and put the matter to rest, let's address both what the pope believes, and how Vogan misrepresents the evidence.

What Benedict Believes About the Resurrection

Benedict's views on the bodily Resurrection are simple and straightforward: he's a believer, and has repeatedly declared that this belief is at the core of Christian faith. For example, in May of 2003, then-Cardinal Ratzinger commemorated the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Pontifical Biblical Commission with a speech explaining the appropriate role of Catholic Biblical scholarship. In that speech, he denounced those who deny the bodily Resurrection for destroying the very content of the Christian religion:

The opinion that faith as such knows absolutely nothing of historical facts and must leave all of this to historians is Gnosticism: this opinion disembodies the faith and reduces it to pure idea. The reality of events is necessary precisely because the faith is founded on the Bible. A God who cannot intervene in history and reveal Himself in it is not the God of the Bible. In this way the reality of the birth of Jesus by the Virgin Mary, the effective institution of the Eucharist by Jesus at the Last Supper, his bodily resurrection from the dead - this is the meaning of the empty tomb - are elements of the faith as such, which it can and must defend against an only presumably superior historical knowledge.

Gerard Seghers, Resurrection of Christ (c. 1620)

And when he was visiting New York City in 2008, he said this during an Ecumenical Prayer Service:

Throughout the New Testament, we find that the Apostles were repeatedly called to give an account for their faith to both Gentiles (cf. Acts 17:16-34) and Jews (cf. Acts 4:5-22; 5:27-42). The core of their argument was always the historical fact of Jesus’ bodily resurrection from the tomb (Acts 2:24, 32; 3:15; 4:10; 5:30; 10:40; 13:30). The ultimate effectiveness of their preaching did not depend on “lofty words” or “human wisdom” (1 Cor 2:13), but rather on the work of the Spirit (Eph 3:5) who confirmed the authoritative witness of the Apostles (cf. 1 Cor 15:1-11).

So the Apostles, led by the Holy Spirit, used the argument from Jesus Christ's bodily Resurrection to establish the Church, and this belief in the bodily Resurrection is at the very heart of the faith, and not to be viewed as somehow contrary to history. There are plenty of other things we could point to. Even ignoring his innumerable Easter addresses celebrating the Resurrection, Pope Benedict recently wrote a book called Jesus of Nazareth, Vol. II: From the Entrance Into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, in which he said (on pp. 241-42) that without the Resurrection, “Jesus would be a failed religious leader,” and “we would be alone.”

And it's not just Jesus' Resurrection he proclaims, but the resurrection of the body at the end of time. From page 28 of The Sacrament of Charity:

The eucharistic celebration, in which we proclaim that Christ has died and risen, and will come again, is a pledge of the future glory in which our bodies too will be glorified. Celebrating the memorial of our salvation strengthens our hope in the resurrection of the body and in the possibility of meeting once again, face to face, those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith.

All of this is really unambiguously clear. So how did Vogan get his facts so distorted?

Where Vogan Goes Wrong

The starting problem with Vogan's article is that it's not written to understand what Pope Benedict believes. It's written to scare Protestants. In his introduction and conclusion, Vogan makes it clear that he’s worried that a conservative Catholic (particularly one who happens to be both a brilliant theologian and the pope) is going to be appealing to intelligent Reformed Christians, who will take it as a call to “return home to Rome.” So Vogan seeks to show that Benedict isn’t a conservative, in order to scare Calvinists away from Catholicism. In other words, you should view this as credibly as you do a negative campaign ad, because it’s similarly motivated: destroy the opponent’s reputation.

To “prove” that Pope Benedict is a heretic, Vogan grossly mischaracterizes a huge corpus of Benedict’s writings. Let me give you a few examples.

Vogan's Claim # 1: Benedict Thinks We Should Avoid Speaking of the Soul's Immortality

Pieter Pourbus, Last Judgment (1551)

Vogan claims Benedict thinks it's the proper Christian thing to do to avoid speaking of the soul's immortality:

Ratzinger’s book, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, covers, amongst other things, the nature of the resurrection. He notes that the accepted view among modern Roman Catholic and liberal Protestant theologians is that body and soul expire at the point of death and that 'the proper Christian thing, therefore, is to speak, not of the soul’s immortality, but of the resurrection of the complete human being and of that alone' (p 105). He notes that the word soul has disappeared from Roman Catholic liturgy (also from Roman Catholic Bible translations) as a consequence.

The Truth is that Benedict accuses his opponents of this, and shows why that view is dangerous.

I was stunned by this argument. Vogan presents this as if it's something Benedict is arguing for, that the proper Christian thing is to deny (or ignore) the soul's immortality. That's completely false. The quotation from page 105 is Benedict's description of his opponents' worldview and “the State of the Question.” He then proceeds to show why this popular view is false. In other words, this would be like citing Psalm 14:1 and Psalm 53:1 to “prove” that Scripture teaches that there is no God, or using Mt. 16:14 to “prove” that the Apostles viewed Jesus as simply another prophet.

At the end of the chapter, he writes:

Over against the theories sketched out in the opening section of this chapter, we were able to show that the idea of a resurrection taking place in the moment of death is not well-founded, either in logic or in the Bible. We saw that the Church's own form of the doctrine of immortality was developed in a consistent manner from the resources of the biblical heritage, and is indispensible on grounds of both tradition and philosophy. But that leaves the other side of the question still unanswered: what, then, about the resurrection of the dead? [...] Such questions make us realize that, despite their contrary starting points, the modern theories we have met seek to avoid not so much the immortality of the soul as the resurrection, now as always the real scandal to the intellectuals. To this extent, modern theology is closer to the Greeks than it cares to recognize.

In other words, he explicitly rejects the beliefs Vogan accuses him of holding, and shows why those views are wrong.

Vogan's Claim # 2: Benedict Defines the Resurrection as Mere Fellowship

Vogan claims Benedict defines the Resurrection as simply fellowship:

The Last Judgment and the Mass of Saint Gregory
The book [Introduction to Christianity] seeks to explain the Apostles’ Creed in the light of contemporary Roman Catholic dogma. When Ratzinger approaches the clause, 'I believe in the resurrection of the body', he recognises that this doctrine is a 'stumbling block to the modern mind' (p 232).9 His definition is both strange and ambiguous. 'Resurrection', he writes, 'expresses the idea that the immortality of man can exist and be thought of only in the fellowship of men' (p 172).

The Truth is that Benedict teaches that the Resurrection is more than fellowship.

Benedict clearly describes fellowship as just one aspect of the Resurrection. He says things like: “part of the Christian idea of immortality is fellowship with other human beings. Man is not engaged in a solitary dialogue with God. He does not enter an eternity with God which belongs to him alone.” That's from p. 159 of Eschatology, a book Vogan cites. So once again, Vogan claims Benedict believes one thing, while the actual evidence proves the exact opposite.

So what about the partial quote Vogan does cite, from page 172 of Introduction to Christianity? Well, it isn't a definition of the Resurrection at all. Instead, Benedict is saying that since the Resurrection is true, we know that salvation isn't merely individualistic. So, I can't say Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior, to the exclusion of the Communion of the Saints. He writes:

Resurrection expresses the idea that the immortality of man can exist and be thought of only in the fellowship of men, in man as the creature of fellowship, as we shall see in more detail later on. Finally, even the concept of redemption, as we have already said, only has a meaning on this plane; it does not refer to the detached monadic destiny of the individual.

That's a savvy point. If we understand the Resurrection, we see why concepts like the Communion of the Saints and the Church are so important. But Benedict isn't defining what the Resurrection is, any more than if I say that Alaska is cold, I'm defining “Alaska” and “cold” to mean the same thing. By stripping the first sentence of any context, and declaring it a definition, Vogan distorts Benedict's point be that the Resurrection means nothing more than fellowship.

Vogan's Claim # 3: Benedict Explicitly Denies the Resurrection of the Body

Vogan claims that Benedict explicitly denies the resurrection of the body on pp. 240-41 of Introduction to Christianity

Francisco Pacheco, The Last Judgment
In Introduction to Christianity, Ratzinger explicitly denies the resurrection of the body. 'It now becomes clear that the real heart of faith in the resurrection does not consist at all in the idea of the restoration of bodies, to which we have reduced it in our thinking; such is the case even though this is the pictorial image used throughout the Bible'. He says that the word body, or flesh, in the phrase, the resurrection of the body, 'in effect means "the world of man" . . . [it is] not meant in the sense of a corporality isolated from the soul' (pp 240-41).

The truth is that Benedict explicitly affirms the resurrection of the body on pp. 240-41 of Introduction to Christianity.

Once more, we see that the evidence supports the polar opposite of what Vogan claims. The very passage that Vogan cites (pp. 240-41; pp. 350-51 in the Google Books version) says the opposite of what Vogan claims it says. Instead of Benedict explicitly denying the resurrection of the body, Benedict explicitly affirms the resurrection of the body, saying:

Immortality as conceived by the Bible proceeds, not from the intrinsic power of what is in itself indestructible, but from being drawn into the dialogue with the Creator; that is why it must be called awakening. Because the Creator intends, not just the soul, but the man physically existing in the midst of history and gives him immortality, it must be called “awakening of the dead” = “of men”. It should be noted here that even in the formula of the Creed, which speaks of the “resurrection of the body”, the word “body” means in effect “the world of man” (in the sense of bibilical expressions like “all flesh will see God's salvation”, and so on); even here the word is not meant in the sense of a corporality isolated from the soul.

Leaving aside that Benedict is talking about the use of the word “body” in the Creed (rather than the Bible, as Vogan claims), we should see an obvious pattern emerge. Once again, Benedict has explicitly affirmed the resurrection of the body, saying that the “the Creator intends, not just the soul, but the man physically existing in the midst of history and gives him immortality.” How is that open to any meaning other than bodily resurrection?

All he's done in the passage I quoted is explain that man isn't simply a soul trapped in a physical cage, as the ancient Greeks imagined, but a union of body and soul. In the resurrection of the body, then, it's the full man, body and soul (not just our bodies, isolated from our souls) that is glorified. That is exactly the orthodox Christian definition of the resurrection of the body, and what the Church that formed the Creed taught (and continues to teach, under the Roman Pontiff). If Vogan believes something else, he's the one embracing something heretical, not the pope.

Conclusion

Vogan makes more arguments, but I think this is sufficient. At some point, we just have to conclude that Vogan either lacks the capacity to understand Pope Benedict's scholarly writings or lacks the virtue and veracity to accurately represent what the pope believes.

Frankly, a good case can be made for either. On the one hand, the pope's scholarly work is admittedly quite dense at points, and I've struggled slowly through some of his writings myself. A priest I know jokingly refers to Introduction to Christianity as “Introduction to Christianity for German Theologians,” since Benedict's encyclopedic knowledge can be hard to keep up with. On the other hand, Vogan's piece is dripping with anti-Catholic disdain. I omitted the sheer gratitious attacks, like when he lambasts Benedict for the “Jesuitical distinction that he makes between his official and private views,” or when he claims that “is typical of Roman Catholicism to say both 'yes' and 'no' at the same time to biblical doctrine,” before grossly misrepresenting the Catholic teachings on Scripture, the Church, the Saints and Mary (none of which are remotely connected with what he is allegedly writing about).

So I don't know if Vogan's problem is blind bigotry, dishonesty, or just an inability to understand Ratzinger's work. For his own sake, I sincerely hope it's the latter. But regardless, he seems singularly unqualified to be writing articles on subjects he knows so little about, and it's to the shame of Free Presbyterian Magazine that they ran such a provocative and unedifying piece without checking to see if his facts were even remotely correct.

Yes, the pope is Catholic. Yes, he believes in the Resurrection of Christ, and yes, he looks forward, with all Catholics, to the resurrection of the body. Amen.

The Twilight of Protestant America?

2012-01-19T23:06:00.003-05:00

Back in 2008, Jody Bottum, then the editor of First Things, wrote a fine essay called The Death of Protestant America: A Political Theory of the Protestant Mainline, exploring the collapse of “mainline” Protestantism. There's been a lot of talk of this: that Protestantism in America is rapidly losing its grip on the culture.

It's easy to exaggerate this idea, but I think there's really something to it. Consider the Supreme Court. Of the nine justices, there are exactly zero Protestants. This would have been completely unthinkable even a generation ago. From 1789 until about 1969, nearly every justice was Protestant, and even as recently as 1994, a majority of justices were Protestant. Today, in the words of Christianity Today, we've got a Court composed of 6 Catholics, 3 Jews: Kagan, Breyer, and Ginsburg are Jewish, while Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, Scalia, Thomas, and Sotomayor are Catholic.

Catholic Vote noticed that we're seeing a similar phenomenon now in the GOP primaries, where the three candidates credited with a shot at winning (Romney, Gingrich, and Santoroum) are either Catholic or Mormon (with another Mormon, Huntsman, having recently dropped out of the race). What's even stranger is that this thing that was very recently unthinkable wasn't newsworthy.

In a talk he gave this summer, Cardinal George said that he was much less worried about Protestant America, and much more worried about post-Protestant America. I think we're going to have to start thinking much more seriously about just what this entails, because America's post-Protestantism is descending upon us rapidly.

How Ratzinger Reacted to Becoming Pope Benedict

2012-01-18T15:42:00.001-05:00

On Monday, I looked at how various men have reacted to being elected pope. I included popes from Clement XIV (elected in 1769) to John Paul II (1978), but didn't include Pope Benedict's reaction.

Since then, I heard a great talk on Benedict's election given by Msgr. Bartholomew Smith, the pastor at St. Bernadette Catholic Church in D.C., and a former priest-secretary to Cardinal William Baum. Cardinal Baum attended the conclave, but was frail enough to need Msgr. Smith's assistance, meaning that Msgr. Smith got a unique view into the way the conclave process works. Without disclosing anything confidential, he was able to walk us through the way a conclave works, and he was clearly struck by the organic beauty of the thing. He mentioned something I hadn't known before: that the room in which the newly-elected pope vests is called the Room of Tears, This captures well what I pointed out in Monday's post: that the calling to the papacy is a serious responsibility indeed, and one which no man is truly prepared for.

The same day that I learned this, my friend Peter e-mailed the section in Light of the World in which Pope Benedict discusses his own reaction to being elected. Since it dovetails so perfectly with both Monday's post, and Msgr. Smith's talk, I thought I'd share it here. This is from a series of interviews with German journalist Peter Seewald (whose questions are in blue italics):

What the crowd saw

Holy Father, on April 16, 2005, your seventy-eighth birthday, you told your co-workers how much you were looking forward to your retirement. Three days later you were the leader of the universal Church with 1.2 billion members. Not exactly a project that one saves for his old age.

Actually I had expected finally to have some peace and quiet. The fact that I suddenly found myself facing this tremendous task was, as everybody knows, a shock for me. The responsibility is in fact enormous.

There was the moment when, as you later said, you felt just as if “a guillotine” were speeding down on you.

Yes, the thought of the guillotine occurred to me: Now it falls down and hits you. I had been so sure that this office was not my calling, but that God would now grant me some peace and quiet after strenuous years. But then I could only say, explain to myself: God’s will is apparently otherwise, and something new and completely different is beginning for me. He will be with me.

What Pope Benedict saw

In the so-called “room of tears” during a conclave three sets of robes lie waiting for the future Pope. One is long, one short, one middle-sized. What was going through your head in that room, in which so many new Pontiffs are said to have broken down? Does one wonder again here, at the very latest: Why me? What does God want of me?

Actually at that moment one is first of all occupied by very practical, external things. One has to see how to deal with the robes and such. Moreover I knew that very soon I would have to say a few words out on the balcony, and I began to think about what I could say. Besides, even at the moment when it hit me, all I was able to say to the Lord was simply: “What are you doing with me? Now the responsibility is yours. You must lead me! I can’t do it. If you wanted me, then you must also help me!” In this sense, I stood, let us say, in an urgent dialogue relationship with the Lord: if he does the one thing he must also do the other.

This is what humility looks like. And it's the mark of a great pope.

Does the Bible Condemn Repetitive Prayer?

2012-01-17T12:39:00.003-05:00

One of the common arguments raised against Catholic devotions like the Rosary is that Catholics are praying the same few form prayers over and over again, and Scripture condemns repetitive prayer. After all, in Matthew 6:7, Christ says, “And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words,” or to use the KJV, “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.”

The answer to this is simple: Christ condemns vain repetitions, or heaping up empty phrases. Repetitive prayer, including the use of form prayer, is embraced by Scripture, and practiced by the early Church. Let's look at repetitive prayer first, and then form prayer.

The Bible Calls Us to Repetitive Prayer

One of the most vivid examples of this comes from Jesus' agony in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:39-44):

Carl Bloch, Gethsemane (1805)
And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt."

And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, "So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, "My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, thy will be done." And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words.

So Jesus prayed the same prayer three times in a row. That's certainly repetitive prayer. But it's hardly vain repetition, or empty phrases. Jesus was begging the Father intensely. Likewise, we're invited to beg God for things, and even to nag Him. This invitation comes from Jesus' parable of the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8):

And he told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor regarded man; and there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, `Vindicate me against my adversary.'

For a while he refused; but afterward he said to himself, `Though I neither fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will vindicate her, or she will wear me out by her continual coming.'"

And the Lord said, "Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

So the model for continual prayer that Jesus holds up is a woman who asks the exact same thing (`Vindicate me against my adversary') over and over again, so much that it's obnoxious.

The Bible Calls Us to Form Prayer

Psalm 1, from Florian's Psalter (c. 1400)

The idea that the Bible condemns form (or pre-written) prayers is silly. After all, the Book of Psalms is nothing but a set of 150 form prayers that can be prayed on a variety of occasions, and which Christ quotes extensively during His earthly life.

Plus, Jesus leaves us a form prayer of His own. Immediately after Matthew 6:7, in which He denounces vain repetitions, Christ gives us the Our Father (a.k.a. the Lord's Prayer, Mt. 6:9-13), introducing it, “This, then, is how you should pray...” That's a form prayer, and one which we're to pray often.

Plus, the Lord's Prayer was recognized as a form prayer to be prayed repeatedly by the early Church. The Didache is perhaps the oldest Christian document outside of the Bible, from sometime around the middle to late first century. The oldest portions of the Didache are probably older than the latest portions of the New Testament. It's something of a Church handbook, explaining the beliefs and practices of Christianity to the newly initiated converts. In Chapter 8, Christians are instructed to pray the Our Father three times a day. In the next chapter, form prayers for the Eucharistic preface are given. Plus, the Didache is describing what's already going on in church, meaning that we can safely date repetitive praying of the Lord's Prayer back to the time of the Apostles.

Conclusion

Christ condemns thoughtlessness in prayer, of mindlessly repeating empty words. We shouldn't do that. But the cure isn't to throw out all form prayer, or to throw out all repetitive prayer. It's to pray these prayers with sincerity. Sometimes this is hard, particularly when we're tired or have a lot on our mind. But we should try our best to do it anyway. Go back to the example of the Garden of Gethsemane. The Apostles were clearly tired, and it's an understatement to say that Jesus had a lot on His mind. But while the Apostles shunned prayer in favor of sleep, He went ahead and prayed anyway, repeating the same impassioned prayer three times. That makes all the difference.

Update: I'll be talking about this post tomorrow morning at 8:50 on Son Rise Morning Show. You can listen to it live at that time online, or wait to hear if it gets re-aired on EWTN later in the week.

How Men React to Being Elected Pope

2012-01-16T09:37:00.026-05:00

Over the course of the last two thousand years, fewer than three hundred Catholic priests have been chosen to head the universal Church on Earth. What must it be like to be in the shoes of one of the men to be elected to the most important office on the planet?

Fortunately, we get quite an insight into this question through the writings of various popes. The papal writings were surprisingly candid, and the answers were surprisingly varied, saying as much about each man and the state of the Church as about the office of the papacy. In almost every case, the result was fascinating. Here's how six popes reacted to their election, from 1769 to 1978:

(1) Pope Pius IX: Disquietude, Anxiety, and Dread

Pope Pius IX was pope longer than anyone else in modern history, from 1846-1878. His election coincided with great instability throughout Europe and the rest of the world: the year 1848 would see revolutions impact some fifty countries. Pius was not shy that his election was a solemn, even terrifying, burden in such troubled times. From Qui Pluribus, his 1847 encyclical:

Pope Pius IX
Our illustrious Predecessor, Gregory XVI, whose famous actions are recorded in the annals of the Church in letters of gold, will surely be remembered and admired by future generations. Now though, upon his death, by the mysterious plan of divine providence, We have been raised to the supreme Pontificate. We did not purpose this nor expect it; indeed Our reaction is great disquietude and anxiety. For if the burden of the Apostolic ministry is rightly considered to be at all times exceedingly heavy and beset with dangers, it is to be dreaded most particularly in these times which are so critical for the Christian commonwealth.

2. We are well aware of Our weakness. So when We reflect on the most serious duties of the supreme apostolate especially in a period of great instability, We would simply have fallen into great sadness, did We not place all Our hope in God who is Our Saviour. For He never abandons those who hope in Him. Time and again, so as to demonstrate what His power can accomplish, He employs weak instruments to rule His Church; in this way, all men may increasingly realize that it is God Himself who governs and protects the Church with his wonderful providence. We are also greatly supported by the comforting consideration that We have you, venerable brothers, as Our helpers and companions in the work of saving souls. For since you have been called to share a portion of Our care, you strive to fulfill your ministry with attentiveness and zeal, and to fight the good fight.

Pius IX's observation that God repeatedly “employs weak instruments to rule His Church” so as to show His own Sovereignty and Power is an important lesson, one that the best popes have quickly realized.

(2) Pius VIII: Thankful and Eager

Pope Pius VIII's Coat of Arms

When Pope Pius VIII was elected, he was thankful to God, and had in mind a number of areas that needed to be addressed. He outlined these in his first encyclical, 1829's Traditi Humilitati, in which he said:

According to the custom of Our ancestors, We are about to assume Our pontificate in the church of the Lateran. This office has been granted to Us, even though We are humble and unworthy. We open Our heart with joy to you, venerable brothers, whom God has given to Us as helpers in the conduct of so great an administration. We are pleased to let you know the intimate sentiments of Our will. We also think it helpful to communicate those things from which the Christian cause may benefit. For the duty of Our office is not only to feed, rule, and direct the lambs, namely the Christian people, but also the sheep, that is the clergy.

This was more or less the tone that I would have expected the other popes to take. He seems honored to have been selected, and ready to start tackling the problems facing the Church. Ironically, Pius would die less than eighteen months later.

(3) Pius X: Absolutely Terrified

Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914), in contrast, was not shy about how deeply he did not want to become pope, and his abject terror at what lay before him. He felt unworthy to be pope, unworthy to succeed Leo XIII (1878-1903, then the second-longest pontificate in history), and incapable of stopping the world from destroying itself in war and apostasy. From his beautiful 1903 encyclical, E Supremi:

Pope St. Pius X
In addressing you for the first time from the Chair of the supreme apostolate to which We have, by the inscrutable disposition of God, been elevated, it is not necessary to remind you with what tears and warm instance We exerted Ourselves to ward off this formidable burden of the Pontificate. Unequal in merit though We be with St. Anselm, it seems to us that We may with truth make Our own the words in which he lamented when he was constrained against his will and in spite of his struggles to receive the honor of the episcopate. For to show with what dispositions of mind and will We subjected Ourselves to the most serious charge of feeding the flock of Christ, We can well adduce those same proofs of grief which he invokes in his own behalf. "My tears are witnesses," he wrote, "and the sounds and moanings issuing from the anguish of my heart, such as I never remember before to have come from me for any sorrow, before that day on which there seemed to fall upon me that great misfortune of the archbishop of Canterbury. And those who fixed their gaze on my face that day could not fail to see it . . . I, in color more like a dead than a living man, was pale for amazement and alarm. Hitherto I have resisted as far as I could, speaking the truth, my election or rather the violence done me. But now I am constrained to confess, whether I will or no, that the judgments of God oppose greater and greater resistance to my efforts, so that I see no way of escaping them. Wherefore vanquished as I am by the violence not so much of men as of God, against which there is no providing, I realize that nothing is left for me, after having prayed as much as I could and striven that this chalice should if possible pass from me without my drinking it, but to set aside my feeling and my will and resign myself entirely to the design and the will of God."

Pope St. Pius X's Coat of Arms
2. In truth reasons both numerous and most weighty were not lacking to justify this resistance of Ours. For, beside the fact that We deemed Ourselves altogether unworthy through Our littleness of the honor of the Pontificate; who would not have been disturbed at seeing himself designated to succeed him who, ruling the Church with supreme wisdom for nearly twenty-six years, showed himself adorned with such sublimity of mind, such luster of every virtue. as to attract to himself the admiration even of adversaries, and to leave his memory stamped in glorious achievements. Then again, to omit other motives, We were terrified beyond all else by the disastrous state of human society today. For who can fail to see that society is at the present time, more than in any past age, suffering from a terrible and deep-rooted malady which, developing every day and eating into its inmost being, is dragging it to destruction?

And remember, Pius, is the last pope to be canonized. He is, in the Church's judgment, a model pope. Yet he's nearly crushed under the weight of both the office, and his own unworthiness. That's a powerful testament.

(4) Benedict XV: Zeal, Tempered by Bitter Sorrow

Pope Pius X's successor was Benedict XV (1914-1922), who immediately was filled with an eager zeal for souls, a sensation quickly soured by the sorrow at the devastation of the First World War, which had begun only a few months earlier. From Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum (1914):

Pope Benedict XV
1. Raised by the inscrutable counsel of Divine Providence without any merit of our own to the Chair of the Prince of the Apostles, we hearkened to those words of Christ Our Lord addressed to Peter, "Feed my lambs, feed my sheep" (John xxii. 15-17) as spoken to Ourselves, and at once with affectionate love we cast our eyes over the flock committed to our care-a numberless flock indeed, comprising in different ways the whole human race. For the whole of mankind was freed from the slavery of sin by the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ as their ransom, and there is no one who is excluded from the benefit of this Redemption: hence the Divine Pastor has one part of the human race already happily sheltered within the fold, the others He declares He will lovingly urge to enter therein: "and other sheep I have, that are not of this fold; them also must I bring, and they shall hear my voice" (John x. 16).

2. We make no secret, Venerable Brethren, that the first sentiment we felt in our heart, prompted certainly by the goodness of God, was the inexpressible yearning of a loving desire for the salvation of all mankind, and in assuming the Pontificate our sincere wish was that of Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, when about to die on the Cross: "Holy Father, keep them in Thy name, whom Thou hast given me" (John xvii. 11).

German soldiers (1915)
3. But as soon as we were able from the height of Apostolic dignity to survey at a glance the course of human affairs, our eyes were met by the sad conditions of human society, and we could not but be filled with bitter sorrow. For what could prevent the soul of the common Father of all being most deeply distressed by the spectacle presented by Europe, nay, by the whole world, perhaps the saddest and most mournful spectacle of which there is any record. Certainly those days would seem to have come upon us of which Christ Our Lord foretold: "You shall hear of wars and rumours of wars-for nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom" (Matt. xxiv, 6, 7). On every side the dread phantom of war holds sway: there is scarce room for another thought in the minds of men. The combatants are the greatest and wealthiest nations of the earth; what wonder, then, if, well provided with the most awful weapons modern military science has devised, they strive to destroy one another with refinements of horror. There is no limit to the measure of ruin and of slaughter; day by day the earth is drenched with newly-shed blood, and is covered with the bodies of the wounded and of the slain. Who would imagine as we see them thus filled with hatred of one another, that they are all of one common stock, all of the same nature, all members of the same human society? Who would recognize brothers, whose Father is in Heaven?

Our current pope took the name Benedict in large part because of Benedict XV, who he described as a “prophet of peace.”

(5) John Paul II: Faithful Obedience

Pope John Paul II needs no introduction, but I nevertheless found his reaction interesting. From Redemptor Hominis (1978), his first encyclical:

It was to Christ the Redeemer that my feelings and my thoughts were directed on 16 October of last year, when, after the canonical election, I was asked: "Do you accept?" I then replied: "With obedience in faith to Christ, my Lord, and with trust in the Mother of Christ and of the Church, in spite of the great difficulties, I accept". Today I wish to make that reply known publicly to all without exception, thus showing that there is a link between the first fundamental truth of the Incarnation, already mentioned, and the ministry that, with my acceptance of my election as Bishop of Rome and Successor of the Apostle Peter, has become my specific duty in his See.

This is also the encyclical in which he explains why he chose the name John Paul II, in case you're curious.

(6) Clement XIV: Troubled, But Trusting

Finally, Pope Clement XIV (1769-1774), one of only four Franciscan popes. His first encyclical, Cum Summi, from December 12, 1769, captures well both the gravity of the papacy, and the importance of faith in Christ:

Pope Clement XIV

When We contemplate Our position and consider the gravity of its burden, We are deeply disturbed both because of the magnitude of the task itself and the weakness of Our resources. We seem to have been called into the depths of the sea from the peace of a quiet life as if from a most safe harbor to rule the bark of blessed Peter, to be shaken by great floods and to be all but submerged by the force of the tempest. Truly this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. It was not because of human counsel but rather by His inscrutable judgment that such a care had been unexpectedly laid upon Us. Therefore, we are buoyed up by a certain hope that He who has chosen Us will, Himself remove Our fear, and infirmity and will hear Us in the depths of the storm. The memory of Peter trembling in the sea and of the Lord reproving his little faith will confirm Us in the same trust. Surely He wishes Us to put aside all doubt about obtaining His help and to act with the hope of His grace, rather than from fear of Our weakness. Therefore, We obey His will, and We hand Ourselves over to His faithfulness and power. For if He has decided to aid Our labors in the present circumstances for the safety of His Church, everyone will surely perceive Him alone as its author and source; hence they will realize that the honor and glory must be given to Him alone. Therefore, We proceed eagerly to undertake this great burden, and We will strive to trust in His powerful help. We will consider no care too great in carrying out our task.

Clement's papacy was controversial: he's presented as something of a bad guy in the movie The Mission, in that he suppressed the Society of Jesus, better known as the Jesuits. This was done at the "urging" of the powerful Catholic nations of Europe (Portugal, France, Spain, Parma, and the Two Sicilies), and Clement was clear that he acted "in the name of peace of the Church and to avoid of secession in Europe," instead of condemning anything the Jesuits said or did.

Conclusion

From listening to the words of the various popes themselves, it's clear that the papacy is both an incredible honor, and an absolutely terrifying responsibility. As Clement XIV put it in another of his encyclicals,

Pope Clement XIV's Coat of Arms

Since We have been elevated to the Papacy by the inscrutable counsel of divine wisdom and goodness and by no merits of Our own, while acknowledging the gift of God, We also fear His judgment. And so, as often as We seriously contemplate the task entrusted to Us, We are frightened by its gravity. Our awareness of the weakness of Our own resources deeply disturbs Us. If We were not confident of His help, We could lose courage altogether. Therefore, We implore the help of all Christians in invoking God to strengthen Us, to fill Us with the knowledge of His will, and to pour into Us the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of knowledge and holiness, and the spirit of counsel and fortitude. Then in the midst of so many difficulties, We may come to know what must be done, and with Our eyes ever directed to Him, We may carry out profitably what is right. Let us beseech Him to watch over the chosen vineyard which He has planted and to foster with the gifts of His grace His people walking in the ways of His commandments in this earthly pilgrimage and happily bring them to the promised rewards of eternal life.

Let us then remember to trust always in Christ, to trust always in prayer, and to pray for the pope constantly.

Two Interesting Arguments for God: Intelligibility & Desire

2012-01-13T12:07:00.000-05:00

I wanted to share two simple arguments for God's existence that I don't see used very often :the argument from intelligibility, and the argument from desire.

I. The Argument from Intelligibility

The argument from intelligibility is one that Pope Benedict is largely responsible for. Fr. Robert Barron explains the argument in Catholicism (pp. 67-68):

Pope Benedict XVI
In 1968 a young theology professor at the University of Tübingen formulated a neat argument for God's existence that owed a good deal to Thomas Aquinas but also drew on more contemporary sources. The theologian's name was Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. Ratzinger commences with the observation that finite being, as we experience it, is marked, through and through, by intelligibility, that it is to say, by a formal structure that makes it understandable to an inquiring mind.

In point of fact, all of the sciences - physics, chemistry, psychology, astronomy, biology, and so forth - rest on the assumption that at all levels, microscopic and macroscopic, being can be known. The same principle was acknowledged in ancient times by Pythagoras, who said that all existing things correspond in numeric value, and in medieval times by the scholastic philsophers who forumlated the dictum omne ens est scibile (all being in knowable).

Ratzinger argues that the only finally satisfying explanaiton for this universal objective intelligibility is a great Intelligence who has thought the universe into being. Our language provides an intriguing clue in this regard, for we speak of our acks of knowledge as moments of “recognition,” literally a re-cognition, a thinking again what has already been thought. Ratzinger cites Einstein in support of this connection: “in the laws of nature, a mind so superior is revealed that in comparison, our minds are as something worthless.” The prologue to the Gospel of John states, “In the beginning was the Word,” and specifies that all things came to be through this divine Logos, implying thereby that the being of the universe is not dumbly there, but rather intelligently there, imbued by a creative mind with intelligible structure.

In other words, all science points to God, since all science requires intelligibility, which in turn, requires an Intelligent Creator.

Einstein

Much time and energy is wasted on the Intelligent Design debate over things like irreducible complexity, that the more fundamental questions aren't being asked. Whether the universe was a good idea or a bad idea, a holy plan or an evil plan, it's still an idea, and a plan. This necessarily requires a Thinker and a Planner. Consider the stability of math, of the universal constants, of the fundamental interactions. Two plus two doesn't suddenly equal five, but there's no natural explanation for why these things remain stable (in fact, since these are immaterial truths, materialism can't even approach them). Yet if two plus two generated a random result, we could never have math or science, never develop any technology, and all existence would be a series of random and inexplicable events that our brains would be incapable of processing.

By the way, while Benedict developed this argument, we see variations of it being made back in the early days of the 300s, when St. Athanasius argued that “if the movement of creation were irrational, and the universe were borne along without plan, a man might fairly disbelieve what we say. But if it subsist in reason and wisdom and skill, and is perfectly ordered throughout, it follows that He that is over it and has ordered it is none other than the [reason or] Word of God.” So the argument has a pretty solid pedigree, such as it is.

II. The Argument from Desire

C.S. Lewis (in his second appearance on the blog this week) describes the argument from hunger this way, in Mere Christianity (pp. 136-37):

The Christian says ‘Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim:: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others do the same.’

This argument is self-explanatory, but let me answer two objections.

Juan de Juanes,
Jesus with the Eucharist (mid-16th c.)

First, the hunger for God may be stronger or weaker for certain people than others. That's quite natural. Some people have larger appetites than others, some people are seemingly uninterested (or conversely, obsessed) with sex, etc. But some degree of a hunger for God exists in every human soul.

Second, while our desires correspond to realities, but they can be corrupted and perverted. Gluttony is a perversion of our natural desire for food, lust is a perversion of our natural desire for sex, and so on. But standing back, we can see why hunger (and gluttony) exist, and why sexual desires (and lust) exist. These are desires that are ordered towards the attainment of specific goals. So even if the hunger for God gets perverted in some way, this doesn't deny the reality that God exists, and that we long for Him.

Finally, with our desire for God, the appropriate question ought to be: could anything less than God possibly satisfy this hunger? We try to appease that hunger for God by substituting earthly pleasures: wealth, honor, power, and sensible pleasures (everything from sex to overeating). But that's like drinking a lot of water when you're hungry for food. It might fill the void for a while, but it doesn't really satisfy the craving. Our souls are made with an aching hunger for God.

Jesus v. Religion?

2012-01-12T17:41:00.006-05:00

A common trend in Evangelical circles these days is to pit Jesus against religion, or Christianity, or the Church. Evangelicals are latecomers to this fad: liberal “spiritual, but not religious” types have been doing it for ages. But Evangelicals are definitely feeling it these days. Steve McCranie, pastor of “The Church Without Walls,” authored a book called Love Jesus, Hate Church, and the fact that there's even a market for that book is telling. And Jefferson Bethke's poem, “Why I hate Religion, but Love Jesus” has been making waves on the Internet. These critiques always sound a similar chord: the problem in Christianity is always other people. They're the ones not living the Faith out right. They're the hypocritical sinners. Of course we're not to blame.

Anyways, both McCranie and Bethke point out real problems in Christianity. Christianity today (and yesterday, and tomorrow) is wounded by the Fall. Or more specifically, we Christians are wounded by the fall. Becoming a Christian doesn't miraculously remove the temptation to be a jerk (although it actually does help, a discussion for another time). And plenty of people call themselves Christian without living out their faith: they've got faith without works, a dead and worthless faith (James 2:20-24), which lacks “the obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5).

But here's the core problem with McCranie and Bethke: the solution isn't to attack religion, or Christianity, or the Church. The problem is within each one of us: we need to ensure that we don't just know about Jesus, but that we know Him, and that we're not just going through the motions (whether those are Catholic or Protestant or Orthodox motions). If you want to bash spiritual lukewarmness and hypocrisy, I'm all in. But if you jump from there to claiming (as Bethke does), “What if I told you Jesus came to abolish religion,” I start to head for the exits. Because that's totally wrong, and contradicted in pretty explicit terms by Scripture.

Hans Holbein the Elder,
Presentation of Christ at the Temple (1501)

Both Marc Barnes and Brock Smith have great posts explaining why Bethke's anti-religion poem is wrong. Brock, for example, writes:

I want to examine the claim that "Jesus hated religion and called the religious fools." Is it too simple for me to respond that Jesus was a practicing Jew? He loved his religion! He had the ability to see through the actual law and into the heart of the law. He fulfilled the law (Romans 8:3). The law's goals were to bring people closer to God, and more in line with love. The "fools" practiced their law to a T, but were standing in the presence of God and failed to realize it!

Since those guys already addressed most of the specific claims made by Bethke, I wanted to take a few steps back and point out what Scripture actually says about the Christian religion, and the Church:

“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.” (Jesus, in Matthew 16:18).
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” (Ephesians 5:25-27)
“If any one thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this man's religion is vain. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” (James 1:26-27)
“If a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn their religious duty to their own family and make some return to their parents; for this is acceptable in the sight of God.” (1 Timothy 5:4).

So yes, Christianity has always been a religion, from the very beginning, with religious duties and everything. And that's good, because these duties include things like caring for the less fortunate. And no, the Church isn't the enemy of Christ. She is His Body, and His Bride. He built Her Himself. He died on the Cross for Her. St. Cyprian of Carthage, back in 251 A.D., summarized the Scriptures well: “He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother.” Assail Her at your own risk.

Update: There's another great response here; it's an analysis by an Orthodox priest explaining the problems in the poem line-by-line. I think that's probably enough for now.

Update 2: Nicholas Hardesty at Phat Catholic jumps in, doing a good job of drawing out areas of agreement as well as disagreement.

Update 3: Yet more responses, this time from Brandon Vogt and Marcel LeJeune. That's just about everybody, I suppose.

Did the Gospels Evolve?

2012-01-11T18:48:00.000-05:00

Caravaggio, Doubting Thomas (1603)

A common claim from Biblical skeptics is that the earliest New Testament Books tell a very different story than the later Books: that the story of Jesus grew with time, becoming more and more incredible, and less and less historical. In other words, it's the idea that the New Testament evolved from history to religious mythology.

I've seen this argument raised about both the Resurrection and the Divinity of Christ recently. First, retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong (who denies the Resurrection) celebrated Christmas this year by attacking the historicity of the Gospels, and in particular, the Resurrection account. He makes extensive recourse to the evolving-Bible

If we line up the gospels in the time sequence in which they were written - that is, with Mark first, followed by Matthew, then by Luke and ending with John - we can see exactly how the story expanded between the years 70 and 100.[...] In the first gospel, Mark, the risen Christ appears physically to no one, but by the time we come to the last gospel, John, Thomas is invited to feel the nail prints in Christ’s hands and feet and the spear wound in his side.

Second, a commenter on yesterday's post said in response to Lewis' “Lord, liar, lunatic” trilemma,

That was clearly on the assumption that the gospel of John represents actual history because only in John does he claim to be God. Based simply on the Synoptic gospels, we can say that if Jesus is not God he can still be considered a good man or a moral teacher. C.S. Lewis' false-dilemma require absolute faith in John to work.

Yet we know John doesn't belong with the other gospels, or at least that it isn't as historical as they are. Aside from John alone making Jesus claim to be God, we see how it disagrees on how, when, and where Jesus called his disciples.

Is there any merit to either of these evolving Bible claims? Let's look at each one in turn.

I. The Resurrection

Bishop Spong is being too cute by half in his CNN article. He stacks the deck in two different ways. First, he focuses just on the Gospels, rather than the New Testament as a whole. Second, he claims that in Mark's Gospel, “the risen Christ appears physically to no one.”

The reality is that the earliest New Testament documents describe Christ as (a) physically Resurrected, and (b) appearing to innumerable people. In St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, he writes (1 Cor. 15:3-20),

Piero della Francesca, Resurrection (1465)
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised.

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov,
Appearance of Jesus Christ to Mary Magdalene (1835)

So St. Paul tells us that Christ physically rose from the dead. He banks everything on the reality of the Resurrection: if it's not true, the Apostles are liars, the Christians are pathetic, and the Gospel is proclaimed in vain. To validate this claim that Christ physically rose from the dead, Paul appeals to numerous post-Resurrection appearances, apparently well known to his Corinthian audience: Jesus appeared to Peter (Cephas), to the Twelve, to a group of five hundred brethren, and then to St. Paul himself.

In other words, Paul's not just saying, “the Tomb is empty, Jesus must have risen!” but that he had actually seen the Resurrected Christ, as had numerous others, many of whom were still alive and could vouch for this testimony.

Why does this matter? Well, Spong himself dates this passage from First Corinthians to the mid-50s, decades before when he thinks any of the Gospels were written. You can see this on page 201 of his book The Sins of Scripture. This completely destroys his claim that the earliest Resurrection accounts didn't have any post-Resurrection appearances, and that these were added “between the years 70 and 100.” What does Spong do in response? He simply ignores Paul's writings, and focuses on the Gospels alone.

Here, we get to the second way that he stacks the deck. He claims that in Mark's Gospel, “the risen Christ appears physically to no one.” The truth is that there's controversy over whether or not Mark 16:9-20 are part of Mark's original Gospel, because some of the earliest manuscripts don't include this passage. There are three theories:

Mark 16:9-20 was written by Mark, but the section was lost in an early manuscript (and any manuscripts copied from that one).
Mark originally had a different ending, which was lost; Mark 16:9-20 was appended to replace it.
Mark originally ended his Gospel at Mark 16:8; Mark 16:9-20 is a later addition.

Spong assumes theory # 3 is true, without actually telling his readers he's doing this, or justifying this choice.
But even if theory # 3 is true, that doesn't mean that Mark denied post-Resurrection appearances. It would just mean that he stopped his Gospel quite abruptly at the empty Tomb on Easter morning. More likely, such an abrupt ending would be a way to begin an in-person dialogue: that readers would ask whoever gave them a copy of the Gospel what had happened at the Empty Tomb.

So Spong's suggestion that Mark was unaware of any post-Resurrection appearances doesn't follow at all. At most (and this is assuming theory # 3 is true), we can say simply that the post-Resurrection appearances postdated the events he's describing in his Gospel. Likewise, it's not unusual that the Gospels don't record details about Pentecost or the life of the early Church, or that Churchill biographies don't record details about the life of Thatcher. These things are simply outside of the scope of the work. Again, this is true only if Mark really did end his Gospel abruptly in v. 8, which is by no means certain.

So it's not clear that Mark's Gospel originally ended at v. 8, and there's no reason to believe in any case that he was unaware of post-Resurrection appearances. On the contrary, the earliest New Testament evidence is quite clear about the post-Resurrection appearances. Paul, who predates Mark, writes quite clearly about specific post-Resurrection appearances, as do Matthew (Mt. 28:9-10, Mt. 28:16-20), Luke (Lk. 24:13-53; Acts 1:1-11), and John (Jn. 20:10-11:25).

Of these, the one who lists the most post-Resurrection appearances is actually St. Paul. So this bears none of the marks of a big fish story that gets progressively larger over time. Everyone writing after Paul simply fleshes out specific accounts that he mentions in passing.

II. Jesus' Divinity

Giovanni Savoldo, The Transfiguration (1530)

What about the claim that only John's Gospel depicts Christ as claiming to be Divine? Fr. Robert Barron debunks this claim pretty exhaustively, noting that when Christ claims to be greater than the Temple (Mt. 12:6), and to have the ability to forgive sins (Mark 2:5; Mk. 2:10), He's making claims that a Jewish audience would recognize as claims to Divinity (as they do: Mark 2:7). Likewise, when He declares, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” (Luke 6:5; Mk. 2:28).

But I want to take this in a slightly different direction, instead. Let's look at just the Gospel of Matthew, for now. In Matthew 2, the Magi come to worship the Christ Child (see Mt. 2:2, Mt. 2:11, and Monday's post on the topic). Various other people worship Christ throughout this Gospel as well: a leper (Mt. 8:2), “a certain ruler” (Mt. 9:18), a Canaanite woman (Mt. 15:25), the mother of James and John (Mt. 20:20), the disciples who witnessed Jesus walking on water (Mt. 14:33), the women who see the Resurrected Christ (Mt. 28:9), and many members of the crowd to which He appears in Mt. 28:9. In exactly none of these cases does Jesus “correct” the acts, which, if mistaken about His Divinity, would be blasphemous.

12th Century Fresco of Jesus and the Apostles

So even if Jesus is being ambiguous in what He's claiming about Himself, we see innumerable people taking this as a declaration that He's Divine, and responding by worshiping Him. When people mistakenly begin to worship two of the Apostles (Acts 10:25-26) or an angel (Rev. 19:10), the recipients of this misplaced worship immediately stop them. Not so with Christ. It's no mistake that He's proclaimed by His followers to be God, because that's exactly what He claimed, and the sort of worship He accepted, during His lifetime.

There's plenty more where that came from, too. For example, “the Son of Man” is a Divine title, which is made transparent by the interaction in Mt. 26:62-65, in which the high priest condemns it as blasphemous. The fact that Jesus uses it repeatedly, throughout all four Gospels (see, e.g., Mt. 11:19; Mk. 2:28; Lk. 22:48; Jn. 3:13) only supports the notion that Christ claimed to be Divine.

But again, that's just Matthew. We could also look to the writings of St. Paul, where he describes Christ as being equal with God, and having the very nature of God (Phil. 2:6), a passage which Paul concludes (in Phil. 2:10-11) by applying the words of Isaiah 45:22-23 to Christ. Read Isaiah 45:22-23, and you'll see why that's important. Likewise in the Letter to the Hebrews, the angels are commanded to worship Christ (Heb. 1:6).

Remember that Paul's writings are generally held to be the earliest New Testament documents, yet the letter to the Philippians is really clear that Jesus is God. So again, there's no evidence (at all) that this is an idea that only slowly emerged within Christianity. Like the Resurrection, this is at the core of the Faith from the very beginning.

A Catholic Trillema: Why the Church Can't Just be a "Good Denomination"

2012-01-10T16:53:00.000-05:00

C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

C.S. Lewis famously argued that given what Jesus claimed about Himself, He was either Lord, liar, or lunatic -- that if He wasn't God, He couldn't be considered merely a good man or a moral teacher. Lewis explained in Mere Christianity why this argument is important:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claims to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit on Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

While Lewis' trillema (as this argument has come to be called) has come in for a fair amount of criticism, it strikes me that a very similar argument may be used within Christianity by Catholics. Specifically, the Catholic Church is either the Divinely Instituted Bride of Christ, or an utterly delusional Church, or something of satanic origin.

I. The Catholic Church's Trilemma

St. Peter's Basilica

Like Her Lord, the the Catholic Church makes some incredibly bold claims. For example, She claims to be of Divine origin: to be that Church Christ spoke of establishing in Matthew 16:17-19, and that St. Paul called the pillar and foundation of Truth in 1 Timothy 3:15. She claims to be the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, and the Temple of the Holy Spirit (CCC 807-809). She even claims to be absolutely necessary for salvation, and says things like this (CCC 869):

The Church is apostolic. She is built on a lasting foundation: "the twelve apostles of the Lamb" (Rev 21:14). She is indestructible (cf. Mt 16:18). She is upheld infallibly in the truth: Christ governs her through Peter and the other apostles, who are present in their successors, the Pope and the college of bishops.

Repeatedly throughout Her history, the Church has claimed to speak on behalf of the Holy Spirit in settling a particular dispute or defining a specific dogma.

So the Catholic Church emphatically denies being just another denomination -- in fact, She denies being a denomination or sect at all. She claims to be the sole Bride of Christ. And as I noted above, She believes that “Christ governs her through Peter and the other apostles, who are present in their successors, the Pope and the college of bishops.” Thus, She is led either by the Lord (acting through the visible leaders of the Church), or by a bunch of liars or lunatics. Because if the Catholic Church's claims about Herself are false, Her leaders are either dangerously delusional, or manipulative to a breath-taking degree. And She's not a good-but-imperfect denomination, as something like Methodism might be; She's either the one true Church, or a danger to the souls of Christians.

So to paraphrase Lewis, let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about Her being a great human institution. She has not left that open to us. She did not intend to.

II. Is the Church led by the Lord, or by Liars and Lunatics?

Given what I just said, the question then becomes: well, which is She? And how can we know? And I think that this is one of those instances in which the evidence is right there for any thoughtful Protestant to recognize. Let's consider just two major ways that we can know this: first, by the fact that the Catholic Church has saved Christianity repeatedly; and second, that She has proclaimed the same Gospel consistently. To see this, I want to look at three different areas: the Trinity, Christology, and the Bible. All three of these are complex issues on which it's easy to get things wrong. And yet on all three of them, even Protestants have to concede their utter dependency upon the Catholic Church.

(1) The Catholic Church Preserved the Doctrine of the Trinity

Almost every Protestant denomination today believes in the Trinity: that there is One God who is Three Persons; that each of these Three Persons are fully God, and yet not separate gods; that Each of these Three Persons have existed for all eternity; and that Each are of equal glory and majesty. There were countless heresies that arose, often quite popular or supported by powerful factions or by the State, yet each time the Catholic Church won out. And each time, the Catholic Church won out by defending (without compromise) the curious notion of the Trinity.

From a Protestant perspective, the shocking thing ought to be that the Catholic Church was right every time. When the Assyrian Church of the East broke off from the Catholic Church, the mainstream Protestant sides with the Catholic Church. Same with the Oriental Orthodox Church, or a myriad more heresies or schisms. In fact, when some element of Trinitarian doctrine was denied, no matter how small, it always was the visible, institutional Church that finally laid the heresy to rest.

Had the Catholic Church budged, and given any to any of the shifting winds of non-Trinitarian heresies, the doctrine of the Trinity would almost certainly have been lost forever. What Christian, after all, has ever deduced the full doctrine of the Trinity from private reading of Scripture?

(2) The Catholic Church Preserved the Doctrine of the Dual Natures of Christ

Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo, Transfiguration (c. 1530)

Almost every Protestant denomination professes faith in the Dual Natures of Christ: that Jesus is fully God and fully man; that He has two Natures, one Divine and one Human; yet that He is only One Person. This is the hypostatic union, which I've discussed recently. Once again, there were countless heresies (including Docetism, Adoptionism, Nestorianism and Monophysitism), and many of them seemed quite convincing. Yet the Catholic Church stuck to Her guns, defending the curious notion of the hypostatic union, and consistently won at. Once again, it was the visible, institutional Church that laid heresy after heresy to rest, and each time, the Catholic Church was right.

Again, it's astonishing enough that the Catholic Church was right every time, but recognize also that had the Catholic Church not been around, it's exceedingly unlikely that an ordinary layman reading the Bible would ever have figured out the hypostatic union (feel free to mention any exceptions to this in the comments below).

(3) The Catholic Church Saved the Bible

Caravaggio, St. Jerome (1606)

Finally, every Protestant denomination (that I know of) believes in at least 66 of the Books of the Catholic Bible. What's striking isn't that they reject the Deuterocanon. What's striking is that from their own viewpoint, the Catholic Church didn't lose a single Divinely-inspired Book over the course of well over a millennium. All Sixty-Six Books of the Protestant Bible were preserved whole and inviolate for countless centuries by the Catholic Church.

This is more incredible when you consider that some of the earliest heresies that the Church faced (including Gnosticism and Marcionism, and later, Manichaeism) taught the same thing: that the God of the Old Testament was different than the God of the New Testament, and that the Old Testament God was evil. They, obviously, wanted the Old Testament destroyed, or at the least, not included in the canon of Scripture.

If Catholicism had lost, and something like Marcionism had won out, imagine the resultant Bible. That's easy to do, actually, since Marcion was clear that he thought only Eleven Books belonged in the Christian canon: a version of the Gospel of Luke that he edited, and ten of Paul's Epistles. Had he had his way, the rest of the Bible would have been immediately lost to history. That is, you can't get Luther's Bible, or the modern Protestant Bible, without inheriting the Bible from the Church first.

Add to this that the Catholic Church remained incredibly consistent, and incredibly evangelical: She has proclaimed the same Gospel for centuries, and to the ends of the Earth.

III. Conclusion

So on the most critical issues facing Christianity, the Catholic Church was (a) consistent, and (b) correct. I don't know of any Church or denomination that comes close to this kind of track record. There are a few possibilities for why this could be:

Velasco, Pentecost (1535)

God worked through the Catholic Church, in spite of Her being a false Church: this option doesn't make a lot of sense. Why would He repeatedly vindicate the Catholic Church's claim to be the Bride of Christ if She wasn't? If Catholicism isn't the true Church, why wouldn't He preserve the Gospel through some other institution? At the least, why not permit the Catholic Church to fall at least once so obviously that any fair-minded Christian could see that the Church was full of contradictions and heresies? The idea that God would repeatedly present the true Gospel through a false Church seems incomprehensible, and even deceptive.
The Devil propped up the Catholic Church by permitting Her to get core doctrines right: this option basically supposes that a good lie contains a little truth. But it's even less convincing than the first idea, since it would involve the devil preserving the very Gospel that defeats him. All he would have had to have done to triumph over Christianity would be to let Her go astray on any of these core doctrines. So it doesn't make sense to claim that the Catholic Church is demonic in origin, since She's been responsible for both preserving the Gospel, and spreading it to the ends of the Earth.

St. Athanasius

Mere men just got lucky, repeatedly: this is the idea that the theologians of the Catholic Church were just consistently that good, and that consistent (for centuries!), without Divine aid. But the odds of this are staggering. If the Church wasn't being led by God or the devil, but was a merely human institution, we should see the sort of abrupt reversals in statements of belief that we see elsewhere. For example, the Anglican Communion affirmed one set of beliefs under Henry VIII, another under Edward and Cranmer (which quite intentionally contradicted the first), and has no clear cohesive set of beliefs today: their primate has denied the orthodox Christian understanding of both the Incarnation and the hypostatic union, affirming something like Nestorianism instead. To say that Cranmer's Anglicanism was true, you'd have to say Henry's Anglicanism was wrong, and vice versa: to affirm the Anglicanism proclaimed by Williams, you'd have to deny teachings Henry and Cranmer affirmed. Nothing of the sort is required within Catholicism: right or wrong, She proclaims the same Gospel consistently. This doesn't appear to be merely human in origin.
The Church is Who She says She is: Ultimately, this strikes me as the only really credible theory of Christian history. The visible institutional Church has always claimed to be led by the Holy Spirit (Acts 15:28), and has consistently acted in such a way that this claim appears to be true. And it's nonsensical to think that God would work through Her if She wasn't the truth Church, since He would be leading His people into heresy.

Obviously, there's much more that can be said. But I think that in the end, the argument boils down to this. The Catholic Church cannot be treated as simply one good denomination among many, and more than Christ can be treated as simply one moral Teacher among many. She's either of God, of deluded men, or of the devil. And Her continual defense of orthodoxy throughout history, Her incredible ability to always be on the right side of the major controversies of the day, doesn't credibly lend to the explanation that She's run by deluded men or controlled by the devil. Which leaves us, quite simply with this: the Catholic Church really is Who She says She is. And we, as Christians, need to respond to that in faith.

God, King, Sacrifice: The Gifts of the Magi

2012-01-09T14:26:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was (for most of us) the Feast of the Epiphany, which commemorates the Magi's visit to the Infant Jesus. It's easy to turn it into something schmaltzy, but this is actually one of the most theologically rich parts of the Bible.

Jan de Bray, The Adoration of the Magi (1674)

Gold: As I've explained before, Psalm 72:8-10 prophesies that the Messiah would receive gifts from “the kings of Sheba and Seba,” and Ps. 72:15 specifically mentions “the gold of Sheba.” Gold, of course, is the customary gift for a powerful king. But the Psalm hints that the Messiah is more than a King: it ends cryptically, by speaking of the Messiah and the “LORD, the God of Israel” as if They are One and the Same, and have the same Name (Ps. 72:17-19).
Frankincense: This is the incense poured upon sacrifices offered to God (see, e.g., Lev. 2:1-2). Isaiah 60 builds off of Psalm 72, and foretells that “all from Sheba shall come bearing gold and frankincense” for the Messiah (Is. 60:6). This confirms what Psalm 72 hinted at: that the Messiah will be both King and God. But Isaiah 60 hints at something even bigger: frankincense is poured upon a sacrifice. Like Isaac, we're left wondering, “where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” (Gen. 22:7).
Myrrh: The startling fulfillment to Psalm 72 and Isaiah 60 comes in Matthew 2:11. The Magi come and worship the Christ Child. Even the LDS, who deny that Christ is to be an object of worship, concede that in Mt. 2:11, the Magi “saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him.” They then present him gifts: gold, frankenincense ... and myrrh. The first two were prophesied, but the third is a shock. It's an embalming spice, and while it's very expensive, it seems like a tasteless gift, particularly for an infant. Father Ryan Erlenbush has a great post explaining just what myrrh is, and how it was used in ancient times to prevent decomposition in corpses. In fact, Nicodemus pours myrrh upon Christ's Body after His Death (John 19:39-40).

Christ's Descent from the Cross (17th c.)

This third gift answers the question that Isaiah 60 left hanging, the question that Isaac asked on the road to Mt. Tabor. Abraham's answer is correct: “My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering:” (Gen. 22:8). But John the Baptist's answer is more specific, when he cries out upon seeing Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).

Jesus Christ is King, but not in the way that we expect (John 18:36; Luke 23:3; Mark 15:26). And He's God, but He's not just the recipient of sacrifices . He is the Sacrifice.

This is the startling, beautiful twist that the New Testament reveals in the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophesies. The Israelites were expecting the Messiah to come and conquer Israel's enemies, and He did. But the mortal enemy of Israel weren't the Babylon conquerors, or the Assyrian or Roman imperialists; the mortal enemy of Israel was the slavery of sin. It wasn't Caesar who was in Jesus' sights: it was Satan.

The Magi's gifts are rather peculiar, even startling. But this is fitting, for so is Christ.

Newly Named Cardinal Thomas Collins Defending the Unborn

2012-01-06T14:48:00.000-05:00

Pope Benedict announced 22 new Cardinals, including Archbishop Dolan of New York (the surprise was simply how quickly he became a Cardinal, but I'm thrilled at his elevation). But I wanted to highlight one of the other newly named Cardinals, Archbishop Thomas Collins of Toronto. Fr. Arne singled him out at Mass today, because he'd actually been in the CIC bookstore yesterday, while the nuncio was trying to find him to tell him the news.

As Archbishop of Toronto, Collins was confronted with an ugly situation: the Canadian government awarded its highest honor, the Order of Canada, upon an abortionist, Dr. Henry Morgentaler. Abp. Collins's response was at once forceful and graceful:

Canada’s highest honour has been debased. Henry Morgentaler has been awarded the Order of Canada. We are all diminished.

A community’s worth is measured by the way it treats the most vulnerable, and no one is more vulnerable than in the first nine months of life’s journey. No person may presume to judge the soul of Henry Morgentaler, but it cannot be denied that the effect of his life’s work has been a deadly assault upon the most helpless amongst us.

Canada glories in the names of Banting and Best, and the other medical heroes who selflessly brought healing where there was disease and suffering. Now it honours with the Order of Canada a medical man who has brought not healing, but the destruction of the defenseless and immeasurable grief. This award must not stand.

I earnestly appeal to all who are tempted to resort to an abortionist, or are pressured to do so by those around them. I urge you to contact organizations such as Birthright, and others who will support you and love you and your precious child. Contact your parish. We are here for you. I pledge to you the support of the Catholic Church. Look to our archdiocesan website at www.archtoronto.org for information concerning places where you may find loving help.

For those who have had an abortion, and bear within your heart the fearful grief, I urge you to contact us, to find love and support in your anguish, and in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, to find the gift of inner peace.

I ask the faithful of the Archdiocese of Toronto, and all people of good will, to protest this act of dishonour. Write, phone, or e-mail the Governor General, the Prime Minister, and your Member of Parliament. Ask that this action be revoked.

This coming Sunday will be a day of special prayer in the Archdiocese of Toronto, for an end to the evil of abortion. I have asked that the following prayer be inserted in the Prayer of the Faithful in all the churches of the archdiocese:

“That the scourge of abortion be lifted from our land, that those who promote it may be brought to a change of heart, that all who are tempted to abortion may be lovingly helped to protect the precious gift of life, and that all who have experienced an abortion may be comforted with the healing gift of love.”

Amen, your Eminence!

Might I also suggest the perfect way to celebrate Archbishop Thomas Collins elevation to the College of Cardinals?

The Prophetic Pope Paul VI, and the Consequences of Contraception

2012-01-05T11:35:00.000-05:00

Pope Paul VI (1977)

Pope Paul VI gets a lot of grief from both conservative and liberal Catholics. His pontificate, which lasted from 1963 to 1978, was at a particularly tumultuous time in the Church and the world. But whatever else may be said of Pope Paul, his encyclical on contraception, Humanae Vitae, seems downright prophetic.

The encyclical is from 1968, the sixth year of his pontificate. Vatican II had concluded in 1965, and already, there were all sorts of innovations (both the pious and the bizarre) being defended as being in “the spirit of Vatican II.” The doors seemed open to Modernity, for the Church to become compatible with the world. And it's here, at this point in history, that Catholics began really openly questioning the Church's ban on contraception. It seemed so hopelessly archaic: what's the moral danger of contraception, after all?

Pope Paul took his time deliberating on this question, but when an answer finally came down from the chair of Peter, it was a thing of beauty. The entire encyclical is worth a read, but we get the clearest glimpse of the Holy Spirit's behind-the-scenes work in paragraph 17, in which Paul predicts the “consequences of artificial methods”:

Carlo Saraceni, Gregory the Great (1610)
Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.

Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife.

In other words, Paul was able to see everything from the loosening of societal morals and the increase in infidelity, to the “pornification” of culture (and objectification of women), to the risk of state-imposed contraception (including sterilization). And he saw all of these things in 1968, when perilously few others were sounding the alarm.

A few years ago, on the fortieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae, the Hoover Institute's Mary Eberstadt wrote a piece for First Things demonstrating how each of the four predictions (which Eberstadt summarizes as “a general lowering of moral standards throughout society; a rise in infidelity; a lessening of respect for women by men; and the coercive use of reproductive technologies by governments”) had come true. In that piece, she notes an odd irony, that Humanae Vitae has been vindicated by the empirical data produced by secular social scientists:

Although it is largely Catholic thinkers who have connected the latest empirical evidence to the defense of Humanae Vitae's predictions, during those same forty years most of the experts actually producing the empirical evidence have been social scientists operating in the secular realm. As sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox emphasized in a 2005 essay: “The leading scholars who have tackled these topics are not Christians, and most of them are not political or social conservatives. They are, rather, honest social scientists willing to follow the data wherever it may lead.”

Whatever else may be said for or against Paul VI's pontificate, he tackled a thorny and unpopular moral issue in a pastoral way, and in a way that appears prophetic in hindsight. He saw, when so few could see it, how dangerous contraception was. The tragic irony is that even now, as we suffer from the social ills it helped herald, we're largely too blind to make the connection.

Jim Crow and the Protestant Bible

2012-01-04T14:56:00.001-05:00

In the past, I've argued against Protestant special pleading on Tradition. I asked, “if an individual Christian declares that all (or virtually all) Christians on Earth misunderstand core elements of the Gospel, but that he understands it correctly, could he be right?” The answer appears to be no, unless he's one of the Reformers. Today, I want to look at another area of special pleading: Scripture.

Basically, Protestants hold the Books of the Protestant Bible to one set of standards, and the Books of the Deuterocanon (which Catholics accept, and which Protestants reject as Apocrypha) to quite another.

I. Special Pleading and Jim Crow Literacy Tests

An 1879 cartoon against literacy tests

For many decades in the South, Jim Crow reigned supreme. On paper, African-Americans were entitled to the right to vote. In fact, the Constitution guaranteed it (specifically, the Fifteenth Amendment). To get around this, many Southern states set up a series of insurmountable obstacles for eligible black voters. One of the most notorious is the literacy test. Alabama's literacy test is described here:

In "Part A" the applicant was given a selection of the Constitution to read aloud. The registrar could assign you a long complex section filled with legalese and convoluted sentences, or he could tell you to read a simple one or two sentence section. The Registrar marked each word he thought you mispronounced. In some cases you had to orally interpret the section to the registrar's satisfaction. You then had to either copy out by hand a section of the Constitution, or write it down from dictation as the registrar spoke (mumbled) it. White applicants usually were allowed to copy, Black applicants usually had to take dictation. The Registrar then judged whether you were able to "read and write," or if you were "illiterate."

In other words, beneath the facade of a generally-applicable test, there were really two different tests: a relatively easy one for whites, and a much harder one for blacks. I think we see something similar here. The Books Protestants are used to seeing in their Bibles get a very easy test, while the Deuterocanon is held to a much stricter standard, a standard that much of the Protestant Bible couldn't meet.

II. Protestant Arguments Against the Deuterocanon

Let's start with the five reasons that Protestants often cite in their rejection of the Deuterocanon. What I want you to note throughout is that these reasons are either (a) untrue, or (b) reasons to reject the Protestant Bible as well:

(1) The New Testament Never Alludes to the Deuterocanon

This isn't true. For example, James Swan (a Calvinist blogger with Beggars All Reformation & Apologetics) admits that Hebrews 11:35-37 appears to be a reference to 2 Maccabees 7 (h/t Nick):

It seems highly probable the writer to the Hebrews alluded to the Apocrypha in chapter 11. The parallels Catholic apologists suggest particularly in verse 35 and 2 Maccabees seem likely. “Others were tortured,” “not accepting their release” and “so that they might obtain a better resurrection” appear to be the closest points of contact with 2 Maccabees. As noted above, other vague points of contact could be inferred, but not with the same level of certitude of these three statements. Within the arena of rhetoric and polemics, the above study demonstrates that Protestant exegetes do not disagree with the possibility of Apocryphal allusions in Hebrews 11. Thus, Protestants are not hiding the fact that 2 Maccabees may be what the writer to the Hebrews has in mind.

And in fact, there are quite a few other references to the Deuterocanon in the New Testament. Now, ordinarily, this would be taken as at least evidence of canonicity. But it seems that the Deuterocanon is treated very differently here.

(2) The New Testament Never Directly Quotes the Deuterocanon

This standard appears to be wholly arbitrary: a direct quotation confirms something as Scripture, while an allusion is insufficient? Yet CARM's Matt Slick actually uses this as his lead argument against the Deuterocanon: “First of all, neither Jesus nor the apostles ever quoted from the Apocrypha. There are over 260 quotations of the Old Testament in the New Testament, and not one of them is from these books.”

Enoch and Elijah (17th c.)

If direct quotation is required, a whole lot of the Bible is in trouble. As Slick concedes, “there are several Old Testament books that are not quoted in the New Testament, i.e., Joshua, Judges, Esther, etc.” And Zuck, in Rightly Divided: Readings in Biblical Hermeneutics, concedes that “Of Old Testament books quoted in the New Testament, it is generally agreed that Ruth, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs are not explicitly cited. To this list some would add Lamentations, others Chronicles.” Yet Protestants readily accept all of those Books as canonical. Worse, the New Testament directly quotes from the Book of Enoch (Jude 1:14-15), and St. Paul quotes both the pagans Aratus (Acts 17:28) and Epimenides (Titus 1:12), calling the later a “prophet.” And yet neither Catholics nor Protestants have anything by Enoch, Aratus or Epimenides in their Bibles (more on that here).

Finally, there's a bit of a gray area in determining what constitutes a “direct quotation.” For example, Zuck writes:

At the same time it is commonly asserted that, however many allusions it may have, Revelation exhibits no direct quotations at all. The NIV footnotes rightly disagree, however, by specifying that Revelation 2:27; 19:15 quote Psalm 2:9 in whole or in part and that Revelation 1:13; 14:14 quote the phrase “like a son of man” from Daniel 7:13.

If you set the bar for “direct quotation” that low, then there are countless direct quotations of the Deuterocanon. On the other hand, if you set the bar for “direct quotation” higher (so that it includes only unambiguous quotation), and the number of direct quotations of any of the Old Testament is much smaller, and more Old Testament Books are excluded.

(3) The Ancient Jews Didn't Accept the Deuterocanon

This is the argument that Slick fell back on when his first argument failed, claiming that Romans 3:1-2 means that “Paul tells us that the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. This means that they are the ones who understood what inspired Scriptures were and they never accepted the Apocrypha.” But this argument is similarly untrue.

As Zuck notes, “Most of the New Testament citations of the Old Testament are from the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation in common use in first-century Palestine.” Swan admits that the LXX contained some or all of the Deuterocanon, but responds:

Excerpt from the Codex Vaticanus
Roman Catholics argue that since the Septuagint contained Apocryphal books, they were considered scripture. This argument fails for a number of reasons. First, it is not certain that simply because an Apocryphal book was found in an LXX that the Jews considered it scripture. Like the early church, the books could have been included to be used for reading and edification but not considered inspired scripture. Second, the extant evidence shows different Apocryphal books are included in different early manuscripts. That is, no early manuscript contains all the apocryphal books argued for by Rome. Some of the early manuscripts actually contain 3 and 4 Maccabees, writings not considered canonical by Rome.

So Swan's argument boils down to: yes, these Books were found in the early Jewish collections of Scripture, but maybe they weren't Scripture? Bear in mind that there's no evidence that the Books were “included to be used for reading and edification but not considered inspired scripture.” He's just saying it's possible. And certainly, it's possible, but we have no reason to think that's it true. The fact that Heb. 11:35-37 refers to 2 Maccabees 7 reinforces the idea that these Books were considered canonical by the early Jews, since the Epistle to the Hebrews was written to a group of largely-Jewish converts.

At best, the LXX is strong evidence that the Deuterocanonical Books were considered canonical among most first-century Jews (and the New Testament authors). At worst, the first-century Jews had apparently differing canons, and the historical evidence is too fuzzy to form any solid conclusions. Either way, Swan's claim that the Jews “never accepted the Apocrypha” is completely baseless. More on that argument here.

(4) Jesus Refers to the Pharasaic Canon

Slick claims that Jesus referenced the Old Testament as being “from Abel to Zechariah” in Luke 11:51. Based on the Book ordering of the Pharasaic canon, Abel is the first martyr mentioned, and Zechariah is the last (although since the Books weren't in chronological order, he wasn't the last to die for the faith). But as Zuck notes, “Most of the New Testament citations of the Old Testament are from the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation in common use in first-century Palestine.” This includes various quotations by Christ Himself. Additionally, particularly prophesies fulfilled in the New Testament are only found in the LXX (e.g., Jesus' use of Psalm 40:6-8 in Hebrews 10:5-7). And in the LXX, Zechariah is not the last martyr mentioned. Plus, the LXX includes most or all of the Deuterocanon (depending on the version).

This is an argument I've answered before, but in a nutshell, the Pharisees held to a canon like that used by modern Protestants (although some Pharisees appear to have held the Book of Wisdom to be canonical). When Jesus condemns the faithlessness of the Pharisees, He condemns them by their own canon. In Matthew 22:23-33, He does something similar with the Sadducees, who only accepted the first five Books of the Bible as canonical (which is why Jesus proves the Resurrection from Exodus 3:6, instead of Daniel 12:1-3, and 1 Samuel 28, and Psalm 16:9-10, etc.). It's not much different from St. Paul using pagan writers in arguing against the pagans (Acts 17:28; Titus 1:12).

If Jesus was fine using the Sadducees' canon (with just the first 5 Books), the Pharisee's canon (the modern Protestant Old Testament) and the LXX (the modern Catholic Old Testament), that's an argument strongly in support of the Deuterocanon, not against it.

(5) The Church Fathers Didn't Uniformly Affirm the Deuterocanon

This is one of the weakest arguments against the Deuterocanon, yet it gets trotted out with surprisingly regularity. Slick, for example, argues that “Roman Catholics strongly appeal to Church history but we don't find a unanimous consensus on the Apocrypha,” and that “we should not conclude that the Church fathers unanimously affirmed the Apocrypha. They didn't.” Okay, so something less than 100% of the early Christians used the modern Catholic canon. But apparently nobody used the Protestant canon.

III. Arguments For the Deuterocanon

So given all that, what are some reasons to accept the Deuterocanon? Precisely because there were different theories as to which Books belonged in the Bible, the Church had the right (and perhaps the duty) to settle the question. And She did so. Let's consider a few things:

St. Augustine (earliest known portrait)

The Third Council of Carthage in 397 A.D. listed the canon of Scripture, and it's the Catholic canon. While that was a regional council (and thus, not infallible), it was attended by St. Augustine, and widely-accepted. It reflected earlier canons, like the one declared at the Synod of Hippo a few years earlier.
Shortly after, the pope commissioned the Vulgate, which included the Deuterocanon.
Readings from the Deuterocanon were (and are) used in Mass.
The Council of Trent finally defined the canon dogmatically, confirming what was widely known: that the Deuterocanon is Scripture.
Nearly all of the Church Fathers treated at least some of the Deuterocanonical Books as Scripture, and folks like St. Augustine were quite clear that all of the Deuterocanonical Books were canonical.
The Deuterocanon is prophetic. Wisdom 2:12-22 prophesies the Death of Christ, and the language tracks with Matthew 27:41-43 closely. Tobit 12:12-15 says that there are seven angels standing before the Throne of God offering up our prayers. This idea, found nowhere else in the Old Testament, is confirmed by Revelation 8:2-5. And of those seven angels, we hear from two of them: Raphael (Tobit 12:15) and Gabriel (Luke 1:19), and they introduce themselves in a nearly-identical ways.

There are plenty of other areas, but when there are distinct prophesies, found only in the Deuterocanon, and those prophesies come true in the New Testament, what further proof do we need?

IV. Conclusion

The Deuterocanon is, by all appearances, as Scriptural as any other part of the Bible. Summarizing the five Protestant tests, we see that: (1) If allusions to a Book suggest that it belong in the canon, then the Deuterocanon is doing alright; (2) if direct quotations are required, a number of Books in the Protestant Bible need to go; (3) if Jewish acceptance is what's required, the Deuterocanon almost certainly meets this standard; (4) if references by Christ to the Pharasaic canon establish its canonicity, then His references to the LXX canon should establish its canonicity, as well; and (5) if uniform acceptance by the Church Fathers is required, no Bible on earth meets that test, but the Catholic Bible can point to at least broad acceptance by the Church Fathers, while the Protestant Bible can point to no acceptance.

On the other hand, we see that the Deuterocanon was confirmed by the Church Fathers, both individually and in Church councils, ratified by the universal Church at the Council of Trent, and is clearly prophetic. In other words, it's Scripture, pure and simple, and is only kept out of Protestant Bibles through special pleading.