Vox Nova

Morgentaler is a Holocaust survivor.  After emigrating to Canada, he opened an illegal abortion clinic.  He was imprisoned and fined for his abortion activities.  Legal actions culiminated when the Supreme Court of Canada sided with him and asserted a right to abortion.  He is now the proprietor of many abortion clinics throughout Canada.  The Executive Director of the (Canadian) Catholic Civil Rights League sums up I think most rational people’s opinion of this: “We are shocked and disappointed that our nation’s highest civilian honour would be granted to its best-known champion of abortion, or as many call it, the culture of death.”

Source: Globe and Mail

The priests of the Transalpine Redemptorists have been regularized.  They are directly crediting the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum in aiding their reconciliation.  Their offical website is here.

(HT: WDTPRS)

In his book, The Church in the Barrio, Robert Treviño traces the history of the relationship between the Mexican and Mexican American community and the Catholic Church in Houston from the 1910s to the 1970s. In so doing, Treviño explores the customs and traditions of the nascent Mexican community in the city and how its self-understanding as a group defined its Catholicism and its relationship with the Church hierarchy. The chief point of Treviño’s book stems from the concept of the “ethno-Catholicism” expressed by the Mexican community in Houston. He calls ethno-Catholicism “a religious style that blurred the line between the sacred and the secular and gave singular expression to the people’s identity.” [1]The thrust of his argument is that this “brand” of Catholicism, so to speak, of the Mexican American community maintained and nourished its identity in a foreign land in the midst of economic hardships and discrimination. Also, Treviño is heavily concerned with how this ethno-Catholicism was received by the Church hierarchy and how it ultimately shaped the relationship between the Church and the Mexican faithful. My concern in this essay is to use Treviño’s historical survey to explore four aspects of the ecclesial reality he describes, the first of which is the experience of the Mexican community in Houston based on their condition as migrants and how its collective understanding and identity developed overtime given its changing social and economic backdrop. Second, I will look at the Church hierarchy in Houston and how it progressively changed its attitude towards the Mexican community. Third, I will bring these two communities together—the Mexicans and the Church hierarchy—along with their parallel self-understandings, and I will make some remarks about the nature of their confluence. Finally, I will provide some closing arguments in support of a constant renewal in the Church’s ministry to different groups that have special needs.

Read the rest of this entry »

This past Sunday in one of the poorer editions of the Chicago Tribune, there was a commentary offered by a gentleman with the libertarian outfit Reason.  Radly Balko lamented Chicago falling dead last in a series of measures over how free the city was.  This lament has its foundation in a Reason Magazine study of 35 U.S. cities.  The report evaluated cities based on “how much freedom they afford their residents to indulge in alcohol, tobacco, drugs, sex, gambling and food.”  They included other unique factors like gun control laws and surveillance cameras.  (I cannot find a link online to Reason Magazine’s report.  Here is a link to their website.)

So Chicago came in last, by a long shot.  The mecca of freedom is of course Las Vegas.  I know a number of people who like Las Vegas.  More specifically, I know a lot of people who like to visit Las Vegas and then leave it.  I have never been to Las Vegas, and I am basically to the point of consciously choosing never to go there just so that I can always I say I’ve never been to Vegas.  Enough about me.  There are a number of reasons people don’t stay in Vegas, and on the top of the list is that freedom isn’t the most important thing in life, at least as freedom is conceptualized in legally available hookers and all night buffets with extra trans fats.  Las Vegas is ordered toward hedonism.  Some people enjoy that, many of them include relatives.  Followers of Catholic thought will not be shocked to hear me say that authentic freedom is ordered toward achieving heaven.

There is nothing particularly Catholic about finding Las Vegas - oh how do I put this? - less than the pinnacle on an assortment of measures.  If we were to look to culture, we can recognize New York City’s greatness in her Broadway shows, her architecture like St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Guggenheim Museum, and her meccas of commerce like Wall St. and Times Square.  If we are to look toward social thought, anyone’s first stop would have to be Washington, D.C., with her great universities and the headquarters of myriad think tanks.  Even on the entertainment side, in a heresy of all heresies, one could make compelling arguments for Orlando, FL, and greater Los Angeles.  For those who aren’t familiar with my views by the way, I have nothing in principle against gambling; I haven’t done so in close to a decade. 

A)  Bunch of aging hippies and
B)  Bunch of know nothing aspiring academics
are not consistent. 

Ideological blindness often keeps people from recognizing that the typical writer on this blog is younger.  Such should be obvious from the lack of discretion often shown in entering particular arguments.  I believe the median age on this blog is close to 30.  Going through Gerald Campbell’s bio, I’m guessing he is the senior member of the blog and a bit of an outlier age-wise.

Since these things come up from time to time, I figure it would be a good time to review some things for the casual reader.  The pelvic issues as some label them don’t come up all that much on this blog.  There have been about 45 posts with divorce in them and 25 or so posts addressing gay marriage.  Most of those are tangential treatments.  I’m not aware of any issues over the Church’s teaching over contraception.  Abortion has been addressed in 220 posts and is certainly the most contentious issue on the blog.  All contributors agree that the legal sanction of abortion is an abomination.  Several contributors believe that correcting this abomination through law is unachievable as society is presently constituted, and therefore a wider approach needs to be taken toward evaluating the efficacy of any candidate’s approach to abortion.  In other words, the reduction of incidence of abortion should take precedence over attempts to limit the scope of legal abortion given societal realities at this time.  I and other contributors do not find this sufficient, but I also don’t feel the need to reiterate my previous arguments on every occasion I’m given the opportunity.

From what I understand, I and Gerald Campbell are the only ones to have endorsed Obama for President.  Henry Karlson, Michael Iafrate (Catholic Anarchist) and Policraticus have clearly stated they aren’t supporting the two major party candidates.  Although he hasn’t formalized it, I’m pretty sure Jonathan Jones will be endorsing McCain.  I don’t anticipate Blackadder will be endorsing Obama, and likewise I don’t anticipate Mornings Minion endorsing McCain.  RCM and Katerina haven’t declared to the best of my knowledge.  My memory simply fails on who the other contributors are considering, if they are considering anyone.

Here’s a story for those among us who uncritically accept as a truism that capitalist medicine automatically results in innovation while more humane health care systems automatically result in lower quality care. This just in, from AlertNet.org:

Cuban scientists said on Tuesday the first vaccine to extend lives of lung cancer patients has been approved by Cuban authorities for use and is available in the island’s hospitals.

The drug, CimaVax EGF, has been shown to increase survival rates on average four to five months and much longer in some patients, they said in a news conference at Cuba’s Center of Molecular Immunology. In contrast to chemotherapy, the traditional treatment for lung cancer, they said CimaVax EGF has few side effects because it is a modified protein that attacks only cancer cells. They said it was the first lung cancer vaccine to be approved anywhere in the world, although there are others currently being tested. “It’s the first vaccine for lung cancer registered in the world,” said Gisela Gonzalez, who headed the development of the vaccine, begun in 1992. The drug is in various stages of clinical trials in a number of other countries and is most likely to be approved next in Peru, where it could be publicly available by year’s end, Gonzalez said.

[...]

“It’s possible to provide this vaccine to any patient, because it’s available in Cuba, it’s approved by the Cuban drug agency so we can market the vaccine in Cuba and we can receive patients from outside,” she said. The exception would probably be Americans, she said, who are restricted from Cuba travel by the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba in place since 1962. “Even though there is a new therapeutic tool approved in Cuba they probably wouldn’t be able to come to Cuba to receive it because of the embargo,” Crombet said. The drug has been approved for clinical trial in the United States, but its possible use there is at least two to three years away, Gonzalez said.

George Weigel on Benedict and the revival of the Latin Mass. Art critic Roger Kimball on critical thinking and the Enlightenment. Two good pieces from The Atlantic: Is Google Making Us Stupid? and a consideration of the unintended consequences of good intentions – an American Murder Mystery. Jonathan V. Last previews, negatively, the new Brideshead Revisited film. For fans of the Sopranos, a definitive and I think convincing case that Tony is dead. Stephen Norwood reviews the relationship between Harvard and the Nazis. Bjorn Lomborg calls for coolheadedness in the global warming discussion. John Derbyshire explains why many conservatives don’t like science. Yuval Levin on public opinion and the debate over embryos. Kay Hymowitz explains why some teens intentionally try to get pregnant. A fascinating, and vanishing, Albanian tradition.

Nolo Contendere: I do not wish to contest.

Upon a defendant offering this plea, the judge will then say, “The court finds the defendant guilty.”  For the man who chooses not to contest an election by voting, do we likewise claim he abides whatever candidate is elected?

With it’s embrace of out-of-wedlock birth, some questioned whether Juno was really a pro-life movie.  The argument was that just because someone didn’t choose abortion doesn’t mean we should be celebrating their choice.  Thanks to our modern age, we now face the question of making these girls (in this case, the choice of girls and not women is intentional) the next poster girls for the pro-life movement.

School officials started looking into the matter as early as October after an unusual number of girls began filing into the school clinic to find out if they were pregnant. By May, several students had returned multiple times to get pregnancy tests, and on hearing the results, “some girls seemed more upset when they weren’t pregnant than when they were,” Sullivan says. All it took was a few simple questions before nearly half the expecting students, none older than 16, confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. Then the story got worse. “We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy,” the principal says, shaking his head.

Kathleen Kingsbury,  Time Magazine

I have avoided commenting upon the Human Rights Tribunals occurring in Canada.  One of the more notable ones involve Mark Steyn being accused of making derogatory comments upon Muslims.  Other cases involve people accused of making derogatory remarks about homosexuals.  Previous readers of my commentaries know that I hold a pretty low view of the First Amendment.  More recent comments on homosexuality have probably been seen to belie my view that a number of acts including speech acts should not enjoy legal protection.  I would prefer the remedies to such actions to be simple torts but I’m understanding of efforts that allow governments to impose non-criminal penalties.

In the wake of 9/11 there has been plenty of poorly written material on Muslims and in particular conflating various terrorist acts to being basically an essential trait of the Muslim.  There is probably not much value in arguing this point except to cue particular choirs.  I for one don’t see particular value in men inciting the lower appetites of other men for profit.  While some will strike the pose that their purpose is truth and perhaps even ecumenical dialogue, the claim is rendered ridiculous by the forums the authors choose.  There are forums available for engaging Islamic scholars on points of Jihad.  When people exploit Muslims by using the 9/11 tragedy for profiteering, they should be condemned in the strongest of terms.  It is for similar reason that I look askance when people treat homosexuality as the greatest issue affecting the family.

And yet often I find myself looking askance at those making grievances public matter.  People should be able to disagree over whether increased Muslim immigration is a good thing.  People should be able to disagree over the appropriateness of various sexual acts.  In both cases, people should even be able to do so stupidly.  People who go around waiting to be offended are offensive.  Rather than proposing all or nothing dichotomies, perhaps I could be so unreasonable as to suggest that government institutions exercise prudence.  Perhaps we could attempt to live in communion without necessarily living homogenously.

There is an interesting Flash game that attempts to see how well one could balance the budget.  Surveying suggests that most Americans desire a balanced budget without making any real cuts and cutting taxes.  Going into the game, I had already a small list of things I was willing to cut and taxes didn’t scare me.  Of the 3 merit badges I sought to get, I failed to get all 3.  The simulation did state that I was a downsizer, attacked debt, and had thankful grandchildren.  One of the nice things I did was choose one of the national health plans, specifically the one taxing companies that didn’t provide benefits and using those dollars to allow individuals to purchase from the feds.  Unfortunately I was only able to cut defense by 10%.  I would have liked to cut it by 65-80%.  I did add 50 cents to the gas tax.  One of the advantages of being a dictator is being able to dictate.  :-)  I didn’t take the freebees availabe in cutting waste and earmarks, because I don’t think those are particularly honest approaches to budget planning.

The Action Institute is holding their “Acton University” this week.  While not quite the Third Vatican Council, dissidents everywhere will be attending it.  There will be even more than a few priests there witnessing the optionality of solidarity with the poor.  Some of the presenters will be making appearances on Catholic radio and television as experts with at most a caveat noting the views expressed are outside the mainstream of Catholic thought.  More often though it will simply be presented as an alternative viewpoint, posed as equally valid to the teaching put forth and reaffirmed since Rerum Novarum.

3. Explicit treatment of the problem was given in this Congregation’s “Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics” of December 29, 1975. That document stressed the duty of trying to understand the homosexual condition and noted that culpability for homosexual acts should only be judged with prudence. At the same time the Congregation took note of the distinction commonly drawn between the homosexual condition or tendency and individual homosexual actions. These were described as deprived of their essential and indispensable finality, as being “intrinsically disordered”, and able in no case to be approved of (cf. n. 8, $4).

In the discussion which followed the publication of the Declaration, however, an overly benign interpretation was given to the homosexual condition itself, some going so far as to call it neutral, or even good. Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder. Read the rest of this entry »

There is a certain dogmatism when people start speaking about rights.  Rights lend themselves to questions such as “What can I do?”  Obligations bring a similar dogmatism and a similar question: “What ought I do?”  Being in a society that has largely eschewed protocol, “Is it my place?” is often a question left unasked.  Many would claim rights and obligations are a claim to place or competence.  They reason that if you have the ability to do something by virtue of being given a right that you must act upon it. Read the rest of this entry »

STATEMENT OF FRANCIS CARDINAL GEORGE, O.M.I.,
ARCHBISHOP OF CHICAGO
June 3, 2008

To put recent events in some perspective, I have asked Father Michael Pfleger, Pastor of St. Sabina’s Parish, to step back from his obligations there and take leave for a couple of weeks from his pastoral duties, effective today. Fr. Pfleger does not believe this to be the right step at this time. While respecting his disagreement, I have nevertheless asked him to use this opportunity to reflect on his recent statements and actions in the light of the Church’s regulations for all Catholic priests. I hope that this period will also be a time away from the public spotlight and for rest and attention to family concerns.

I hope also that the life of St. Sabina’s parish may continue in uninterrupted fashion. Fr. William Vanecko, Pastor of St. Kilian’s parish, will be temporary administrator of St. Sabina’s and will assure the full complement of ministerial services during this period. I ask the members of St. Sabina’s parish to cooperate with him and to keep him and Fr. Pfleger in their prayers. They are in mine.

Reprinted in entirety. 
Source: Archdiocese of Chicago
HT: Pro Ecclesia

So I’m putting out two broad questions and I want to hear from you, dear readers. Specifically women [emp added] (sorry, fellas…this is a “Girls Only” club). Age doesn’t matter. There are two questions:

First, if you are [emp added] a practicing Catholic who fully accepts the teachings of the Catholic Church on everything from the all-male celibate priesthood, to NFP (and contraception), to abortion, to marriage and the role of women in the Church and daily life, a few questions for you….
…

If you are not [emp added] a practicing Catholic, or reject certain portions of the Church’s teachings, a few questions for you:  ….

More information is available here.  [Update: Apologizes.  The link now goes to the specific post rather than the general site.]  As a note, information submitted will be held in confidence.  Permission will be sought before quoting in the the master thesis.

From the Inter Press Service:

The real number of the dead is far higher than even the highest declared in death tolls, many Iraqis say.

A study by doctors from the Johns Hopkins School of Health in conjunction with Iraqi doctors from al-Mustanceriya University in Baghdad, published in the British medical journal The Lancet in October 2006, estimated the number of excess deaths as a result of the occupation at above 655,000.

Just Foreign Policy, an independent organisation “dedicated to reforming U.S. foreign policy” offered an updated total of 1,213,716 at the time of this writing.

On Sep. 14, 2007, Opinion Research Business (ORB), an independent polling agency located in London, produced a figure of 1,220,580 deaths as a result of the invasion.

These estimates are above any official figures from Iraq, but they do consider the reported official figures.

Iraqis believe that the authorities are hiding these figures. “The U.S. military benefits from hiding the real totals,” said a political analyst who declined to give his name because of the atmosphere of fear within Iraq. “And the Iraqi government is a puppet of the Americans, so their figures are ridiculously low as well.”

The report published in The Lancet did not take into account many circumstances of death, say residents in Baquba, capital of Diyala province 40km north of capital Baghdad.

“All people know that a large number of bodies are dropped into the Diyala river,” said a local resident. “I was kidnapped and taken to a village called Huwaider, which is completely Shia and located on the Diyala River. Sunnis there are killed and dropped in the river by militiamen, but I was freed by the U.S Army.

“People in all the villages on the river have gotten used to seeing bodies floating in the river,” he added.

This post will address the topic at a more general level.  It will however address some internal things at Vox Nova.  Those things addressed are my opinion.  I will attempt to make that clear when I comment upon them, but I figured I would offer it up front here as well.

There are many who don’t like comment policies on blogs.  I generally don’t like them, although I do find some entertaining.  There are times when they are essential.  For example, I know of one blog that represented itself as a forum for Lutherans and asked that only Lutherans comment; hence non-Lutherans were censored.  Oddly enough, even this minimal level of restraint can cause offense with people.  Such people would ask whether the Lutherans were afraid to hear the truth.  Most folks I think recognized the private association just didn’t want to offer their forum for outsiders to proselytize. Read the rest of this entry »

An accusation that we see thrown around a lot, especially around election time, is the charge that Father So-and-So is “being too political,” and that he should “stay out of politics.” The charge is made from either side of the aisle, sometimes directed toward priests who speak out strongly against war, or sometimes against priests and bishops who refuse communion to “pro-choice” politicians. The latest target of this charge, of course, is Fr. Michael Pfleger, whose ministry has been criticized for being “too political” for a variety of reasons, from his specific comments about the current presidential campaign to his supposed “hatred” for America and his fiery comments about racial privilege.

The Pfleger incidents — and the uproar that accompanies it — give Catholics a good opportunity to pause and to clear up some sloppy thinking on the whole notion of priests “being too political.” Frankly, Catholics usually accuse priests of “being too political” simply when they disagree with the priest’s politics. And in giving voice to this disagreement they typically insist that the Catholic position “transcends” politics.

Read the rest of this entry »

This picture is of a communist party official begging grieving mothers of the Sichuan earthquake to end their protest over corruption and ineptitude that contributed to the deaths of their children.

Photo credit: Shiho Fukada
Source: New York Times
HT: Western Confucian, The American Conservative

Of interest to readers here is a series at Inside Catholic on the role between media and bishops.  Deal Hudson offers the opening salvo arguing that critical coverage can be useful.  Francis Maier, the Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Denver is offering commentary this afternoon.  My own position is that Catholic media have a particular obligation to understand and explicate the bishop’s teachings.  Those who would make themselves watchdogs often fail in this obligation.  I’ve noticed this in particular with coverage of Cardinal Mahony.

Personally I have no use for people who see their purpose as undermining bishops.  In matters of prudence, one should attempt to follow a bishop’s position even if one disagrees.  Caution should be exercised when claiming something is beyond a bishop’s competence.  If something truly is unconscionable, then I would expect nothing less than for a person to follow their conscience.  I would expect such a thing more in areas closer to the home rather than say arguments over the minimum wage, immigration policy, or other elements of political realm rather than immediate concerns.  So yes I do believe that Republicans should not be saying, “I as a faithful Catholic support the Iraq War.”  Likewise I believe Democrats should not say, “I as a faithful Catholic believe the government should establish a lesser form of marriage, civil unions, to accommodate the desires of homosexual couples.”  This is an entirely seperate matter than what is fit for theological speculation.  Greater freedom is and should be granted in the speculative realm.  It is the difference between saying there is ample room in law and tradition for denying communion to politicians who support grave evils and claiming that any bishop who does not do so is a crypto-abortion supporter and enabler.

Although still active in the Plowshares Movement and protests against the U.S.-led war in Iraq, legendary American Jesuit peace activist and poet Daniel Berrigan places his body on the line with less regularity these days. This fact hardly suggests that Berrigan has toned down his radical nonviolent witness, and his latest book The Kings and Their Gods: The Pathology of Power, a commentary on 1 and 2 Kings, proves it.

Berrigan has already gifted the Church with a series of books on the prophets Daniel, Jeremiah, and Isaiah which combine biblical and social commentary in a poetic style that brings these scriptures to life and reveals their relevance for today’s world, a world not so different from the one the Hebrew prophets critiqued. Berrigan takes us through the stories the kings of Israel, reading them as a “diagnosis of the pathology of power,” a litany of death-dealing episodes of assassination, accumulation of riches, and above all, war-making, in which king after king is tempted to measure up to the “manhood” of previous kings through the use of power and violence.

Read the rest of this entry »

Memorial Day weekend was spent at home this year.  This allowed me to break sod and plant our garden.  This is our first year doing a garden.  As a child, I did a garden for 2 or 3 years.  They were mostly modest successes.  Having had an anti-vegetable streak, there was a tad bit of irony to the whole enterprise.  The advantage of doing my own garden rather than managing one for my parents is that I got to choose the crops.  Our garden will offer spinach, carrots, cucumbers, pumpkins, corn, and watermelon.  We should be able to enjoy our first fruits, err vegetables, in July. Read the rest of this entry »

Just curious.  If children are being thrown out of schools (HT: Calculated Risk) because their parents’ homes have been foreclosed upon and they are no longer considered residing within the district, does a Congresswoman still reside in her district if her residence is foreclosed upon?

(via Acts of the Apostasy)

Probably not.  While a crude calculation, it will work for my purposes.  Take the one-way commute mileage times the price of gas times 25, and you have the fuel cost of Mom working.  (The assumed car is one that gets 20 mpg.)  So if Mom drives 20 miles to work each day and gas goes up $2/gal, the household is out of an extra $1,000.  Where Mom gets dinged wage wise has been the physical cost of the extra vehicle, insuring it, and maintaining it; daycare; additional home food costs due to more processing being needed and more dining out; and additional clothing expense to maintain a work wardrobe.  Among the numerous studies on the matter, what we find is that many Moms make under $2/hr after accounting for all their troubles.

In many respects, many families will need to have both spouses in the work force.  Given high costs of housing and insurance, a number of families don’t have the option of a stay-at-home parent even if they desired one.  (For the record, my wife doesn’t work outside the home, but such isn’t a reflection of exceptional income.)  Given the high costs of commuting, I’m curious if higher gas prices will signal a re-urbanization.  This would of course need to be accompanied by a public transit infrastructure that most of our cities today lack. 

In violation of Canon 912, a chaplain refused professor Kmiec communion for his advocacy of Barack Obama for President.  While I have found Professor’s Kmiec’s initial justifications particularly weak even if I share them in finality now, I think his arguments have improved.  I don’t think his arguments ever came to the point of direct support for abortion.

** I’m reopening the comments here.  I request that comments positive and negative attempt to stick as closely to the topic at hand as possible.  Volumes have been written about variations on this topic.  This topic is relatively straight forward.  A man with a long and distinguished career in the pro-life movement was refused communion at an event by a chaplain.  As best I can surmise, there was no existing pastoral relationship between the two men.  He was denied communion putatively because he endorse Barack Obama and has articles questioning whether the abortion issue should be the preeminent issue in this particular election.  Feel free to reference Cardinal Ratzinger’s letter on this topic, USCCB documents and other resources.  **

Update 1:  Canonist Ed Peters largely concurs here.  (HT: Pro Ecclessia and Southern Appeal)

Update 2:  CatholicDemocrats.org and a number of other outlets are using this incident to also criticize the denial of communion for Governor Sebelius of Kansas.  I spoke to the matter of Governor Sebelius here.  While those with only bare familiarity of these issues may think they are similar, they are not for reasons I will not offer a comprehensive proof for here.  For those who should be knowledgable in these areas, I consider it an act of bad faith to compare them for the circumstances are night and day different.  Conflation does not serve the interests of truth, be it conflating Professor Kmiec’s endorsement of Obama to obstinate and manifest support of abortion or conflating the action taken against Governor Sebelius as a brazen, partisan act, as if it lacked any choices on her part after numerous warnings over a period of numerous months by her proper pastor, the Archbishop of Kansas City.

 It has been my hope that through this dialogue the Governor would come to understand her obligation: 1) to take the difficult political step, but necessary moral step of repudiating her past actions in support of legalized abortion and 2) in the future would use her exceptional leadership abilities to develop public policies extending the maximum legal protection possible to the unborn children of Kansas. 

Having made every effort to inform and to persuade Governor Sebelius and after consultation with Bishop Ron Gilmore (Dodge City), Bishop Paul Coakley (Salina) and Bishop Michael Jackels (Wichita), Read the rest of this entry »

“We say that it is time for civilization to draw inspiration from a concept other than that of strife, of violence, of war, of oppression, to set the world on the way to true justice for all. We say that Peace is not cowardice, is not faint-hearted weakness. Peace must gradually, immediately if possible, substitute moral strength for brute force; it must substitute reason, speech and moral greatness for the fatal, and too often fallacious efficacy of arms, of violent means, and of material and economic power. Peace is Man, who has ceased to be a wolf to his fellow man, Man in his invincible moral power. This it is that must today prevail in the world.”

- Pope Paul VI (World Day of Peace Message 1970)

It appears play time is over, and the media is ready to make judgements, regardless of any candidate’s delusions.  What we have known since at least Pennsylvania is now being reported as truth: Barack Obama barring a flight of reason from super delegates will be the nominee of the Democratic Party.  In other news, John McCain had impressive wins in North Carolina and Indiana last night.  Due obviously to a biased media, McCain’s stunning victories have been under reported.

We truly have embraced post-modernism.  Reality is only what we choose to recognize.  If Senator Clinton believes there is a path to the nomination, then there must be a path to the nomination.  If a man and woman living in common with child lack a marriage certificate, then we are to treat them as if there are no familial obligations present.  We can create our own reality, and we must be respected in this reality that we have created.  Sometimes it is downright comical.  For example on the news you may hear a variation of “We have footage of a man allegedly being beaten by police.”  There are even times where it is irrational: “Mr. Jones is being held in the alleged death of Mrs. Jones.”

Maybe if this prolonged race will have a benefit, it will mark the point where the media is willing to make judgements again.  Nonsense has been given too high of a pedestal in our day.  It is time for the willingness to use discretion to go further than censoring Holocaust deniers.

Thank God.

Continuing my shilling for the Chicago Tribune - two more of these posts will hopefully get me a comped subscription - this past Sunday’s edition offers a very interesting view inside Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, a church that among other things has been the home to Oprah Winfrey.  (While finding the story at the Tribune, there were some leads noting that she had left the congregation.)  There are some things that aren’t surprising.  For example Reverend Wright is intellectually stimulating and is known for that in his sermons.  That such an approach to faith would appeal to Obama I don’t think is all that remarkable.  From the story, “Visitors on a typical Sunday morning might see and hear flavors of Pentecostal worship, prophetic preaching, political activism, self-empowerment and individual salvation and healing.”  On the more surprising side of the equation, Trinity had made itself known as very pro-gay and lesbian rights.  Ideologically, it is politically progressive.  Trinity has ordained female pastors.

American Papist offers “news coverage” - quotes aren’t a reflection on the dear American Papist, but rather ironical given the topic and my sourcing of a blogger - of the Archdiocese of Washington’s press office refusal to answer inquiries from Cathlic News Agency(CNA) by claiming that they aren’t a real journalistic outfit.  I have half a mind to make an inquiry myself, perhaps to verify this story, but that would require me to do work on this story.

I think you are going to be seeing more of this.  Mark Cuban, ecclectic owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, banned locker room access for bloggers.  Alas, the NBA did over rule him.  There is of course the time and resource commitment to allowing access for every outfit under the sun.  There is of course the simple truth that bloggers aren’t journalists.  Then there is the other small matter of asking a large organization to recognize your tin hatted dictatorship while disparaging that organization and not even going to the trouble of correcting incorrect items when they are brought to your attention.  Vox Nova has recognized several news outlets ourselves for failing to live up to journalistic standards.

In the end, there are more than a couple news sources commonly cited in the Catholic blogosphere that I will assume are false until I verify the information elsewhere.  Bloggers who routinely cite them, even after having been burned several times, see me reading their blogs less frequently.  I wouldn’t come down on the side of demanding a mandatum from blogs per se.  I think blogs generally stand on the standards they maintain, and regrettably most are gossip tabloids and should be treated accordingly.

In attempt to break my streak of nonfiction of reading, I elsewhere solicited advice on good fictional literature.  That exercise has inspired me a little bit to see what people would put on a list of catholic literature.  I would include Catholic, Orthodox, and high Anglican writers for purposes of constructing this list.  To spur discussion, I will offer some writers off the top of my head.

Fyodor Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment, Brothers Karamazov
C.S. Lewis:  Chronicles of Narnia
J.R.R. Tolkien: Lord of the Rings
Leo Tolstoy:  Anna Karenina, War and Peace

Libertarian and Austrian School economist Thomas Woods offers what he calls a Catholic Defense of Free Markets over at InsideCatholic.  I will delve into parts of it here. Read the rest of this entry »

In the aftermath of the U.S. visit by Pope Benedict XVI, traditional Catholics are asking a troublesome question: Did pro-choice politicians receiving Communion at the papal Masses indicate the pope had softened on the abortion question? The answer is no. On the contrary, it reflected disobedience to Benedict by the archbishops of New York and Washington. [We'll see how well he proves this assertion.]

Read the rest of this entry »

We forget that clerics playing an important role in temporal affairs of state is nothing new. Whether it is wise is another story (Cardinals Richelieu and Wolsey come to mind!). I, for one, do not think that priests and bishops should become active in the political sphere of the modern nation state. But if the person leaves the priesthood, well, that is another story. I see nothing wrong with that. And I applaud Bishop (ex-bishop?) Lugo’s victory on a platform of social justice in Paraguay.

But again, this is nothing new. As early as nineteenth century, priests were taking advantage of new strides in democracy to support Catholic social teaching through elected office. In fact, there is one such priest who comes to mind. This man resigned from the priesthood in 1888 to pursue a career in politics, and was an elected representative of the Bavarian and federal chambers. He wrote on political economy topics, arguing against the materialism of Adam Smith.

This man, who died in 1899, is largely forgotten in history. Except for one thing: his name was Georg Ratzinger. He is the pope’s great uncle.

Since we wouldn’t want anyone to be abused…

Attorneys for the [mothers of the children taken in the raid of the FLDS compound in Texas] asked the judge to consider letting nursing mothers remain with their children after negotiations with CPS on the issue stalled. They asked the judge to let the mothers stay until DNA results are in, likely to take up to 40 days. 

Walther acknowledged the nutritional and bonding benefits of breast-feeding.

 ”But every day in this country, we have mothers who go back to work after six weeks of maternity leave,” she said. 

“The court has made a determination that the environment those children were in was not safe,” said Walther, adding that there is a shortage of suitable placements for infants in Texas.
…
Shari Pulliam, a spokeswoman for CPS, said the agency plans to proceed with plans to send the women home.

“We don’t place adult women in foster care,” she said. “Our main thing is to protect children from abuse and neglect.”
Salt Lake City Tribune

Update: Read the rest of this entry »

Did you allow someone to go ahead of you today even though you were in a rush?

Did you get impatient when the person driving a few cars ahead of you didn’t go right after the light turned green?

Did you say a few bad words after someone cut you off on the highway?

I didn’t do too well on the three points above yesterday, so I hope you can do better than me! It was a wake-up call yesterday when I was getting really impatient with this car in front of me, because he took so much time to move from one lane to the other and I needed to get to class right away. I was tempted to honk, but after I passed the car, I noticed that the person driving was really old and was perhaps scared to change lanes. I know my grandma does the same thing this man was doing. And we can’t fall into the temptation of just saying “well, they shouldn’t be driving anyway!” They may not have anyone to drive them around. They may not have any living relatives or people who would want to drive them wherever they need to go.

We never know in what state of mind people are driving or what their handicaps may be… sometimes it’s just better to not try to get ahead and just enjoy being last every once in a while…

“[t]he last will be first, and the first will be last.” (Mt 20:16)

This morning we get to pontificate about the importance of Senator Clinton reducing her pledged delegate deficit down to 154 and her known deficit (in other words adding declared super-delegates) down to 130.  The Clinton campaign is vigorously spinning this as momentum.  With a decisive win coming for Obama in North Carolina this is closer to a grand slam in the 8th inning of a game she was trailing 15-2.

Exit polling doesn’t show many surprises.  “Operation Chaos” continues to be the somewhat entertaining sideshow.  While 8 million listeners is certainly an accomplishment, it pales in comparison to the over 100 million who vote in national elections.  For the effort to have pushed the total 1%, Mr. Limbaugh would have needed 20,000 participants.  Assuming his Pennsylvania listenership roughly parallels the percentage of Pennsylvanians in the union, he has 320,000 listeners in the Keystone State.  20,000 participants would be a 6% participation rate.  I would think this would be in the plausible area with 15% pushing it.  As we look to the exit polling data, we see conservatives (10% of electorate) supported Obama 52:48.  This compares to Missouri where Conservatives (9% of the electorate) supported Obama 58:38.  In Wisconsin, conservatives (14% of the electorate) supported Obama 59:40.  What Limbaugh’s endorsement appears to have done is help make the Democratic primary more closed by eliminating Obama’s advantage among Republicans.  Of course, Obama’s mistakes over the past month could have something to with it as well.  Despite writing a paragraph on it here, I want to make clear that I don’t believe this to have seriously affected anything.  I just find it entertaining.

Moving along, soi dissant Catholic voter experts are discussing Senator Clinton’s 70:30 support among Catholics.  At this point it is a cart and horse arguments.  We know in Pennsylvania, Catholics tend to be older, white, and high school educated.  (Since the accusation of snobbery gets raised here a lot, I would be in the some college camp, so let’s not go there.)  These have been termed working class voters despite a good third of them being retired.  Overall the Democratic electorate was heavily female.  Personally I don’t have difficulty seeing a 60-year-old white weekly mass attending woman voting for Senator Clinton.  It is the same woman I have pictured who claims that all the problems in the Church are because it is an old boys club.  I can see that one.  I can that to such a degree that it would skew an entire demographic.  Otherwise, I just can’t fathom what would skew the Catholic vote that wouldn’t skew the white protestant vote.  If someone can give a compelling argument, I am ears.  I’m not going to pretend however that Catholics are normally distributed across the electorate, so I can claim significance of outcome.