Mark P. Shea's Blog, page 1262
August 17, 2011
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The Happy Sunny Side of Female Genocide
A reader writes:
I am a regular reader and sometime commenter, although I've never e-mailed you before. I teach religion at a Catholic high school in Corpus Christi. I really enjoy your blog, and am thankful for your commentary, especially on the issue of torture. I ran across an article on China's one child policy that I thought you might find interesting. I don't think that the Associated Press actually employs Chinese propagandists, but if they did, the article might sound something like this. The article shows the totalitarian zaniness of the utilitarian calculus in action!Yes, the piece does truly read like a piece of agitprop from the Ministry of Happy Talk. For some reason, it reminds me, in a grim way, of this:
I will definitely make sure to pray for you and your family, and hope that you have a happy Feast of the Assumption.
A Canadian reader writes:
Most of the comments I have read in various blogs or comboxes have been written from an American point of view, based on a more individualistic perspective. Maybe it would be instructive to look at the situation in the UK from a more european perspective – not everything that is done in the US may be applicable to a different social and cultural context. This is the reason I found instructive this comment from a specialist who was born and raised in the UK. And I found particularly interesting the following quote:Yes. People are thinking about that. The billions we spend on maintaining the Empire are billions in corporate welfare given to enormously rich and powerful corporations. Our civilization is built on the conviction that poor people who milk the system are parasites but rich people who milk the system are savvy operators."Ordinary Britons, McKenzie points out, feel 'How come you can't bail out poor people but you bail out banks? How come you haven't got the money to fund the NHS [National Health Service] but you're dropping bombs on Libya which is costing billions?'"I think some people in the US are at least thinking the same thing...
There's a psalm about this:
1 Truly God is good to the upright,
to those who are pure in heart. *
2 But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had well nigh slipped.
3 For I was envious of the arrogant,
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 For they have no pangs;
their bodies are sound and sleek.
5 They are not in trouble as other men are;
they are not stricken like other men.
6 Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.
7 Their eyes swell out with fatness,
their hearts overflow with follies.
8 They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
9 They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
10 Therefore the people turn and praise them; *
and find no fault in them. *
11 And they say, "How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?"
12 Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease,
they increase in riches.
13 All in vain have I kept my heart clean and
washed my hands in innocence.
14 For all the day long I have been stricken,
and chastened every morning.
15 If I had said, "I will speak thus,"
I would have been untrue to the generation of thy children.
16 But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,
17 until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I perceived their end.
18 Truly thou dost set them in slippery places;
thou dost make them fall to ruin.
19 How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors!
20 They are* like a dream when one awakes,
on awaking you despise their phantoms.
21 When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
22 I was stupid and ignorant,
I was like a beast toward thee.
23 Nevertheless I am continually with thee;
thou dost hold my right hand.
24 Thou dost guide me with thy counsel,
and afterward thou wilt receive me to glory. *
25 Whom have I in heaven but thee?
And there is nothing upon earth that I desire besides thee.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength* of my heart and my portion for ever.
27 For lo, those who are far from thee shall perish;
thou dost put an end to those who are false to thee.
28 But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord GOD my refuge,
that I may tell of all thy works.
A reader writes:
Have been reading about the mandated contraception health care articles at NCR and something came to mind.I think you are right that the average person (including the average Catholic) perceives the Church's teaching on abortion as a sort of irrational taboo just for Catholics. Much the same obtained, by the way, in the early 70s when it came to abortion. Most Evangelicals don't realize that at the time Roe was decided, Catholics were pretty much alone in opposing abortion. It was not until Francis Schaeffer (peace to his ashes) awakened the Evangelical conscience in the late 70s that Protestants began to realize that abortion violated natural law and was not just a Catholic thing.
I know a sin is a sin, but it seems when it comes to contraception, a lot of people who aren't Catholic think "this doesn't apply to me...it's a Catholic thing." The analogy comes to mind of a non-Jew eating pork, or someone who is not Muslim not fasting during Ramadan. How do we speak to the world about the "evils" of contraception when most people (Christians and non-Catholics) see it only as a hang-up for Catholics...i.e., "it's not a sin for me to use ABC because I'm not Catholic...the rules don't apply to me; it's ok in my church, etc."
Much the same still holds with natural law arguments about abortion. Evangelicals get that killing innocent human life is bad. But the notion that nature, made by God, is to be cooperated with and not thwarted is beyond our technological civilization, which routinely abandons the sacramental view of nature (including human nature) and tends to reduce it to merely raw material. For my full take on this, go here.
For a really good discussion of natural law, I recommend What We Can't Not Know by J. Budziszewski
August 16, 2011
Apologies, Disagreements, and a Prayer Request
I need to get going on the giant backlog of stuff to do. But before I do I wanted to write to apologize a) for my out of line comments about Sarah Palin last week, b) for my general crankiness of late, c) to request your prayers for something that I'm concerned about, and d) to express my concern about something else that I've been concerned about.
a) First things first, I think I crossed the line in speaking, not of Sarah Palin's actions, but of her, as "empty and meaningless" in my recent post. I think her tour is pointless beyond an ongoing grab for publicity, but I don't think she (or any human being) is "empty and meaningless" (indeed, it is blasphemous to say so), and I should not have said that.
b) This bleeds into my second concern, which is the growing sense of dismay I feel about our national politics and my growing cynicism (which was robust to start with) about it. My long and deep habit, when confronted with things that inspire sorrow, anger or hopelessness is to be flippant and I feel all three of these things about our political culture. The problem is that flippancy is, as Screwtape remarks, the "finest armor-plating" hell has devised against the approach of grace. I don't want to be a person who hardens his heart with cynicism in a bid to protect myself from sorrow if it costs me heaven.
c) Which brings me to my request for your prayers that I not do that. Yes, I know. I've apologized for my flippant nastiness before. Not a few of my critics have basically concluded that I'm insincere. That's understandable. However, I would ask them if they have no besetting sins and have never engaged in a long habit of sin that is hard to break. If not, then I would at least urge them to consider the possibility that there is a reason Jesus said to forgive seven times seventy times, since it appears that the norm for most human beings. Accordingly, I would request your prayers.
d) Finally, I want to try to express why I am concerned about things like the strange faith in Sarah Palin and, in particular, the reaction of some of my readers to my criticism of it.
As I hope I make clear above, I have no quarrel with those who found my remarks uncharitable. They were. Mea culpa.
However, a number of replies went further than concern about uncharity. For instance:
Here's the deal: the Faith does not commit us to supporting Palin for President or signing off on Michael Voris' opinions as the sine qua non of truly true Catholic faith. But increasingly, some Catholics are redefining the Faith according to just such sectarian opinions. The proof? The assumption that criticism of a publicity tour which appears to serve no other purpose than to draw attention to a woman who a) abandoned her oath of office; b) promptly set about making a fortune off her fame; and c) contributes almost nothing of substance to the national conversation is, ipso facto, to be a dissenter from Holy Church. Note, for instance, this leap of logic:
What lies behind most of the enthusiasm of her Catholic fans is, of course, her prolife credentials. I applaud her example in this. But the notion that *merely* being prolife is all that is necessary to be a competent politician is specious. I repeat. I vigorously applaud Palin's embrace of life for her son. I find the Left's hatred of her children (particularly of Trig) and their loathing of and obsession over her fertility to be one of the most repellent and pathological features of their opposition to her.
But that does not mean I therefore think her qualified to be President. Indeed (though it is hard to tell for sure) I don't think even she considers herself qualified to be President (which is, I suspect, why she is being cagey as she wanders around on her pointless self-promotion tour, aimlessly drawing attention to herself and siphoning off attention from people like Ron Paul (as we saw below) and playing this weird game of C'mere/Go Away with the media).
So it is not "hatred" to say that I do not believe she is about much besides being famous, getting rich, lathering, rinsing, and repeating and that her fans who regard her as something more than a symbol of their prolife aspirations are going to be disappointed in the end if they seriously believe she will look beyond the cycle of fame and riches.
I don't rule out a run for President, of course. People in her position can easily start to believe their hype. But she gives no indication of being willing to do the heavy lifting necessary to be qualified for the job. Given that we have already endured three years of a candidate who was buoyed up by massively inflated religious expectation founded on rather meager understanding of his office or much else, I think it would be a very bad idea for Catholics (who really ought to know better) to make exactly the same secular messianic blunder with Palin. And yet, as the combox comment above illustrate, that is exactly the blunder some are making. She's just a celebrity pol, not the Hope of Glory for the Church in America.
Personally, I wish she would spend *more* time being a prolife voice, not less. As it is, I think her essential message tends to get diluted as she runs around grasping for the brass ring of money and fame. Or, at any rate, I'm skeptical that such a program, enacted by all American families, would be a prescription for a healthy prolife family. But that's just me. Your mileage may vary. My main concern is with Catholics who are buying into the notion that failure to take a politician's publicity tour seriously is a litmus test for orthodoxy as a Catholic. It's just not, and the fact that I have to even point that out is one of the reasons I struggle with sorrow, anger and hopelessness about our current political climate. So your prayers would be appreciated.
a) First things first, I think I crossed the line in speaking, not of Sarah Palin's actions, but of her, as "empty and meaningless" in my recent post. I think her tour is pointless beyond an ongoing grab for publicity, but I don't think she (or any human being) is "empty and meaningless" (indeed, it is blasphemous to say so), and I should not have said that.
b) This bleeds into my second concern, which is the growing sense of dismay I feel about our national politics and my growing cynicism (which was robust to start with) about it. My long and deep habit, when confronted with things that inspire sorrow, anger or hopelessness is to be flippant and I feel all three of these things about our political culture. The problem is that flippancy is, as Screwtape remarks, the "finest armor-plating" hell has devised against the approach of grace. I don't want to be a person who hardens his heart with cynicism in a bid to protect myself from sorrow if it costs me heaven.
c) Which brings me to my request for your prayers that I not do that. Yes, I know. I've apologized for my flippant nastiness before. Not a few of my critics have basically concluded that I'm insincere. That's understandable. However, I would ask them if they have no besetting sins and have never engaged in a long habit of sin that is hard to break. If not, then I would at least urge them to consider the possibility that there is a reason Jesus said to forgive seven times seventy times, since it appears that the norm for most human beings. Accordingly, I would request your prayers.
d) Finally, I want to try to express why I am concerned about things like the strange faith in Sarah Palin and, in particular, the reaction of some of my readers to my criticism of it.
As I hope I make clear above, I have no quarrel with those who found my remarks uncharitable. They were. Mea culpa.
However, a number of replies went further than concern about uncharity. For instance:
First this "Catholic" attacks Michael Voris and now Sarah Palin. Hey Mark, when are you going to have the courage to go after the bad guys. Just like the typical "progressive/liberal" you jump on the band wagon to attack anyone who truly adheres to their true faith and conviction. Coward! I wouldnt put it pass you to cower in the corner when things get really ugly.What concerns me about this is the use of scare quotes around the word "Catholic". It is a rather common phenomenon and it denotes something quite sinister: namely, the conflation a particular political and social subsect with the entirety of the Faith. Here's the same idea expressed in somewhat more chemical purity from one of the people sent here by Pewsitter:
love it! the Pewsitter.com has listed Mark Shea as a humorist! Guess his identity as a faithful catholic apologist has finally been put to rest. Now if we can just keep him off the airways of EWTN!Message: express doubts about Sarah Palin and you are not a faithful Catholic. Indeed, you must be silenced! A thirteenth article has been added to the Creed and those who do not profess it are heretics and fifth columnist enemies of Holy Church.
Here's the deal: the Faith does not commit us to supporting Palin for President or signing off on Michael Voris' opinions as the sine qua non of truly true Catholic faith. But increasingly, some Catholics are redefining the Faith according to just such sectarian opinions. The proof? The assumption that criticism of a publicity tour which appears to serve no other purpose than to draw attention to a woman who a) abandoned her oath of office; b) promptly set about making a fortune off her fame; and c) contributes almost nothing of substance to the national conversation is, ipso facto, to be a dissenter from Holy Church. Note, for instance, this leap of logic:
Ha! Shea, you're such a lefty, how's that hopey change workin' out for you?Pure tribalism. I criticized Palin. Therefore I must support Obama. And, of course, I must therefore support abortion:
Your title of "Catholic and enjoying it" is quite misplaced given your description of a beautiful mother and pro-life politician. You must totally destroy the pro-abortion politicians given your title of Catholic. All TRUE Catholics know you can't be Catholic and pro-choice!In fact, I do not support Obama, nor any other candidate who asks me to support grave intrinsic evil. As far as I can tell from Palin's syntactic linguini, she does not ask me to support grave evil (though her public pronouncements are so frequently indecipherable that I could be wrong). "Not supporting grave evil" is itself a huge and commendable rarity in American public life and I applaud her for it (assuming I am right). But "not supporting grave evil", while a bare minimum, is not all I'm looking for. Something approaching "qualification" also weighs in my thinking. And a politician who ditches her oath of office halfway through her first term in order to make a fortune off a badly ghost-written book, some silly reality TV, and ginormous speaker's fees does not seem to me to be interested in much beyond how she can milk her fame and stay famous for being famous.
What lies behind most of the enthusiasm of her Catholic fans is, of course, her prolife credentials. I applaud her example in this. But the notion that *merely* being prolife is all that is necessary to be a competent politician is specious. I repeat. I vigorously applaud Palin's embrace of life for her son. I find the Left's hatred of her children (particularly of Trig) and their loathing of and obsession over her fertility to be one of the most repellent and pathological features of their opposition to her.
But that does not mean I therefore think her qualified to be President. Indeed (though it is hard to tell for sure) I don't think even she considers herself qualified to be President (which is, I suspect, why she is being cagey as she wanders around on her pointless self-promotion tour, aimlessly drawing attention to herself and siphoning off attention from people like Ron Paul (as we saw below) and playing this weird game of C'mere/Go Away with the media).
So it is not "hatred" to say that I do not believe she is about much besides being famous, getting rich, lathering, rinsing, and repeating and that her fans who regard her as something more than a symbol of their prolife aspirations are going to be disappointed in the end if they seriously believe she will look beyond the cycle of fame and riches.
I don't rule out a run for President, of course. People in her position can easily start to believe their hype. But she gives no indication of being willing to do the heavy lifting necessary to be qualified for the job. Given that we have already endured three years of a candidate who was buoyed up by massively inflated religious expectation founded on rather meager understanding of his office or much else, I think it would be a very bad idea for Catholics (who really ought to know better) to make exactly the same secular messianic blunder with Palin. And yet, as the combox comment above illustrate, that is exactly the blunder some are making. She's just a celebrity pol, not the Hope of Glory for the Church in America.
Personally, I wish she would spend *more* time being a prolife voice, not less. As it is, I think her essential message tends to get diluted as she runs around grasping for the brass ring of money and fame. Or, at any rate, I'm skeptical that such a program, enacted by all American families, would be a prescription for a healthy prolife family. But that's just me. Your mileage may vary. My main concern is with Catholics who are buying into the notion that failure to take a politician's publicity tour seriously is a litmus test for orthodoxy as a Catholic. It's just not, and the fact that I have to even point that out is one of the reasons I struggle with sorrow, anger and hopelessness about our current political climate. So your prayers would be appreciated.
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