Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 298

What happened?

George Weigel analyzes the "why" and "how" of once staunchly Catholic countries transforming, in just a few decades, into hotbeds of anti-Catholic rhetoric and law:

 Ireland — where the constitution begins, "In the name of the Most Holy Trinity" —  has become the most stridently anti-Catholic country in the Western world. ...

Sixty years into the 20th century, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, and Quebec were among the most intensely Catholic nations on the planet. Fifty years later, Quebec is the most religiously arid space between Point Barrow and Tierra del Fuego; Portuguese Catholicism, outside the pilgrimage shrine of Fatima, is hardly robust; Spain has the most self-consciously secularist government in Europe; and Ireland has now become the epicenter of European anti-Catholicism. What happened?

Perhaps some comparative history and sociology suggest an answer. In each of these cases, the state, through the agency of an authoritarian government, deliberately delayed the nation's confrontation with modernity. In each of these cases, the Catholic Church was closely allied to state power (or, in the case of Quebec, to the power of the dominant Liberal party). In each of these cases, Catholic intellectual life withered, largely untouched by the mid-20th-century Catholic renaissance in biblical, historical, philosophical, and theological studies that paved the way toward the Second Vatican Council. And in each of these cases, the local Catholicism was highly clerical, with ordination to the priesthood and the episcopate being understood by everyone, clergy and laity alike, as conferring membership in a higher caste.

Then came le déluge: the deluge of Vatican II, the deluge that Europeans refer to as "1968," and the deluge of the "Quiet Revolution" in la Belle Province. Once breached, the fortifications of Counter-Reformation Catholicism in Spain, Portugal, Quebec, and Ireland quickly crumbled. And absent the intellectual resources to resist the flood-tides of secularism, these four once-hyper-Catholic nations flipped, undergoing an accelerated course of radical secularization that has now, in each case, given birth to a serious problem of Christophobia: not mere indifference to the Church, but active hostility to it, not infrequently manifested through coercive state power.

Read the entire essay, "Erin Go Bonkers". On a much smaller, more intimate level, I liken this process in some ways to what I witnessed with many "preacher's kids" ("PKs", they were often called) from my Fundamentalist youth: they were so tightly controlled and directed in every facet of life—even into their late teens—that they struggled to think critically and properly engage with the larger culture. They were often given pat answers that weren't, in many cases,  necessarily wrong, but which weren't so much taught as foisted upon them. There was, in other words, an approach to life that was quite reactionary and fearful, rather than confident and open to questions and debate—the sort of lacking approach that Dr. Mark Noll (who now teaches at the University of Notre Dame after many years at Wheaton College) criticized so insightfully and often harshly in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Eerdmans, 1994). In a 2004 essay in First Things, Noll reflected on the book and its main premises:

What is true throughout the Christian world is true for American Christians: we who are in pietistic, generically evangelical, Baptist, fundamentalist, Restorationist, holiness, "Bible church," megachurch, or Pentecostal traditions face special difficulties when putting the mind to use. Taken together, American evangelicals display many virtues and do many things well, but built-in barriers to careful and constructive thinking remain substantial.

These barriers include an immediatism that insists on action, decision, and even perfection right now, a populism that confuses winning supporters with mastering actually existing situations, an anti-traditionalism that privileges one's own current judgments on biblical, theological, and ethical issues (however hastily formed) over insight from the past (however hard won and carefully stated), and a nearly gnostic dualism that rushes to spiritualize all manner of bodily, terrestrial, physical, and material realities (despite the origin and providential maintenance of these realities in God). In addition, we evangelicals as a rule still prefer to put our money into programs offering immediate results, whether evangelistic or humanitarian, instead of into institutions promoting intellectual development over the long term.

Granted, there are significant differences between what Weigel describes and Noll explains. But the common element is the lack of "intellectual resources" and "intellectual development", especially for critically, thoughtfully, and firmly taking on the chaotic flood of falsehoods, half-truths, skewed perceptions, trendy "isms", and confused flailings of the dominant culture.

On a related note, see:

And:

Al Kresta is broadcasting today from...

... the Napa Institute Conference in Napa, California:

Today we broadcast from the first Napa Institute Conference whose goal it is to promote excellence in Catholic thought and apologetics. Today we talk with Bishop Robert Vasa on the role of a Bishop, Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage about the NY gay "marriage" law, George Weigel on the Church in Europe and what it may say about the Church in America, and Wall Street Journal columnist William McGurn on The Gospel of "St. Media."

Yesterday's edition of "Kresta in the Afternoon" was also broadcast from Napa. You can listen to archived shows on the Ave Maria Radio website.

Tasty odds and ends accompanied by a spicy sauce of zesty commentary

A number of interesting, meaningful, "must read", and "read if you wish" links and items have accumulated over the past few weeks, so I'm going to unleash them here, in no particular order.

• Burlap to Cashmere talk about the writing and recording of the song, "Don't Forget to Write." I like how they talk about the song as a sort of living thing; a neat peek into the creative process.

• Business Week has a piece, "Cashing in on the rapture business" (July 28, 2011) that talks about the big bucks that can be had by marketing the End of the World. I was somewhat amused to see a reference to Jack Van Impe's "budding apocalypse empire" since Van Impe has been peddling doom and gloom for several decades; as a child, I listened to many of his talks on vinyl (wow, I just dated myself, didn't I?).

• A recent Gallup poll finds that 41% of Americans consider themselves "conservative"; 36% say they are "moderate"; and 21% count themselves "liberal". What does that means? That 2% of Americans have somehow transcended such labels. Hats off to them.

• The Orientale Lumen XV Conference was held June 20-23, 2011, in Washington, D.C., to discuss the topic: "Rome and the Communion of Churches: Bishop, Patriarch or Pope?" Speakers included Metropolitan Jonah, Primate of the Orthodox Church in America, Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia, Professor Emeritus of Oxford University, Archimandrite Robert Taft, Professor Emeritus of the Pontifical Oriental Institute, and Sr. Dr. Vassa Larin of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. The talks can be heard online and downloaded as .mp3 files.

• Joseph Pearce, author of Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile (Ignatius, 2011), posts on the Saint Austin Review blog that Alexander Solzhenitsyn's 'last stories' will soon be published in English.

• The very talented illustrator Ann Kissane Engelhart is the co-author, with Amy Welborn, of Friendship With Jesus: Pope Benedict XVI talks to Children on Their First Holy Communion (due in October 2011 from Ignatius Press). You can look at several pages of that book on her website.

• Fr. James Schall's new HPR essay, "Liberal Education and the Priesthood", has this great quote from the novelist Walker Percy: "The fact that novels are narratives about events which happen to people in the course of time is given a unique weight in an ethos that is informed by the belief that awards an absolute importance to an Event which happened to a Person in historic time. In a very real way, one can say that the Incarnation not only brought salvation to mankind but gave birth to the novel. Judeo-Christianity is about pilgrims who have something wrong with them and are embarked on a search to find a way out. That is also what novels are about."

• "So, the story of my conversion is, in part, about the pilgrimage of four men: Pope John Paul ll, my father (albeit, an unwitting guide), C.S. Lewis, and Malcolm Muggeridge", writes Ian Hunter. "But, first, last and always, it is the same story that conversion always is -a story of God's grace and forgiveness and love. Deo gratias."

• My sister, Amy Seeley, who has all (and I mean all) of the musical talent in the family, has a new and very lovely song, "Highlights of Owls", available as a free download. Check it out!

• "The Catholicism Project" is praised on The Catholic Thing as "the most vivid catechism ever created; a high-def illustrated manuscript for the twenty-first century; the best-ever film about the Catholic faith." If you missed it, here is my post praising the project, which I had the pleasure of helping out on as author of the accompanying Study Guide.

• George Weigel writes that "Blessed John Paul II and Benedict XVI represent the full flowering of a renaissance in Catholic thought that began with Pope Leo XIII..." The fact is, we live in a golden age of popes—and we (including myself) often fail to appreciate it.

• "It is the essence of Christianity that we are all adopted sons and daughters of God, Who not only created us but redeemed us from our sinful alienation, so that we might fulfill the destiny of entering into a union of love with Himself." From this great essay by Dr. Jeff Mirus of CatholicCulture.org.

• Here are two Catholic composers creating outstanding choral pieces: Frank LaRocca, who teaches at California State University, East Bay; and Christopher Mueller, Director of Music for the Church of Notre Dame (Manhattan).

• Back in October 2008, I noted that one of the few issues that inspired a principled stand by then-candidate Sen. Obama was increased access for all to contraceptives (another one being his consistent support of abortion). So it's hardly a surprise that the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services is now requiring insurance companies to cover birth control and sterilization. The Aggie Catholics blog has more information, including a post, "Top 10 Reasons Free Contraception For All Is a Terrible Idea".

• Nicholas Kristof complaining in the New York Times about "Evangelical blowhards" is as if Hugh Hefner complained in Playboy about the evils of fornication: he'd have a good point, but his moral indignation would ring a bit hollow.

• The Gawker has a lengthy and very disturbing piece (warning: graphic language and images!), "The Catholic Church's Secret Gay Cabal", that describes the incredibly sordid episcopate of the former Archbishop of Miami, John C. Favalora. The lone orthodox Catholic interviewed in the piece, Eric Giunta (who writes for RenewAmerica.com), describes the piece as "a substantially accurate portrayal" of the Archdiocese, which is now starting to clean house and turn the corner under the leadership of Abp. Thomas Wenski, who was appointed to Miami in April 2010.

• "Every time that Benedict XVI legislates – for example, by liberalizing the Mass in the ancient Roman rite or reinforcing the norms against the 'delicta graviora' – he does everything he can to demonstrate both the foundation of truth of the decisions made, and their specificity with respect to the laws of the earthly city. Where this 'emphasis of the fundamental options of the faith' is lacking, he is careful to avoid complying with the 'provocations of today's sensibility.' For him, orthopraxy cannot be separated from orthodoxy, just as 'caritas' is such only 'in veritate.'" That from Sandro Magister's article, "'Non Prævalebunt.' How and Why Benedict XVI Is Standing Up to the Attacks" (Aug. 1, 2011). For more background on Benedict's understanding of the relationship between orthopraxy (right practice) and orthodoxy (right doctrine), see Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions (Ignatius, 2004), written shortly before he was elected pope.

• "The Internet has returned us to the alphabet … From now on, everyone has to read. In order to read, you need a medium. This medium cannot simply be a computer screen." So says the Italian novelist and scholar Umberto Eco, who also states, "The book is like the spoon, scissors, the hammer, the wheel. Once invented, it cannot be improved." I tend to agree. I like my Kindle; it has some notable strengths. But, in the end, it is not an alternative to books, but a variation on the beautiful things known as "books".

• Speaking of books, the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), has been crunching data taken from "fiction, popular magazines, newspapers, academic texts and transcripts of spoken English" in order to study differences "between the vernacular and standard diction". One essential finding: "Dan Brown, of 'Da Vinci Code' fame, is partial to eyebrows. In his techno-thriller 'Digital Fortress,' characters arch or raise their eyebrows no fewer than 14 times." Those characters were all thinking the same thing: "Please help me escape from this dreadful piece of rotten writing. Please! [Arched eyebrows]"

• And speaking of Dan Brown, which I do once or twice a year, this piece in The Daily Mail approvingly declares The Da Vinci Code to be "middlebrow" and a "sensible choice" for people who are bored by "highbrow" (that is, classic novels, opera, etc.) but still sentient enough to avoid trash labelled "lowbrow". Which is exactly how I would describe Brown's novel, except instead of "middlebrow", I'm describe it as "pretentious brain rot for lazy readers attracted to groupthink and conspiratorial Catholic-bashing". Then again, maybe Brown's are really challenging for some readers. Shudder the thought.

• An atheist reader assumes that I live in some sort of Catholic ghetto, apparently unaware that I was raised in anti-Catholic, Protestant home: "Do you have a deep understanding of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and Islam, to pick just a few major religions? No? I'll bet your knowledge of them is very superficial." Well, I am currently co-authoring a book on Catholicism and Buddhism, and I currently own 84 (given or take one or two) books on Buddhism (with about thirty on Islam). Which doesn't mean my knowledge of Buddhism isn't superficial, but I suspect I know more about it than I'm being given credit for.

• A CNN Belief Blog post, "Do you speak Christian?", quotes Marcus Borg as saying, "The rapture is a recent invention. Nobody had thought of what is now known as the rapture until about 1850". In fact, John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) was using the term in the late 1820s/early 1830s; the term (as used by Darby and Co.) apparently has roots in the book, The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty, written around 1791 (translated into English in 1821) by Manuel de Lecunza y Diaz, a renegade Chilean Jesuit. The piece also states, "The rapture has become an accepted part of the Christian vocabulary with the publication of the megaselling 'Left Behind' novels and a heavily publicized prediction earlier this year by a Christian radio broadcaster that the rapture would occur in May." Actually, the term "Rapture" was spread in the early 20th century via the Scofield Bible, as well as through the many fundamentalist Bible colleges founded in North American in the 1920s and following. It became even more widespread with the publication of Hal Lindsey's mega-selling book, The Late Great Planet Earth (1970), which declared the "Rapture" to be "the real hope for the Christian, the 'blessed hope' for true believers..." And, of course, Lindsey later wrote a book titled, The Rapture (1985). For more, see my article, "A Short History of the 'Left Behind' Theology".

• I've already written a post about my favorite CD of the year, Burlap to Cashmere. But that's not the only good music of 2011; here are twenty-even other CDs that I've been enjoying this year:

1. "21" by Adele. Not my usual cup of tea, but what a voice!
2. "Stranger Me" by Amy LaVere. Quirky. Catchy. Twangy. Strange. Did I mention quirky?
3. "Across The Way" by Brad Shepik Quartet. Exceptional, tasteful jazz guitar.
4. "Live At Benaroya Hall With The Seattle Symphony" by Brandi Carlile. Looking forward to seeing her in concert in three weeks.
5. "Songs of Mirth and Melancholy" by Branford Marsalis & Joey Calderazzo. Telepathic horn and piano duets.
6. "Barton Hollow" by The Civil Wars. Outstanding harmonies and songwriting. One of the year's best.
7. "100 Lovers" by Devotchka. Balkan music meets American folk. In Denver.
8. "Covers 80's" by Duncan Sheik. I was suspicious, but it works. Really well.
9. "Three Stories" by Eldar Djangirov. A piano virtuoso shows he has both artistry and technique.
10. "Hard Bargain" by Emmylou Harris. One of the most great American voices in top form.
11. "Rave On Buddy Holly" by Various Artists. I usually avoid tribute albums, but this is quite enjoyable.
12. "Best Of Vegas" by Frank Sinatra. Do I really need to explain how good this is? No, of course not.
13. "The Lost and Found" by Gretchen Parlato. Her version of "Holding Back the Years" is quite stunning.
14. "Voice" by Hiromi. More dazzling keyboard magic.
15. "Caribbean Rhapsody" by James Carter. An ambitious and rousing meeting of jazz and classical.
16. "James Farm" by Joshua Redman, Aaron Parks, Matt Penman, Eric Harland. My favorite jazz CD of the year so far.
17. "Love & War & The Sea In Between" by Josh Garrels. An eclectic and engaging Christian artist.
18. "LP1" by Joss Stone. A stripped down singer-songwriter-oriented album that is most agreeable.
19. "Director's Cut" by Kate Bush. "Re-dos" by Bush of earlier songs. Full of lushness and longing.
20. "Faithful" by Marcin Wasilewski. One of the finest piano trios performing today.
21. "Skala" by Mathias Eick. Another great ECM release, something of a Scandinavian neo-fusion album.
22. "Destroyed" by Moby. His strongest, most melodic effort in several years.
23. "Revolu$ion" by Nemo. Adventurous, energetic French prog-rock with great guitar work.
24. "10 Stories Down" by The Pineapple Thief. This English band never disapoints.
25. "Follow Me Down" by Sarah Jarosz. Exceptional neo-bluegrass; fine version of Radiohead's "The Tourist".
26. "Live On I-5" by Soundgarden. Actually recorded in 1996. Grunge at its live best. New album in 2012!
27. "Fly From Here" by Yes. Strong album, sans Jon Anderson. Heresy? Perhaps, but...

• Finally, a quote from the conclusion of the afore-mentioned Truth and Tolerance by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger: "When the existence of God is denied, freedom is, not enhanced, but deprived of its basis and thus distorted. When the purest and most profound religious traditions are set aside, man is separating himself from his truth; he is living contrary to that truth, and he loses his freedom. Not can philosophical ethics be simply autonomous. It cannot dispense with the concept of God or dispense with the concept of a truth of being that is of an ethical nature. If there is no truth about man, then he has no freedom. Only the truth makes us free."

This eleven-minute musical respite...

... is brought to one and all by the Catholic genius, Joseph Haydn, from his oratorio, Die Jahreszeiten ("The Seasons"):

"This guy is just as detached from reality as Breivik is."

Hmmm. If true, someone better find that guy and bring him in for questioning! I surely don't want more Breiviks running around at large and filled with homicidal rage. Quick, who is "this guy"?

Oh. He's me. Really? 

Well, that's the grave judgment rendered by @Catelli_NQU, a self-described "middle aged IT guy who works in Ontario's Manufacturing Sector" who tweeted that little bit of TwitterSlander in response to my post, "Evil and the empty soul". He doesn't specify how exactly I am "detached from reality", but I suspect it's because I wrote crazy and outrageous remarks such as this:

The sick and tragic irony is that the more man attempts to use purely material, scientific (or scientistic) means to "liberate" himself from (take your pick) poverty, hunger, oppression, illness, bigotry, death, the more he distorts and destroys his true nature as a creature created for good and for God. Put another way, he merely furthers the Fall by falling even further, if that is possible. While materialism and scientism seek to explain and control the mystery of evil through technology, psychology, and other such "ologies", Catholicism recognizes that, first, evil is indeed a mystery—that is, it is at root a spiritual deprivation and corruption that cannot be explained by materialist philosophies—and, secondly, it can only be really addressed through faith and grace...

Which is to say, I'm fairly confident he thinks Catholicism is as "detached from reality as Breivik is."

By the way, Blessed John Paul II wrote very beautifully in Fides et ratio about the same topics I addressed in passing in my post. Here is an excellent passage worthy of a few moments of reflection:

God alone is the Absolute. From the Bible there emerges also a vision of man as imago Dei. This vision offers indications regarding man's life, his freedom and the immortality of the human spirit. Since the created world is not self-sufficient, every illusion of autonomy which would deny the essential dependence on God of every creature—the human being included—leads to dramatic situations which subvert the rational search for the harmony and the meaning of human life.

The problem of moral evil—the most tragic of evil's forms—is also addressed in the Bible, which tells us that such evil stems not from any material deficiency, but is a wound inflicted by the disordered exercise of human freedom. In the end, the word of God poses the problem of the meaning of life and proffers its response in directing the human being to Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God, who is the perfect realization of human existence. A reading of the sacred text would reveal other aspects of this problem; but what emerges clearly is the rejection of all forms of relativism, materialism and pantheism.

The fundamental conviction of the "philosophy" found in the Bible is that the world and human life do have a meaning and look towards their fulfilment, which comes in Jesus Christ. The mystery of the Incarnation will always remain the central point of reference for an understanding of the enigma of human existence, the created world and God himself. The challenge of this mystery pushes philosophy to its limits, as reason is summoned to make its own a logic which brings down the walls within which it risks being confined. Yet only at this point does the meaning of life reach its defining moment. The intimate essence of God and of the human being become intelligible: in the mystery of the Incarnate Word, human nature and divine nature are safeguarded in all their autonomy, and at the same time the unique bond which sets them together in mutuality without confusion of any kind is revealed. (par. 80)

As for being compared to a Muslim-hating, church-less, cyber-twisted, pseudo-Christian mass murderer, I'm increasingly convinced that such a tactic is about par for the course when it comes to skeptics and atheists, many of whom (not all, but many) would rather slander and sneer than engage in a half-way intelligent conversation. And when they do engage, they often resort to this sort of opening gambit: "So instead of continuing to attempt to alleviate material deprivations we should be concentrating on devotion to a sky-god?" And so forth. Here is the full (initial) exchange:

Angling Saxon: I'm used to atheists/skeptics getting most everything wrong, but you've taken it to another level: you get everything wrong. A few specific responses:

So instead of continuing to attempt to alleviate material deprivations we should be concentrating on devotion to a sky-god?

Who said or wrote that? I certainly didn't. After all, I belong to the largest and oldest charitable organization in the world, which operates hospitals, charities, orphanages, soup kitchens, etc., all over the world: the Catholic Church.

I know the term "sky-god" is meant to be some sort of clever insult, but it is actually laughably ignorant, as Christians do not worship a god "in the sky". God, in Christian and Jewish belief, is completely Other, the ground of all being who is, to draw upon ancient philosophical language, the Prime Mover and the First Cause.

I guess people in Europe were better off in the Middle Ages when they were pious and died at 30 of infections or influenza because, hey, at least they had "divine" purpose in life, eh?

A rather bizarre "argument", as if the Catholic Church delights in sickness (which wouldn't makes sense of the many hospitals that she operated in the Middle Ages), or did nothing to alleviate illness, disease, and so forth. On the contrary, as many scholars (both secular and Christian) have shown in recent decades, what we now take for granted in terms of science, medicine, technology, etc., came directly from the philosophical and scientific advances brought about by Christianity. See my essay, "Dark Ages and Secularist Rages: A Response to Professor A.C. Grayling" for more. I also recommend the excellent book, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (Yale, 2009), by David Bentley Hart.

Really? This would be funny if it wasn't so sad. Think about it: the greatest horrors of the 20th century were unleashed by and between Christian nations, but did that elicit much "soul"-searching by those in churches Catholic or otherwise?

Another weird "argument", which displays a breathtaking absence of any historical knowledge whatsoever. The fact is, almost every Western war from about the 16th century onward was based in political struggles, not religious conflicts. And, to be specific, how was the Nazi regime "Christian"? Especially when it openly stated and pursued the destruction of Christians and Jews? And how was Communism in the Soviet Union and China "Christian"? It is far more accurate to note that countries such as Germany and Russia had once been Christian to one degree or another, but that they had succumbed to dictatorships that were aggressively anti-Christian. And those dictatorship (Communist and Nazi) accounted for some 100+million murders in less than 70 years.

Why on earth are you so convinced that we are leading empty, meaningless lives that only prostration before a sky-god from a fairy tale will assuage? One loony (and far right Christian, don't forget!) shoots up Norway and all of a sudden society is falling?

A life based in a materialist philosophy and that denies transcendent truth and meaning is, if lived true to its premises and convictions, essentially nihilist and meaningless. It's simply logical. Of course, few skeptics/atheists are willing to live in complete and full accord with their basic beliefs; they will talk about "love" and "gratitude" and even being "spiritual", even while tacitly denying the metaphysical realities without which "love" and "gratitude" and "being spiritual" have any substantive meaning. For more, see my essay, "Love and the Skeptic" and my post, "Can atheists be grateful?"

What's interesting is that other horrors in the Soviet Union and China did in fact eventually produce debate and introspection, though not always by those in power. But even so, those systems of thought were mostly, if not thoroughly in those two countries, discredited.

Highly debatable, at the very least, especially since China continues to be run by a government that is Communist and atheistic, although its methods of control are often far more subtle than they once were. Europe has, at least on an official level, turned its back on theism in general and Christianity specifically. In fact, the West is deep in the throes of a materialist desert, both on a social/economic level and on a philosophical/cultural level.

You sincerely believe that life without your particular brand of sky-god is meaningless. Well...terrific! Bully for you! As much as I do not respect that, I can understand it...

Actually, I don't get the sense that you understand Christian belief, Western history, or basic philosophy very well at all. It is consistently the case (if not always the case) that Christians understand atheism far better than atheists understand Christianity; it has nothing to do with intellectual abilities, and quite a bit to do with intellectual integrity and honesty. I've studied atheism over the years (see my introductory essay, "A Short Introduction to Atheism"), and I can honestly say that I understand, on an intellectual/experiential level, the attraction of atheism, but that I do not find atheism to be intellectually fulfilling, logical, or appealing. In the words of Walker Percy, a former atheist: "This life is much too much trouble, far too strange, to arrive at the end of it and then be asked what you make of it and have to answer, 'Scientific humanism.' That won't do. A poor show. Life is a mystery, love is a delight. Therefore, I take it as axiomatic that one should settle for nothing less than the infinite mystery and infinite delight; i.e., God." ("Questions They Never Asked Me," p. 417)

More to follow, it appears.

Liberal Education and the Priesthood

Liberal Education and the Priesthood | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. | Homiletic & Pastoral Review | August/September 2011

The winner of the second annual Pastores Dabo Vobis Award in Honor of Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J.

"Like all great churches, that are not mere store-houses of theology, Chartres expressed, besides whatever else it means, an emotion, the deepest man ever felt—the struggle of his own littleness to grasp the infinite. You may, if you like, figure in it a mathematic formula for infinity—the broken arch, our finite idea of space; the spire, pointing, with its converging lines, to Unity beyond space; the sleepless, restless thrust of the vaults, telling the unsatisfied, incomplete, over-strained effort of man to rival the energy, intelligence and purpose of God."
—Henry Adams, Mont Saint Michel and Chartres. 1904.

"We wanted to do not only theology in the narrower sense but to listen to the voices of men today. We devoured the novels of Gertrud von le Fort, Elisabeth Langgässer, and Ernest Wiechert. Dostoevsky was one of the authors everyone read, and likewise the great Frenchmen: Claudel, Bernanos, Mauriac. We also followed closely the recent developments in the natural sciences. We thought that, with the breakthrough made by Planck, Heisenberg, and Einstein, the sciences were once again on their way to God. The anti-religious orientation that had reached its climax with Haeckel had now been broken, and this gave us new hope."
—Joseph Ratzinger, Milestones.

The Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca suffered an end few of us would envy, ordered to commit suicide by a man whom he tutored in, of all things, philosophy. But then Seneca himself held a philosophy that justified suicide, so there is a certain irony here. This man who got rid of his teacher was, of course, the Emperor Nero, an unsavory character if there ever was one. Yet, if we follow Tacitus' account, Nero seems to have been a well-rounded and educated man: he endeavored to sing, write poetry, give philosophical lectures, dance, play the lute, as well as rule the Empire. The only problem was that, once Nero entered into a contest, no one could afford to do better than he—that is, if he wanted to live long. So Nero won all the prizes while knowing that no one really opposed him. He never knew, in other words, whether he was any good or not. One could hardly think of a worse condition to be in, especially for a vain man.

Seneca, in his famous essay, "On Tranquility," gave us one piece of advice that is useful for our topic of a liberal education: "Even in literary pursuits, where expense is in the best of taste, it is justifiable only so long as it is kept within bounds…. What point in countless books and libraries whose catalogue their owner cannot scan in a lifetime? The student is loaded down, not instructed, by the bulk; it is much better to give yourself to a few authors than to stray through many."  To give ourselves to a few good books rather than stray through many mediocre ones—that is good advice. But still something can be learned even in bad or mediocre books. If we never read a lousy book, we will hardly recognize a great one.

Read the entire essay at www.HPRweb.com...

Noisy forgetfulness and rotten eggs

Here's G. K. Chesterton, writing just over a hundred years ago, in the excellent (and still timely) book, What's Wrong With the World:

There is a popular philosophical joke intended to typify the endless and useless arguments of philosophers; I mean the joke about which came first, the chicken or the egg? I am not sure that properly understood, it is so futile an inquiry after all. I am not concerned here to enter on those deep metaphysical and theological differences of which the chicken and egg debate is a frivolous, but a very felicitous, type. The evolutionary materialists are appropriately enough represented in the vision of all things coming from an egg, a dim and monstrous oval germ that had laid itself by accident. That other supernatural school of thought (to which I personally adhere) would be not unworthily typified in the fancy that this round world of ours is but an egg brooded upon by a sacred unbegotten bird; the mystic dove of the prophets. But it is to much humbler functions that I here call the awful power of such a distinction. Whether or no the living bird is at the beginning of our mental chain, it is absolutely necessary that it should be at the end of our mental chain. The bird is the thing to be aimed at--not with a gun, but a life-bestowing wand. What is essential to our right thinking is this: that the egg and the bird must not be thought of as equal cosmic occurrences recurring alternatively forever. They must not become a mere egg and bird pattern, like the egg and dart pattern. One is a means and the other an end; they are in different mental worlds. Leaving the complications of the human breakfast-table out of account, in an elemental sense, the egg only exists to produce the chicken. But the chicken does not exist only in order to produce another egg. He may also exist to amuse himself, to praise God, and even to suggest ideas to a French dramatist. Being a conscious life, he is, or may be, valuable in himself. Now our modern politics are full of a noisy forgetfulness; forgetfulness that the production of this happy and conscious life is after all the aim of all complexities and compromises. We talk of nothing but useful men and working institutions; that is, we only think of the chickens as things that will lay more eggs. Instead of seeking to breed our ideal bird, the eagle of Zeus or the Swan of Avon, or whatever we happen to want, we talk entirely in terms of the process and the embryo. The process itself, divorced from its divine object, becomes doubtful and even morbid; poison enters the embryo of everything; and our politics are rotten eggs.

And, for good measure, this from Orthodoxy:

When the business man rebukes the idealism of his office-boy, it is commonly in some such speech as this: "Ah, yes, when one is young, one has these ideals in the abstract and these castles in the air; but in middle age they all break up like clouds, and one comes down to a belief in practical politics, to using the machinery one has and getting on with the world as it is." Thus, at least, venerable and philanthropic old men now in their honoured graves used to talk to me when I was a boy. But since then I have grown up and have discovered that these philanthropic old men were telling lies. What has really happened is exactly the opposite of what they said would happen. They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my old childlike faith in practical politics. I am still as much concerned as ever about the Battle of Armageddon; but I am not so much concerned about the General Election. As a babe I leapt up on my mother's knee at the mere mention of it. No; the vision is always solid and reliable. The vision is always a fact. It is the reality that is often a fraud.

Some may call is cynicism, I suppose. But, considering how little things really change, I think of it as realism.

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St. lgnatius of Loyola and the founding of the Society of Jesus

From "The Counter-Reformation: Ignatius and the Jesuits", by Fr. Charles P. Connor, from Defenders of the Faith in Word and Deed:

The Reformation was, to be sure, no isolated event, but a series of movements in several European countries that in varying ways departed from Catholicism. In response to Protestantism and to the problems it sought to address, the Catholic renewal or Counter-Reformation became a reality. One of the magnificent fruits of that renewal was the establishment of the Society of Jesus, founded by the Spanish Basque lgnatius of Loyola.

Loyola is a castle at Azpeltia, located in the Pyrenees Mountains. It was there that Iñigo, as he was then called, was born, in 1491. His background was military, and he fought briefly against the French in Pamplona. A serious battle injury brought him back to his native castle and confined him for weeks. He was a worldly sort and would love to have occupied his hours reading romantic novels. Instead, only two books, on the lives of the saints and the life of Christ, were available. The biographies of the saints began to fascinate him, make him think of the uselessness of his own life up to that point, and provoked the interior question: If such acts of spiritual heroism were possible in the lives of others, why would they not be possible in his?

A hunger for God began to overtake him by degrees, and after a time he resolved to go on pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Montserrat. Sometime during the course of that visit he determined that thenceforth he would lead a penitential life and his stay in the nearby small town of Manresal where he experienced solitude and prayer, confirmed his desire all the more. He made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and then studied in Barcelona, Alcala, and, finally, at the University of Paris, where he received the Master of Arts in 1534. Still his fervor did not slacken. At Paris he was to meet companions who were like-minded in spiritual outlook and whose names would become well known in Jesuit annals: Francis Xavier (a Spanish Basque like Ignatius), Favre, Laynez, Salmeron, Rodriguez, Bobadilla. Together they would become "the Company", the first Jesuits, defenders of the faith in heretical times.

On the feast of Our Lady's Assumption, August 15, 1534, these men professed their vows in the chapel of Saint Denis on the hill of Montmartre in Paris. They vowed to work for the glory of God. They agreed that when they finished their studies and became priests, they would go to Jerusalem together, but if they could not go there in a year, they would go to Rome and offer to go anywhere the Pope deemed necessary. Their hopes of going to Palestine would not be realized, but other needs quickly became apparent.

There being no likelihood of their being able soon to go to the Holy Land, it was at length resolved that Ignatius, Favre, and Laynez should go to Rome and offer the services of all to the pope, and they agreed that if anyone asked what their association was they might answer "the Company of Jesus", because they were united to fight against falsehood and vice under the standard of Christ. On his road to Rome, praying at a little chapel at La Storta, Ignatius saw our Lord, shining with an unspeakable light, but loaded with a heavy cross, and he heard the words, Ego vobis Romae propitius ero, "I win be favorable to you at Rome." [6]

Eventually they became a religious order and took formal vows. The members of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, truly were men of the Church. The papal bull of institution, promulgated in 1540 during the pontificate of Pope Paul III, stated the Society's purposes. The document "Rules for Thinking with the Church" is also illustrative. It was composed by Ignatius himself as an addition to his Spiritual Exercises. It represents a reply to the Protestant challenge, affirming many long-established practices that were under severe criticism and attack. It is a document "characterized more perhaps by its balance and moderation than one may at first think". [7] Rule Thirteen initially appears anything but moderate:

If we wish to proceed securely in all things, we must hold fast to the following principle: What seems to me white, I will believe black if the hierarchical Church so defines. For I must be convinced that in Christ Our Lord, the bridegroom, and in His spouse the Church, only one Spirit holds sway, which governs and rules for the salvation of souls. For it is by the same Spirit and Lord who gave the Ten Commandments that our Holy Mother Church is ruled and governed. [8]

In addition to absolute loyalty, Ignatius in the Constitutions leaves no doubt that it is to be interpreted as willingness to carry out the wishes of the Holy See:

All that His Holiness will command us for the good of souls, or the propagation of the faith, we are bound to carry out with neither procrastination nor excuse, at once and to the fullest extent of our power, whether he sends us among the Turks, to the New Worlds, to the Lutherans, or any other manner of believers or unbelievers.... This vow may scatter 'us to the distant parts of the world. [9]

The work of the Jesuits in defending the faith must be looked at in the context of the Counter-Reformation. The times called for a spirited defense of faith; it was the time for Catholic renewal; the Church had been weakened from within by the laxity of her own; she had been weakened from without by the strong theological dissent of the various reformers. The Church had to respond adequately, and the Jesuits found themselves part of this response. In all manner of response, however, Ignatius was quite insistent that charity prevail and that the integrity of the Church not suffer because of the misdeeds or poorly contrived statements of those attempting to defend it:

Great care must be taken to show forth orthodox truth in such a way that if any heretics happen to be present they may have an example of charity and Christian moderation. No hard words should be used nor any sort of contempt for their errors be shown. [10]

Read the entire piece on Ignatius Insight. Also see:

• Ignatius of Loyola and Ideas of Catholic Reform | Vince Ryan
• When Jesuit Were Giants | Interview with Father Cornelius Michael Buckley, S.J.
• The Jesuits and the Iroquois | Cornelius Michael Buckley, S.J.
• The Tale of Trent: A Council and and Its Legacy | Martha Rasmussen
• Reformation 101: Who's Who in the Protestant Reformation | Geoffrey Saint-Clair
• Why Catholicism Makes Protestantism Tick | Mark Brumley

Related Ignatius Press Books:

• A Pilgrim's Journey: The Autobiography of St. Ignatius of Loyola
• St. Ignatius of Loyola | James Brodrick, S.J.
• The Jesuit Missionaries to North America | Father François Roustang
• St. Ignatius and the Company of Jesus (Vision Series) | August Derleth

Evil and the empty soul

The author Dr. Theodore Dalrymple (the pen name of Anthony Daniels), who worked for many years in Britain as a prison doctor and psychiatrist, talks to Wall Street Journal about the mass murderer, Anders Behring Breivik, the mystery of evil, and the spiritual emptiness of modern culture:

"Most people," Dr. Dalrymple says, "now have a belief in the inner core of themselves as being good. So that whatever they've done, they'll say, 'That's not the real me.'" He recalls an inmate he once encountered: "I remember one particular chap who'd thrown ammonia at his girlfriend's face because he was jealous. He denied he'd done it. And the evidence was overwhelming that he had done it. So I said, 'Why did you say you didn't do it?'"

He delivers the convict's response in a convincing working-class English accent quite different from his own, more refined, speech: "Well, I'm not like that," the man told him. "I don't do them things." Dr. Dalrymple explains that "for him, his core was more real than what he'd actually done." It turned out that the man had been to prison before—"and it was for throwing acid in his girlfriend's face."

Dr. Dalrymple suggests that a similar self-detachment could have been at work in the mind of Anders Breivik. As the world now knows, courtesy of his 1,500-page manifesto, Breivik "did actually have, perverse as it was, a political purpose." He had a worldview and a vision, however deranged, of what was needed to achieve it. And, says Dr. Dalrymple, "I assume that when he was shooting all those people, what was in his mind was the higher good that he thought he was doing. And that was more real to him than the horror that he was creating around him."

In itself, having a worldview that shapes our attention, informs even what we believe to be real, is perfectly normal. It may even be essential. "After all," Dr. Dalrymple says, "having a very consistent worldview, particularly if it gives you a transcendent purpose, answers the most difficult question: What is the purpose of life?"

Having a purpose is usually a good thing. "One of the problems of our society," Dr. Dalrymple says, "is that many people don't have a transcendent purpose. Now it can come from various things. It can come from religion of course. But religion in Europe is dead."

Dr. Dalrymple argues that the welfare state, Europe's form of civic religion, deprives its citizens even of the "struggle for existence" as a possible purpose in life. One alternative, then, is "transcendent political purpose—and that's where what [Breivik's] done comes in." Such a political purpose doesn't lead inexorably to fanaticism, violence and murder. "But my guess," Dr. Dalrymple offers, "is that this man, who was extremely ambitious, didn't have the talent" to realize his ambitions, whether in politics or other fields. "So while he's intelligent he didn't have that ability or that determination to mark himself out in a way that might be more—constructive, shall we say."

As Dalrymple further notes, our scientistic, technology-obsessed culture tends to think that we can, using a "kind of neuroscientific investigation combined with Darwinism", fully understand and comprehend human nature. But, he insists, "the idea that we have finally plucked out the heart of the mystery of existence is drivel", and it is a conviction, "in the worst case, ... could lead to a kind of scientific dictatorship."

Another term could be "materialist dictatorship", of which there were so many in the 20th century. Why? Because, as Jean Danielou wrote in The Salvation of the Nations (Sheed and Ward, 1950), during the zenth of Communist power, "The Marxists conceive of history as a development through which man progressively transforms himself by transforming the material conditions of his life. ... Here again we find the idea of transforming man, but depending entirely upon the transformation of material conditions" (p. 67). In a real sense, the economic theories of a nation are not as important, of course, as the underlying metaphysical/philosophical assumptions (modern-day China, which practices a form of capitalism, is a good example of this). "By material means", Danielou noted, "man is to attain a certain liberation with respect to the cosmic forces or the social forces that overwhelm him, and thus acheive a kind of earthly paradise."

The sick and tragic irony is that the more man attempts to use purely material, scientific (or scientistic) means to "liberate" himself from (take your pick) poverty, hunger, oppression, illness, bigotry, death, the more he distorts and destroys his true nature as a creature created for good and for God. Put another way, he merely furthers the Fall by falling even further, if that is possible. While materialism and scientism seek to explain and control the mystery of evil through technology, psychology, and other such "ologies", Catholicism recognizes that, first, evil is indeed a mystery—that is, it is at root a spiritual deprivation and corruption that cannot be explained by materialist philosophies—and, secondly, it can only be really addressed through faith and grace:

God is infinitely good and all his works are good. Yet no one can escape the experience of suffering or the evils in nature which seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures: and above all to the question of moral evil. Where does evil come from? "I sought whence evil comes and there was no solution", said St. Augustine,  and his own painful quest would only be resolved by his conversion to the living God. For "the mystery of lawlessness" is clarified only in the light of the "mystery of our religion".  The revelation of divine love in Christ manifested at the same time the extent of evil and the superabundance of grace.  We must therefore approach the question of the origin of evil by fixing the eyes of our faith on him who alone is its conqueror. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, par 385)

For more thoughts on the murders in Norway, see my post, "'Breivik': A predator who posed as a protector" (July 28, 2011).

For more on the mystery of evil, see:

The Feeding of the Thousands is a Revelation of Divine Abundance

A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for Sunday, July 31, 2011 | Carl E. Olson

Readings:
• Is 55:1-3
• Ps 145:8-9, 15-16, 17-18
• Rom 8:35, 37-39
• Mt 14:13-21

Embarking upon parenthood several years ago, my wife got a nasty flu bug. Concerned that our daughter, who was just a few weeks old, might contract the same illness, I took care of her around the clock while my wife recovered. It was a memorable, sleep-deprived learning experience. I was especially struck by how utterly dependent my daughter was on me for food, and how when I fed her she exuded a sense of trust and contentment. That simple but life-giving action gave me a sense of joy and a deeper awareness of my fatherhood.

We usually take food for granted; in fact, our concerns about food often focus on eating less of it. That would rarely, if ever, be the case for people in the ancient world.  In addition to food often being scarce, it was also usually simple: water, grains, milk, honey, dates, wine. When the prophet Isaiah proclaimed, "You who have no money, come, receive grain and eat; Come, without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk!", he was not simply being poetic. He was expressing the desire that common people had for the day when they wouldn't have to worry about having enough food and where it would come from. 

Yet Isaiah's words, in addition to being rooted in the pangs of real hunger, are also poetic and prophetic. They speak of a promised age when the people of God would experience the fullness of life that was represented by an abundance of food but went beyond physical sustenance: "Come to me heedfully, listen, that you may have life. I will renew with you the everlasting covenant…"  In the words of the Psalmist, the Lord "answers all our needs."

Our physical needs can alert us to spiritual hunger. Likewise, physical signs can point to spiritual realities. Such is the case with the account of the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes, also known as the feeding of the five thousand. It is the only miracle described in all four Gospels, which suggests it had great significance for the Evangelists. "The meaning of the miracle is clear," wrote Monsignor Romano Guardini in his classic work, The Lord, "It does not consist of the feeding of the crowd. … No, the feeding of the thousands is a revelation of divine abundance."

What is this divine abundance? It is, the Catechism explains, the mystery of the Incarnate Son of God, given to man under the appearance of bread and wine: "The miracles of the multiplication of the loaves, when the Lord says the blessing, breaks and distributes the loaves through his disciples to feed the multitude, prefigure the superabundance of this unique bread of his Eucharist" (par 1335).

The compassion that Jesus had for the people and the way he went out to meet them in the midst of his grieving is in direct contrast to Herod's birthday party (Matt 14:1-11), which climaxed with the murder of Jesus' cousin, John the Baptist. Whereas Herod took life to satisfy his desires, Jesus gives life and satisfies man's deepest needs.

In feeding the people, Jesus' actions deliberately foreshadow the institution of the Eucharist. He took the loaves, blessed them, broke them, and gave them to his disciples—the same actions that later took place at the Last Supper: "While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, 'Take and eat; this is my body'" (Matt 26:26; cf., Mk 14:22). 

The word "multiplication" never occurs in Matthew's account, nor is it clear when the food did multiply. Was it when Jesus gave the food to the disciples to distribute? If so, it fits with how that supernatural action anticipates the Mass and how the Father in heaven allows mere men, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to participate in the saving work of the Son. Priests, being spiritual fathers, give spiritual food and drink to the children of God, bringing abundant joy and supernatural life.

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the August 3, 2008, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

Related Articles and Essays on Ignatius Insight:

• The Eucharist: Source and Summit of Christian Spirituality | Mark Brumley
• The Liturgy Lived: The Divinization of Man | Jean Corbon, OP
• Benedict and the Eucharist: On the Apostolic Exhortation, Sacramentum Caritatis | Carl E. Olson
• The Eucharist and the Rule of Christ | Fr. James T O'Connor
• Abbot Vonier and the Christian Sacrifice | Aidan Nichols, O.P.
• The Meaning and Purpose of the Year of the Eucharist | Carl E. Olson
• The Doctrine (and the Defense) of the Eucharist | Carl E. Olson
• Walking To Heaven Backward | Interview with Father Jonathan Robinson of the Oratory
• Rite and Liturgy | Denis Crouan, STD
• The Mass of Vatican II | Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J.