Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 317

Ronald Knox and the Eucharist

Ronald Knox and the Eucharist | The Foreword to A Month of Sundays with Monsignor Knox: Thirty-one Sermons on the Holy Eucharist (Downloadable Audio Book) | Rev. Milton Walsh | Ignatius Insight

Many years ago, in connection with research on the writings of Ronald Knox, I had occasion to visit the home at Mells, Somerset, where he spent the last ten years of his life. The Manor House, as it is called, dates back to the fifteenth century, and was originally the summer residence of the Abbot of Glastonbury. The house itself is rather grand, and is full of artistic and historical treasures. Across the lawn from its entrance stands a modest building, originally some kind of shed, which had been converted into a chapel. The rather rustic feeling of this room held a certain charm for me, and I remember that as I knelt in prayer the thought occurred to me, "That altar was Ronald Knox's work-bench." I thought of him standing there every morning to offer the holy sacrifice of the Mass, and of the hours he spent in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. As he grappled with the challenge of completing his translation of the Bible, preparing conferences for retreats, and composing sermons for occasions great and small, he must have found in this plain wooden chapel an oasis where he could be refreshed by communing with his Eucharistic Lord.
 
Father Philip Caraman, who edited three large volumes of Knox's sermons, wrote that "the Eucharist was the central, inexhaustible and unifying mystery of his life". I suspect that Msgr. Knox would readily agree, and say, "Of course. It is for every Catholic." If the Eucharist is not, it should be, and the sermons in this collection will do much to enrich our appreciation for the great gifts of the Mass and the Blessed Sacrament. While the theme of the Eucharist occurs often in his writings, we are privileged to have thirty-one sermons explicitly devoted to this topic. In part this is because, from 1926 onward, Knox delivered a sermon annually at Corpus Christi church, Maiden Lane on its patronal feast. One has to be a priest to appreciate how daunting such a task is: every year, the same readings and prayers; every year, many in the congregation who had been there the year before. And every year, Ronald Knox was able to speak on a different facet of the great mystery of the Eucharist. As we listen to his sermons, or read them in reflective mood, we will discover that they share certain characteristics.
 
First, they are profoundly biblical. From his evangelical upbringing Knox inherited a deep love for the word of God, and one of his greatest accomplishments as a Catholic was to produce, single-handed, a translation of the entire Bible. Some of his sermons draw on the texts used for the feast of Corpus Christi, which is only to be expected. But in others he brings before the congregation various parables and miracles of Jesus, and shows how these shed new light on our understanding of the Eucharist. Knox also mines the texts of the Old Testament, imaginatively linking the personalities and events recorded there with the sacrifice of the Mass and Holy Communion. The manna in the wilderness suggests itself to any preacher; but few would think to write a sermon on the Eucharist inspired by the Song of Songs, or the figure of Ruth gleaning in the field of Boaz. Such associations are original, but they are not contrived; rather, they reflect a mind able to see the Bible as a whole. Christ is the key to interpreting Scripture, and it is Christ himself who is present in the Blessed Sacrament. These scriptural explanations are complemented by Knox's liturgical catechesis, as he draws on the texts found in the Missal and explains the meaning of the ceremonies of the Church.

Continue reading on Ignatius Insight...

Oprah, Pop Existentialist. At best.

Far be it for me to criticize sycophants and groupies, fans and stalkers; they are, after all, what keep me going in this glitzy, heady game of blogging and opining. I live for their attention, adoration, fan mail, hate mail, and grammatically-challenged screeds in the combox. As I say so often, "If it weren't for my fans, my humility would not as awesomely modest as it could be and will be." (That's a copyrighted slogan, by the way, so keep your cutting-and-pasting to yourself.)

But, really, isn't the following a bit much, especially in the pages of a somewhat well-known, established newspaper?

With Oprah's legendary talk-show career ending today, we should celebrate her unparalleled influence as a healer, visionary, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. Well, I would like to bestow upon Oprah a new distinction: Oprah the existentialist.

Huh. Well, what do you expect in the "Letters to the Editor of the Lifestyle and Celebrity-Obsessed Section"? Wait a second. That was the opening line of an opinion piece, "Oprah Winfrey: The greatest existential philosopher ever?" (Christian Science Monitor, May 25, 2011), by a man who has a PhD in sociology from Northwestern University and is an associate professor of Sociology at the University of Houston. So now I'm confused: do/did men really watch "Oprah"? By "watch", I mean for a full hour of every day it was on? They did?? Who knew? But I am digressing, as well rudely interrupting an Oprahites' touching, piognant, and bittersweet Ode to the "O":

For many of you, the word existentialist conjures up a creepy concoction of Friedrich Nietzsche's ramblings on God's death, Martin Heidegger's hermeneutics, Albert Camus's absurdity, and Jean-Paul Sartre's insistence that existence precedes essence. Sigh!

Fair enough. Oprah is not an existentialist in the classic sense of the term. And yes, she does deviate from Nietzsche, Heidegger, Camus, and Sartre in ways too numerous to list. But Oprah also shares much in common with them, namely a career-long excavation down the deep and dark crevices of the human soul.

I'm no fan of Nietzsche's atheistic nastines or Sartre's smug arrogance, but let's not confuse being disagreeable and wrong with "creepy" (okay, okay, so those men were creepy; but I don't think that means their ideas were "creepy"). Besides, I happen to think that that both Nietzsche and Camus were incredibly talented writers (I've not read as much by Heidegger or Sartre). But do you know what is creepy? Fawning like a smitten schoolboy about Oprah conducting excavations down in the deep and dark crevices of the human soul. That is creepy. And this is nauseating:

Her celebrity guests, book club inductees, "hookups," and numerous selected themes help us tap into our limitless capacity for growth and change.

The breadth of Oprah's personal talent and the scope of her intellectual reach enlist us to ferret the deep-seated metaphor lurking at the surface of our core being. She helps us to conquer a clearer vision of our purpose and potential.

Oprah teaches us that the human project, our fear-driven, love-seeking undertaking, is always up for editing, elevation, and enlightenment. She shines a florescent radiance on our fragility. But she always harks back to that fact that no matter how low we go or how much we unravel, if we open our minds for discovery, then recovery and reclamation are always within reach.

Wow. If you thought I was uncharitable for saying the author is an "Oprahite", I do hereby accept your formal apology. To his credit, he displays his advanced discipleship credentials with a certain virtuosity that is not hampered by the usual limits of grammar, meaning, and sobriety. I, for one, was not aware that we could "conquer a clearer vision of our purpose and potential", but that's probably because I've not had Oprah shining her "florescent radiance" on my "fragility". (To be perfectly frannk, you must keep your hands off my fragility. Seriously. Step back. Way back.) What this escatic burst of telefused mysticism lacks in specifics and meaning, it makes up for in, uh, Oprahisms.

Seriously, this sort of New Agey, narcissistic, navel-gazing blather would be hilarious if it weren't so depressing. But we shouldn't be depressed, we read, because Oprah has been carrying high the banner of existential heroine, and now wishes to pass it on to the millions in TV Land who have plumbed the depths, clapped on cue, and cheered the ratings:

In short, what Oprah shares with the great existentialists is an indomitable pursuit of two fundamental questions: Who are we? What can we become? And she has shed light on the possibility for a far more hopeful, productive answer to these questions than our traditional existential heroes.

I don't disagree that the two questions above can be described as "existentialist". Fair enough. Existentialism, after all, is a difficult thing to define, something like the constant reference made by athletes to "playing with energy": it's easy to say repeatedly, but defining and qualifying it is another matter. The great Fr. Frederick Copleston, S.J., in his book, Contemporary Philosophy (Newman Press, 1963), wrote, "It seems to me very difficult ... to find any set of clearly defined propositions or theses which will serve to mark off existentialism from all other forms of philosophy." He later notes that existentialism can be understood as being "primarily concerned with man", but with various qualifications. One of those is that for existentialists "the primary datum is man-in-the-world and not the self-enclosed ego of Descartes."

Copleston notes that Gabriel Marcel, a convert to Catholicism who initially accepted the descriptive "existentialist" but later rejected it, focused on "the primary fact of incarnation, embodiment" and concentrated "on those spiritual activities of man such as hope and love and fidelity which involved the relationship of person to person and reveal the subject as essentially 'open,' not self-enclosed." (Which could serve well as a description of the philosophical work of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, who used both Thomistic and phenomelogical methods in his philosophical projects.) Kierkegaard, who is accepted by many as the father of existentialism (at least "modern existentialism"), was a Protestant, of course, and focused on issues such as free will, faith, and choice. And Copleston notes that, in general, it can be said that existentialism, in modern forms at least, features the "recurrent protest of the free individual against all that threatens or seems to threaten his unique position as an ex-sistent subject, that is to say, as a free subject who, though a being in the world and so part of nature, at the same time stands out from the background of nature." It is, in other words, a rejection of man as an object, as a "thing" in a meaningless cosmos.

It may be that Oprah holds to these basic beliefs in some way. But if she is an "existentialist" in any sense at all, it is at the most base level, what might be called (cringingly, I admit), "pop existentialism". But I am more inclined to interpret Oprah's messages and influence as a late-20th-century amalgam of pop psychology, self-helpism, vague spirituality (with many features of the equally vague "New Age" movement), and cult of personality-ism. And the latter, while very much oriented toward Oprah, is also oriented toward Oprah's many disciples, for they were constantly encouraged by Oprah to love themselves, believe in themselves, etc., to the point that they were, I think, essentially told to worship themselves. (For some good insight into all of this, see the April 2002 Christianity Today article, "The Church of O".) Oprah may, on a superficial level, provide a "more hopeful, productive answer" to the most difficult questions, but it is an emotionally-loaded, subjective, self-centered, self-adulating, and mostly amoral answer that is not philosophically rigorous, intellectually substantive, or theologically satisfying. (Hey, don't get mad at me if this seems too harsh; I'm just actualizing my inner critic, etc.!)

Is Oprah an existentialist? If so, I say she cannot begin to rank among the truly great existentialists, no matter how much I might dislike their beliefs or disagree with their positions. Consider some of the possible candidates, allowing for a wide definition: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Hesse, Heidegger, Marcel, Jaspers, Barth, Kafka, Camus, Sartre, Berdyaev, Buber, and Maritain. Marcel and Maritain, of course, are Catholic, and I like much of their work, but it's not really evident how truly "existentialist" their thinking is. And there is the whole matter of existentialism being dominated, at least in the 20th century, by atheistic thinkers, which is why Pope Pius XII warned against it so strongly in Humani Generis (1950). Personally, I think Walker Percy comes the closest to being a true Catholic existentialist. But that will have to wait until next time. "Dr. Phil" is on, and I can't miss it.

Save 20% on select Ignatius Press books by and about G. K. Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton was a prolific writer. The author of many novels, as well as thousands of poems, there were numerous subjects he wrote about. He touched on everything from religion to history to politics. Due to the varying subjects that he wrote about, and the way he approached each subject,  Chesterton is known as one of the most stimulating and well-loved writers of the 20th century. To honor this beloved writer on his birthday, May 29, Ignatius Press is offering 20% off select titles by and about him.

Offer ends Tuesday, May 31st, 2011 at 12:00 midnight EST. These prices are available online only through Ignatius.com

Click here for a listing of books. Or visit Chesterton's author page on Ignatius Insight.

Trailer for Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church

For more information about the Youth Catechism, visit www.YouCat.us.

Benedict XVI: Our entire lives are like Jacob's long night of struggle and prayer...

From Vatican Information Service:

VATICAN CITY, 25 MAY 2011 (VIS) - Continuing with his catecheses on prayer, Benedict XVI spoke in today's general audience about the Patriarch Jacob and his fight with the unknown man at the ford of the Jabbok. The audience was held in St. Peter's Square with 15,000 people in attendance.

  The Bible, explained the Pope, describes Jacob as an astute man who obtains things through deception. At a certain point, he sets out to return to his homeland and face his brother, whose firstborn birthrights he had taken. Jacob waits overnight in order to cross the ford safely but something unforeseen occurs: he is suddenly attacked by an unknown man with whom he struggles the entire night. The story details their struggle, which has no clear winner, leaving the rival a mystery. "Only at the end, when the struggle is finished and that 'someone' has disappeared, only then will Jacob name him and be able to say that he had struggled with God".

  Once the fight is over Jacob says to his opponent that he will only let him go if he blesses him. Jacob "who had defrauded his brother out of the first-born's blessing through deceit, now demands [a blessing] from the unknown man, in whom he perhaps begins to see divine traits, but still without being able to truly recognize him. His rival, who seems restrained and therefore defeated by Jacob, instead of bowing to the Patriarch's request, asks his name. ... In the Biblical mentality, knowing someone's name entails a type of power because it contains the person's deepest reality, revealing their secret and their destiny. ... This is why, when Jacob reveals his name, he is putting himself in his opponent's hands. It is a form of surrender, a complete giving over of himself to the other".

  Paradoxically, however, "in this gesture of surrender, Jacob also becomes the victor because he receives a new name, together with the recognition of his victory on the part of his adversary". The name "Jacob", Benedict XVI continued, "recalls the verb 'to deceive' or 'to supplant'. After the struggle, in a gesture of deliverance and surrender, the Patriarch reveals his reality as a deceiver, a usurper, to his opponent. The other, who is God, however, transforms this negative reality into a positive one. Jacob the deceiver becomes Israel. He is given a new name as a sign of his new identity ... the mostly likely meaning of which is 'God is strong, God wins'. When, in turn, Jacob asks his rival's name, he refuses to say it but reveals himself in an unmistakable gesture, giving his blessing. ... This is not a blessing obtained through deceit but one given freely by God, which Jacob can now receive because, without cunning or deception, he gives himself over unarmed, accepts surrender and admits the truth about himself".

  In the episode of the fight at the ford of Jabbok, the Pope observed, "the people of Israel speak of their origin and outline the features of a unique relationship between God and humanity. This is why, as also affirmed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 'from this account, the spiritual tradition of the Church has retained the symbol of prayer as a battle of faith and as the triumph of perseverance'".

  "Our entire lives", concluded the Holy Father, "are like this long night of struggle and prayer, passed in the desire of and request for God's blessing, which cannot be ripped away or won over through our strength, but must be received with humility from Him as a gratuitous gift that allows us, finally, to recognize the face of the Lord. And when this happens, our entire reality changes: we receive a new name and God's blessing".

• Pope reflects on the example of prayer given by Abraham, "father of all believers" (May 18, 2011)
• Pope reflects on prayer, "the expression of humanity's desire for God" (May 11, 2011)

A few dozen more Ignatius Press books now available in e-book format

Most new Ignatius Press books are available in electronic book format (in .prc format for Kindle and in .epub format for Nook and iPad). And more and more older Ignatius Press books are being made available in e-book format as well.

Back in March I published a list; below are some of the older and newer titles that have been added in just the past couple of months (if I've missed some, please let me know!):

• Evangelical Is Not Enough: Worship of God in Liturgy and Sacrament, by Thomas Howard
• Cradle of Redeeming Love: The Theology of the Christmas Mystery, by John Saward
• C. S. Lewis and the Catholic Church, by Joseph Pearce
• Joan of Arc, by Mark Twain
• St. Laurence and the Holy Grail, by Janice Bennett
• Padre Pio Under Investigation: The Secret Vatican Files, by Francesco Castelli
• Praying to Our Lord Jesus Christ: Prayers and Meditations Through the Centuries, by Fr. Benedict J. Groeschel
• Toward the Gleam: A Novel, by T. M. Doran
• What Is Dogma? by Cardinal Charles Journet
• Socrates Meets Descartes, by Peter Kreeft
• Socrates Meets Machiavelli, by Peter Kreeft
• God's Human Face: The Christ Icon, by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn
• Know Him in the Breaking of Bread: A Guide to the Mass, by Fr. Francis Randolph
• Living The Catechism Of The Catholic Church Volume 2, by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn
• Living The Catechism Of The Catholic Church Volume 4, by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn
• Hans Urs Von Balthasar: His Life And Work, by David Schindler
• Chance or the Dance, by Thomas Howard
• Poor Banished Children: A Novel, by
• Love Is Stronger Than Death, by Peter Kreeft
• Confessions Of An Ex-Feminist, by Lorraine V. Murray
• Book Of All Saints, by Adrienne von Speyr
• The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn (Ignatius Critical Edition), by Mark Twain
• The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible New Testament, commentary by Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch
• The Ignatius Bible (RSV; 2nd edition)
• Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance Into Jerusalem To The Resurrection, by Pope Benedict XVI/Joseph Ratzinger
• Jesus of Nazareth Study Guide, Volume II, by Mark Brumley and Curtis Mitch
• Life Is Worth Living, by Abp. Fulton J. Sheen
• Looking At The Liturgy, by Aidan Nichols, O.P.
• Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile, by Joseph Pearce
• Theology and Sanity, by Frank Sheed
• Transcending All Understanding: The Meaning of Christian Faith Today, by Cardinal Walter Kasper
• The Reform of the Reform? A Liturgical Debate, by Fr. Thomas Kocik
• Anglicans and the Roman Catholic Church, edited by Stephen Cavanaugh
• Seeking a Center: My Life as a "Great Bookie", by Otto Bird
• Saint Dominic: The Grace of the Word, by Fr. Guy Bedouelle
• The Heart Of Virtue: Lessons from Life and Literature on the Beauty of Moral Character, by Donald DeMarco
• The Path to Rome, by Hilaire Belloc
• C.S. Lewis For The Third Millenium, by Peter Kreeft
• Good News, Bad News: Evangelization, Conversion, and The Crisis of Faith, by Fr. C. John McCloskey and Russell Shaw
• Controversies: High-Level Catholic Apologetics, by Karl Keating
• The Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell, by Regis Martin

Look throught the 300+ e-books available from Ignatius Press.

• New E-books (of older print books) from Ignatius Press (March 16, 2011)

What's the difference between fundamentalist and secular false prophets?

Yesterday evening, our Monday night Bible study group was discussing the Rapture that didn't happen (well, not physically, to hear Mr. Camping tell it), and the point was raised about how fringe Christian groups such as Camping's Family Radio are (rightly) called on the carpet for failed predictions, but secular prophets of doom usually get a free pass. Not only a free pass, but encouragement to keep up the ecolological dance of doom—after all, it's all so scientific. (Speaking of which, see William Happer's recent First Things essay, "The Truth About Greenhouse Gases: The dubious science of the climate crusaders".) James Taranto—who is agnostic, if memory serves me—takes up this very point in this Wall Street Journal "Best of the Web Today" post:

Something else bothers us about the media mockery of Harold Camping, as justifiable as it may be. Why are only religious doomsday cultists subjected to such ridicule? Reuters notes that "Camping previously made a failed prediction Jesus Christ would return to Earth in 1994." Ha ha, you can't believe anything this guy says! But who jeered at the U.N.'s false prediction that there would be 50 million "climate refugees" by 2010? We did, but not Reuters.

Doomsday superstitions seem to fulfill a basic psychological need. On the surface, the thought that God or global warming will destroy the world within our lifetimes is horrifying. But all of us are doomed; within a matter of decades, every person alive will experience the end of his own world. A belief in the hereafter makes the thought of death less terrifying. But so does a disbelief in the here, after. If the world is to end with us--if there is no life for anyone after our death--we are not so insignificant after all.

To reject traditional religion is not, as the American Atheists might have it, to transform oneself into a perfectly rational being. Nonbelievers are no less susceptible to doomsday cults than believers are; Harold Camping is merely the Christian Al Gore. But because secular doomsday cultism has a scientific gloss, journalists like our friends at Reuters treat it as if it were real science. So, too, do some scientists. It may be that the decline of religion made this corruption of science inevitable.

Read the entire piece, "The Christian Al Gore".

I plan to post one more time about the Camping Commotion, something along the lines of "Ten Reasons People Root for the Rapture", with a focus on a particular aspect that few, if any, commentators give attention to. I'm not into making predictions, but it should be posted sometime today or tomorrow. Or on October 21st. Whichever comes first.

Ecclesia Anglicana

Ecclesia Anglicana | Father Allan R. G. Hawkins | Introduction to Anglicans and the Roman Catholic Church: Reflections on Recent Developments, edited by Stephen Cavanaugh | Ignatius Insight

Ecclesia Anglicana had flourished for perhaps thirteen hundred years before the events of the Reformation created what we now call Anglicanism—a phenomenon that cannot be understood without reference to its ancient spiritual and cultural heritage, even though the separation of the Church of England from the rest of Western Christendom inevitably introduced a schismatic quality to even the best of Anglican thought.

The English Reformation, unlike the parallel movements elsewhere in Europe, was not a single, cataclysmic event, but rather a process that unfolded over more than a century—from Henry VIII's Act of Supremacy of 1534 to the reestablishment of the Church of England with the restoration of the Stuart monarchy in the person of King Charles II in 1660.

A striking feature of this process is the frequency with which the phrase "until further order to be taken", or similar terminology, is to be found in the parliamentary enactments, legal documents, and Orders in Council of the period. In other words, each step of the reform was understood to be provisional, of temporary application, until further developments unfolded, until some ultimate denouement be attained.

In every subsequent century, that longed-for denouement has been seen—by at least some—to be the restoration of Catholic unity and peace for the Church. Thus Bishop Lancelot Andrewes, in his Preces Privatae, would pray each Sunday: "O let the heart and soul of all believers again become one", and, each Monday, "For the Universal Church, its confirmation and growth. For the Eastern Church, its deliverance and unity. For the Western Church, its restoration and pacification."

On the day of his appointment to Canterbury in 1633, Rome was ready to offer a cardinal's hat to Archbishop William Laud. At the time of the restoration of the monarchy twenty-seven years later, Charles II appears to have sought the formation of a Uniate status for the Church of England. In the eighteenth century, there were some reunion activities—notably the correspondence between Archbishop Wake and certain doctors at the Sorbonne in Paris with regard to the possibility of union between the Anglican and Gallican churches. The nineteenth century brought the Oxford Movement, and all that stemmed from it. The twentieth century saw the Malines Conversations and then the inauguration, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, and Pope Paul VI in 1967 of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC).

Read the entire Introduction on Ignatius Insight...

Rapture. Rinse. Repeat.

I figured that Harold Camping, the 1994 and 2011 voice of false prophecy (a two-time winner!), would either tweak his calculations ("I missed a leap year in the late third century B.C....") or get all "spiritual" about his failed prediction. He went with the latter, perhaps mindful that another Rapture-date setting engineer, Edgar Whisenant had tried the former approach back in 1988 and became yesterday's news faster than you can calculate the length of a yardstick. From the CNN blog:

Camping had kept a low-profile since Saturday, the day he had forecast for the return of Jesus Christ to Earth. He and his devoted followers have been warning for months that on May 21, a select 2% to 3% of the world's population would be taken to heaven. Those left behind would face months of tribulation before perishing in the Earth's destruction, which Camping said would happen on October 21.

This is the basis for his new prediction, which Camping claims is not new at all. He told listeners on his Family Radio broadcast Monday that God is "loving and merciful," and had decided not to punish the humanity with five months of destruction.
But he maintains that the end of the world is still coming.

"We've always said October 21 was the day," Camping said during his show. "The only thing we didn't understand was the spirituality of May 21. We're seeing this as a spiritual thing happening rather than a physical thing happening. The timing, the structure, the proofs, none of that has changed at all."

Ah yes, the ol' "spiritual", heavenly-not-earthly card. That's original. Well, not really, as this Catholic Answers essay indicates:

The Seventh-Day Adventist church traces its roots to American preacher William Miller (1782–1849), a Baptist who predicted the Second Coming would occur between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844. Because he and his followers proclaimed Christ's imminent advent, they were known as "Adventists." 

When Christ failed to appear, Miller reluctantly endorsed the position of a group of his followers known as the "seventh-month movement," who claimed Christ would return on October 22, 1844 (in the seventh month of the Jewish calendar). 

When this didn't happen either, Miller forswore predicting the date of the Second Coming, and his followers broke up into a number of competing factions. Miller would have nothing to do with the new theories his followers produced, including ones which attempted to save part of his 1844 doctrine. He rejected this and other teachings being generated by his former followers, including those of Ellen Gould White. 

Miller had claimed, based on his interpretation of Daniel and Revelation, that Christ would return in 1843–44 to cleanse "the sanctuary" (Dan. 8:11–14, 9:26), which he interpreted as the earth. After the disappointments of 1844, several of his followers proposed an alternative theory. While walking in a cornfield on the morning of October 23, 1844, the day after Christ failed to return, Hiram Edson felt he received a spiritual revelation that indicated that Miller had misidentified the sanctuary. It was not the earth, but the Holy of Holies in God's heavenly temple. Instead of coming out of the heavenly temple to cleanse the sanctuary of the earth, in 1844 Christ, for the first time, went into the heavenly Holy of Holies to cleanse it instead.

One is reminded of Ambrose Bierce's cynical, but appropriate, definition of "prophecy": n. The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future delivery. No surprise, bad prophets and poor credibility are two peas in the apocalyptic pod.

Weigel: New study destroys several key, false tropes about sex abuse scandal

I haven't had a chance to read much of or about the John Jay College of Criminal Justice report commissioned by the USCCB. Hopefully this week. Here is the opening of George Weigel's column for NRO about the study:

The American narrative of the Catholic Church's struggles with the clerical sexual abuse of the young has been dominated by several tropes firmly set in journalistic concrete: that this was and is a "pedophilia" crisis; that the sexual abuse of the young is an ongoing danger in the Church; that the Catholic Church was and remains a uniquely dangerous environment for young people; that a high percentage of priests were abusers; that abusive behavior is more likely from celibates, such that a change in the Church's discipline of priestly celibacy would be important in protecting the young; that the Church's bishops were, as a rule, willfully negligent in handling reports of abuse; that the Church really hasn't learned any lessons from the revelations that began in the Long Lent of 2002.

But according to an independent, $1.8 million study conducted by New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, commissioned by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and released on May 18, every one of these tropes is false.

And:

A Church that was not in doctrinal and moral confusion from the late 1960s until the 1978 election of John Paul II might have been better armored against the worst impacts of the sexual free-for-all unleashed in the mid-1960s. A Church that had not internalized unhealthy patterns of clericalism might have run seminary programs that would have more readily weeded out the unfit. A Church that placed a high value on evangelical zeal in its leadership might have produced bishops less inclined to follow the lead of the ambient culture in imagining that grave sexual abusers could be "fixed." All that can, and must, be said.

But if the Times, the Globe, and others who have been chewing this story like an old bone for almost a decade are genuinely interested in helping prevent the crime and horror of the sexual abuse of the young, a good, long, hard look will be taken at the sexual libertinism that has been the default cultural position on the American left for two generations. Catholic "progressives" who continue to insist that the disciplinary and doctrinal meltdown of the post–Vatican II years had nothing to do with the abuse crisis might also rethink their default understanding of that period. The ecclesiastical chaos of that decade and a half was certainly a factor in the abuse crisis, although that meltdown is not a one-size-fits-all explanation for the crisis and the way it was handled.

Read the entire piece, "Priests, Abuse, and the Meltdown of a Culture" (May 19, 2011).