Concerning Monarchy

I just saw Boniface's post of last May in which he discusses a Monarchial Dilemma. I have only a couple of comments to make in that regard.

1. The first commenter (anonymous) stated that Otto von Habsburg is the last living descendant of Blessed Kaiser Karl I. This is simply not true. Otto is perhaps the last living child of the blessed Kaiser, but he is far from being the last living descendant. In the last count that I saw, he had 7 children, 23 grandchildren, and already 1 great-grandchild. Although Otto is still alive, his eldest son HI&RH Archduke Karl is already the titular Head of the Imperial family.

2. The commenter "Creary" mentioned St. Thomas' De Regno (one should also look at ST I-II 105.1 in which he basically describes constitutional monarchy as the best form of government) in response to Boniface's lament over not having found a good systematic presentation / apologetic for the superiority of monarchy. Unfortunately, I don't know of any modern works along those lines either, but I'll throw out there an even older source instead: St. Thomas draws on Aristotle's Politics; so might we. It should be no surprise, after all, that Aristotle treats this topic a bit more thoroughly than St. Thomas did, since the question of democracy vs. monarchy was a bit more pressing in ancient Greece than in Medieval Christendom.

3. WARNING: What follows should be taken cum grano salis since it may contain traces of peanuts. How's this for an apologetic for monarchy? Let's take as a premise that roughly 10% of a given population is really virtuous in the precise sense of being generally willing to act for the common good even against their own private good. The result will be that democracies will elect virtuous leaders 0% of the time while monarchies will produce virtuous leaders 10% of the time. Let me explain: in a democracy, people who are more interested in their own private good than in the common good will elect as leaders those who promise to provide for their private goods. The virtuous who would like to elect a virtuous leader will never gain more than 10% of the vote, and thus will fail 100% of the time. Arguing that 15% or 20% of men are really virtuous has no effect on the 100% failure rate. Only if one really thinks that 50% or more of the men of a population are virtuous can democracy function well.

In the case of a hereditary monarchy, however, roughly the same percentage of kings should be virtuous as of any other men, hence 10% of kings should be virtuous. Now whether one thinks that this percentage should be lower than that of the general populace because "power corrupts" or that it may sometimes be higher because of the thorough education in virtue that a good king will see that his son gets, and he his son, etc. matters little. Even on the most pessimistic view, a good king may at least once just happen to turn up, and in fact history shows us many examples of good kings.

The odds of having a virtuous king will thus always be at least 1% and more likely something like 10% while the odds of having a virtuous democratically elected leader will always be 0%. Therefore, monarchy is a superior form of government.

Medjugorje Rumblings

There has been a lot of rumblings about Medjugorje this fall from many different sources and on an amazingly broad spectrum: some of pro-Medjugorje crowd have been claiming that the (non)pilgrimage site is about to get a big endorsement from a visit by Cardinal Schönborn this December. On the other hand, there have been rumors in the Vatican that a very high level pronouncement about Medjugorje is about to be issued - before the end of 2009 - and that this pronouncement will probably be a condemnation of the alleged apparitions (this would make logical sense since every action the CDF and the Vatican has taken with regards to Medjurgoje connected issues in the past few years has been negative, as in here and here).

First, Cardinal Schönborn's visit. This news originally broke about ten days ago, and Medjugorje supporters immediately began trumpeting it as a victory for the cause of the apparitions. Schonborn has apparently supported them, even hosting one of the "seers" in his cathedral. It was reported (as here) that Schönborn was supposed to visit from December 8th to January 4th (a month long visit?). All the old quotations from Cardinal Ratzinger allegedly supporting Medjugorje were also brought back out, quotations which Ratzinger has said are "freely invented."

This has become somewhat embarassing for the Cardinal, who apparently was making the trip as a private individual and was a little chagrined that the news was leaked to the public, who immediately started taking it as a sign of support for the apparitions. The Cardinal's secretary, Fr. Johannes Fürnkranz, told CNA:

"It was supposed to be a completely private visit, it was not supposed to go out to the internet...The cardinal's visit was supposed to be absolutely personal and not public, but since it has been leaked, I can only confirm that it will take place. There is no statement whatsoever involved in the visit" (source).

In my opinion it is extraordinarily naive of the Cardinal to think that such a high-ranking ecclesiastic as himself could pull off a visit like this and have it kept private - he is also naive for thinking that a visit by such a high ranking member of the hierarchy would not be construed as support for the apparitions, especially since the Medjugorje movement has shown itself unscrupulous in the past when attempting the dredge up alleged support for itself from the Vatican (see here). At any rate, Schönborn probably shouldn't have arranged his visit in this manner anyway - there is protocol that must be followed when one bishop visits another bishop's territory, and at least it seems that Schönborn planned and announced this visit without notifying or consulting the Bishop of Mostar, Ratko Peric. This is just speculation, but this seems to be one reason why Schönborn got so upset when this was made public - Peric had not yet been informed or involved. It would be interesting to get Peric's opinion on the matter, since he has specifically stated that Medjugorje is not a shrine and has no business acting like one (see here). The announcement of Schönborn's visit, even if private, is an admission that the Cardinal is violating protocol. I personally have been suspicious of the prudential judgment of the Cardinal since this episode.

The controversy over the visit apparently prompted a leak from the CDF, in which an unnamed official reported the following, which was published by CNA on 11/11/09:

Speaking on background, an official at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith told CNA that the Roman dicastery remains behind the bishops of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

"The local bishops have the ultimate authority on this matter, and their arguments against the alleged apparitions are doctrinally solid," the official said.

Asked if Medjugorje should not be judged by its fruits of many conversions and vocations to the Church, the official responded: "It is not the duty of this Dicastery to make a pastoral assessment, but a doctrinal one. But regarding the argument, it can equally be argued that God can write straight with crooked lines, just as it has been proven in several previous occasions with patently false apparitions" (source).

By making the comparison between the fruits of Medjugorje and other "patently false apparitions" is the CDF making an allusion to the Vatican's mind in the matter? This brings us to our next news item regarding Medjurgorje: the rumors that the Vatican will issue a ruling on Medjugorje before the end of 2009. This I think is more than a rumor, for it was stated quite categorically by Cardinal Vinco Puljic, head of the Bosnian bishops' council (their UCSSB). He stated on October 7th, 2009:

"We are now awaiting a new directive on this issue. I don’t think we must wait for a long time, I think it will be this year, but that is not clear… I am going to Rome in November and we must discuss this” (source).

This is exciting news, indeed. I wouldn't be surprised if there is some statement upon the issue on one of the major Marian feast days coming up - perhaps Immaculate Conception, Guadalupe (which would eb especially fitting since Guadalupe is a true Marian apparition as opposed to these false ones, and it would send the signal that the Bosnian bishops are not against Marian apparitions per se, as is often claimed), or maybe January 1st.

Let's hope this is more than just rumors - and if so, given the actions of the CDF with regards to Fr. Vlasic, the new directives on Medjugorje from Mostar and the unswerving support of the Vatican for the local Bosnian bishops, I think we can safely say what way a ruling would fall.

How much are you taxed?

For several months now I have kept a very detailed, itemized account of every penny my family spends in attempt to reign in our spending to the most frugal level possible. I have a spreadsheet file of every single expenditure down to the cents, with everything placed into one of fifteen categories. I thought it would be interesting, given the present waste of tax-payer money going on, to take these records, plus information from my pay stubs, mortgage statements and other forms to find out exactly how much I pay in taxes every year and to where it goes. Here's the breakdown:

Taxes Paid Yearly

Property Tax = $2870

Income Tax, Social Security, Medicaid, etc. = $4800

License Plate Renewal = $90

Gas Tax (in Michigan, $0.62 per gallon - see here for your state's rate) = $892

Taxes on my phone bill = $240

Sales Tax (6% in Michigan) = $1322

Ten cent bottle deposit on bottled/canned drinks = $54

Stamps = (remember, they are a tax) = $45

Total Amount of Taxes I Pay in a Single Year =

$10,313

This amount represents almost 32% of my income. Granted, I get most of the income tax back, but that still leaves about $5800 per year in taxes I don't get back, or close to 18% of my income. When people talk about how much they pay in taxes, they are often only referring to the income tax. But if you were to add up every type of tax you pay, as I have above, what would your total be? And more importantly, do you think it is a just amount? Is it just that one in the second to lowest tax bracket, like myself, has to give away over one third of my earnings in taxes?

I know the government has the right to collect taxes, but if someone in the lower brackets, like myself, ends up giving obver 32%, what does someone in the middle brackets whose income tax alone in 25% pay when you factor in sales tax, property, gas, etc.?

Just a thought...

Any ex-Mormons out there?

I have to give a talk this Sunday evening on Mormonism, its history, bizarre theology, and how Catholics should approach Mormons from an apologetical viewpoint. I am wondering if there are any of you out there who are ex-Mormons who might be able to share what elements of the Catholic Faith were especially significant in drawing you out or Mormonism, or what types of arguments prevailed upon you in the transition. Maybe someone out there knows an ex-Mormon that you can talk to for me, or perhaps you yourself have had success dealing with Mormons. If so, let me know - I'm looking for some practical points for discussion that are helpful when attempting to witness the faith to Mormons.

I have spoken with Mormons a few times, but it was always on the spur of the moment and I always find myself taken off guard. I have some good responses to some of their talking points, but they of course have been trained with their counter-points as well, and I usually get frustrated and ask them to leave...

Any comments or suggestions of things to mention in this talk? It will be for about 30 high school age kids.

Doctrinal Minimalism

Ruins of an early Celtic Church in Ireland

Sometime ago I did a post on Athanasius Contra Mundum in which I made reference to something called "doctrinal minimalism", which I cited as hurtful to the Church and associated with those who are zealous, orthodox Catholics but whose understanding of the history of the Church and the Church's Tradition were somewhat lacking. Dave Armstrong did a counter-post in which he questioned the use of this phrase "doctrinal minimalism." He asked:

What is "doctrinal minimalism"? What apologist is advocating this? It makes more sense as applied to liturgical matters....How "minimal" must one's views be to be classified in this way, liturgy-wise?

This is a fair question for Dave to raise. Often we hear only about liturgical minimalism (as here). I intend not to rebut Dave Armstrong (I think he had some good critiques of my post and I can grant some of his points); rather, I am seeking here to elucidate a point I raised in another post but failed to elaborate on in the time. As it could give rise to misunderstanding, I hope to clear it up here.

First, I admit that, as far as I know, I invented the phrase "doctrinal minimalism", so I am not surprised that Armstrong, or anyone else for that matter, would question me about it. On this blog I frequently discuss trends and ideas in the Church and sometimes classify them according to my own terminology. I've always maintained that my blog is a place, among other things, to throw ideas out and discuss them. I've never maintained that I'm publishing scholarly, peer-reviewed material here; it's a blog, for crying out loud. I do try to give my posts a touch of professionalism and research (who wouldn't want to?), but at the end of the day they are just my own beliefs and opinions in my own words.

But though I think I coined this phrase "doctrinal minimalism", it refers to a real phenomenon in the Church. Just as liturgical minimalism is an attitude towards the liturgy which sees the bare essentials as being good enough, so doctrinal minimalism is an attitude towards doctrine which takes as important only the bare minimum and nothing more.

How does doctrinal minimalism look in practice? I frequently give talks on a variety of topics to different groups; when I do these talks, I always draw from many sources, such as the Catechism and the Bible, but also the lives of the saints, writings of the Fathers and St. Thomas and other eminent theologians. One time (I don't recall the topic, but I think it was eschatology), a woman kept raising her hand every time I said that something was a long-held tradition of the Church and would ask, "Is that in the Catechism?" Sometimes what I was speaking about was in the Catechism, other times it wasn't; she told me that "If you can't show it to me in the Catechism, you shouldn't be saying it." She seemed to have a "Catechism alone" understanding of theology.

I explained to her that the Catechism, while being a sure norm for the faith and an excellent exposition of the faith, does not in itself exhaust the faith. There is much more to Catholicism than just what is in the Catechism. To be sure, the CCC has all of the essentials - Creed, Commandments, Sacraments, Prayer - but it doesn't contain the fullness of the Church's doctrinal, moral and mystogogical tradition. Catechism's are meant to be summaries, not exhaustive expositions. She seemed to accept this and was satisfied, but it got me thinking about this question of the degree to which one can get to the real heart of Catholic Tradition through the CCC alone.

An example - a few weeks ago, my pastor was looking for a list of the works of mercy, but to his surprise found that the list in the CCC does not mention praying for the dead as a spiritual work of mercy. At first we could not believe this, but it is true: in 1473 we are urged to do works of mercy; in 2447 the works are listed, but only six spiritual works of mercy are enumerated: praying for the dead is omitted. Paragraphs 958 and 1032 instruct us to pray for the dead, but not in the context of the works of mercy. If we were to go by the CCC alone, we would completely miss the fact that there are seven, not six works of mercy. Yet I would say that the seven spiritual works of mercy, with praying for the dead among them, are a firm part of Tradition, something that can be taught and asserted regardless of whether or not the CCC happens to mention one of them.

Perhaps this is a typo or innocent mistake; I'm willing to bet it is. However, the problem is not with the CCC, but with an approach to it that assumes that it is exhaustive, and that if you can't "show it to me in the Catechism" then it is not important and is therefore dispensible. The Catechism just gives us an introduction to the basics of the faith and points us to a further learning and understanding - we ought not to confuse the starting point for the end. Granted, the Catechism is rich and in itself is an excellent study, but it is not the fullness of Catholic dogma. This is because (and perhaps Trads would part ways with other Catholics here), just because something is not defined de fide or part of the CCC does not mean that it is dispensible; in popular terminology, the "small-t traditions", though not always infallible or irreformable, are not therefore simply dispensable.

An example is Church architecture - traditional architectural principles were in practice jettisoned in the 1960's and 70's on the belief that architecture was extrinsic to the faith; after a generation of horrid architecture and its liturgical and doctrinal consequences, I don't think any orthodox Catholic would today argue that architecture isn't important. The whole experience of the 60's, 70's and their aftermath teaches us that things assumed to be extrinsic to the faith are actually more integral to it than we thought. Bad architecture really can damn souls, depending on what sort of practices and beliefs it leads to.

No faithful Catholic wants a bare-bones liturgy where the norm is the least - likewise, we shouldn't content ourselves with an intellectual apprehension of our faith that is content with just the bare minimum, with solely the CCC. We shouldn't take a sola scriptura approach to the Catechism or stand on it like a Protestant on the Bible; I am not denigrating the CCC by any means, but only pointing out that it's not the entirety of the faith.

In my original post I stated the belief that perhaps Protestant converts are responsible for this mentality in places - I think now that this is too great a generalization in order to be of any constructive use. Instead, I would challenge all of us to simply go further. Study the CCC, but look what the CCC references in its margins and citations. What do these documents say? And what earlier documents were these documents inspired by and built on? What did the Fathers say? One great weakness of the CCC (in my opinion) is that it tends to reference in the majority only Conciliar and post-Conciliar documents; it would be good for any Catholic to round this out with a thorough study of the Fathers and the Medievals.

Does doctrinal minimalism exist? Absolutely, and I think liturgical minimalism leads to it. This explanation is just a rough essay, I know; perhaps it can be refined and fleshed out more in the future. But I definitely think there is a danger of reducing our beliefs to just a few important essentials and not taking in the fullness of what our Tradition has passed on to us. For me, being a Traditionalist is just about bringing in the whole of our Tradition to bear on our life and outlook - so for me its not about the specifics; not about just the TLM, or the pro multis, or the music (although all these things are important) - it's more about just being part of the entirety of Catholic teaching and practice, past and present. I'm sure there are many Catholics who adopt this position who don't consider themselves Trads, and some Trads who think this is too simplistic and explanation. Let every man define or not define himself as he sees fit; I can only speak for myself.

Want me to teach your kids history?

Hey homeschoolers, how would you like me to be your children's history tutor next semester? It can happen - read on!

It's time for me to use the power of the Internet for some shameless self-promotion! Beginning in the Winter-Spring semester of next year I will be teaching a series of online courses for a great new company, Homeschool Connections, which is reworking the way online homeschooling courses are done with interactive webinar technology.

Instead of your traditional online course, where there are forums run by a moderator and assignments are in the form of reading and posting on a bulletin, Homeschool Connections utilizes live interaction between tutor and student. Students, once logged in, see their tutor in real time and hear his voice on their headset. They can speak to him and ask questions directly, as well as deliver them in writing in a real time chat box. Thus the teacher can react to the students directly and vice versa, so it is a lot like being in a real lecture.

The classes will be taught in two six week sessions, covering the period from the end of the Western Schism through the Protestant Revolt and up through the end of the Thirty Years War and the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. These courses (designed for upper high school age) will acquaint students with the pertinent people and ideologies that led directly or indirectly to the outbreak of the Protestant Revolt. Protestant ideas will be contrasted with Catholic theology throughout in order to give the course an apologetic dimension in addition to the historical.

You can click here for the homepage of Homeschool Connections, or click the below links for the two sessions I will be teaching this Spring, as well as details on classtimes, topics, required materials, cost, as well as registration. There is an early registration discount (which ends 12/31/09). Even if you are not interested, please consider passing this on to your friends and fellow Catholics. More and more Catholics are opting for homeschooling every year, and Homeschool Connections provides a great way for students to study from home while getting the dynamic and intellectually stimulating experience that comes from the classroom. Anyone with high speed Internet can register (or rather, I should say anyone who has anything other than dial-up).

Click here for details on Session 1, The Origins of the Revolt

Click here for details on Session 2, Age of the Religious Wars

You can click here for a list of other classes offered by Homeschool Connections and here for some testimonials. If you are interested in registering, please click on the links to the sessions above. Each session can be taken individually, but they are deisgned to go together.

Please spread the word. I'll keep this post linked up on the top of the sidebar so you can come back to it easily.

Pax.

Flashback: Vatican official says Traditional Anglican Union "unlikely"

In response to the new norms for the reception of Anglicans into communion with Rome, I went back and dug up this article from Feb. 2009 in which some Vatican spokesman says that such a union would be very unlikely. Quite amusing, and a testament to how little some Vatican spokesmen actually know about what is going on.

Problems of Multiple Authorship

In many books of the Old Testament, such as Daniel, Isaiah and especially the Pentateuch, it has become commonplace among scholars to attribute the authorship of these books to multiple authors (First and Second Isaiah, or especially J,E,D and P in the Pentateuch). I have in the past stated my opinion that these multiple authorship theories subtly undermine faith (see here and here). One commentator stated in the combox to one of these posts:

I agree with the idea that scholarly concepts as the Documentary Hypothesis or multiple authorship of Isaiah are potentially detrimental to the idea of a consistent and unitary Revelation, I still don't think that there's a necessary link between the two. In other words, it's hard for me to see what difference it makes how many people over however long a period of time wrote the book of Isaiah, so long as we are guaranteed that the ultimate author of its content is God and that He will guide the Church to the true meaning of the text.

This is a fair question. Though I have maintained the traditional authorship of Isaiah by a prophet of the same name living in the 8th century BC, what difference does it make to Revelation if in fact the book was a compilation of two or more authors? In the first place, I point to the Pontifical Biblical Commission's 1908 statement on Isaiah that there is no good reason to doubt a single authorship (see here). But beyond this statement, how does asserting a second author to Isaiah in particular (or multiple authors to any biblical book in general) undermine faith? In the words of the commentator, where is the "necessary link" between multiple authorship and heterodoxy?

I personally think the link is not in the fact of multiple authors, but of the chronology one builds around those alleged authors. There is nothing inherently wrong with postulating multiple authors of the Scriptures. At the minimum, we already have 50+ human authors to the Bible, probably a ton more if you factor in scribal additions to the Old Testament throughout the centuries. What is the real difference whether we posit 50 authors or 75 authors? The Church acknowledges that God inspired these authors, and so who they are is not entirely of that much importance in and of itself (although I would suggest identity is much more critical in the New Testament). Was II Samuel the work of a single scribe or mutliple scribes over decades? These type of questions, in and of themselves, are not problematic.

They do become problematic in two cases, however (1) When the book in question is prophetic in nature, and when (2) positing additional authors causes us to shift the date of the composition of the book to beyond the events prophesied.

Say we take the Book of Daniel. Daniel traditionally was composed during the period of the Exile, sometime between 550-450 BC. However, the book prophesies many events that do not occur until the time of Alexander and then some things that occur in the time of Christ. Now, suppose we look at these prophecies from an anti-supernaturalist viewpoint by assuming that they could not be legitimate. If we take this as our axiom, then the only way we can explain away these prophecies (which would otherwise be miraculous) is by saying that the prophetic portions of the book must have been written in what is called ex eventu ("after the event") narration. This means there must have been a second author who added to the book of Daniel, in a sense writing prophecy backwards to make it look like Daniel had made accurate prophecies when in fact they were written by some other person after the events prophesied had already come to pass (see this article on Daniel's historicity).

Now we have come to a place where the assertion of a second author causes a real problem, for by saying that this second author came centuries later and added ex eventu prophetic portions to Daniel, we are in effect denying the supernatural prophecies of the book and thereby denying the supernatural nature of revelation; Daniel (or Isaiah, or whatever) clearly says such-and-such is a prophecy still to come, but by positing a second author, we offer a naturalistic explanation for the prophecy and rob these passages of their supernatural character.

Interestingly enough, the PBC condemns this thinking in the same response in which it deals with the question of Second-Isaiah. The following position is condemned:

That the predicitions read in the Book of Isaiah-and throughout the Scriptures-are not predictions properly so called, but either narrations put together after the event, or, if anything has to be acknowledged as foretold before the event, that the prophet foretold it not in accordance with a supernatural revelation of God who foreknows future events, but by conjectures formed...and shrewdly by natural sharpness of mind...

Regarding Isaiah in particular one notices an abundance of prophecy. The Exile and return are foretold; the name of the king who would issue the edict of return is stated (Cyrus); future judgments on Egypt and the nations are described that later come to pass, not to mention all of the Messianic prophecies found throughout Isaiah. Now, if Isaiah prophesies the Exile to Babylon and the return, this is truly miraculous, given that these events did not occur until almost two hundred years after Isaiah. But if we say there was a Second Isaiah writing after the exile, then we can just say "ho hum" when the book makes these prophecies, for we have vacuumed out the supernatural, or in the words of the PBC, asserted that the alleged prophecies are simply "narrations put together after the event." And this is what Second Isaiah is all about; do a simple Wikipedia search on "Deutero-Isaiah" and you will find this explanation:

Passages of Isaiah 40-66 contain some events and details that did not occur in Isaiah's own lifetime, such as the rise of Babylon as the world power, destruction of Jerusalem, and the rise of the Persian king Cyrus the Great and his destruction of Babylonian Empire.On the other hand, the first section of Isaiah saw the destruction of Babylon at the hands of the Medes and the Elamites(13:1-20, 21:2) . This is generally explained by either considering Isaiah to have been given such information by divine means, or by considering the later sections of the book to be, not written by Isaiah, but written by those who lived later than Isaiah himself. Those that reject the supernatural revelation of God's foreknowledge to Isaiah hold to the second explanation and the mainstream scholarly understanding.

Therefore, yes, positing multiple authors can be very damaging to faith, if they involve prophetic books and chronologies.

Is there ever a licit recourse to multiple authorship? Sure. The PBC said, in its day, it saw no reason to posit more authors for Isaiah, and nor do I. That's not to say there couldn't have been, only that the PBC saw no necessity in arguing for them. But let's say that maybe Isaiah dictated his prophecies to a series of scribal pupils who compiled them over several decades. This is highly possible and would account for various stylistic variations. Let's say Isaiah wrote half of it and the latter portion was composed by pupils after his death who nevertheless heard his words, just like Aquinas' pupils finished the Summa for him. That is plausible, too. But if you are going to say that it was added to centuries later by persons who wrote in prophecies retroactively, then that is damaging to faith.

So, to answer the commentator, it is not simply sufficient to say one the one hand that we believe the author is God and that the Church gets the true context if, on the other hand, we take up critical exegetical positions that lead us to deny everything supernatural about the book.

Happy Guy Fawkes Day

I'm sorry I haven't had anything more substantial lately - I am going to be very busy in the upcoming week with a student observation, so I probably won't get a lot of time to post. Check back next week, and raise a mug of ale to Guy Fawkes and to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605!

All Saints Day Pics

Here's two pictures of me with my son at our parish's All Saints Day party last week. He obviously is St. Francis - I am my 85 year old alter ego, Walter Grabowski. I know he's not a saint, but I had no other costume.

EU ratifies Lisbon

This week the European Union finally, after eight long years of floundering, managed to ratify the Lisbon Treaty, which effectually strengthens the power of the EU, establishes a two and a half year presidency instead of the 6 month rotating presidency, gives much more political clout to the bloc and creates an astonishingly complex gaggle of new bureaucratic positions (the EU president alone will have 3,500 workers immediately under him).

The Treaty is not the final step in creating a United States of Europe, but it brings them a great deal closer. It does call for a single EU currency by 2020, even in states (like Britain) that have rejected such proposals in the past.

I think Christians should be inherently opposed to such schemes - and I do not use the word "inherently" lightly. In my opinion, we should have a default attitude of skepticism and mistrust towards any centralization or conglomeration of states into such blocs. The technology is so advanced, the mores so anti-Christian, the human heart so prone to corruption that these experiments cannot end in a way favorable to Christians. Perhaps I am not as enthusiastic about giant multi-national entities as the Vatican apparently is. Centralization and conglomeration are two of the biggest ills of the modern age - we need things broken up and individualized, not conglomerated.

It is not surprising that the EU, at the same time that it is being given more teeth is also trampling on the religious traditions of Italy. In a new ruling out of Strasbourg, an EU court is commanding Italy to remove crucifixes from their classrooms so as to avoid offending non-Christian students. The order has sparked outrage in Italy (see here). Rocco Buttiglione, a former culture minister, said, “This is an abhorrent ruling. It must be rejected with firmness. Italy has its culture, its traditions and its history. Those who come among us must understand and accept this culture and this history.”

I happen to agree with Buttiglione, but I have to ask him whether or not this is not what you get when you bargain away your sovereignty to foreign multi-national courts? Protest as they might, the Italians have gotten themselves into this mess by going along with this EU debacle. This ought to be a sign to all those in the Vatican who are still clinging to the notion that a one world government or a stronger EU or UN would be beneficial - these institutions are fundamentally anti-Christian and will only use their influence to destroy Christian culture.

"Make Mine Freedom"

I went out to vote this morning. No big deal; there was no line...I was the only person in the room. The elderly volunteers told me I was only the fifth person who had been in that day. The only offices being voted on were City Mayor, city councilmen and Board of Review members. I wrote myself in for all positions.

But, it got me in a political mood and I thought I'd share this cartoon with you that I picked up off of another blog. What do you think of this cartoon (dated 1948)?

Authority of Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur

One of the most puzzling things for new Catholics is sorting out the various degrees of authority within the Church and understanding from whence different "official" statements they come. This happens a lot with the media, as well, as when some Vatican official gives his opinion in an interview, which is later touted as the view of "the Vatican." For someone who really hasn't learned that much about the hierarchy and degrees of authority, how are you to react when somebody takes a questionable book and flashes its Imprimatur. To the new Catholic, this Imprimatur is impressive because it is an "official" statement that comes from "the Church." One reader came across this exact problem in an RCIA class. This following is from a question in the combox:

In the New American Catholic Study Bible, 2nd Edition, there is commentary in the reading guide that says that the taking of Jericho, Ai and Gibeon were not historical events. I was given this text along with a paragraph out of a New Jerome that I do not have handy since I do not have my own New Jerome. My question to you is, what exactly is Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur because this Study Bible claims both. I need to know if the Reading Guide in a Study Bible holds the same authority as a standard Bible or an Encyclical. If it does, then what? -Michael

The question originally came in the combox of the series on the Book of Joshua, and for the full context please see the comments after the post Genocide in Joshua Part 3 (the whole series is linked up on the sidebar). Basically, Michael's RCIA instructor told him that the Book of Joshua was not historical, citing certain battles that (according to this instructor) never happened. When Michael protested that he thought the Book of Joshua was in fact historical, he was referred to the NAB Bible commentary that says it is not and the instructor used the fact that the NAB has a Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur as evidence to browbeat him into accepting the NAB commentary as Church dogma.

First off, the NAB has its own peculiar set of problems, specifically what my co-blogger in absentia Anselm has called a "poisonous" commentary - I recommend this article from 2007 on the NAB commentary and some of its errors. My own pastor, when he came to our parish, removed all the NAB's and stored them in a box because he didn't know what to do with them. On the one hand, the primary text was the (slightly mistranslated) Word of God, so he felt it would be wrong to destroy them; but ont he other hand, the commentary was heretical, so they were dangerous to leave out. He ended up actually burying them in the parish cemetery in their own plot! I imagine he had the verses from 1 Maccabees 4:44-46 in mind...

At any rate though, regarding Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur. Any book dealing with theology, Catholic morality or anything written by a cleric is supposed to get these before going to print. Both of these declarations are given at the diocesan level under the competency of the local bishop. In brief, a Nihil Obstat is a declaration from a theologian called the Censor Librorum that a book is free from doctrinal or moral error - it literally means "Nothing Hinders." If the bishop's Censor Librorum grants the Nihil Obstat, then the Bishop, in his name and by his episcopal powers, confers the Imprimatur, which means "let it be printed." The Imprimatur is the result of the Nihil Obstat -i.e., "Nothing hinders", therefore, "let it be printed." Both can be taken as gurantees that the book is free from moral or doctrinal error, but because the Imprimatur comes directly from the Bishop and is the final step in the printing process, it is commonly considered to be more authoritative, though I'm not sure whether or not this is true.

Many works will include this statement:

"The Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur are official declarations that a book or pamphlet is free of doctrinal or moral error. No implication is contained therein that those who have granted the Nihil Obstat and the Imprimatur agree with the content, opinions or statements expressed."

Notice the statement says only that it is free from doctrinal or moral error - this means that what is contained in the book may still be completely false; however, as long as it doesn't contradict faith or morals, the Imprimatur can still be granted. For example, a book on Church history might errantly and ignorantly report the commonly stated canard that 9 million people were killed in the Inquisition. This is a completely false statement, but it does not conflict with faith or morals (just common sense) and so the book could still get the Imprimatur.

Furthermore, we should understand that since these declarations come from the Diocesan Bishop, they can ultimately only be as good and reliable as the Bishop who grants them. This is the key principle to keep in mind with these declarations. They are not authoritative statements of the Magisterium, nor are they in the least bit protected by the charism of infallibility. They are the opinions of a private theologian (the Censor Librorum) and the official declaration of the Bishop, who in most cases is simply going along with what the Censor Librorum says.

If a Bishop is a solid theologian or good repute and orthodox disposition, then you have every reason to implicitly trust the Imprimatur - however, even that does not mean that what you find in the book is not errant, especially in your example (historical facts relating to archaeology). An Imprimatur issued by a very unorthodox Bishop would be suspect by that fact alone - remember, as stated above, these declarations are extensions of the Bishop's own ideas of what is acceptable and what is not. They are only as reliable as the Bishops who issue them and possess no inherent protection from error.

To bring it back to your case - the fact that the NAB has an Imprimatur does not in any way sanction the historical accuracy (or inaccuracies) of the commentary. It merely means that nothing in the commentary contradicts the official teaching of the Church - which might not even be the case depending on who granted it. Therefore, I would continue to protest the ignorant and dishonest ruse of persons who try to say that the historical books of the Old Testament are not historical. In general, denying the historicity of certain parts of the Scriptures is a method of modernists to undermine the spiritual authority of the Bible. Please see this post for more on these tendencies within Bible commentaries.

I hope this helps, Michael.

Imam shot in Detroit

I don't know to what degree this has made the national news, but it is a big story here in Michigan at the moment.

From ABC News:

FBI agents hoping to break up an alleged interstate crime ring dealing in arson, fraud and possibly stolen vehicles, ended up in a gunfight at a Detroit-area warehouse, after which a suspect lay dead [According to all the local reports, Abdullah started firing on the FBI when they attempted to search his warehouse].

The FBI sought to arrest Luqman Ameen Abdullah, a.k.a. Christopher Thomas, 53, who a criminal complaint said was the imam of a radical fundamentalist Sunni group called Masjid Al-Haqq that seeks to establish a sovereign Islamic state inside the United States.

But Abdullah, who the FBI claimed had been planning for a confrontation with police, did not surrender during the warehouse raid in Dearborn, Mich., and was killed, officials said. An FBI dog also was killed in the exchange of gunfire [Aww...].

FBI agents in Detroit did not provide additional comment on the circumstances of the shooting because it is under investigation.

Abdullah and 10 others were charged today in a criminal complaint with conspiracy and theft of interstate shipments, mail fraud to obtain the proceeds of arson, illegal possession and sale of firearms, and the altering and tampering with vehicle identification numbers (VIN).

The case was being investigated by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in Detroit, though the men charged today were not charged with terrorism offenses.

The raid followed a series of recent arrests, including those of a man suspected of plotting attacks against New York, to men in Dallas and Springfield, Ill., accused of being homegrown terrorists [I am moderately suspicious about the timing of all these arrests - the three mentioned above all happened within a week in September, I believe].

Imad Hamad, director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, told a local Detroit news channel that he was told the arrests in the latest case were not related to the suspects' religion. "Basically, they assured us that this raid, this initiative, is solely criminal and has nothing to do with Muslims or people of Muslim faith," he said in a report by the television station WJBK. "I cannot enter any judgment basically about this. Simply, I don't know them. I got to learn about what I heard today."

According to the FBI, Abdulluh encouraged members of his mosque to "carry a firearm" and to be prepared for "offensive jihad."

"He regularly preaches anti-government and anti-law enforcement rhetoric," the FBI affidavit in the case alleged. [This is too vague - we know that Pro-Lifers and veterans have also been under suspicion for "anti-government" sentiments; we need more details on this] "Abdullah encourages members of the Masjid Al-Haqq, many of whom are convicted felons, to carry a firearm, and information obtained during the course of this investigation indicates that many of Abdullah's followers are usually armed."

But Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations [an upstanding, reputable organization] told The Associated Press the federal authorities' description of Abdullah's extremist links didn't match what he knew of Abdullah, who he said had a wife and children [I guess nobody with a wife and children can be an extremist].

"I knew him to be charitable," Walid told the AP. "He would open up the mosque to homeless people. He used to run a soup kitchen and feed indigent people [So does Hamas].... I knew nothing of him that was related to any nefarious or criminal behavior."

A phone number for the family had been disconnected, the AP reported.

The only thing I would add to this that you would not get out of the article is that this Abdullah character, as well as the people of his mosque, are not ethnic Arabs. They are African American converts to Islam of the Louis Farrakhan breed. In fact, I believe some of Abdullah's associates were once Black Panthers (Jamil Al-Amin, spiritual guru of Abdullah, who is serving a life sentence for shooting two police officers in Georgia).

Here is a pic I dug up of Abdullah from World Net Daily:

The Personal Nature of Charitable Giving

My in-laws were up from Florida visiting for the week and I got to spend quite a bit of time with my father-in-law on Saturday. I have often referenced my father-in-law on this blog; he is an evangelical protestant and often provides me with a lot of fodder to delve into on here. This weekend, however, as we went out to breakfast at a local diner, we had a really great conversation in which we were both in general agreement. This conversation was about the state of charitable giving in America, both Protestant and Catholic.

My father-in-law was pointing out that, in the parable of the Prodigal Son, the son is enabled to live a licentious lifestyle so long as he has money to blow:

The younger son, gathering all together, went abroad into a far country: and there wasted his substance, living riotously (Luke 15:13).

However, it is only when his money is gone, and furthermore, when nobody was found that would give to him, that the son repented and returned home:

And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks the swine did eat; and no man gave unto him. And returning to himself, he said: How many hired servants in my father's house abound with bread, and I here perish with hunger? I will arise, and will go to my father (Luke 15:16-18).

Notice how it is immediately following the statement that "no man gave unto him" that the son returned to his senses? My father-in-law made the case that perhaps when we give to the poor we are actualy enabling their poverty by creating dependency. Perhaps, he said, it would be better to not give to them, or to only do so conditionally, and to allow them to get to the point where "no man gave unto them" and hopefully bring about a conversion.

Well, I could not fully agree with this line of thinking: I pointed out that the command to feed the poor is universal and without restraint, even if you are taken advantage of ("If someone takes your coat, give him your cloak as well"); furthermore, I reminded him that the parable of the Prodigal Son is meant to be a story about the Father's forgiveness and mercy, not a blueprint for how we are to treat homeless people. The command to reach out and help the poor trumps any concerns we might have about the social impact of charitable giving. Certainly there are prudent and imprudent ways to give, but everybody agrees that we must give. Also, who are we to decide when someone "needs" to hit rock bottom? I leave that to God.

He agreed with these qualifiers, I think, but it got me to thinking about the nature of charitable giving, dependency, cycles of poverty (especially in light of our current President and the looming welfare state he endeavors to establish). Even though I don't adopt my father-in-law's thinking here, I agree with him in that I think the manner in which charitable giving is carried out can breed dependency and a welfare mentality.

Almost all of our major charitable giving today, in the Church or the world, is carried out by institutions; St. Vincent de Paul, Salvation Army, Meals on Wheels, Charity Motors, Purple Heart, etc. These institutions exist because they can gather resources and distribute them to the poor with much greater efficiency than could any one individual. Though this is in itself a good, it leads to two negatives: (1) Christians end up not giving to the poor directly but giving to an organization which then gives to the poor (2) The process of charitable giving becomes institutionalized; i.e., it becomes subject to the same shortcomings as any bureaucracy, because it is no longer people giving but a "system" which is "distributing" aid.

Consider this: all of the corporal works of mercy in the Scriptures are very personal acts. Feeding the poor; clothing the naked; giving drink to the thirsty; visiting the imprisoned, etc. These are all very human acts that require person-to-person contact and an element of compassion. Perhaps we are giving in a bit too much to our American pragmatism and focusing too extensively on the end alone: "Who cares how they get the aid, Boniface? The important thing is that they get it!"

But is the end really all the matters in charitable giving? When Christ commands us to succor the poor, is He saying this simply because it is the most expedient means of getting aid to poverty stricken persons, or is there perhaps another reason for this, one that has to do with the compassion and person-to-person interaction involved in any work of mercy?

When we perform a corporal work of mercy, we see the humanity of the other - we make a real human connection. In doing so, if we are spiritually minded, we can also discern the presence of Christ. This is very valuable; almost as important as the actual deed itself. Caring for the poor is an extension of the command to love all men and is meant to be an act of compassion and personal charity.

How does this change when we run our giving through an organization? Well, the poor may still get the aid, but the human element is completely siphoned out. Now you never see the poor person, or the hungry person. You write a check from your kitchen table, pop it in an envelope and get a nice bi-monthly pamphlet explaining how your money is being put to work. That's better than nothing, but have you really learned compassion as much if, say, you would have had to literally clothe a naked person or feed the hungry physically? The human-contact element is gone.

This also puts the giver in the dangerous place of feeling like he has fulfilled Christ's mandates because he has written some checks. I'm not saying the checks aren't important, but I am asking whether or not charitable giving through third parties kind of sucks the spiritual value out of the act somewhat - while the poor still get fed, we don't get to interact with them on a personal level. In the old days, the medieval kings used to fill their halls with beggars and feed them or sometimes (as is told of St. Louis IX) personally put a gold coin in each of their hands. The modernist scoffs and asks, "How does giving one beggar a gold coin address the underlying issues of poverty?" I say, "By reminding the king that he, too, is but a man, equal in dignity with the very least." At least much moreso than a president ordering a grant for $1 billion to some UN fund or something...

Once I had a friend who was hurting financially. He needed assistance with his mortgage payments. We were talking with a third friend about the problem, when my third friend pulled out his checkbook and wrote the man a check for $500, no strings attached. My friend was flabbergasted that another just so easily handed him a check, with no means of expecting it back. He was profusely thankful, and I think my other friend won some serious treasure in heaven for the act.

Not everybody can do that - but how different is that from what could have happened: my friend could have pulled out a business card and referred the other to some aid organization where his "case" would have been processed bureaucratically: fill out these forms, interview with this "case worker," get some contact info, start your "file", etc. etc. Everything spiritually vivifying about the work is lost.

One more thought: third party giving can turn the charitable works into bureaucratic systems, and like any system they are capable of being "played." Sometimes these organizations do create a dependency in people, as they go from organization to organization, knowing they can get their weekly ration of bread and noodles here, their soaps and hygeine products there, their free dinner over at that place, etc. We all know of people who have played the charity system this way. Because they are coming to get their food not from a person immediately but from an institution who disburses it, there is less gratitude and no chance for the giver to make a connection with the poor.

If we all simply watched out for one another and took the corporal works of mercy to be models for behavior in a very personal and immediate sense, I think things would be a lot different. Sure, we need big organizations to get food and aid to out of the way places, but we can't let these organizations exhaust our charity - nor can we think of giving solely in terms of sending money to some group who then disburses it at their discretion. To do so promotes unhealthy dependence on charity and makes what is supposed to be a very personal act into another administrative action of some bureaucracy.

Missa de Angelis Sighting

Some time ago I announced that for the remainder of October I would only be dwelling on positive developments in the Church today - the biggest being the announcement of the structures to receive members of the Anglican Church back into the fold. This is a wonderful development for the Catholic Church, and it underscores a truth about our present Holy Father that so many in the mainstream have failed to pick up: he is a Pope of unity. Now the big question is that if we can reconcile Anglicans who have been in schism and heresy for 500 years, what on earth is stopping us from reconciling the SSPX? That's another topic.

On a more local level, something wonderful happened at my parish this week. I was praying in Church Thursday night with the men's prayer group that I am a part of when the pastor and our music director came in and went up to the choir loft together. As I prayed, I heard her rehearsing the Gloria from the Missa de Angelis with him; she was teaching him how to intone the first line. I thought to myself, "That's awesome. He wouldn't be rehearsing that unless he is going to use it. I hope we use that in our Mass here someday soon."

Well, the someday came sooner than I thought, because this past Sunday at all the Masses the Gloria from the Missa de Angelis was sung (hitherto we had been using some English Gloria that was based on the Missa de Angelis Gloria). The pastor came out before Mass, announced that we were going to start doing this Latin Gloria, and then gave an excellent little summation of why we were doing it, which can be summed up in two main points:

-Latin was never meant to be abolished after Vatican II and this is how we ought to be doing the Mass parts.

-Latin is the future of the Church, and part of the job of a pastor is to keep parishioners abreast of what is going on in the Church and teach them something that they will probably be hearing more often.

Then we rehearsed it twice with the music director leading and we were ready to go. It went over flawlessly and (as of yet) I haven't heard of any complaints; granted it has only been one day.

I attended an NO parish years ago that did the Missa de Angelis Gloria acapella. It was the most beautiful part of the Mass and what I looked forward to every week. I am so very grateful that this beautiful piece of music has been restored to our parish. I know that some of you out there hear it every week, and I am aware that the Missa de Angelis has been called the pre-Conciliar "Mass of Creation" (as here) and that there are other settings for the Mass. Fine. But you have to admit it that if you've not had a Latin Gloria in your parish for over thirty years then this one is a pretty good one to start with.

But how about my pastor's explanation of why the Latin Gloria was being used? Most of us who consider ourselves inclined towards traditional things instinctively revert to an argument from the past as to why certain things ought to be done (it's tradition; we've always done it that way; this is what the saints did, etc.); my pastor instead made an appeal to the future: "This is the way the whole Church is going, and you are going to be seeing a lot more of it in the future. This is the mind of the Church and a well-rounded Catholic needs to know these Mass parts." While this argument can't really stand alone, I think it is a very interesting and valuable addition to all of the other arguments (both historical and liturgical) for a liturgical praxis of continuity.

Kudos to my pastor and the music director for getting this done.

Pics from New York

Below is a slide-show from our recent Youth Group trip to New York, where we visited the Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs in Auriesville, the Kateri Shrine in Fonda, the Our Lady of Victory Basilica in Lackawanna and Niagara Falls.

The Basilica was one of the most beautiful churches I have ever been in - in fact, I'm going to say it is the most beautiful church I've visited other than St. Peter's and some in Rome. The amazing thing is that it was entirely paid for by people sending in quarter donations (that's right, 25 cents).

While the basilica was very splendid, there was a degree of sadness regarding the current state of things there. Despite having a marvelous high altar and at least a dozen or so side altars, the tour guide told us that no Traditional Latin Mass had been offered there since Summorum Pontificum. More distressing was the fact that daily masses were not offered in the beauty of the main sanctuary. While looking for the bathroom (literally), I found this room in the basement:

This was apparently where they were having daily Mass, I am assuming. It had some chairs set up (no pews) and was very sparsely decorated, except for these old altar cards which were framed and hanging on the wall as if they were archaic antiques:



I don't know whether this room was originally meant to be a chapel or not since it was in a really obscure part of the building, right in the basement by the bathrooms and custodial equipment - this was literally right outside the door of the daily Mass chapel, which lets you know what part of the basement this was:




I was amazed that they celebrated daily Mass in this meager little room when upstairs they had this:

Elsewhere in the basement they had a really excellent museum on the building of the basilica and the life of Fr. Baker, who is a Servant of God I believe. I highly recommend this basilica and especially the museum beneath- however, one "exhibit" in the museum was what our tour guide described as a large decorative stand with a round top and rays shooting off of it (apparently she did not think we would be familiar with the word "monstrance") - here is a picture of this magnificent monstrance with a Youth Group kid standing next to it for size reference:

She told us all about how people "used to" actually put the Blessed Sacrament in to this roundy-looking object with the rays and adore it. Amazing!

Well, all in all the Basilica is a great place to visit; the tour guide was very knowledgeable and the beauty and excellence of the place are unsurpassed anywhere in the eastern United States, as far as I know. That night as our group prayed our evening prayers we dedicated our intentions to the restoration of Eucharistic Adoration at the Basilica, specifically that this monstrance would come out of the museum and once again expose our Lord before the adoring eyes of the faithful.

By the way, in the slideshow above, the pics of the little stream running over the rocks in the woods is the ravine where the Iroquois dumped the body of St. Rene Goupil after killing him and where St. Isaac Jogues lovingly searched for the body in the following days, weeping and chanting the psalms for the dead. The field with the poles is the remains of the village of Caughnawaga where Kateri Tekakwitha lived before fleeing to Quebec.

Finally, I think this was the most amusing thing I saw on the whole trip:

New Medjurgorje Directives

This June, Bishop Ratko Peric of Mostar-Duvno in Bosnia and Herzegovina sent letters to the pastor and a parochial vicar at Medjugorje, with specific directives about how they and the parish are not to promote the alleged apparitions of the place. The English translations became available last month and are available in their entirety at Catholic Light (here). The Bishop uses some very strong language and made some substantial directives on how things are done in Medjogorje. Here are the most important points of the directives, though I suggest you read them in full.

Regarding priests who come to Medjugorje to hold retreats or promote the apparitions...

"The rule is still valid that in the parish of Medjugorje priests coming from elsewhere are not permitted to conduct retreats or spiritual exercises, nor to hold conferences, without the approval of this office. Analogously, neither foreign nor domestic priests can promote alleged "messages" or "apparitions" which have not been proclaimed authentic in that church or on church property."

Regarding the use of the title "shrine" in reference to Medjugorje...

"The parish of Medjugorje cannot be called a shrine, neither privately, nor publicly, not officially, because it is not recognized as such by any level of competent ecclesial authority. And that wording cannot appear on the web site of "Medjugorje - place of prayer and reconciliation", where it is currently found in many places....As the local Ordinary, in this present letter, I declare that the so-called "shrine" has no mission to declare itself a "Shrine", nor to present (the parish) with that title, because it has no ecclesiastical mission to present itself in the name of Medjugorje, nor to spread or interpret the "apparitions" and "messages" of Medjugorje."

Here is a reaffirmation of a previous directive absolutely prohibiting the seers from appearing and delivering any messages...

"In September 2007, on the occasion of your installation in the office of parish priest, I indicated to you that the so-called "seers" cannot present themselves on any occasion to promote their private "apparitions" and "messages", nor to preside, nor to have anyone preside in their place, at the recitation of a certain number of prayers "received" in an "apparition". Therefore, they cannot use prayers from scripture or those approved by the Church as a means of introducing "numbers" and "messages" from the private "apparition"."

And regarding praying the Rosary...

"It is equally not permitted to introduce intentions received in an "apparition" or "message" during the prayer of the Rosary of Our Lady. We have sufficient official intentions (from the Pope, from the bishop, for the missions) and there is no need to arbitrarily have recourse to alleged apparitions and messages and mix them with the Church's public prayers."

These directives all came in a letter dated 12 June 2009 to the parish priest of Medjugorje. The following excerpts come from a second letter, dated the same day, to the Franciscan parochial vicar of the parish, Danko Perutina.

The first directive prohibits seers from sending messages from abroad and having them pubslihed in the parish bulletin. The above directives forbid the seers from delivering messages in person, but this one prohibits the parish from acting as a messenger on behalf of the seers:

"Marija Pavlović, married name Lunetti, daily "seer" who lives in Italy, and temporarily also at Medjugorje, sends to the parish office or to some one of your pastoral workers in the parish of Medjugorje, her "message" of the 25th day of the month, which is then published on the Medjugorje web site and in other mass media. And you regularly make commentary on the monthly "message", which is published in various languages.

When I asked how the "messages" of the 25th were published, and not the other "messages" said to be "private", I did not feel I received a clear and convincing answer. I do not know who has sent and authorized you to comment on them and publish them on the site. What sort of person is assuming the right to decide that some "messages" be omitted and others published, and that this is done through the parish office and the site connected with the parish of Medjugorje?"

...To avoid any misunderstanding, in this present letter I declare that you, according to my decree, are not authorized, either in the name of the parish office or as parochial vicar, to comment upon and publish the "messages" of the 25th or any other day of the month. These are private "messages" of private persons for private use. And we cannot permit that this is given the form of a message from the parish office, from the parish priest, or any parochial vicar, or even of the "Shrine" which is not recognized as such at any level: not diocesan, or the level of the episcopal conference, or of the Holy See."

I may be mistaken, but Bp. Peric seems to be forbidding any communication of the alleged "messages" whatsoever other than on the entirely private level. I think this final statement from the Bishop expressed admirably what he is attempting to do here:

We are gradually succeeding in distancing the unrecognized "apparitions" and "messages" from the parish church and from church property, and the appearances of the "seers" before or after Holy Mass.

Why would the Bishop want to do this? For the obvious reason that these messages are unapproved, will not be approved, are dubious and that the local Ordinary wants everybody to understand that the local Church does not endorse them.

Here is a summary of everything contained in this directive:

1) That alleged messages and commentaries on them are not to be published
2) That prayers from the apparitions are not to be used publicly
3) The parish church is not to be called a "shrine", even privately
4) That foreign priests may not give conferences or retreats without permission of the bishop
foreign priests wishing to offer Mass must present a celebret from their diocese or order, and the information is to be recorded
5) A privately-built church has already been closed and is not to be used
6) Unauthorized religious communities have no permission to set up residence

Can anybody really think that this bodes well for Medjugorje? It is gradually being distanced from the official Church and will someday be condemned, at which point it will either peter out (hopefully) or go into schism.

"Yes, but the fruits, the fruits..."

Ten Years

Today, October 21st, is a very special ten year anniversary for me; not the ten year anniversary of my marriage, but the ten year anniversary of my commitment to follow Christ. It was ten years ago tonight that I abandoned my indulgent, semi-agnostic and nihilistic stupor to follow the call of Jesus. Here's what happened.

I was nineteen years old. The year was 1999. I had a very nominal religious upbringing - a basic understanding of the most rudimentary basics of Christianity (the Ten Commandments pretty much). I was baptized Catholic, but had never been to Mass in my life - in fact, I was so ignorant of the faith that I did not even know I had been baptized.

After a raucous youth full of fleshly gratification and some drug use, I found myself at 19 full of misery and nihilism, not wanting to get up in the morning, failing to see any purpose in anything I did. I was a fresman student art an art college in Detroit pursuing a career in animation and graphic design, but my spiritual malaise so was so intense that it became debilitating. My grades began to suffer and a very deep depression set in. I recall sitting outside in the courtyard of the college, watching the leaves fall from the trees in the early autumn and the cold blueness of the sky and being utterly unable to find any joy in it - I even thought to myself, "Everybody has to die someday, so what difference does it make if I live out my life to the end or shoot myself right now? It makes no difference whatsoever..." These types of thoughts clouded my mind continually and life was bereft of joy.

One evening (this very evening) I went to a party at the home of an old friend. I had a really good group of friends in high school, sincere and caring and though not without their own troubles, very sturdy souls to have about. But by 1999 the first dynamism of our friendships had spent itself, and all that was left of what had once been an idyllic and innocent youth was cynicism and despair, which meant a lot of drinking. The mood of the party was dour and it did little to soothe my aching soul.

But then a friend of mine showed up, a very special friend whom I had known in my youth and who had actually taught me how to play guitar. He had recently put off his former life and had embraced Christ and came to the party to preach to his friends still mired in the world. Most blew him off or scoffed at him, but my soul drank in his words like parched earth drinking in the rain. He went off to walk with another kid to talk to him more, and I tagged along because the name of Jesus seemed to light some kind of fire in my heart and I desired to hear more.

We walked for a ways, and the other kid eventually went his own way. Yet I remainded and said, "Tell me more." So we left the party and went for a long walk by night, where amidst the frigid blasts of Michigan October wind and the blustering skies he spoke to me of Jesus Christ, of God's love for man and of Christ's death on the cross - and of the forgiveness of sins. The particular type of Christianity he was preaching was simple Protestantism ("believe in Jesus Christ and confess He is Lord and you will be forgiven"), but oh how powerful the message was to one mired in misery.

At the end of the discussion I grapsed his shirt and asked to be baptized. I don't know where this came from, but I think I just knew that Christians were supposed to be baptized (and I was ignorant of my own baptism as a Catholic). He took me down to a lake by a park (pictured above), and under the churning clouds and among the choppy and blisteringly cold waters dunked me and pronounced the words of baptism. I know thaty sacramentally nothing occurred there, for I had already entered the holy laver as an infant, but the act of faith and the desire to truly start a new life must have been effacacious because I immediately and sensibly felt the greatest outpouring of grace and mercy I had ever known. This was by a special mercy of God.

The world seemed brand new, and as I came dripping (but not cold) from the waters, the whole earth seemed as fresh and beautiful as it did the moment it came forth from the hand of God and was beheld by Adam newly formed. I know grace is entirely of the supernatural order and not something knowable experientially, but at that moment God pulled back the veil and allowed me to feel and experience what was working in my soul - a true turning, a pulling back, the metanoia talked about by St. John the Baptist and likewise experienced so intensely by St. Augustine in the garden. This is what happened to me on this evening ten years ago today.

As I went home, my mind told me, "Nothing has really changed. You will wake up tomorrow and feel the same." And I did feel the same in the morning - but different; lighter, happier. It was the subtle and silent presence of joy for the first time. I became hungry for the Scriptures and devoured the Bible with zealous intensity, underlining and marking it up until the pages were worn thin. I did not intentionally set out to lose my old friends, but by and by as my interests became more focused on Jesus and His Kingdom, my old friends just sort of fell away. Before I know it I was a Christian and had only Christian friends. And though life was not easy, I was happy.

Well, there is more to the story - how I started going to a Protestant non-denominational church and met my wife; how through the study of the Scriptures and disputes with my friends I began to see the fallacy of sola scriptura and how I slowly became aware of my Catholic baptism and origin; how the historical fact of the Church's existence and the Catholicity of the early Fathers drew me Rome-ward, and how I was finally received into full communion with the Church on the Feast of St. Francis, 2002.

But today I commemorate that first wonderous night when the grace of God first blew apart the blindness and despair of my heart and let in the glorious light of Christ. It was that event which knocked me on a different course - and everything I have done subsequently has drawn its momentum from that initial burst of grace, just as an object in space once propelled will continue in that direction forever. Every night on this date I revisit this spot by the lake, as close to the original time as I can, and venerate the spot where God struck me from my horse. It has become a pilgrimage and an occasion of rededication, as well as repentance: repentance for years wasted, opportunities to do good thrown away, sins stubbornly clung to and selfishness yet to be rooted out.

Praise and thanks be to Jesus Christ our Lord. His mercy endures forever.

There and back again

I rolled in from New York at about 4:45 AM yesterday morning and am still recovering from the subsequent exhaustion...but it was a wonderful trip, with a lot of blessings and a lot of snags, and when I get time I will post a full write up with pictures and everything.

As for the "Who Said It?" quote, I was surprised that nobody took a shot at it, since this is from one of the best books of all times, Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. It is taken from the Epilogue of the book, part IV, where Alyosha Karamazov is talking to some street boys about how preserving the memory of how "we were once good" can be enough to bring one back to grace, even though they may grow old and wicked.

There is so much to blog about this week: the Vatican's announcement of new guidelines for the reception of Anglicans, new directives on Medjugorje that further call the validity of the apparitions into doubt, the continuing disintegration of the country under BHO and much more; I also have a book review for a great new work on the liturgy that I am putting together. I hope to be back at it soon - now I have to go to Confession, so I'll catch up when I can.

Blessings.

Off to Auriesville & Who Said It?

I am going to be out of town for the next several days and probably won't have time to get back to this blog until Monday, October 19th. I am taking my parish Youth Group on a pilgrimage to the Shrine of the North American Martyrs (not the beautiful basilica in Canada, but the modern, circular "colisseum" looking one in Auriesville, NY). This is the spot of the martyrdom of St. Isaac Jogues, St. John Lalande and St. Rene Goupil - we'll be there for the Feast Day of these saints, which is the 19th but is being celebrated on the 18th (of course). Please pray for us, especially that we can avoid some of the nastier weather. Click here for a detailed itinerary of the places we are going.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a "Who Said It?" which will unfortunately remain up all the rest of this week and over the weekend. I thought the last quote from Tolkien was a bit difficult, so I tried to dig a little bit further. See if you know (a) where this quote is from and (b) whether you think it is true or false and why:

“You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you a great deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one has only one good memory left in one’s heart, even that may sometime be the means of saving us. Perhaps we may even grow wicked later on, may be unable to refrain from a bad action, may laugh at men’s tears and may even jeer spitefully at such people. But however bad we may become—which God forbid—yet, when we recall how we have been talking like friends all together, at this stone, the cruellest and most mocking of us—if we do become so will not dare to laugh inwardly at having been kind and good at this moment! What’s more, perhaps, that one memory may keep him from great evil and he will reflect and say, ‘Yes, I was good and brave and honest then!’ Let him laugh to himself, that’s no matter, a man often laughs at what’s good and kind. That’s only from thoughtlessness. But I assure you, boys, that as he laughs he will say at once in his heart, ‘No, I do wrong to laugh, for that’s not a thing to laugh at.’ ”

Where is this from?

Fathima Rifqa Bary

UPDATE!!! The courts have ruled that Ohio has jurisdiction in Rifqa's case and she has been ordered to return to Ohio as soon as her father provides proper immigration papers - she is being ordered to undergo psychiatric evaluation.

For a few weeks now I have been following a remarkable story out of Florida regarding the case of the Fathima Rifqa Bary, a young 17 year old Christian girl who converted from Islam and fled from her native Ohio after her father threatened to kill her. She has been living in Florida under the care of a Protestant pastor and is afraid to return to Ohio because she truly believes that her father and her network of family there will carry out the traditional Islamic "honor killing" of one who has brought shame on their family (here's the original story from WND).

Prior to running away Rifqa was subject to violent beatings from here father, which her public school conveniently ignored. She would allegedly come to school full of bruises on her arms and legs from her father and brother and would be punched in the face by her father for failing to sit up straight in the traditional hijab, which she hated.

Rifqa converted to Christianity through the influence of Christians she met at her public school - on July 19th of 2009, she ran away from home and fled to Florida, to the custody of a pastor she met via Facebook. For the past several weeks her fate has been undecided; as Ohio has no emancipation laws, it seems likely that she will be forced to return top her family (Florida has such laws, but they require parental consent).

Fatgima Rifqa Bary's next hearing is scheduled for TODAY. Please pray for her, and if you feel so moved, contact the Florida state government at the information below and tell them to keep Fathima in the custody of the State of Florida.

Here's the contact info: Governor Charlie Crist's office: Phone: (850) 488-4441, (850) 488-7146; Fax: (850) 487-0801; Email: Charlie.Crist@MyFlorida.com; Florida Department of Children and Family: George H. Sheldon, Secretary1317 Winewood Blvd.Building 1, Room 202Tallahassee, Florida; Phone: (850) 487-1111; Fax: (850) 922-2993

Question on the Real Presence

Boniface-

Some time ago when I was in college I recall hearing a quote from St. Thomas which said that "Christ is not present in the Blessed Sacrament as to a place." This confused me, since I always thought Catholic teaching is that Christ is present physically in the Blessed Sacrament. Can you clarify this for me?

Before I begin with this, I want to say that I am not an expert in St. Thomas or Scholastic theology, so if this is a little off point I would appreciate any clarification - but I will answer to the best of my meager ability.

The statement of St. Thomas, I believe, is found in STh III, 76.5, where the question being discussed is Whether Christ's body is in this sacrament as in a place? St. Thomas' ultimate answer to the question is in the negative, and St. Thomas says "Christ's body is not in this sacrament as in a place."

This certainly can be confusing, and I think I may have heard of some evangelical Protestants haphazardly tossing around this phrase as some sort of "proof" that St. Thomas did not believe in the Real Presence as understood from time immemorial. Clearly Thomas believed no such thing (I would be hard pressed to believe that the composer of Adoro Te Devote, O Salutaris Hostia and Tantum Ergo disbelieved in the Real Presence); therefore we can I think safely and immediately rule out any interpretation that would impugn the fidelity of St. Thomas. The correct answer must be of a more technical and semantic nature.

Part of the problem with these sorts of questions is the imprecision with which we are used to speaking about the Blessed Sacrament. Even very orthodox Catholics sometimes use language that is improper when talking about the Sacrament. Sometime back, I was speaking about the Sacrament and used the terminology that the Lord was present "under the forms of bread and wine." My pastor, whose field of study was Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy, pulled me aside and said that this language was not acceptable due to the metaphysical implications of the word "form." He told me that I ought to only refer to the "species" of bread and wine, "the appearance" or bread and wine, or the "signs" of bread and wine, but never the forms. I am not astute enough at Aristotelian hylomorphism to grasp the subtleties implied by the word form, but the point is that precision of language is needed when dealing with the Sacrament (does anyone know what the issue with "form" is? If so, let me know).

In Article 5 of Question 76, St. Thomas proposes to answer the question of whether Christ is present in the sacrament as in a place. He has already established in the preceding articles that Christ is truly present in the species and in every particle of the species. Now he attempts to describe how Christ's presence in the sacrament (already asserted and assumed here) relates to the physical place in which the sacrament is consecrated locally.

The real question Thomas is getting at is whether, in the physical locale where any given Sacrament is consecrated or reserved, the Body of Jesus Christ can be said to fill that place. Here Thomas is drawing a distinction between the species themselves and the place occupied by the species. Clearly, the whole Christ is present in the sacred species, even to the smallest fragment (III, Q. 76, Art. 4.). So though it is certain that Christ's whole substance is contained in the sacred species, this is a different question from whether or not the physical place the sacred species occupy is filled by Christ. It is this latter question that St. Thomas answers in the negative.

Thomas notes that, "The place and the object placed must be equal, as is clear from the Philosopher (Phys. iv). But the place, where this sacrament is, is much less than the body of Christ. Therefore Christ's body is not in this sacrament as in a place." Since the particular place occupied by the species is less than Christ's body, it is not possible that a single place could encompass the whole Christ or be filled with it.

It is important to note that St. Thomas does not regard the sacred species as a "place", even though their accidents can be said to occupy space. St. Thomas would not say that Christ was present in the sacrament "physically", as we are accustomed to do, but would rather say that His mode of presence is according to substance, or that it is a sacramental presence. We'd better let him explain it:

I answer that, As stated above (1, ad 3; 3), Christ's body is in this sacrament not after the proper manner of dimensive quantity, but rather after the manner of substance. But every body occupying a place is in the place according to the manner of dimensive quantity, namely, inasmuch as it is commensurate with the place according to its dimensive quantity. Hence it remains that Christ's body is not in this sacrament as in a place, but after the manner of substance, that is to say, in that way in which substance is contained by dimensions; because the substance of Christ's body succeeds the substance of bread in this sacrament: hence as the substance of bread was not locally under its dimensions, but after the manner of substance, so neither is the substance of Christ's body. Nevertheless the substance of Christ's body is not the subject of those dimensions, as was the substance of the bread: and therefore the substance of the bread was there locally by reason of its dimensions, because it was compared with that place through the medium of its own dimensions; but the substance of Christ's body is compared with that place through the medium of foreign dimensions, so that, on the contrary, the proper dimensions of Christ's body are compared with that place through the medium of substance; which is contrary to the notion of a located body.

Somewhat intricate, but here is what he is getting at. If I say "My cat is on the counter," and if this in fact true, this means that the cat fully occupies the space at which it is present; it is present on the counter, whole and entire, and in such a way that excludes its presence anywhere else. If the cat is on the counter, this means is it necessarily not on the floor or on the bed. This is what it means for the cat to be present on the counter "as in a place." Yet this is not the way Christ is present in the Sacrament - if He were, it would not be possible for Him to be present on all the altars of the world, but only in one locally, just like during His earthly life we could say that He was present in Palestine "as to a place." Yet this is not the manner of His sacramental presence.

Christ's body is fully contained in the sacred species because of the relation of substance to dimension. Thomas notes that when the substance of our Lord succeeds the substance of bread, the accidents remain, but there is an important change: whereas the accidents of the bread are natural to the dimensive qualities of the substance of bread, the dimensive qualities of the Body of Christ are foreign to the accidents of bread (this could not exist in nature, and it is only miraculously that the accidents remain at all). Thus, though the species take up space according to their accidental properties, it cannot be said in anyway that the whole Christ is present locally in that space or that the space can contain Christ exclusively (inasmuch as what is contains is greater than that which is contained).

St. Thomas says in the same Question (III.76, 5):

Hence in no way is Christ's body locally in this sacrament... Christ's body is not in this sacrament definitively, because then it would be only on the particular altar where this sacrament is performed: whereas it is in heaven under its own species, and on many other altars under the sacramental species. Likewise it is evident that it is not in this sacrament circumscriptively, because it is not there according to the commensuration of its own quantity, as stated above. But that it is not outside the superficies of the sacrament, nor on any other part of the altar, is due not to its being there definitively or circumscriptively, but to its being there by consecration and conversion of the bread and wine, as stated above (1; 15, 2, sqq.).

What St. Thomas is arguing against here is any idea of a local presence which would exclude the possibility of His presence elsewhere, and he notes that this is due to the nature of Christ's presence in the sacred species. I admit I am a little muddled on the last sentence here, but I think I get the drift. So while Christ is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament, His real Presence is different from the presence He had upon earth, though both are "physical." His earthly presence was physical but also local, and the dimensive properties of his earthy body and its accidents were commensurate with the properties of His substance. In the Blessed Sacrament, Christ is present in a physical, literal manner but not locally or "circumspectly", as if He is present only upon one altar. The qualities of Christ's Body are foreign to the accidents of the bread, which is why a miracle is necessary to hold the accidents of the species in place while the substance of Christ succeeds the substance of bread. The species become His body by substance but cannot contain it locally because He is greater than any place.

I think this is what St. Thomas is getting at - can anyone offer any clarifications or correct me if I have gone astray here?

Click here for a link to III.76, 5

Sungenis Responds to Hahn

Here is the latest segment in an unfolding saga. Last time, Dr. Scott Hahn made a thorough and charitable response to me regarding his opinion concerning understanding the Holy Spirit in a feminine sense. I was mostly satisfied with his explanation and no longer intend to question him on the matter or cast doubt on his orthodoxy - I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that this is meant to be interpreted in the most orthodox manner possible (i.e., as a metaphor). But I still don't necessarily think it is a useful or prudent metaphor. Remember, even if the thesis is entirely orthodox, that does not mean it merits being promoted or applauded. There are propositions called suspecta de hæresi, errore (suspected of heresy or error) which the Catholic Encyclopedia defines as follows:

"Propositions thus noted may be correct in themselves, but owing to various circumstances of time, place, and persons are prudently taken to present a signification which is either heretical or erroneous."

One could therefore say that even if everything Hahn says is entirely valid, there is still a prudential reason for perhaps not going forward with this theory anymore, due not to any internal error with the propositions but with regards to "circumstances of time, place and persons"; i.e., what people at large will think Hahn is saying. Though Hahn has the best of intentions (and because of his over 20 year record of distinguished service to the Church, we ought to assume the best of intentions), his theory would be subject to immediate misinterpretation by many people less well informed and with less pure motives. The Gospel is always subject to misinterpretation, but a proposition that is suspecta de haeresi, errore is a propisition that invites misinterpretation by its very nature.

Furthermore, the encyclical of Pope Paul VI Mysterium Fidei said the following regarding safeguarding theological language:

"Once the integrity of the faith has been safeguarded, then it is time to guard the proper way of expressing it, lest our careless use of words give rise, God forbid, to false opinions regarding faith in the most sublime things" (MF 23).

This is an important point that is seldom brought up in the discussion. Not only is it important to maintain the truths of the Faith, but even the traditional language of the faith that expresses those truths ought to be guarded.

Please understand that this is not about Scott Hahn the man - I am trying to be very charitable and reasoned here, so as to avoid being accused of blasting or criticizing Dr. Hahn. All this is about his thesis, not Scott Hahn the man. I respect Scott Hahn greatly and admire the work he has done for the Church and for how his work has affected my own personal faith.

Another man I greatly respect, Dr. Robert Sungenis, has made a lengthy reply to Dr. Hahn's response, posted on my blog last week. As you read this, please note that it was originally given in a private email and wasn't submitted as an article or post, so please give Dr. Sungenis some leeway before criticizing him - (how would your email conversations fare if subject to critique?) That being said, this is a pretty good response for an email - it was sent to me by a reader, and I'm taking the liberty of assuming that Dr. Sungenis will not mind me posting it [UPDATE: Dr. Sungenis has since given his explicit permission to post the following response].

Dr. Sungenis' response to Dr. Hahn will be in blue (my comments in red):

I think Hahn defended himself about as good as he could, but there still remains some problems, as you will see below. Perhaps it was all a big misunderstanding [Which I think is probably the source of most of the controversy on this topic]. Only Hahn knows for sure, because only he knows what he really believes about this issue. I had always found it difficult to gauge just how much Hahn was attributing by means of metaphors to the Holy Spirit as opposed to how much he was singling out the Holy Spirit as the only person of the Trinity to have these feminine characteristics. In fact, in reading his explanation, I’m still somewhat unclear as to the where he stands.

I think it is easy to grant to Hahn that he is not saying the Holy Spirit is feminine in the sense of having a feminine gender [Right - which is the most important point and what everybody is agreed upon]. I think that goes without saying. But I think he is saying, of all the persons of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is the one to whom we can attribute feminine characteristics. The problem lies, however, in just how Hahn attributes these feminine characteristics. Is Hahn saying that they are ontologically based in the substance of the Holy Spirit? If so, then it seems that feminine characteristics are part and parcel with the being of the Holy Spirit, even if one claims that the same Holy Spirit is not feminine in regards to gender.

On the other hand, is Hahn merely saying that if we were to see feminine characteristics somewhere in the Trinity then the Holy Spirit would be the best candidate to exhibit them (even though the Father and the Son are sometimes seen in light of feminine characteristics as well)? Again, I’m not sure what he is saying at this point. In what way is the Holy Spirit, in Hahn’s view, distinct from the Father and the Son with regard to feminine characteristics?

If Hahn’s whole thesis is merely saying that the Holy Spirit is preponderantly pictured as having what we normally understand as “feminine” or “motherly” actions toward human beings or toward the other two persons of the Trinity, perhaps there is not much cause for much alarm [I think personally that this is closest to the truth]. But if in some way these feminine aspects of the Holy Spirit that Hahn wants to emphasize are ontologically based wherein the Holy Spirit is now distinguished from the Father and Son because of them, then I believe we have a serious problem, for we are out of the realm of mere metaphors and into the substance of the Godhead.

Hahn’s quote of Cardinal Ratzinger, which states: "Because of the teaching about the Spirit, one can as it were practically have a presentiment of the primordial type of the feminine, in a mysterious, veiled manner, within God himself,” is troublesome for me. First, I don’t know precisely what the cardinal is trying to say, for the language is very obtuse, at least not without some more context to flesh it out.

The use of “as it were” seems to make Ratzinger’s imagery merely a hypothetical suggestion rather than a confirmed teaching. Also, I have a hard time wrapping myself around the clause “a presentiment of the primordial type of the feminine.” A presentiment is a foreboding of something bad, so how that fits with promoting the idea of a “primordial type of the feminine” I don’t know. Perhaps the English translation is bad.

Lastly, when we speak of “primordial” we are commonly talking about the beginning, and more specifically, the prototype to whatever is subsequent. But here again is where one might see a slippage into the ontological, since a “primordial” feminine would have to mean that it came before anything subsequent, existing as such for all eternity [That would present a problem...]. Again, I see a confusion here between ontology and metaphors. All in all, the clause “a presentiment of the primordial type of the feminine…within God himself” is much too vague and ambiguous a sentence to use as support for Hahn’s theory [suspecta de haeresi, errore?]. Hahn needs to first unwrap what Ratzinger is really saying before it can be commandeered as a support.

As for the Catechism at para. 370, I don’t think this offers Hahn much help for the simple fact that it is not singling out the Holy Spirit but is speaking of the Godhead in toto.

The quote from St. Aphrahat is certainly interesting, but not any real support, since Aphrahat is merely expressing in poetical style his affection for the Holy Spirit as his “mother.” Obviously, Aphrahat is not saying the Holy Spirit IS a mother, so it must be metaphorical. If Hahn is going to use Aphrahat as a support for his thesis (whatever that thesis is), he would have to show Aphrahat having a fully thought-out theology of the Holy Spirit in which the “motherly” aspects he writes in devotion can be transferred into a theological understanding of the Holy Spirit as distinguished from the Father and Son. From what I know and have read of Aphrahat, there is no such thought-out theology. Logically, if there is no other statement from Aphrahat that speaks of the Holy Spirit in feminine or motherly characteristics, we may be doing him a disservice by appealing to him as a progenitor of Hahn’s thesis. This is especially true in light of the fact that the Eastern Fathers had a tendency to use rich and flowery language in their theological descriptions, much more than the Western Fathers did. (There is actually a specific word for this type of Eastern writing, but I can’t remember what it is) [Hymnography?]

Hence, it is no surprise to me that all of the ancient witnesses that Hahn can garner to his aid (however minimal they may be), are all Easterners, and all use the same type of ornate imagery common among Easterners. As regards to doctrine, the Easterners wouldn’t be bothered by this ornate language, since, from what I can see, they confined these rich descriptions to their hymns and prayers, not their doctrinal stances. Granted, our motto is lex orendi, lex credendi, but still, prayers have much more of a poetical license than strict doctrinal formulations.

Kolbe’s use of the phrase “uncreated Immaculate Conception” and “quasi-incarnation of the Holy Spirit” in reference to the Blessed Virgin is also troublesome. First, Kolbe was sainted not for his theological knowledge but because of his impeccable life, so he really shouldn’t be esteemed as a “theologian of unimpeachable orthodoxy,” in the sense that whatever Kolbe said in the theological realm is “unimpeachable.” [This is a point that deserves to be weighted carefully - just because someone is a saint, even of unimpeachable orthodoxy, does not mean their teachings are authoritative, especially if we consider why they were sainted. When we consider martyrs like St. Thomas Becket, St. Isaac Jogues or St. Thomas More, we can see their sanctity bound up with their witness for the Faith, but no one goes around citing their writings as the basis for doctrinal claims. Is Kolbe in this category as well?]

Second, the Church has never used such vague and ambiguous language of the Holy Spirit, not even close [Remember Paul VI on guarding traditional language?]. What is a “quasi-incarnation”? Either one is incarnated or one is not. There is no in-between state. This kind of terminology only creates confusion; it doesn’t clear up anything. Likewise, “uncreated Immaculate Conception” is Kolbe’s invention, since it certainly wasn’t used by anyone in Catholic history. If we don’t draw these solid lines around how we describe the Holy Spirit, the whole enterprise becomes a shell game of word meanings and implications [This has been the problem with this whole debate since the beginning - figuring out exactly what is being implied]. This ought not to be. When we speak of the Holy Spirit we must be as precise as humanly possible. Metaphors about feminine and motherly characteristic may be good in prayers and homilies, but certainly not in doctrinal formulations.

For the same reason, the quote from Edith Stein is also troubling. Here we have use of what seems to be an ontological categorization of the Holy Spirit (in distinction to the Father and Son) by her use of “prototype.” She says “Thus we can see the prototype of the feminine being in the Spirit of God.” Once again, if Edith Stein were a noted and decorated pneumatologist for the Catholic Church, we might take pause and give her words some weight, even if they seemed to run counter to traditional descriptions of the Holy Spirit. But Edith Stein, saint or not, was not recognized for her insights on pneumatology, but for her impeccable life in service to God. Thus, she is not an authority on this subject, and certainly not one to support a major thesis such as the one Hahn is promoting. Edith Stein simply had no thought-out theology of the Holy Spirit to even be considered a support for Hahn’s thesis. Proof-texting from Stein, or anyone else for that matter, is simply not enough.

As for Scheeben, he is merely using an analogy when he says "As the mother is the bond of love between father and child, so in God the Holy Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and the Son." Whether Scheeben would want to be categorized as supporting Hahn’s thesis (and again, I’m not sure what that thesis really is), remains to be seen. Hahn is certainly not going to prove that Scheeben is on his side by extracting a mere analogy from his writings.

I also have problem with the use of the quote: "As Eve can, in a figurative sense, be called simply the rib of Adam... St. Methodius goes so far as to assert that the Holy Spirit is the rib of the Word (costa Verbi)." Once again, we have another Easterner (Methodius) using ornate language. Westerners did not use this language, and even many Easterners were cautious about using it, especially those who were the articulators of Catholic doctrine on the Trinity (Athanasius). Moreover, Hahn gives us no context for Methodius’ assertion (e.g., was this a prayer or a doctrinal formulation?), nor does he explain what precisely Methodius means by such a strange mixed metaphor as “rib of the Word.” In a way, Methodius’ phrase is non-sensical, and it certainly has no support from any other patristic writer.

As for “R. Garrigou-Lagrange, OP; L. Bouyer; J. Kentenich; B. Ashley, OP; Cardinal Y. Congar (Tradition & Traditions, pp. 372-75); F.X. Durrwell; A. Feuillet; H.M. Manteau-Bonamy, OP” supporting “this notion,” I don’t know what “notion” Hahn is referring to. If these eminent theologians are supporting Hahn’s thesis, then he would do himself a service, and us as well, to show specifically what they are saying as support. At this point, I don’t know anything in their writings that is supportive. I think it is safe to say that, if there was supporting argumentation that was clear and concise, Hahn would have excerpted quotes from their books just as he did with, say, Kolbe or Methodius [Good point]. At this point in the controversy, Hahn cannot hold up mere source citations as support. He must dig deep into these theologians and draw out the specific evidence. This is his thesis. It behooves him to do the homework.

As for Catherine LaCugna’s objections to accepting feminine traits attached to the Holy Spirit for fear of further subordination of women, Hahn needs to show that this lone opinion is the consensus among Catholic feminists. I haven’t done any research on this particular angle of the argument myself, but I can imagine that there are a significant portion of Catholic feminists who applaud the idea that the Holy Spirit is considered feminine, in distinction to the Father and Son. What more basis can one have for Catholic feminism than the fact that God, in some sense, is feminine? This would make Eve much more than a rib appendage from Adam, for she would be an appendage from the Holy Spirit which only used Adam as the vehicle!

I think these are all fair critiques from Sungenis. Any comment on them? Regardless of what you may think of Sungenis or geocentrism, this seems to be a pretty balanced critique. Basically he seems to be saying that Hahn's explanations still give room for ambiguity and that, even if everything is on the up-and-up, this idea is simply too novel and subject to misinterpretation; i.e., it could be technically true but still confusing and very imprudent to promulgate. Any thoughts?

Homeschooling

I am blessed to be part of a wonderful homeschool co-op that operates out of our parish and works with about 65 students. These students meet on a two ir three day per week schedule, six hours each day, and learn things that most college students never pick up. Logic, Latin, philosophy, biology, history, art, schola, theology and Scripture studies - everything necessary for the development of a well-balanced Catholic person. There is a healthy emphasis on the tradition of the Church in establishing Catholic identity, and liturgy and Catholic spirituality are fully integrated into the life of the students. It has been a truly wonderful experience to be identified with this program, and I am constantly amazed at the advanced level of cognitive achievement these kids reach. I can't imagine the Headmaster would oppose me promoting the program, so if you are curious, you can view their website here.

I bring this up because I believe that wherever you see the Catholic life being lived and the Church being restored, there you will find homeschoolers right in the midst of it. I am not denying that public and private school families also contribute to this, but I think it is fair to say that if you take parishes where orthodoxy is established, liturgy is reverent and Eucharistic devotion is practiced, you will see strong homeschooling communities. This has been my experience in southeast Michigan over the past ten years - is this what you people out there notice as well? Is a vibrant parish life concomitant with homeschooling in most situations you have witnessed?

The late Fr. John Hardon, SJ, who in my neck of the woods is already revered as a saint, made a similar observation when he said, "In my judgment, homeschooling is absolutely necessary for the survival of the Catholic Church in our country." While I originally saw homeschooling as more of a preferable option among many valid educational choices, I now see it as more essential to the preservation of Catholic identity. Sure, we may send our kids through public schools or private schools and have them maintain the Faith, but I think it is homeschooling that best way (and perhaps currently the only way) to maintain not only the Faith but the Catholic culture and community that goes with the Faith wherever a true "inculturation" has taken place.

I think we could say then that the renewal of the Church is intimately connected with the growth of Catholic homeschooling - 15,000 in 1970 to near 2.7 million in 2007. Part of this increase, I think, is due to a renewed emphasis in recent times by the Church of the "primary duty" of the parents as main educators of their children. This gave Catholic parents the pastoral support and impetus they needed to encourage their choice in homeschooling (since in most places, there was no support from diocesan or parochial officials). The following statement from Familiaris Consortio is the foundational principle of the Catholic homeschooling movement:

The right and duty of parents to give education is essential, since it is connected with the transmission of human life; it is original and primary with regard to the educational role of others, on account of the uniqueness of the loving relationship between parents and children; and it is irreplaceable and inalienable, and therefore incapable of being entirely delegated to others or usurped by others (FC, 36).

The drastic rise of homeschooling in the Catholic Church is one of the surest signs of renewal, and wherever homeschooling is encouraged you will find orthodoxy, morality, intellectual growth and the blossoming of vocations. Besides being intrinsically better than public schooling from an academic point of view, it is an essential tool in the building up of the Church.