Retribution at Walter Reed

From the Army Times: Walter Reed patients told to keep quiet. Steps taken to make it harder for them to speak to media.

The SSPX and the Latin Mass

Interview with SSPX Bishop Fellay; another with Archbishop Malcom Ranjith; another from a Mexican newspaper.

A major problem with any talk of reconciliation with the SSPX is its hostility to Jews, ecumenism,  and religious liberty. If these are not addressed openly … there will be problems.

On Closing a Parish

dotCommonweal reports that Cardinal Egan called a priest to his office; while he was there, the Cardinal sent security guards to change the locks on the church of which he was administrator.

New York Post tells the story:

“This church has been here for 102 years. We’re supposed to have a 12:15 p.m. Mass today and people were turned away crying,” said the church’s secretary, who gave only her first name, Joy.

“I find this unconscionable.”

Egan’s sneak attack came just days after The Post revealed that Lithuania’s president had written a letter asking that he reverse a plan to close Our Lady of Vilnius on Broome Street, originally founded to serve natives of his country.

It also comes on the heels of his abrupt closure of an East Harlem church after parishioners there staged a one-day sit-in that ended in six arrests, and after two similar trespassing arrests at a Yonkers church that was being closed.

“It seems to be a vindictive act,” said Ramute Zukas, president of the local chapter of the Lithuanian-American Community Inc., who has coordinated efforts to keep Our Lady of Vilnius open.

Egan’s spokesman last week had said that although the small church was slated to close – because of dwindling attendance, a crumbling roof and the fact that Mass no longer was being offered in Lithuanian – no closing date had been set.

But yesterday, Egan summoned the Rev. Eugene Sawicki to his Madison Avenue office at 9 a.m., and told him “the closure is effective immediately,” said archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling.

Even as that meeting with the pastor was occurring, three security guards were changing the locks on the parish doors and preventing anyone from entering.

Basic facts confirmed by Archdiocese of New York press release.

The parish of Our Lady of Vilnius was closed today. Father Eugene Sawicki, Administrator of the parish, was informed at a meeting that the closure is effective immediately. …

Appropriate steps have been taken to secure and safeguard the church and other parish buildings.

When in Rome …

A new exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural Science: Imperial Rome. I went to the media preview last week; the lines were long at the buffet and the bar (with men (and women!) in Roman soldier costumes roaming the area), so my son and I went straight to the exhibit.

Lots of busts of emperors, statues and figurines of various gods, household items (including a full sized dining area), trade goods, and items related to death. Good explanations of most items.

Houston Chronicle reports here and here. Museum webpage. Photos.

Walter Reed’s Shame

I spent two and a half months at Walter Reed twenty years ago. Yikes, how time flies! Now, the place is in the news for scandalous warehousing of combat veterans.

Another example of stupidity on the part of civilian bureacrats who didn’t count the cost before going to war? Partly.

Yet this kind of thing happened then, too, though on a smaller scale. What do you do with soldiers who can’t stay in the hospital, but aren’t quite ready to go back to their unit, or are awaiting discharge paperwork? You put them in a holding company. And they sit around bored–day after boring day after boring day.

Did You Hear the One about the Church Signs?

What did one church sign say to the other?

See here.

Adventists and Ash Wednesday

Julius has a post that leads to interesting discussion at ProgressiveAdventism.com.

When Your Mother Reads Your Blog …

She calls you up when you haven’t posted for three days to wonder if you’re out of town. I’ve simply been busy with work and other things, and when on-line I’ve been updating The Oak Tree and my other webpages.

One thing I can say about this week: I gave a talk Sunday at a local masjed (mosque) on Muslim/Christian understanding, using some positive stories from the Middle Ages as examples. It was a 30 minute talk to a class of 70 people, followed by an hour of discussion, then more discussion over lunch and afterwards. I got home at 3. It was a great conversation, and yet another reminder of why I cannot heed the “prophets of gloom” who think every Muslim a possible terrorist.

MS Expression Web

OK, I downloaded and tried out Expression Web.

If you’re starting from scratch, get it.

If you have a large existing webpage–forget it. It will not easily convert it. It will tell you about all kinds of errors due to changes of HTML terminology (font, align, border, etc., are all gone; all pictures must have an “alt.”).

If you seek to reorganize your files (e.g., move all images to an “image” folder), it will not make the corresponding changes in the pages (as FrontPage does). It will not automatically correct relative URLs.

Oh, what a headache this has all been, discovering these problems. So I’ve uninstalled Expression Web and will stick with FrontPage.

Update:

I’ve discovered that I can solve most of the problems by exploiting some of the features of FrontPage 2003 that I hadn’t gotten into using. I’ve had some fun revamping the layout of a couple of my pages: The Oak Tree and The Crowther Connection.

Cardinal Pell on Global Warming

Keeping a cool head amid warming hysteria.

The C. S. Lewis Battle

Christianity Today has a summary of old arguments over an unpublished C. S. Lewis manuscript. Bottom line: The Dark Tower may be bad, but it is Lewis’s work, pace Kathryn Lindskoog.

The Talmud in Song

“Musical comedy designed to demystify Jewish tradition.”

Bruce Metzger, RIP

Bruce Metzger has died at 93.

“War–What It Is Good For”

Sensible commentary by Jonathan Turley in USA Today, jumping on negative reaction to a December 11, 2006, column in Washington Post by Brigid Schulte, What the Birthday Boy Wants: A War, about a birthday party for her 8 year old son, Liam, which had a World War 2 theme. Some parents refused to send their kids; some readers sent in letters saying she was awful. Turley reminds us that war is sometmies the price of freedom, and to say that it is always immoral is itself immoral.

Web tools

AOL got me started on the internet, and my first webpage was done with AOL’s Personal Publisher. Next came AOL Press.

Then I started using the FrontPage Express that came with my first computer. Then I bought FrontPage ‘98, and upgraded through 2000, 2002 and 2003.

Now MicroSoft is discontinuing FrontPage in favor of Expression Web. I’ve downloaded the trial, and will give it a shot.

Healthy Dioceses

Dom has some good thoughts about the Crisis  magazine report about so-called “healthy dioceses,” linking to some responses the Crisis solicited. Dom highlights, and so do I, this comment by Russell Shaw:

Consider: Of the three criteria used in ranking sees, two (priestly morale and priestly vocations) concern clerics, while the third (“effective evangelization”) refers to newcomers to the Church. None reflects the situation of the great majority of Catholics—the longtime lay faithful. Casual readiness to disbelieve, as manifested by the moviegoer quoted above, is typical of an alienated, marginalized, and apparently large segment of this mass. But the laity doesn’t make it into the special report.

Bridge to Terabithia

Christianity Today interviews Katherine Paterson about the upcoming film of her classic children’s book, Bridge to Terabithia. When I was a Lutheran pastor in Montpelier, Vermont, her husband, John, was pastor of the Presbyterian Church in neighboring Barre. I had breakfast with her once; it was a Good Friday ecumenical breakfast at her husband’s church, and I was the preacher.

Nooma.

What’s a Nooma?

The Bishops and Public Policy

Speakers debate U.S. bishops’ role in addressing U.S. social policy. Unfortunately, no one addressed the really important issue–Did not the bishops in their economic and other pastorals overstep, and intrude into the domain of the lay apostolate?

Free Pancakes at IHOP

Free short stack at IHOP a week from today on what they call National Pancake Day ( in parentheses they say, “also known as Mardi Gras, or Shrove Tuesday”).

All we ask is that you consider making a donation to support local children’s hospitals through Children’s Miracle Network, or other local charities.

Divergent views

Liberal Seventh-day Adventist Johnny Ramirez, writing at the Spectrum Blog (associated with the liberal Association of Adventist Forums), is shocked at the “divergent views on the abortion debate” being advanced by “Amazing Facts,” a long established Adventist apologetics organization. They are speaking in “opposition to well respected Adventist perspectives,” he says. Now I find it incredibly ironic that Spectrum, of all publications, would have a problem with novelty. That publication thrives on the novel, and lives to tweak the nose of the Adventist church. It represents the voice of the wannabee Episcopalians in Adventism.

What’s the problem here? “The Bible teaches pro-life, they say, and abortion is a serious sin.” This is the scandalous views, Ramirez says, Amazing Facts is presenting. He quotes a statement from 1992 to support his liberal view, as well as an article by Loma Linda ethicist James Walters (who egregiously misrepresents the philosophical perspective of personalism and distorts Cardinal Joseph Bernardin) .

Walters’ position is horrifying. He says,

To these philosophies, the life being considered is either black or white; it is either without moral status or it has full moral status. But given our modern knowledge, human life is much more like a rheostat: it begins with a flicker, swells to fullness, then dims to nothing in death. The proximate personhood is rheostat-like. It is a common-sense position. It takes its intellectual content from personhood thinking, but listens to the intuitions of physicalism.

Proximate personhood suggests that the greater the proximity or nearness of the individual to that of undisputed personhood—such as you or I have—the greater the individual’s moral status.

It’s a rheostat? To be turned up and down? So “the individual’s moral status” can be turned down as they get older. Or infirm. Or a burden. I shudder to read this.

Adventist hospitals have always been iffy propositions. Adventists established them out of respect for human life. But then the most prominent Adventist physician, John Harvey Kellogg, started teaching pantheistic philosophy, and wrested Battle Creek Sanitarium from denominational control; some in leading positions in the Adventist college in Battle Creak supported him. Today, Adventist hospitals are performing abortions and experiments on infants (remember Baby Fae, who got the baboon heart?), and ethicists and theologians at the more liberal Adventist universities are justifying these policies. I can’t imagine Ellen White approving.

The Vagina Monologues

This is the time of year when Eve Ensler’s play, The Vagina Monologues, is read on many college campuses around the country. The Cardinal Newman Society has made a name for itself by protesting those Catholic college campuses where it is read.

Some comments on the subject: Paul Cat and Christina Dehan are against it, “Sr. Mary Eve” writes at Busted Halo in favor of it.

I stopped by Barnes and Noble today and read the play.

I am left wondering what the fuss is about, and why there is so much outrage.

The play is a series of monologues based on interviews that Eve Ensler did with a wide range of women: old, young, straight, lesbian, etc. She asked them to talk about their vagina–something that they didn’t normally talk about. She got them to open up with all sorts of powerful stories. Guess what? Not all of them reflect pure Catholic moral theology. But they do reflect the real human condition. And I conclude it is right and proper to use a text like this as a jumping off point. If a moral theology cannot have a discussion based on the real human condition, with all its joys, sorrows, fears, hurts, sins of omission and sins of commission, is such a theology Catholic?

Why so much anger about this play? It isn’t advocating rape, or lesbianism, or anything else. It is advocating encouraging women to speak. It is advocating that we listen.

If this was a play based on interviews with men, would we hear the same level of outrage? I don’t think so. Because we’re more used to hearing men talk about such things–if just in the locker room.

The Dixie Who?

A group that got a Grammy may be gloating … but I don’t know who’s playing their music. I haven’t heard a single song of theirs on the air since they made rude and insulting comments about our president and our nation in a foreign country.

“The Day of the Dolphin”

Navy training dolphins for anti-terrorism?

Accents

I’ve lived so many places I can fake almost any accent. But it looks, according to this quiz, like my many years in Northern Illinois (5th grade through high school) were determinative.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North   You may think you speak “Standard English straight out of the dictionary” but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like “Are you from Wisconsin?” or “Are you from Chicago?” Chances are you call carbonated drinks “pop.”
The Midland
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The South
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Houston.

Houston means one thing in the minds of much of the world–NASA.

And NASA is an important part of the Houston community. When NASA suffers a tragedy, it isn’t just a headline from far away, it is something that hits this city in multiple ways.

Lisa Nowak, subject of much water cooler joking, is a member of St. Clare of Assisi Catholic Church. Her pastor, Fr. Dominic Pistone, was interviewed by the Houston Chronicle.

Futility?

fu·til·i·ty (fyū-tĭl‘ĭ-tē)
n., pl. -ties.

1. The quality of having no useful result; uselessness.
2. Lack of importance or purpose; frivolousness.
3. A futile act.

Clint Eastwood says he made his Iwo Jima movies to show the futility of war. He says he wanted to show we are all the same.

Perhaps Mr. Eastwood didn’t pay attention to the stories he was telling.

First, there was something very different in the character of our soldiers. Our soldiers didn’t commit suicide — even though they knew the kinds of atrocities that were sure to be inflicted upon them if they fell into Japanese hands.

Second, there was something very different in the reasons we fought; if we can speak of futility, it was on the part of the Japanese. They grasped at empire, and saw merely the eventual destruction of their young men and of many of their major cities, and saw their homeland occupied. We, on the other hand, fought against that empire that sought to enslave much of the world–and our sacrifices were the price of freedom. It’s the price we were willing to pay. That isn’t “futility.” I’ve heard no World War II veteran speak in this way, especially those who were in the Pacific. Their complaint, rather, is that people like Eastwood don’t get it, and that younger generations have forgotten.

If younger generations forget that our freedom has a price, if they forget to honor those who sacrificed their lives for them, then, and only then, would they have died in vain.

“Hart’s War”

I stumbled onto the 2002 film Hart’s War while flipping channels today. It starts off well enough, a story of racism in the army in World War 2, with a court martial being conducted by American military personnel in a German POW camp. We eventually learn that there is more going on here than it appears. The presiding officer knows full well the defendant didn’t murder the victim–he did–because the victim was a German informant who was likely to give away their escape plans. The court martial is a ruse to distract the Germans while the Americans escape to do some damage at a nearby plant. So far so good. But the movie falls apart at the end in an “I’m Spartacus!” moment that seems designed just to make everyone a hero. I’ve never been so frustrated at the end of a movie. “You led me all this way … for this?!“

Justification

Paul McCain links to a post at Concordia blog about justification. He’s worried about things he hears within Lutheranism:

I’ve been growing more and more concerned by articles and comments in Lutheran publications that wax on about the Incarnation but do not mention the Atonement, or articles that talk about “the real presence of Jesus” or “union with Christ” but fail to say a word about the forgiveness of sins and the atonement and justification. There is too often a skip step done from the Incarnation of Christ to our baptism. To what extent do we still understand and confess that justification is the chief article?

In the discussion at Concordia, McCain adds his thoughts about problems he sees with the 1997 Joint Declaration between the Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation (his denomination, the LCMS, is not a member of the LWF and was not a signatory to the JD).

This provides an opportunity to turn again to this subject. I think McCain is right on–even those who say that justification is important (and that should be all Christians) too often relegate it to a back seat.

For some background, let me again give some summary points of what the Vatican and the LWF agreed to when they signed the Joint Declaration, the Common Statement, and the Annex. The latter two documents are essential companions to the first, and provide the context for a true interpretation of the accord. Some argued at the time, and have claimed since, that the Vatican distanced itself from the JD. This is false. The Common Statement ends: “By this act of signing The Catholic Church and The Lutheran World Federation confirm the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in its entirety.” The Vatican affirms that the prior condemnations of the Catholic Church no longer apply to Lutheran teachings–insofar as those teachings are understood as explained in the JD.

The heart of the common agreement is this:

Together we confess: By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works. (JD 15, Annex 2).

And here are some other points:

… We confess together that God forgives sin by grace and at the same time frees human beings from sin’s enslaving power….

Yet we would be wrong were we to say that we are without sin (1 Jn l:8-10, cf. JD 28). “All of us make many mistakes” (Jas 3:2). “Who is aware of his unwitting sins? Cleanse me of many secret faults“ (Ps. 19:12). And when we pray, we can only say, like the tax collector, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (Lk 18:13). This is expressed in a variety of ways in our liturgies. Together we hear the exhortation “Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions” (Rom 6:12). This recalls to us the persisting danger which comes from the power of sin and its action in Christians. To this extent, Lutherans and Catholics can together understand the Christian as simul justus et peccator, despite their different approaches to this subject as expressed in JD 29-30.

Justification takes place “by grace alone” (JD 15 and 16), by faith alone, the person is justified “apart from works” (Rom 3:28, cf. JD 25). “Grace creates faith not only when faith begins in a person but as long as faith lasts” (Thomas Aquinas, S. Th.II/II 4, 4 ad 3).The working of God’s grace does not exclude human action: God effects everything, the willing and the achievement, therefore, we are called to strive (cf. Phil 2:12 ff). “As soon as the Holy Spirit has initiated his work of regeneration and renewal in us through the Word and the holy sacraments, it is certain that we can and must cooperate by the power of the Holy Spirit…” (The Formula of Concord, FC SD II,64f; BSLK 897,37ff).

Grace as fellowship of the justified with God in faith, hope and love is always received from the salvific and creative work of God (cf. JD 27). But it is nevertheless the responsibility of the justified not to waste this grace but to live in it. The exhortation to do good works is the exhortation to practice the faith (cf. BSLK 197,45). The good works of the justified “should be done in order to confirm their call, that is, lest they fall from their call by sinning again” (Apol. XX,13, BSLK 316,18-24; with reference to 2 Pet. 1:10. Cf. also FC SD IV,33; BSLK 948,9-23). In this sense Lutherans and Catholics can understand together what is said about the “preservation of grace” in JD 38 and 39. Certainly, “whatever in the justified precedes or follows the free gift of faith is neither the basis of justification nor merits it” (JD 25). …

The doctrine of justification is measure or touchstone for the Christian faith. No teaching may contradict this criterion. In this sense, the doctrine of justification is an “indispensable criterion which constantly serves to orient all the teaching and practice of our churches to Christ” (JD l8).

This statement unfolds what is the heart of the Christian claim–that salvation is found in Jesus Christ. It treats of the central mystery of the Christian gospel. It speaks to the reality of who and what we are as Christians. The doctrine of justification isn’t one abstract doctrine among others, but is the key teaching that permeates everything, and judges everything, questioning whether what we are saying and doing proclaims Jesus Christ.

And yet how often is this ignored? Overlooked? Buried under a weight of busywork and hobby horses? How much attention have any of us given to this agreement over the past ten years?

It isn’t like we have to set aside a special day to remember it or to talk about it. This just means putting the focus on Jesus Christ, and his free gift, in everything we do.

It means highlighting readings like those we had today:

Jer 17:5-8

Thus says the LORD:
Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings,
who seeks his strength in flesh,
whose heart turns away from the LORD.
He is like a barren bush in the desert
that enjoys no change of season,
but stands in a lava waste,
a salt and empty earth.
Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose hope is the LORD.
He is like a tree planted beside the waters
that stretches out its roots to the stream:
it fears not the heat when it comes;
its leaves stay green;
in the year of drought it shows no distress,
but still bears fruit.

1 Cor 15:12, 16-20

Brothers and sisters:
If Christ is preached as raised from the dead,
how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?
If the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised,
and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain;
you are still in your sins.
Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
If for this life only we have hoped in Christ,
we are the most pitiable people of all.

But now Christ has been raised from the dead,
the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Our hope is in Christ, who had died for our sins and been raised from the dead. In him we put our trust, not in men.

Lk 6:17, 20-26 gives us Luke’s sermon on the plain, and we hear the same message–Christ preaches good news to those who have nothing: the poor, the hungry, the weeping, those hated or reviled. In him they have riches and joy and are filled and receive their justification.

This is the Gospel. This is why the Church exists, to proclaim this good news to all. That’s what we and the Lutherans agreed to in 1997. This isn’t something to divide the Church, but something that unites the Church.

Do we hear it? Do we preach it? Or are we troubled with other things?

Young Adult Catholics–frozen in time?

New book summarizes old research, and so gives rise a new book tour, and articles in the media. American Catholics Today: New Realities of Their Faith and Their Church is a rehashing of Gallup data from 1987, 1993, 1999 and 2005. The article makes lots of claims about young adult Catholics, but I for one am taking it with a grain of salt.

First, are these self-identified Catholics or Catholic that actually get to church sometimes? Should we consider them Catholics, or unchurched?

Second, the authors seem to assume that the ideas of teens and young adults in their twenties are frozen in time, and are a good predictor of what they will do and believe in the future.

“There’s a disconnect between them and the institutional church,” said Davidson. “And when they get older, they are not going to be like the Catholics of previous generations. They are going to be the Catholics they are now.”

I don’t see how they can say that. Young adulthood is always a time of challenge and questioning and of trying out new ideas. The oldest of the cohort they are trying to pin down are just now in their late twenties. Let’s wait another ten or fifteen years–then I think they can be compared to other generations. If you want to compare them, compare them to those who were in their 20s ten or twenty or thirty or forty years ago.

Dean Hoge, a liberal Presbyterian, continues to raise his own concerns about a younger generation of priests that is more conservative. I’ve heard him speak, and it seems to me he’s letting his own personal views influence him on this point. He seems to me to want the Church to look like his denomination. In person, his antipathy toward young orthodox priests is palpable, and much of it hinges on the point of how they view the priesthood.

Hoge said the disconnect might be exacerbated by the fact that the young diocesan priests who will serve the millennial generation are moving in the opposite direction, becoming more strict about some church teachings and more likely to adhere to the “cultic” model of priesthood as a man set apart than to the “servant-leader model” favored by the majority of older priests.

For example, while 94 percent of priests 35 or younger said they believe ordination confers “a permanent character making (the priest) essentially different from the laity,” only 70 percent of priests ages 56-65 said that. Asked whether the church “needs to move faster in empowering laypeople in ministry,” 86 percent of the priests ages 56-65 and 54 percent of the youngest priests agreed.

The point about what priests believe about the priesthood says something different to me. It says seminaries have done their job, and produced a generation of priests who know what the Church teaches, and who believe it themselves!

Another point on methodology. The article says “The margin of error was plus or minus 9 percentage points.” That’s a huge margin of error! How can they speak in such dogmatic terms about a period of life that is in flux, with a margin of error this large!

Young adult Catholics see the church as having “no credibility, no plausibility, no authority,” he added.

Some do, to be granted. But how many? He gives no numbers. And if he did, we could add or substract 9 points. And then we’d have to ask whether these are Catholics that go to mass, even for Christmas and Easter and weddings and funerals. Others see something different; yes, there are young adult Catholics who are unchurched and many who are “churched” who are uncatechized (lots of blame to go around there). But there is a core of young adult Catholics who are faithful, and who will make a difference. They’re already making a difference, as even this survey shows when it talks about younger priests. Let’s not write off young Catholics; let’s not write off even those who may not be professing the Catholic faith or living in accord with it today. Their story isn’t finished yet, and there are signs of hope. I see these signs every day.

See comments from Christina.