Catholics and the Old Testament

Richard J. Clifford, S.J., writes in America–and as is usual in many magazines and newspapers, the headline writer seems not to have read the article (it refers to “Hebrew Bible,” while Clifford gives reasons why he thinks there’s no problem with “Old Testament”).

Andrew Sullivan’s “Race Card”

Andrew Sullivan applauds “young evangelicals.” “They get it – and the message of the Gospels,” he says (meaning he thinks “the Gospels” are in favor of gay marriage).

But then comes the racial angle:

“Black evangelicals are another matter. There is, alas, no ethnic community as homophobic in America as African-Americans. Which is why the ballot initiative in California could be close.”

Free Speech 2 Hours a Week–with Permit

Yuba Community College District ignores First Amendment. Photo.

Here is the college’s policy page.

There and Back Again

A whirlwind trip today to Dallas and back. Had a meeting in Alvarado, then went to Keene to see my son (who seems to be enjoying college).

“Whether You Like It Or Not!”

San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom doesn’t like it–his flip comments about gay marriage are coming back to haunt him in an ad supporting Proposition 8. But Newsom was the one who made this an issue.

Leshanah tovah tikateiv veteichateim!

As folks go crazy over the economy, let us follow our Jewish friends, as they celebrate the birthday of the world, and hear the sound of the shofar, announcing God’s judgment.

No.

Congress shows it won’t bow to the threats and extortion of Wall Street. Houston area congressmen seem united in their opposition, regardless of party: Culberson, Lampson, Paul, Jackson-Lee, Green, etc.

In the meantime, how come everyone is blaming this on banks giving mortgages to people who are struggling? Let’s talk about “derivatives,” “complex financial instruments,” and the speculation that created these chimeras. Let’s talk about how we can get the financial markets to deal with reality. Let’s talk about how we can hold these folks accountable.

“Tolerance” in California

Some say the debate over Proposition 8 is a debate over tolerance, and that those opposed to Prop. 8 are in favor of tolerance. Here are some examples of such tolerance shown to those who support genuine marriage.

Goose Day

It’s Goose Day today in Central Pennsylvania–where the medieval custom of eating goose on the feast of St. Michael and All Angels is alive and well.

Nova Scotia after Kyle

Looks like Nova Scotia fared well; some trees down in Yarmouth, but power has already being restored to most of those who lost it.

Roger Ebert on Creationism

Roger Ebert answers questions on Creationism. And then he discusses reactions to that article.

Hurricane Kyle

Our friends and relations in Nova Scotia are bracing for Hurricane Kyle. A cousin in Yarmouth says the wind is starting to kick up, with gusts at present to 90kph; power is out in Barrington. More to come.

And to think some folks were just telling me I should move back to New England to get away from such things.

Taken into Custody: The War Against Fatherhood, Marriage, and the Family

Stephen Baskerville on the divorce reality in America today (Baskerville’s webpage). Review at National Catholic Register. For more on problems related to “no fault” divorce, see Bai Macfarlane’s webpage.

400 Still Missing from Ike

More bodies to be found?

The Bible in Public Schools

Four members of the Texas Board of Education are urging school districts to adopt the program of the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools. Objections are kind of vague in the article, but if you go to the webpage of the Texas Freedom Network, you’ll find documentation of the problems found by this group. I disagree with much that the TFN stands for … but they have some good points here. The proposed curriculum, if adopted, would have public schools promoting a particular version of Protestant Christianity, and would be a gross violation of the first amendment.

Surveying the Scene Before Us

More doom and gloom in the newspapers today. As the screams of fear echo through the air, I think of this …

We are living in the time of the end. The fast-fulfilling signs of the times declare that the coming of Christ is near at hand. The days in which we live are solemn and important. The Spirit of God is gradually but surely being withdrawn from the earth. Plagues and judgments are already falling upon the despisers of the grace of God. The calamities by land and sea, the unsettled state of society, the alarms of war, are portentous. They forecast approaching events of the greatest magnitude.

The agencies of evil are combining their forces and consolidating. They are strengthening for the last great crisis. Great changes are soon to take place in our world, and the final movements will be rapid ones.—Ellen White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 9, p. 11.

Catholic Abuse Crisis Continues

Diocese of Belleville is going to continue fighting its victims, after they were awarded a $5 million judgment for “fraudulent concealment” of a molesting priest. Bishop Edward Braxton says to pay it

would diminish diocesan resources and significantly limit the church’s ability to continue to serve our people, our parishes (and) our schools. …

Testimony showed that the diocese earns $3.5 million per year in interest on investments. …

Frank Flinn, adjunct professor of religious studies at Washington University in St. Louis and author of the Encyclopedia of Catholicism published last year, rejected Braxton’s argument against paying the judgment outright.

“It’s a false argument,” Flinn said, “Had they been genuinely concerned of the finances of the diocese, then the chancellor along with the bishop would have removed this person from his cycle of pedophilia in the first place.”

Representatives of the St. Louis-based church watchdog group, Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, also criticized Braxton’s decision.

“Rubbing salt into fresh, deep wounds. That’s the only way to describe Braxton’s selfish decision to appeal this verdict,” said Barbara Dorris, the organization’s outreach director.

Sodom’s Revelries

The Folsom Street Fair celebrates its 25th anniversary this weekend. 400,000 people will participate in a street festival featuring public nudity, sexual acts, and glorification of sadomasochism in Nancy Pelosi’s home district, while police look on and do nothing. Americans for Truth.

It was in 1902 that a little old lady from Gorham, Maine, said, “San Francisco and Oakland are becoming as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the Lord will visit them in wrath.” How much more so today!

Commonweal on the Hermeneutic of Continuity

There’s lots of nostalgia for the Catholic past, especially in the area of liturgy, says Commonweal blogger Cathleen Kaveny (John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law and Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame). And this has her worried.

There’s plenty to complain about in contemporary culture. Nonetheless, I worry about the upswing in nostalgia for the Christianity of the past–for Christendom, sometimes, it seems. The nostalgia’s mainly about liturgy–the retrieval of older, more beautiful forms of the mass–but I find myself wondering whether liturgical and moral and political sensibilities can be so neatly separated. If the liturgy makes a world, what are the other aspects of that world, both good and bad?

And so she points us to “De Haeretico comburendo (1401) … a statute passed by Henry IV, prohibiting, among other things, the distribution and possession of the Bible in the vernacular.”

In the comments, she spells it out more:

The theoretical (academic, scholarly) question that interests me is the extent to which a liturgy, ritual, symbolic event) can be disentangled from the broader world view in which it is embedded. The pope is advocating a selective hermeneutic of continuity (with respect to liturgy)–but not with respect to say, doctrines on religious liberty, etc. I have my doubts that the two are so easily separable. The question isn’t how the rite “looks”–how-much brocade– the question is the symbolic encoding.

And further:

Well the question is to what degree the tridentine rite is separable, in worldview, from the Council of Trent, and the broader response to the religious divisions of the time. It is something that would take careful study by a scholar–not punditry. But you might want to take a look at the bull exurge domine, by which Pope Leo X condemned the errors of Martin Luther. Among the terrible errors that Martin Luther spread, according to the Pope, was the view “that heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit.’

I don’t think mere preference–unexamined preference-for the Tridentine rite will ineluctably lead someone to burn heretics. But I think it’s foolish to ignore the vision of the Church–and the state-and other branches of Christianity that were presupposed by a tridentine mentality.

The pope wants a heremeneutic of continuity–how much continuity–what’s the principled distinctions. He presupposes there is a distinction between a hermeneutic of continuity in liturgy–why not in other doctrine too? Why not in other teaching? Is it entirely arbitrary? This is pretty, so we keep it?

And,

The question is, do ideas have their own gravitational force? In my view, they do. They are generative. So the mere fact that a thinker denies that his idea has a certain implication is not, for me, conclusive proof that it doesn’t have it. Ideas contain seeds that develop–or can be developed. The crudest form of this connection is the “slippery slope argument.” Conservatives argue this all the time when they argue that the legalization of birth control lead ineluctably to the culture of death. Or that the Casey “mystery passage” leads to dogs and cats sleeping together, to quote Bill Murray in Ghostbusters. I think one needs to be careful about slippery slope arguments–but I think it’s within the realm of scholarly work to examine the unintended implications of an argument. And there are less crude forms of intellectual generativity, where shifts in imagination and actual living conditions, combine to lead to new ways of thinking and acting.

Eugenics Today

Louisiana state representative, John LaBruzzo of Metairie, suggests paying the poor to get them sterilized. Archbishop Alfred Hughes objects.

“Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!”

CNS journalist Cindy Wooden seems genuinely surprised to learn Adam and Eve were vegetarians.

The Beauty, Truth, and Goodness of Sexuality as God Created It

In discussions about legalization of homosexual “marriage,” its proponents say that Christian teaching on marriage as the exclusive, permanent, and fruitful union of a man and a woman is analagous to segregation and to chattel slavery, and will be universally recognized as such in another twenty years. They snidely point to broken homes, unfaithful spouses, and dysfunctional families and say, “Your lives show you don’t have anything better.”

But truth is not based on our own ability or inability to live it out; we are sinners, and all our good deeds are tainted by that sinfulness.

And we can agree that too often Christians have given the impression that they can only speak of sexuality in terms of what they are against, rather than in terms of what they are for.

That’s where Protestants can learn from Catholic teaching on this subject, especially as the beauty, truth, and goodness of human sexuality have been unfolded by Karol Wojtyla, the late Pope John Paul II.  Yes, many Catholics have been a poor example in practice, as the sexual abuse crisis shows–but that is rooted in the failure of some to follow Biblical teaching, and the attempts of some to relativize it. What Wojtyla did was to mine the depths of Biblical teaching on human sexuality and present it in a systematic way that has been appealing to countless young adults.

Tom Beaudoin, in his book, Virtual Faith: The Irreverant Spiritual Quest of Generation X, said that the main question of young adults today is relationships, “Will you be there for me?” Or, we might ask it another way—Will you love me?

What is love?

In his 1967 encyclical, Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI defined it this way:

“…Love is … fully human, … of the senses and of the spirit at the same time. It is not … a simple transport of instinct and sentiment, but also, and principally, an act of the free will, intended to endure and to grow by means of the joys and sorrows of daily life, in such a way that husband and wife become one only heart and one only soul, and together attain their human perfection. … This love is total … it is a very special form of personal friendship, in which husband and wife generously share everything, without undue reservations or selfish calculations. Whoever truly loves his marriage partner loves not only for what he receives, but for the partner’s self, rejoicing that he can enrich his partner with the gift of himself. … This love is faithful and exclusive until death.”

Karol Wojtyla, in his book, Love and Responsibility, written in 1960, frames his discussion of sexuality with two references: one is the proper understanding of love, the other is the understanding of personhood. For love is a relationship between persons. “Personalism,” as understood by Wojtyla, is not individualism. Rather,

“The term ‘person’ has been coined to signify that a man cannot be wholly contained within the concept ‘individual member of the species’, but that there is something more to him, a particular richness and perfection in the manner of his being, which can only be brought out by the use of the word ‘person.’”

What distinguishes a person is not merely our separateness from other individuals, but our inner self, our inner life, our spiritual life—our capacity for truth and goodness. We relate to one another not simply on the sensory level, as objects, but as full persons, acting with freedom, and possessing inherent and inalienable dignity.

Love brings together two such persons in a relationship of total self-giving. It is this total self-giving that is at the heart of that experience that we sometimes glibly refer to as “making love.” In his chapter, “Sexology and Ethics,” Wojtyla illustrates the nature of this gift of self by refering to studies of human sexual response. This mutual self-giving requires

“that intercourse must not serve merely as a means of allowing sexual excitement to reach its climax in one of the partners, i.e. the man alone, but that climax must be reached in harmony, not at the expense of one partner, but with both partners fully involved.”

Love excludes using another person for one’s own ends, or exploiting that person.

“In the present case love demands that the reactions of the other person, the sexual ‘partner’ be fully taken into account.”

Here we see the very positive attitude towards sexual love that is at the core of Biblical teaching. Christians have a reputation for being anti-sex, anti-body. But that is far from the truth.

The Catholic tradition (and I include Eastern Orthodoxy in this) goes so far as to regard matrimony as a sacrament, and to argue that sexual expression is an essential element of its sacramentality. Matrimony is definied as a covenantal relationship that transforms two into one, in an encounter which “signifies and communicates grace.”

Catholic moral theology speaks of the “unitive dimension” of sex—it’s an awkward term, but it means just this, that it brings the two partners into close relationship. It’s a rich idea that has yet to be fully mined. We can get further insights into this by considering the Jewish tradition, and I’d recommend in particular Kosher Sex, by Shmuley Boteach, a Hasidic rabbi who was the Jewish chaplain at Oxford University. The Jewish mystical tradition teaches say that the primordial Adam was an androgynous being, including both male and female. When he fell asleep, an entire side—not just a rib—was removed. “The result,” says Boteach, “was that each side was no longer complete and now depended on rejoining and reuniting with their lost half in order to achieve wholeness.” Sexuality then always is religious, always is spiritual, always is more than simply acting and feeling, but is a uniting of two persons into one, to become the full and complete person God intended. It is a sign of the relationship God intends between himself and his Bride.  And because of this, Judaism considers that the most appropriate time for celebrating this union is on the Sabbath.

Such a relationship cannot be temporary. It cannot be something that lasts only as long as the partners feel satisfied. It is a relationship that is directed toward the other, and toward the good and the fulfillment of the other. It is a covenant that cannot be revoked, and which is called to endure through the changing circumstances of life. Recall that question, “Will you be there for me?”—a question asked by young adults who are the children of divorce. In Karol Wojtyla’s play, ‘The Jeweler’s Shop,” a girl has seen her parents fighting one morning, as she has every morning for as long as she remembers. She confronts her father, a doctor, at work, and says she wants to talk to him about marriage. He says he supposes her intended is a good guy. She says, “No. You don’t understand. That’s not what I want to talk about. Before I say yes to him, I want to know if every marriage ends up like yours. Is that what’s in store for me? Is that what’s going to come after years of raising children, and coping with the stress of life? Or is there hope that we can make it different?”

A paper by the National Marriage Project, “Should We Live Together?” ends its discussion of the date by calling for a revitalization of marriage. “Particularly helpful in this regard would be educating young people about marriage from the early school years onward, getting them to make the wisest choices in their lifetime mates, and stressing the importance of long-term commitment to marriages. Such an educational venture could build on the fact that a huge majority of our nation’s young people still express the strong desire to be in a long-term monogamous marriage.”

Christian teaching on the indissolubility of marriage is not as far removed from the hopes of men and women as we are led to believe.

But probably the area of Catholic teaching which most rubs against the grain of society is the belief that each act of love within marriage must be open to life. Here even an otherwise ally like Rabbi Boteach is reduced to scorn: he begins a chapter by quoting Earl Butz’s quip regarding the pope: “He no play-a da game, he no make-a da rules,” and says “Judaism rejects Catholicism’s extreme position that contraception is always morally wrong.”

Catholicism’s teaching was shared by all other Christians until early in the 20th century. But today, it seems foreign to most Protestants, and even many Catholics, so let’s try to understand the point. Catholicism cannot speak of marriage apart from fruitfulness. This is not a legal decree, but a positive statement of the nature of sexuality. Fertility is a hope, an expectation, that permeates even the marriage rite. The couple is charged: “Will you accept children lovingly from God?” The nuptial blessing can include the petition, “Bless them with children and help them to be good parents.” The final blessing says, “May your children bring you happiness, and may your generous love for them be returned to you, many times over.”

Let’s contrast this with changes in the marriage service of another church. The 1958 Lutheran Service Book and Hymnal included one prayer for children, “if it be thy will.” The Lutheran Book of Worship of 1978, went further—its marriage rite makes no mention of this couple expecting children.

Other Christians—and non-Christians—most often approach the subject of procreation in the context of what the couple wishes. Catholicism includes fertility within the context of the essential nature of marital love. It is open, it is self-giving, it is other oriented, it is full of power and promise. Humanae Vitae speaks of “the inseparable connection … between … the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning of the conjugal act.” That terminology can be off-putting. It is not how we usually speak. In a negative way, it means there are things we aren’t supposed to do. That’s the message that the world hears.

But what is its positive content? It says that in the union of husband and wife, there should be no barriers, either physical or emotional. This is not the place for masks or for walls. It is a sacred moment of complete self-surrender and self-revelation. Shame, false modesty, selfishness, fear and pretence are all out of place.

Pope John Paul II summarized the essence of Catholic teaching in a paragraph in Familiaris Consortio which is also paragraph 1643 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

“Conjugal love involves a totality, in which all the elements of the person enter—appeal of the body and instinct, power of feeling and affectivity, aspiration of the spirit and of will. It aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul; it demands indissolubility and faithfulness in definitive mutual giving; and it is open to fertility. In a word it is a question of the normal characteristics of all natural conjugal love, but with a new significance which not only purifies and strengthens them, but raises them to the extent of making them the expression of specifically Christian values.”

We see that Catholic teaching on marriage and fertility does not diminish individual rights, but rather aims at our complete fulfillment as truly human persons, equals in a covenantal relationship of total self-giving, freely chosen. In such a relationship, lived as God intends, we need not ask in fear and anxiety, “Will you be there for me?” but rather we will say, “I will be there for you.” In such a relationship our hopes and aspirations, our deepest cravings are satisfied, in a sacramental union which is a sign to the world of the love and faithfulness of our Creator and Redeemer.

As I say, there’s much here that can be of help to non-Catholics, as we seek to find ways to better proclaim the beauty of the Bible’s teaching in a confused age.

Speaking Truth to Power

The National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries met in San Diego last week and got a surprise: Bishop Jaime Soto, coadjutor bishop of Sacramento, “courageously but gently” reminded them of Christian teaching on human sexuality.

“Sexual relations between people of the same sex can be alluring for homosexuals, but it deviates from the true meaning of the act and distracts them from the true nature of love to which God has called us all,” Bishop Soto said. “For this reason, it is sinful. Married love is a beautiful, heroic expression of faithful, life-giving, life-creating love. It should not be accommodated and manipulated for those who would believe that they can and have a right to mimic its unique expression.”

Some walked out. Most sat in silence. A tiny few applauded. Afterwards, there was time for response and questions. 80% expressed their disappointment with Soto.

While the audience members were responding to the bishop’s remarks, a board member of the National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries came up to one of the tables in the room and said, “On behalf of the board, I apologize. We had no idea Bishop Soto was going to say what he said.”

California Catholic Daily.

Be sure and read the full text of Soto’s remarks. It’s a prophetic statement of why Christians need to stand up to culture, not just go along with every wind, as well as a strong affirmation of Christian understanding of marriage and sexuality.

Updates:

• Reaction on a gay webpage.
• Rainbow Sash Movement responds.

Barry, Barry, Quite Contrary, How Does Your Garden Grow?

It doesn’t.

“The Dirty Secret of the Bailout”

I’m playing catch up with the economic news, having been focused on more pressing problems the last couple of weeks.

What frightens me is not the mess–but the solution proposed.

The Huffington Post is but one source drawing our attention to “the dirty secret of the bailout,” specifically, Section 8 of the proposed legislation:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times comments:

And with those words, the Treasury secretary — whoever that may be in a few months — will be with vested with perhaps the most incredible powers ever bestowed on one person over the economic and financial life of the nation. It is the financial equivalent of the Patriot Act.

Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.’s $700 billion proposal to bail out Wall Street is both the biggest rescue and the most amazing power grab in the history of the American economy.

In many ways, it is classic Wall Street: a big, bold roll of the dice that one trade can save the day. But at the same time, the hypocrisy is thick. The lack of transparency and oversight that got our financial system in trouble in the first place seems written directly into the proposed bill, known as TARP, or the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

… Joshua Rosner, a managing director at Graham Fisher & Company, says TARP should stand for “Total Abdication of Responsibility to the Public.” He says it is “a clear abdication of all Congressional oversight and fiscal authorities to a secretary of Treasury that has bungled this crisis from the beginning.”

He argues that the bill grants “greater powers to the secretary of the Treasury than even the president enjoys.”

Liberal Churches Entertain Ahmadinejad

While liberal religious leaders entertained the president of Iran, hundreds of protesters stood outside the Hyatt Hotel and questioned, “How can you dine with a tyrant?”

Those inside included representatives of the American Friends Service Committee, Mennonite Central Committee, Quaker United Nations Office, Religions for Peace, the World Council of Churches, and the Unitarian-Universalist Assn.

Those protesting included Women International, the Jewish Action Alliance, Concerned Women for America, the Catholic League, American Center for Law and Justice, Guardian Angels, Institute for Religion and Democracy, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

The ADL and the AJC urged the President of the UN General Assembly not to attend. I had somehow missed his election: Fr. Miguel d’Escoto, a Marxist priest, a member of the Maryknoll order, who was Foreign Minister for the Sandinista government of Nicaragua! Why didn’t this get more news coverage? Anyway, it was a mute appeal–d’Escoto embraced Ahmadinejad after his address.

The American Center for Law and Justice says it is “outrageous” that Christian leaders would meet with Ahmadinejad:

This meeting with religious leaders comes less than ten days after the Iranian Parliament voted in favor of a bill stipulating the death penalty for apostasy. The bill was approved by 196 votes for, 7 against, and 2 abstentions. This new law comes into effect despite the fact that Iran voted in favor of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Stifling Speech in Canada

“The Steyn Show Trial,” from The Tyrrany of Nice: How Canada Crushes Freedom in the Name of Human Rights (and Why It Matters to Americans), by Pete Vere and Kathy Shaidle.

“Why Americans Are More Tolerant [than Canadians]“

Commentary by Canadian canonist, Pete Vere, based on experiences living in both countries. After some personal narrative comes the key point:

We talk about tolerance in Canada. More often than not, as our electoral choices show, Canadian tolerance is just an excuse to avoid discussing our differences. Thus Canadians stick to what’s comfortable, what’s least likely to offend the most people. We don’t want our differences to cause division and disrupt the social peace.

Americans, on the other hand, relish their differences. Tolerance is created by confronting their differences, then discovering that they share many of the same values and concerns. Americans understand, rightly, that tolerance is a product of free speech. The First Amendment allows them to get past their differences, correct misconceptions, and move on to more pressing issues.

Vatican Offers Financial Advice to US

L’Osservatore Romano, via Commonweal.

Silenced at the Shrine

Phil Lawler was to have a book-signing at the bookstore at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, promoting his book, The Faithful Departed, about the Boston locus of the sexual abuse crisis.

One morning this June, Monsignor Walter R. Rossi, rector of the shrine, walked into the bookstore. It was about two weeks before Mr. Lawler was slated to have a book-signing there. After thumbing through a copy of the book, the monsignor ordered it out of the store.

Rossi said this is a subject that the pope wants no more discussion of.

“Benedict over and over again said it’s time to move on,” the monsignor said of the sex-abuse scandal.

Diogenes has searched the transcripts of the comments by the pope, and he can’t seem to find that. He can find comments of the pope saying he was “deeply ashamed,” and that it was “badly handled.”

If the sex-abuse crisis was shameful, and if it was badly handled–and who would deny either fact?–then true reconciliation would entail a careful examination of that inept handling, and a determination to root out the problem. Then maybe it would be appropriate to “move on.”

A blog post from July, citing an article that had appeared in The Wanderer.