The Black Madonna

St. John Chrysostom, pray for us

Waiting for Godot to Leave has compiled a classification guide for bad homilies. I'd be interested to know if non-Catholics find this just as funny and disturbing as we do.

The strange road home to Rome

This is the stuff that makes me love to be Catholic, and reaffirms my faith even when I am most despondent.

Jimmy Akin tells the tale of a theological organization founded by Evangelical Christians, and how despite their best attempts to frame a charter that would implicitly exclude Catholics, clumsily wrote it in a way that stated accurate Church teaching. As a result, Catholics and like-minded Protestants were able to join the organization. Eventually (this past November, to be specific), they elected a President of the organization so close to Catholic philosophy that he returned to the Church during the course of his tenure. (Dr. Francis Beckwith was raised Catholic and received the Sacraments of Initiation as a boy, but eventually became an Evangelical Protestant.)

Welcome back to the Church, professor! Your circuitous trip again reveals the truth that the Holy Spirit lives in our sister Churches, despite the sad reality that they are not endowed with the fullness of Grace.

The hard Truth

I've been thinking lately how I've let these pages grow overly quiet - even more quiet than I'd expected, given my track record. So when Jack Dunphy at The Corner got to the subject of forgiveness and Catholic faith, and seemed to have a hard time reconciling the idea of forgiveness for murderers, I could not resist the urge to respond to him here.

It occurred to me that the question on its face could best be answered by Christ himself, who during the process of being murdered himself, forgave his murderers.

And Jesus said: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. But they, dividing his garments, cast lots. (Luke 23:34)

But are we always expected to do likewise?

As with most such questions, I was led to the online version of the Catholic Encyclopedia. Since there is no specific article on "forgiveness", I poked around a bit. The closest I came in the Encyclopedia proper was the entry for Contrition, which really wasn't much help.

Finally, I found the following sermon by St. Augustine, that pretty well summarizes the concept.

Do you rejoice at the death of your enemy? Thou doest ill. But haply both to your friend the life you wish him is not for his good, and to your enemy the death you rejoice at has been for his good. It is uncertain whether this present life be profitable to any man or unprofitable: but the life which is with God without doubt is profitable. So love your enemies as to wish them to become your brethren; so love your enemies as that they may be called into your fellowship. For so loved He who, hanging on the cross, said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Luke 23:34 For he did not say, Father let them live long, me indeed they kill, but let them live. He was casting out from them the death which is for ever and ever, by His most merciful prayer, and by His most surpassing might. Many of them believed, and the shedding of the blood of Christ was forgiven them. At first they shed it while they raged; now they drank it while they believed."In this we know that we are in Him, if in Him we be made perfect." Touching the very perfection of love of enemies, the Lord admonishing, says, "Be therefore perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48 He," therefore, "that says he abides in Him, ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked." 1 John 2:6 How, brethren? what does he advise us? "He that says he abides in Him," i.e., in Christ, "ought himself also so to walk even as He walked." Haply the advice is this, that we should walk on the sea? That be far from us! It is this then, that we walk in the way of righteousness. In what way? I have already mentioned it. He was fixed upon the cross, and yet was He walking in this very way: this way is the way of charity, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." If, therefore, you have learned to pray for your enemy, you walk in the way of the Lord.

I wasn't aware until now that so much of the texts from the Church Fathers were available alongside the Encyclopedia. What a treasure they are!

Must be in the water

In one of his glib "You Don't Say" entries, James Taranto points to an article - at the Jerusalem Post, of all places - that claims that Benedict XVI's background is theological, not diplomatic. Buried at the bottom of the article (on page two in the web version) is this gem:

As a cardinal, Ratzinger expressed his reserve at the prospect of Turkey's entry into the European Union. Nevertheless, a papal trip to Turkey is planned for November 28 to December 1. Undoubtedly this pope feels a degree of diffidence with contemporary Islam while at the same time he is deeply aware of the necessity of engaging this world in dialogue.

The writer doesn't bother to explain why the pope would distrust Islam.

How can we Catholics fight the War on Terror?

The Holy Father is looking for ways.

By now you must have heard that Benedict "insulted Islam". But you probably haven't heard anyone ask why he did, nevermind gotten an answer to that question. Here's one:

I repeat the question I posed yesterday: what did the Pope intend to achieve by saying what he said? Tucked away in Jon Meacham’s predictable isn’t-there-enough-religious-anger critique for Newsweek lies this passage:

[W]hy did Benedict quote the emperor in the first place? The most likely answer is that, no matter what the Vatican says now, the pope believes in having what the Catholic theologian and papal biographer George Weigel calls “a hard-headed conversation” about the role of faith in the life of the world. “He knew exactly what he was doing,” says Weigel. “He is saying that irrational violence is displeasing to God. The question Benedict is putting on the table is: ‘Does a significant part of Islam have the capacity to be self-critical?’”

Precisely. And in choosing to do so in such blunt terms, he’s injected himself into the central cultural conflict of the age. For this week, at least, the papacy is relevant to non-Catholics (and many Catholics, too) in ways it hasn’t been in years. He’s risking life and limb, but it’s a brilliant political maneuver.

Remember that our dear Father Ratzinger was a theologian before he became the Vicar of Christ. And so while it is very possible for him to take the role of the pastoral shepherd and spiritual advisor (roles so preferred by John Paul the Great, many of us may have forgotten that's not always what a pope is about), Benedict is probably quite a bit more proficient in identifying the temporal needs of the physical church and her people right now.

John Paul - Great though he was - was no longer prepared to arm the Church to defend herself. The former anti-Nazi Polish partisan had guided us to the end of the Cold War, and upon the triumph of Our Lady of Victory, had turned his - and our - reflections inward. The champion of peace through strength began preaching the gospel of the strength of inner peace.

Benedict is not burdened by 25 years of the papacy growing to envelop him. He saw the devastation of 9/11, the bloody conflicts perpetuating the War on Terror, and the hopeful message of freedom offered by the President in his second inaugural as a member of the curia and not as a pontiff. He has watched as Islamic radicals have blown up mosques and burned churches. He may be willing to risk martyrdom, but may not be fond of the idea of allowing Islamofascism to establish an empire through which it can oppress - and more importantly, defile - the entire Church. And in order for him to justify the offering to Caesar what belongs to him, he has to clearly establish the credentials of the enemy as enemy of the whole Church and the freedom-loving States entrusted with the defense of Her people.

I suspect this is just a beginning.

UPDATES: Kathy is all over the story. (scroll back for earlier posts)

Rod Dreher takes on the Left, and it's sometimes non-reaction, sometimes anti-Catholic response.

Fr. Raymond J. de Souza defends the Holy Father.

On Gibson and anti-Semitism

Just to prove to our friends on the Left that TBR and TBM are not simply an organ of right-wing-never-does wrong propaganda (as The Ugly American jokes), and to rebut the inevitable anti-Catholic rhetoric (thanks heaps Dahvid), I must take note of a disgraceful episode Thursday night regarding Mel Gibson. Apparently, the actor/director got blinding drunk, got caught DUI, and during the arrest repeatedly spouted anti-Semitic remarks. I'll let others get more detailed, and for my part simply and completely repudiate all Gibson's insane nonsense.

Unfortunately, those of us - especially we Catholics - who defended Gibson in the past will be hurt by association here, regardless of what we say. His tirade makes it appear that all the evil designs that he denied while making The Passion of the Christ were actually true. He brings scandal to the Church, and our cries that Catholics aren't really secret anti-Semites - despite some terrible things we've been associated with in the past - will fall on even more deafened ears.

We can only repeat that this is not the case, renounce Gibson's drunken antics, and beg the forgiveness of the Jewish people for any real or perceived insults of the past.

Rant as art

Over at relapsed catholic, Kathy is ranting about movies again. (I'd linked to her earlier post Tuesday.) And her rant is as artful as her message is about art.

UPDATE: I'd almost missed a previous post, also about movies - but with more of a quoted snark and less of a personal rant. The last line she reads from libertas is some pretty good (and conservative!) art in its own right.

At least it doesn't start: "Two monks walk into a bar..."

Religious humor found at the pages of Snopes.com:

A monastery in the English countryside has fallen on hard times, and the monks decide to open a fish-and-chips restaurant.

A visitor comes across two monks working in the monastery kitchen in preparation for the restaurant's grand opening. The first monk fries the fish, the second one peels, slices, and fries the potatoes.

"What are you guys doing?" asks the visitor.

"Well," says the monk frying the fish, "I am the friar, and he is the chip monk."

Go forth and multiply... on 24-pound bond at 1200 dpi

I think I'll buy a laser printer this Christmas.

"Holy Father in Heaven, please sanctify this purchase with the blessings of fruitful and inexpensive toner. Amen."

Mind over water

Some of the faithful might discount this report as the deluded rationalization of an agnostic scientist.

Rare conditions could have conspired to create hard-to-see ice on the Sea of Galilee that a person could have walked on back when Jesus is said to have walked on water, a scientist said today.

The study, which examines a combination of favorable water and environmental conditions, proposes that Jesus could have walked on an isolated patch of floating ice on what is now known as Lake Kinneret in northern Israel.

Looking at temperature records of the Mediterranean Sea surface and using analytical ice and statistical models, scientists considered a small section of the cold freshwater surface of the lake. The area studied, about 10,000 square feet, was near salty springs that empty into it.

The results suggest temperatures dropped to 25 degrees Fahrenheit (-4 degrees Celsius) during one of the two cold periods 2,500 –1,500 years ago for up to two days, the same decades during which Jesus lived.

With such conditions, a floating patch of ice could develop above the plumes resulting from the salty springs along the lake's western shore in Tabgha. Tabgha is the town where many archeological findings related to Jesus have been found.

"We simply explain that unique freezing processes probably happened in that region only a handful of times during the last 12,000 years," said Doron Nof, a Florida State University Professor of Oceanography. "We leave to others the question of whether or not our research explains the biblical account."

I have a different thought: Oh, the power, majesty, and omniscience of the Lord, to synchronize even the time of His birth to stage an event that all Christianity would regard for two thousand years as an unexplainable miracle - until we were prepared to understand it. Surely this is continued proof of His Divinity.