Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog

Often persecuted, sometimes martyred, and accused of incest, cannibalism, "atheism"

On this, the Feast of the First Martyrs of the Church of Rome, some historical background from "Early Christian Martyrs of the Roman Empire", the opening chapter of Fr. Charles P. Connor's Defenders of the Faith in Word and Deed (Ignatius Press, 2003):

 It is true that Christians lived in a somewhat tense atmosphere for the first three centuries of the Church's life. It is not true that persecution was unceasing; rather, it was intermittent, sometimes limited to the city of Rome, sometimes extending throughout the Empire. A popular legend evolved through the centuries about when anti-Christian hostility became intense, believers would hide from Roman officials in the catacombs, underground burial places on the outskirts of the city. These were not secret hiding places; in fact, they were well marked on city maps. It so happened that the soft turf of the region could be easily excavated and developed into a large network of subterranean tunnels, which could be utilized for several purposes, burial among them. Christians (and, for that matter, Jews as well) found the system of underground burial ideal in a city where space was at a premium. In addition, the catacombs provided a space for gathering for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist and for Christian artists to leave for posterity a fascinating record of a vibrant faith.

This is not to minimize persecutions. They occurred with ferocity, and many martyrs and defenders of the faith came forth. They were martyrs because they died under some excruciating form of torture; they were defenders of the faith because of their witness to Christ as their only Lord, to the exclusion of all others, including the emperor. We know of their persecutions and martyrdoms from three principal sources: the accounts of non-Christian historians, the minutes of their trials (known as the Acts of the Martyrs), and eyewitness accounts.

The earliest persecutions seemed to have occurred under the Emperor Nero (54- 68) and may well have been an attempt to turn the attention of Rome's citizens away from the Emperor's own burning of the city. It was a persecution limited to Rome itself, and both Peter and Paul are believed to have been victims of it. Tacitus, a Roman historian, pictures it vividly:

First, then, the confessed members of the sect were arrested; next, on their disclosures, vast numbers were convicted, not so much on the count of arson as for hatred of the human race. And derision accompanied their end: they were covered with wild beasts' skins and torn to death by dogs; or they were fastened on crosses, and, when daylight failed, were burned to serve as lamps by night. Nero had offered his gardens for the spectacle, and gave an exhibition in his circus, mixing with the crowd in the habit of a charioteer, or mounted on his car. Hence, in spite of a guilt which had earned the most exemplary punishment, there arose a sentiment of pity, due to the impression that they were being sacrificed not for the welfare of the state but to the ferocity of a single man. [Tacitus, Annals, bk. 15, chap. 44]

"Incest" and "cannibalism" are hardly terms to be thrown about lightly. They were, however, among the most common accusations made against Christians. Even more curious was the charge of atheism. It was assumed that since Christians did not practice the religion of the state, the worship of the pagan gods, that they had no religion. If this persisted, the gods would become angry and inflict all sorts of wrath on Roman society.

Related Ignatius Insight Excerpts and Articles:

• Studying The Early Christians: The Introduction to We Look For the Kingdom | Carl J. Sommer
• The Everyday Lives of the Early Christians | An interview with Carl J. Sommers
• Church and State in Early Christianity | Hugo Rahner, S.J.
• His Story and the History of the Church | An Interview with Dr. Glenn W. Olsen
• Are We at The End or The Beginning? | Dr. Glenn Olson
• A Short Guide to Ancient Heresies | Kenneth D. Whitehead

"What is man? What is his nature, his meaning, his duty, his destiny?"

From a very good essay by Dr. Robert Moynihan, founder and editor of Inside Vatican magazine:

What is man? What is his nature, his meaning, his duty, his destiny?

Scripture tells us that man is a being mysteriously, almost paradoxically, endowed with a double nature: one physical, and so transient, doomed to the vicissitudes of change and then to pass away; and one spiritual, immortal, destined for eternity.

But the modern world has, for the most part, denied this definition or understanding of man.

The modern world has, for the most part, embraced a reductionist view of man, viewing man as a physical being only, moved by chemical reactions and hormonal drives, condemned by the haphazardness of an essentially meaningless universe to create himself and his own meaning according to his own desires, without any transcendent reference of any type, not to mention the reality signified by the word "God," which only arouses polite snickers in elite circles.

Pope Benedict has often made this point -- that our age suffers from the absence of God.

<snip>

We were made essentially for meaning, for a personal meaning, to have a name, to be named, and to name, and, in the process, of being persons with names, persons able to love, and to sacrifice.

All the problems humans face, whether in law, or in science, or in economics -- and I refer obliquely to the recent vote in favor of homosexual marriage in New York, and to the Fukushima nuclear reactor in Japan, and to the riots today in debt-suffocated Greece -- are only able to be truly analyzed and solved with logos, with reason, with meaning -- true meaning, not superficial meaning.

This is the reason why Christians, why John Paul II in his time and Benedict now, are crying out to the world: "Return to meaning, return to reason, return to true science -- return, yes, to Christ, the true man, who is logos incarnate," in order to avoid tragedy, cruelty, bloodshed, and the hopelessness of life without logos, without meaning.

This is the "new evangelization" the Pope is calling for, in our troubled "modern" age.

This is the new witness he is calling on Christians to make in the face of a world anxious to create a "new species" out of the human genetic material... in the face of a world wishing to redefine men and women as ultimately interchangeable and indistiguishable... in the face of a world which claims to have science, but which is marred by a massive and devastating ignorance of the true processes of genetics and of life.

The end of man is to become eternally blessed, inwardly transformed into the image and likeness of God, filled with the Spirit of God, and this end is far more desirable than to live 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 years, even if the years are dense with sybaritic pleasures, on this revolving asteroid we call earth.

Read the entire essay. Then consider just one example, taken from today's edition of The New York Times, of the sort of despair and sense of meaningless that Moynihan describes, expressed by "Dan Savage, America’s leading sex-advice columnist":

Three essays on marriage, the conjugal life, and homosexuality

In light of recent, current, and ongoing events, I'm posting excerpts from three archived Ignatius Insight essays, with links to the full readings:

The tragic impasse that exists in our culture on the issue of homosexuality stems from two errors.

On the one hand, many moderns have embraced an autonomous view of reality: "I can do what I want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else." According to such relativism, homosexual acts are perfectly legitimate so long as they are between two consenting adults. In stark reaction to such subjectivism, many others embrace a moralism that easily turns venomous when it vilifies and demonizes: "Homosexuality is wrong because God said so" (and nothing more). The distinction between the homosexual condition and homosexual acts, if added at all, is added as an afterthought. This view, opposite that of autonomy, could be termed heteronomy, because God's law is understood to be extrinsically and somewhat arbitrarily placed upon man with a seeming lack of concern for actual experience of the persons involved.

Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical Veritatis Splendor (art. 41), distinguishes the Catholic moral outlook from these two erroneous positions. He labels the Catholic view a "participated theonomy." If for autonomy there is no law, and if for heteronomy the law is to be followed because God said so, for participated theonomy the moral law is something friendly to our being, something built for our genuine fulfillment and for our authentic freedom. The law is not true because God commanded it; rather, God commands it because it is true. When we use our free will to align our lives with this truth, we possess authentic freedom.

What does this mean for the debate on homosexuality? It means that the truth about human sexuality is something that ultimately offers genuine freedom to the homosexual person, helping him to escape the slavery to his passions that resulted from the misuse of his free will. This is a truth that, with true compassion, reaches out to the homosexual person in his desperation. Although that person may not be aware of it, he is crying out for the truth. When the response from our culture is heteronomous and mean-spirited, he recoils, and takes false comfort in a worldview that espouses autonomy. The Church and society must offer the truth, and offer it in the right way, the way of participatory theonomy.

Read the entire essay, "Authentic Freedom and the Homosexual Person", by Dr. Mark Lowery.

Next:

"Sixty years on from the day of my priestly ordination, I hear once again...

... deep within me these words of Jesus that were addressed to us new priests at the end of the ordination ceremony by the Archbishop, Cardinal Faulhaber, in his slightly frail yet firm voice. According to the liturgical practice of that time, these words conferred on the newly-ordained priests the authority to forgive sins. “No longer servants, but friends”: at that moment I knew deep down that these words were no mere formality, nor were they simply a quotation from Scripture. I knew that, at that moment, the Lord himself was speaking to me in a very personal way. In baptism and confirmation he had already drawn us close to him, he had already received us into God’s family. But what was taking place now was something greater still. He calls me his friend. He welcomes me into the circle of those he had spoken to in the Upper Room, into the circle of those whom he knows in a very special way, and who thereby come to know him in a very special way. He grants me the almost frightening faculty to do what only he, the Son of God, can legitimately say and do: I forgive you your sins. He wants me – with his authority – to be able to speak, in his name (“I” forgive), words that are not merely words, but an action, changing something at the deepest level of being. I know that behind these words lies his suffering for us and on account of us. I know that forgiveness comes at a price: in his Passion he went deep down into the sordid darkness of our sins. He went down into the night of our guilt, for only thus can it be transformed. And by giving me authority to forgive sins, he lets me look down into the abyss of man, into the immensity of his suffering for us men, and this enables me to sense the immensity of his love. He confides in me: “No longer servants, but friends”. He entrusts to me the words of consecration in the Eucharist. He trusts me to proclaim his word, to explain it aright and to bring it to the people of today. He entrusts himself to me. “You are no longer servants, but friends”: these words bring great inner joy, but at the same time, they are so awe-inspiring that one can feel daunted as the decades go by amid so many experiences of one’s own frailty and his inexhaustible goodness.

“No longer servants, but friends”: this saying contains within itself the entire programme of a priestly life. What is friendship? Idem velle, idem nolle – wanting the same things, rejecting the same things: this was how it was expressed in antiquity. Friendship is a communion of thinking and willing. The Lord says the same thing to us most insistently: “I know my own and my own know me” (Jn 10:14). The Shepherd calls his own by name (cf. Jn 10:3). He knows me by name. I am not just some nameless being in the infinity of the universe. He knows me personally. Do I know him? The friendship that he bestows upon me can only mean that I too try to know him better; that in the Scriptures, in the Sacraments, in prayer, in the communion of saints, in the people who come to me, sent by him, I try to come to know the Lord himself more and more. Friendship is not just about knowing someone, it is above all a communion of the will. It means that my will grows into ever greater conformity with his will. For his will is not something external and foreign to me, something to which I more or less willingly submit or else refuse to submit. No, in friendship, my will grows together with his will, and his will becomes mine: this is how I become truly myself. Over and above communion of thinking and willing, the Lord mentions a third, new element: he gives his life for us (cf. Jn 15:13; 10:15). Lord, help me to come to know you more and more. Help me to be ever more at one with your will. Help me to live my life not for myself, but in union with you to live it for others. Help me to become ever more your friend.

Read the Holy Father's entire homily, given on June 29th, the 60th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood and the Solemnity of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

• Pope Benedict XVI's Rookie Year As a Priest | An excerpt from Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977

Will someone please remind me again why I find militant secularism ...

... so condescending, shallow, dull, insulting, intellectually-lacking, obnoxious, boring, and adolescent? Ah, Herb Silverman, Founder and President of the Secular Coalition for America, has agreed to help jog my memory. Over to you, Herb:

Thank you, Bishop DiMarzio, for inadvertently reminding the apathetic public why separating religion from government is so critically important. In trying to become more politically relevant, I hope the latest pronouncement of the Catholic Church will make that church even less relevant. As far as I can tell, the Catholic Church is on the wrong side of all issues pertaining to sex.

Let’s see if I have this right. The Church wants heterosexual couples to remain celibate until marriage and then to have as many children as nature (excuse me, “God”) provides, whether they want or can afford them. The exception is for priests and nuns who must remain celibate their entire lives because …. (Fill in the blank, since the reasons have changed over centuries.) It’s bad for straight couples to cohabitate, but good if they commit to a monogamous marriage; it’s bad for gay couples to cohabitate, and even worse if they commit to a monogamous marriage. Don’t anyone even think of the sin of masturbation, which is safe sex for pleasure only. And I—

Okay, okay. That's enough. I remember now. Thanks. Apparently Silverman and Victor Stenger are having some sort of dubious contest. Good effort on Silverman's part, but I think Stenger has a solid lead...

Liberal Studies Program: Join the Conversation

For 3500 years a conversation has been going on – depicted with its principal interlocutors above – recorded in the books by or about the greatest minds of Western civilization. Each generation has passed to the next its contributions to this ongoing dialogue. For the last hundred years, Great Books college courses have been the primary means of both preserving, and introducing generations of fortunate students into, this rich cultural tradition. 10% Discount on Enrollments on or before July 5th Under the leadership of Ignatius Press founder and editor, Father Joseph Fessio, Chancellor, the Liberal Studies Program (“LSP”) provides unrivaled educational opportunities for homeschoolers, high school students, and college students, to earn college credit while acquiring the foundations for a Catholic liberal education and lifelong learning. LSP offers something unique among the many ways students can earn college credit — an online program specifically for Catholic students who want to embark on acquiring a liberal education using the Great Books approach pioneered by the great philosopher, educator, and Catholic convert Dr. Mortimer J. Adler. Fidelity to the teaching of the Catholic Church is fundamental to the LSP program. Pope John Paul II's Apostolic Constitution on Catholic higher education, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, guides the LSP's Catholic mission. LSP is accepted for college credit at Campion College (Australia); Catholic Distance University, (online); Harrison Middleton University (online); Benedictine College (Atchinson, Kansas, USA); and other colleges and universities. The costs of the LSP online are a small fraction of the expense of traditional college education. Tuition and fees at a private, four-year college average $26,273 per year are over $100,000 for a four-year degree. With a coordinated course of study through LSP and its affiliates in the Universities of Western Civilization network of cooperating colleges, students can obtain a bachelor's degree for about a fourth of the cost of four years on campus. For more information, or to enroll click here

On Saints Peter and Paul

First, a short selection from the beautiful homily given by the successor of Saint Peter on June 28, 2009, marking the conclusion of Pauline Year:

Paul wants Christians to have a "responsible" and "adult faith". The words "adult faith" in recent decades have formed a widespread slogan. It is often meant in the sense of the attitude of those who no longer listen to the Church and her Pastors but autonomously choose what they want to believe and not to believe hence a do-it-yourself faith. And it is presented as a "courageous" form of self-expression against the Magisterium of the Church. In fact, however, no courage is needed for this because one may always be certain of public applause. Rather, courage is needed to adhere to the Church's faith, even if this contradicts the "logic" of the contemporary world. This is the non-conformism of faith which Paul calls an "adult faith". It is the faith that he desires. On the other hand, he describes chasing the winds and trends of the time as infantile. Thus, being committed to the inviolability of human life from its first instant, thereby radically opposing the principle of violence also precisely in the defence of the most defenceless human creatures is part of an adult faith. It is part of an adult faith to recognize marriage between a man and a woman for the whole of life as the Creator's ordering, newly re-established by Christ. Adult faith does not let itself be carried about here and there by any trend. It opposes the winds of fashion. It knows that these winds are not the breath of the Holy Spirit; it knows that the Spirit of God is expressed and manifested in communion with Jesus Christ. However, here too Paul does not stop at saying "no", but rather leads us to the great "yes". He describes the mature, truly adult faith positively with the words: "speaking the truth in love" (cf. Eph 4: 15). The new way of thinking, given to us by faith, is first and foremost a turning towards the truth. The power of evil is falsehood. The power of faith, the power of God, is the truth. The truth about the world and about ourselves becomes visible when we look to God. And God makes himself visible to us in the Face of Jesus Christ. In looking at Christ, we recognize something else: truth and love are inseparable. In God both are inseparably one; it is precisely this that is the essence of God. For Christians, therefore, truth and love go together. Love is the test of truth. We should always measure ourselves anew against this criterion, so that truth may become love and love may make us truthful.

Another important thought appears in this verse of St Paul. The Apostle tells us that by acting in accordance with truth in love, we help to ensure that all things (ta pánta) the universe may grow, striving for Christ. On the basis of his faith, Paul is not only concerned in our personal rectitude nor with the growth of the Church alone. He is interested in the universe: ta pánta. The ultimate purpose of Christ's work is the universe the transformation of the universe, of the whole human world, of all creation. Those who serve the truth in love together with Christ contribute to the true progress of the world. Yes, here it is quite clear that Paul is acquainted with the idea of progress. Christ his life, his suffering and his rising was the great leap ahead in the progress of humanity, of the world. Now, however, the universe must grow in accordance with him. Where the presence of Christ increases, therein lies the true progress of the world. There, mankind becomes new and thus the world is made new.

And this excerpt from Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar's, The Office of Peter and the Structure of the Church:

June 29, 2011, the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, marks the 60th anniversary...

...  of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI's ordination to the priesthood. Here is a selection from his book, Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977, about that joyful occasion.



Before he was Benedict XVI, or Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Pope was a young Bavarian seminarian. In his autobiography, Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977, Joseph Ratzinger recounts his ordination on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul in Freising, Germany, in 1951, and his first years as a parish priest and then completing his doctorate while teaching at the seminary.

We were more than forty candidates, who, at the solemn call on that radiant summer day, which I remember as the high point of my life, responded “Adsum”, Here I am. We should not be superstitious; but, at that moment when the elderly archbishop laid his hands on me, a little bird—perhaps a lark—flew up from the high altar in the cathedral and trilled a little joyful song. And I could not but see in this a reassurance from on high, as if I heard the words “This is good, you are on the right way.” There then followed four summer weeks that were like an unending feast. On the day of our first Holy Mass, our parish church of Saint Oswald gleamed in all its splendor, and the joy that almost palpably filled the whole place drew everyone there into the most living mode of “active participation” in the sacred event, but this did not require any external busyness. We were invited to bring the first blessing into people’s homes, and everywhere we were received even by total strangers with a warmth and affection I had not thought possible until that day. In this way I learned firsthand how earnestly people wait for a priest, how much they long for the blessing that flows from the power of the sacrament. The point was not my own or my brother’s person. What could we two young men represent all by ourselves to the many people we were now meeting? In us they saw persons who had been touched by Christ’s mission and had been empowered to bring his nearness to men. Precisely because we ourselves were not the point, a friendly human relationship could develop very quickly.

Made strong by the experience of these weeks, on August 1 I began my ministry as assistant pastor in the parish of the Precious Blood in Munich. The greater portion of the parish lay in a residential suburb in which intellectuals, artists, and high government officials lived; but there were also rows of houses belonging to employees and people who worked in small shops, as well as butlers and maids, who in those days belonged to wealthier households. The rectory had been built by a famous architect. It was homey but too small, and the great number of people who came to help out in various functions often created a hectic atmosphere. But the important thing was my encounter with the pastor, good Father Blumschein, who not only said to others that a priest had to “glow” but was himself a person who glowed within. To his last breath he desired with every fiber of his being to offer priestly service. He died, in fact, bringing the sacraments to a dying person. His kindness and inner fervor for his priestly mission were what gave a special character to this rectory. What at first glance could appear to be hectic activity was in reality the expression of a continually lived readiness to serve.

I surely was in need of such a model, because the load of tasks assigned to me was great. I had to give sixteen hours of religious instruction at five different levels, which obviously required much preparation. Every Sunday I had to celebrate at least two Masses and give two different sermons. Every morning, I sat in the confessional from six to seven, and on Saturday afternoons for four hours. Every week there were several burials in the various cemeteries of the city. I was totally responsible for youth ministry, and to this I had to add extracurricular obligations like baptisms, weddings, and so on. Since the pastor did not spare himself, neither did I want to, nor could I spare myself. Because of my scant practical training, I had at first some difficulty with these duties. But soon the work with the children in the school, and the resulting association with their parents, became a great joy to me, and the encounter with different groups of Catholic youth also quickly generated a good feeling of community. To be sure, it also became evident how far removed the world of the life and thinking of many children was from the realities of faith and how little our religious instruction coincided with the actual lives and thinking of our families. Nor could I overlook the fact that the form of youth work, which was simply a continuation of methods developed between the two World Wars, would not be able to deal with the changing circumstances of the world we now lived in: we simply had to look for new forms. Some of the insights that came to me as I experienced these changed conditions I gathered up some years later in my essay “The New Pagans and the Church”, which at that time triggered a lively discussion.

My assignment to the seminary at Freising, which my superiors decided would begin on October 1, 1952, aroused various reactions in me. On the one hand, this was the solution I had desired, the one that would enable me to return to my theological work, which I loved so much. On the other hand, I suffered a great deal, especially in the first year, from the loss of all the human contacts and experiences afforded me by the pastoral ministry. In fact, I even began to think I would have done better to remain in parish work. The feeling of being needed and of accomplishing an important service had helped me to give all I could, and this gave me a joy in the priesthood that I did not experience in so direct a manner in my new assignment. I now had to give a series of lectures to the last-year students on the pastoral aspects of the sacraments, and, although the experience I could draw on was rather limited, at least it was recent and fresh in my mind. To this was added work in the cathedral—liturgical services and hours in the confessional—as well as the responsibility of a youth group started by my predecessor. Above all I had to complete my doctorate, which at that time was no mean proposition: in each of eight subjects I had to pass a one-hour oral examination and complete a written examination, and the process culminated in an open debate for which I had to prepare theses from all theological disciplines. Especially for Father and Mother, it was a great joy when, in July 1953, I walked across the stage and received the cap as doctor of theology.

• Biography of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI
• Jesus of Nazareth (Part 2) available March 10, 2011
• Other Recent Books by Pope Benedict XVI
• All books by or about Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI
• Excerpts from books by Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI
• Articles about Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI

If you read only one article about New York State's democratic assault...

... on the institution of marriage, I suggest going with this lengthy, thorough, and very good NRO interview, conducted by Kathryn Lopez, with Robert P. George, professor at Princeton and one of the foremost defenders of marriage. Highly recommended.

UPDATE (June 29, 2011): Also see canon lawyer Dr. Edward Peters' helpful post, "One demur to Robert George's excellent interview on marriage", on his "In the Light of the Law" blog. Also see his other new post, "A note on Gov. Cuomo's devotion to St. Thomas More".

700,000 copies of "YOUCAT" will be distributed in six languages at World Youth Day

From the Vatican Information Service:

VATICAN CITY, 28 JUN 2011 (VIS) - A press conference was held this morning in the Holy See Press Office to present the twenty-sixth World Youth Day (WYD), which will be held in the Spanish capital city of Madrid from 16 to 21 August. The conference was presented by Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity; Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela, archbishop of Madrid; Yago de la Cierva, executive director of WYD 2011; Elsa Vazquez Maggio, an international volunteer, and Jose Antonio Martinez Fuentes, secretary general of WYD 2011.

  "Each World Youth Day is an extraordinary experience for a Church which is friend to young people, which shares their problems", said Cardinal Rylko. "A Church which places herself at the service of the new generations. It is an experience of Universal Church - unique of its kind - which embraces the entire planet, of a young Church full of enthusiasm and missionary vigour. It is an epiphany of the Christian faith which has truly planetary dimensions. And young people, especially in the old and profoundly secularised continent of Europe, have particular need of all this".

  The cardinal recalled how this is the second occasion that Spain has "generously welcomed" WYD, and he spoke of the last time the event was held in that country, at Santiago de Compostela in 1989. It was there, he said, "that World Youth Day came to be structured as we know it today: three days of catechesis, a prayer vigil on the Saturday night, then the closing Eucharistic celebration and the dispatch of young people as missionaries. Also at Santiago de Compostela, pilgrimage came to be an essential factor of young people's journey in the footsteps of Peter's Successor.

  "Over succeeding years", he added, "each WYD has brought something new to the programme: the Way of the Cross at Denver, U.S.A., in 1993; preparatory days spent in dioceses prior to the main event and the 'Festival of Youth' (a kind of cultural programme) at Paris, France, in 1997; the 'Feast of Forgiveness' (300 confessionals crowded with young people in the Circus Maximus) at Rome in 2000; the 'Vocations Fair' at Toronto, Canada, in 2002, and the adoration of the Eucharist at Cologne, Germany, in 2005. Thus the proposal made to young people on each occasion is in continual evolution, seeking to respond to the true spiritual needs of today's youth".

  The cardinal also provided some statistics, noting that "WYD in Madrid is going to be a very significant event". Four hundred thousand young people have already signed up; they will be accompanied by14,000 priests and by 744 bishops, of whom 263 will be responsible for catechesis. Two hundred and fifty sites have been assigned for catechesis, which will be delivered in thirty languages, and 700,000 copies of "YOUCAT" will be distributed in six languages. Twenty-four thousand volunteers from different countries will be involved in various services. Finally, before reaching Madrid, the young people will be welcomed in sixty-eight Spanish dioceses, "in confirmation of the fact that the entire Church in Spain is directly involved in the WYD experience", said the cardinal. For those unable to reach Madrid, "simultaneous gatherings of young people have been organised in countries such as Ukraine, Burundi and Madagascar. They will be linked to the main event in Madrid by television and internet.

  "The Pope's presence is the culminating moment of any WYD", said the president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, noting that the forthcoming event in Madrid "will take place in the light of the recent beatification of John Paul II, founder of World Youth Days. Thus John Paul II will return among the young people he loved so much, and who loved him. He returns as blessed, patron and protector. Indeed, the Eucharistic celebration welcoming the youth to Madrid, presided by Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela, archbishop of the city, on 16 August, will be dedicated to the new blessed".

Learn more about the  Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church (YOUCAT) at www.YouCat.us.

The Call and Craft of the Catholic Novelist: An Interview with Fiorella De Maria

The Call and Craft of the Catholic Novelist: An Interview with Fiorella De Maria, author of Poor Banished Children: A Novel | Ignatius Insight | June 28, 2011

Novelist Fiorella De Maria, author of Poor Banished Children, was born in Italy of Maltese parents. She grew up in Wiltshire, England, and attended Cambridge, where she received a BA in English Literature and a Masters in Renaissance Literature, specializing in the English verse of Robert Southwell, S.J. She won the National Book Prize of Malta (foreign language fiction category) for her second novel The Cassandra Curse. Fiorella lives in Surrey with her husband and her three children and blogs at "The Singular Anomaly". She recently answered some questions from Carl E. Olson, editor of Ignatius Insight, about her novel and the craft of writing fiction.

Ignatius Insight: How did you end up becoming a novelist? What sort of personal and educational paths brought you to that point?

Fiorella De Maria: I have wanted to be a writer since I was about seven. As a child I always had my nose in a book and spent blissful hours in my room reading absolutely any novel I could lay my hands on. Reading teaches you so much about the art of writing;  how to make a character come to life, how to create atmosphere with a few words. I was very fortunate in that I grew up in a rural area where it was safe for a child to go out alone and I could walk for miles through the Wiltshire countryside completely undisturbed, dreaming that I was in Narnia or Wonderland or whatever world I had just read about. It is a stunningly beautiful part of the world; I used to think that Tolkien had been thinking of Wiltshire when he created The Shire. I was very blessed to grow up in such a lovely and evocative place.

I had some very supportive English teachers when I was at secondary school who really encouraged me to write and to have a go at writing all sorts of things so that I could find out what came most naturally – articles, poetry, short stories, I even wrote a couple of plays – and they offered constructive criticism and feedback. Then at Cambridge, I had the chance to study the development of the novel in depth and did courses in modern literature so that I could learn as much as possible about what contemporary novelists were writing about.

Read the entire interview on Ignatius Insight....

Homosexuals and "The Boston Globe" are shocked and angry that....

... the Catholic Church continues to teach that homosexual acts are "acts of grave depravity" (CCC, par. 2357) and that homosexual desires are "objectively disordered" (CCC, par 2358):

There have been many last straws for Richard Iandoli.

He was stung when his church’s hierarchy disparaged adoptions by gay couples, when his church emerged as a political leader against same-sex marriage, and by the way his church refers to homosexuality as “disordered.’’

Earlier this month, the insult was more personal: The Boston Archdiocese stepped in and postponed an “All are Welcome’’ Mass to commemorate Gay Pride Month at Iandoli’s church, St. Cecilia on Belvidere Street in Boston.

“It hits you in the gut,’’ Iandoli said. And he has wondered: What am I doing here?

Yet, like many gay and lesbian Roman Catholics, Iandoli refuses to walk away from his church, even when he feels that church leaders don’t want him. ...

The church’s position runs so counter to the growing acceptance of same-sex relationships that some gay Catholics say they are more bashful about their religious orientation than their sexuality.

“It was harder for me in my 20s to come out as a Catholic than as a gay person,’’ said Constance Cervone, 54, of Jamaica Plain.

The article, "Worship in the face of rejection" (Boston Globe, June 27, 2011) goes on and on in the same vein, with angry references to "the far-right conservative hierarchy" and the declaration by one man, Domenic Stagno, that "Even though the hierarchy has gone astray from the times of Christ, I’m not going to let them take my church away from me.’’ I've long held the silly belief that the Catholic Church was founded by and belongs to Jesus Christ, and now I learn it is actually the Church of Domenic Stagno. Why didn't someone mention it to me before?

Dave Pierre of TheMediaReport.com notes that this article is just the latest of a series of such pieces in the Globe; he writes:

From all of this coverage in the past few weeks, one would get the impression that the Globe thinks that the Catholic Church is alone in its opposition to gay marriage. Meanwhile, Orthodox Judaism, Islam, and many Protestant churches also hold the same disapproval. The paper has not profiled any of these organizations in the same negative manner, however.

The message from the Globe is clear: gay 'marriage' is good, faithful Catholicism is bad.

(Additional note: There is an interesting element to an accompanying online video to the Globe's front-page piece (Mon., 6/27/11). For the video, the paper interviews two gay men who attend Boston's aforementioned St. Cecilia. Both men not only rail against Church teaching but explicitly say that a main reason that they remain active parishioners is to "change the Church." There's a lot to swallow there. And for serious Catholics, this is somewhat sobering.)

Read his entire post.

Is this the most ridiculous, arrogant Huff-and-Puff Post piece ever penned?

Granted, the competition is tough and the candidates are legion. But I think that Victor Stenger—"Physicist, PhD, bestselling author"!—has thrown down the Gray Gauntlet of Lumpish Twaddle, and has done so in the span of just six paragraphs! Best be sitting down and not eating or drinking before taking this in:

Many historians and sociologists have denied the there ever was a war between science and religion. Some have even claimed that Christianity was responsible for science! But they have ignored the most important historical facts. Greece and Rome were well on the way to modern science when Christianity interrupted its development for a thousand years.

Nevermind that the Romans didn't even figure out how to engineer a drafting chimney. Oh well; I'm sure they were only a few years from splitting the atom when the barbarians overwhelmed them. Which is not to make light of Roman and Greek achievements. By the way, didn't the Romans and Greeks believe in multiple gods? So how is that Romans and Greeks were scientifically brilliant while being religious but Christians were/are decidedly anti-scientific because they are religious? Huh?

But there are few historians who deny the evidence that medieval Christian philosophy and culture laid the foundation for modern science. As Rodney Stark summarizes in The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success (Random House, 2005):

For the past two or three centuries, every educated person has known that from the fall of Rome until about the fifteenth century Europe was submerged in the "Dark Ages"--centuries of ignorance, superstition, and misery--from which it was suddenly, almost miraculously rescued, first by the Renaissance and then by the Enlightenment. But it didn't happen that way. Instead, during the so-called Dark Ages, European technology and science overtook and surpassed the rest of the world! (p. 38)

See more in my essay, "Dark Ages and Secularist Rages: A Response to Professor A.C. Grayling" (Jan. 30, 2007). And now back to Stenger:

I don't deny that many scientists are also religious, but they have compartmentalized their brains into two sections that don't talk to each other.

Ah, so Dr. Stenger is not only a physicist, but a mind reader! Of course, that's easier done than actually dealing with the historical evidence. It's like Jack Chick, Tim LaHaye, or Jimmy Swaggert claiming the Catholic Church killed 60/80/100 million people during the "Dark Ages": they don't need to prove such claims, as Dr. LaHaye told me, "because everyone knows it's true". That, in essence, is also Stenger's line of "argument". Meanwhile:

Science and religion are fundamentally incompatible because of their unequivocally opposed epistemologies -- the assumptions they make concerning what we can know about the world. Every human alive is aware of a world that seems to exist outside his or her body, the world of sensory experience we call the natural. Science is the systematic study of the observations we make about the natural world with our senses and scientific instruments and the application the knowledge obtained to human activity.

Would Stenger also argue that science and, say, philosophy are also "unequivocally opposed epistemologies"? After all, one cannot scientifically prove the existence, nature, and meaning of "justice" or "love" or "democracy" or "virtue" or "first cause", even though everyone (with a brain) agree that such things exist, in some way or another, in the world. Also, can Stenger scientifically prove that his reason and logic are reasonable and logical? It's a moot point, actually, because he writes this:

The working hypothesis of science is that empirical data is our only reliable source of knowledge about the world. No doubt science has its limits. But it doesn't follow that religion or any other alternative system of thought automatically provides any insight into what lies beyond those limits.

No, that is not the "working hypothesis" of science; it is an ideological declaration of scientism. After all, saying that science "is our only reliable source of knowledge about the world" does not follow in the least from the recognition that science is the study of natural events and material data. Another physicist, Stephen Barr, in this September 2006 Ignatius Insight interview, put it this way in relation to the origins of creation:

One has to distinguish the question of the universe's beginning moments from the question of why there is a universe at all. In my view, science will never provide an answer to the latter question. As Stephen Hawking famously noted, all theoretical physics can do is give one a set of rules and equations that correctly describe the universe, but it cannot tell you why there is any universe for those equations to describe. He asked, "What breathes fire into the equations so that there is a universe for them describe?"

As far as the beginning moments of the universe go, science may eventually be able to describe what happened then. That is, when we know the fundamental laws of physics in their entirety -- as I hope someday we will -- it may well turn out that the opening events of the universe happened in accordance with those laws. In that sense, "the beginning" could have been "natural". However, that would not explain the "origin" of the universe in the deeper sense meant by "Creation".

Let me use an analogy. The first words of a play -- say Hamlet -- may obey the laws of English grammar. They may also fit into the rest of the plot in a natural way. In that sense, one might be able to give an "internal explanation" of those beginning words. However, that would not explain why there is a play. There is a play because there is a playwright. When we ask about the "origin" of the play, we are not asking about its first words, we are asking who wrote it and why. The origin of the universe is God Almighty.

There is a bit more to Stenger's silliness, including his very laughable understanding of the nature of religion, but I've wasted enough time on it. If nothing else, I do hope that those sensitive readers who have fainting spells because I called The Huffington Post the "Huff-and-Puff Post" will see Stenger's, um, essay as evidence—scientific!—that I have fairly and correctly re-named it.

• Dark Ages and Secularist Rages: A Response to Professor A.C. Grayling | Carl E. Olson
• Excerpts from Chance or Purpose: Creation, Evolution, and a Rational Faith | Christoph Cardinal Schšnborn
• The Mythological Conflict Between Christianity and Science | An interview with physicist Dr. Stephen Barr | Mark Brumley
• The Universe is Meaning-full | An interview with Dr. Benjamin Wiker, co-author of A Meaningful World | Carl E. Olson
• The Mystery of Human Origins | Mark Brumley
• Designed Beauty and Evolutionary Theory | Thomas Dubay, S.M.

Abby Johnson, author of "Unplanned", is touring Australia

Abby Johnson, author of Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader's Eye-Opening Journey Across the Life Line, has just embarked on a national speaking tour sponsored by Right to Life Australia. She will be visiting several cities, including Sydney, Adelaide, Albury, Brisbane, Hobart, Melbourne, and Perth.

For more information, visit the Right to Life Australia website and see Abby's website.

For more about Unplanned, visit the book's website and read the book's opening chapter:

"That Singular Anomaly" is the new blog...

... of British novelist Fiorella de Maria, whose third novel, Poor Banished Children, was recently published by Ignatius Press.

Here is the new blog, which is focused on book/literary-related subjects.

Tomorrow morning I'll be posting an interview with Fiorella in which I ask her about literary influences, the challenges of writing a historical novel, and her take on the current state of the Catholic literary world. In the meantime, here are the opening chapters of her new novel:

"Secularisation is a lot harder than people tend to imagine."

Princeton University Press recently published a collection of essays titled, The Joy of Secularism: 11 Essays for How We Live Now, which is edited by George Levine. The book, according to its blurb, promises the moon and more:

 Bringing together distinguished historians, philosophers, scientists, and writers, this book shows that secularism is not a mere denial of religion. Rather, this positive and necessary condition presents a vision of a natural and difficult world--without miracles or supernatural interventions--that is far richer and more satisfying than the religious one beyond.

From various perspectives--philosophy, evolutionary biology, primate study, Darwinian thinking, poetry, and even bird-watching--the essays in this collection examine the wealth of possibilities that secularism offers for achieving a condition of fullness. Factoring in historical contexts, and ethical and emotional challenges, the contributors make an honest and heartfelt yet rigorous case for the secular view by focusing attention on aspects of ordinary life normally associated with religion, such as the desire for meaning, justice, spirituality, and wonder. Demonstrating that a world of secular enchantment is a place worth living in, The Joy of Secularism takes a new and liberating look at a valuable and complex subject.

Literary critic and Marx apologist (and former Catholic) Terry Eagleton reviews the book in The New Statesman and points out, among other things, that a completely secular world would have a very hard time establishing the sort of virtues—true responsibility, tolerance, peacefullness, hope, love—that are rooted in the West's Judeo-Christian heritage:

None of these writers points out that if Christianity is true, then it is all up with us. We would then have to face the deeply disagreeable truth that the only authentic life is one that springs from a self-dispossession so extreme that it is probably beyond our power. Instead, the volume chatters away about spirits and Darwinian earthworms, animal empathy and the sources of morality.

Kitcher asks himself why people should need to be united by a belief in some "transcendental entity" (his use of both terms is inaccurate) rather than by their mutual sympathies. "What exactly," he enquires, "does the invocation of some supernatural being add?" A Christian might reply that it adds the obligations to give up everything one has, including one's life, if necessary, for the sake of others. And this, to say the least, is highly inconvenient. Anyone, even a mildly intelligent badger, can entertain "mutual sympathies". The Christian paradigm of love, by contrast, is the love of strangers and enemies, not of those we find agreeable. Civilised notions such as mutual sympathy, more's the pity, won't deliver us the world we need.

Secularisation is a lot harder than people tend to imagine. The history of modernity is, among other things, the history of substitutes for God. Art, culture, nation, Geist, humanity, society: all these, along with a clutch of other hopeful aspirants, have been tried from time to time. The most successful candidate currently on offer is sport, which, short of providing funeral rites for its spectators, fulfils almost every religious function in the book.

If Friedrich Nietzsche was the first sincere atheist, it is because he saw that the Almighty is exceedingly good at disguising Himself as something else, and that much so-called secularisation is accordingly bogus. Secular thinking, too, had to be demythified. "God had in fact gone into hiding," Robbins observes, "and now had to be smoked out of various secular terms, from morals and nature and history to man and even grammar." Even Nietzsche's will to power has a suspiciously metaphysical ring to it.

Postmodernism is perhaps best seen as Nietzsche shorn of the metaphysical baggage. Whereas modernism is still haunted by a God-shaped absence, postmodern culture is too young to remember a time when men and women were anguished by the fading spectres of truth, reality, nature, value, meaning, foundations and the like. For postmodern theory, there never was any truth or meaning in the first place, and so mourning its disappearance would be like lamenting that a rabbit can't recite Paradise Lost.

Postmodernism is properly secular, but it pays an immense price for this coming of age - if coming of age it is. It means shelving all the other big questions, too, as hopelessly passé. It also involves the grave error of imagining that all faith or passionate conviction is inci­piently dogmatic. It is not only religious belief to which postmodernism is allergic, but belief as such. Advanced capitalism sees no need for the stuff. It is both politically divisive and commercially unnecessary.

Read the entire review.

Related Links:

• "Can atheists be grateful?" (August 22, 2006)
• Relativism 101: A Brief, Objective Guide | by Carl E. Olson
• The Old Age and the New | Thomas Howard | From "The Old Myth and the New," Chapter One of Chance or the Dance? A Critique of Modern Secularism
• Dawkins' Delusions | An interview with Fr. Thomas Crean, O.P.
• Professor Dawkins and the Origins of Religion | Fr. Thomas Crean, O.P. | From God Is No Delusion: A Refutation of Richard Dawkins
• Atheism and the Purely "Human" Ethic | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• Is Religion Evil? Secularism's Pride and Irrational Prejudice | Carl E. Olson
• A Short Introduction to Atheism | Carl E. Olson
• C.S. Lewis’s Case for Christianity | An Interview with Richard Purtill
• Paganism and the Conversion of C.S. Lewis | Clotilde Morhan
• Designed Beauty and Evolutionary Theory | Fr. Thomas Dubay, S.M.
• The Universe is Meaning-full | An interview with Dr. Benjamin Wiker
• The Mythological Conflict Between Christianity and Science | An interview with Dr. Stephen Barr
• The Source of Certitude | Fr. Thomas Dubay, S.M.

“YouCat is a beautiful gift to Catholics..."

Over at Metro Catholic, George Vogt has posted a report on the "Rooted" conference hosted recently by Franciscan University of Steubenville:

STEUBENVILLE, OH (MetroCatholic) – “What am I worth? I’m worth that guy’s life,” said author Chris Stefanick, pointing to the image of Jesus Christ on the cross. “We’re not the sum of our accomplishments. Our worth is not diminished by our failures. One Eucharist is your net worth. You are worth God the Son to God the Father.”

Stefanick spoke to over 1700 teens, youth ministers, chaperones, priests, and religious, who packed Finnegan Fieldhouse June 17-19 for Franciscan University of Steubenville’s first on-campus High School Youth Conference of the summer. Nearly 40,000 teens will attend Franciscan’s conferences this summer in 11 states and Canada.

“I know that God wanted you here,” said conference host Bob “Righteous B” Lesnefsky. “Somehow in God’s mystical plan for your life, you were meant to be here.”

This year’s youth conference theme, “Rooted,” taken from Colossians 2:6-7, guided the experience.

“Sometimes it all hits at once,” said Father Rick Martignetti, OFM, in his Saturday morning homily. “People will hurt us. People who love us are going to die. Storms come. But when the wind comes, the tree that’s well planted isn’t uprooted—it dances in the wind. It rejoices.

“Mary wasn’t spared the storms and troubles of life. But she was rooted. She can teach us the way of holding on to God at all times,” said Father Martignetti, director of the Priestly Discernment Program at Franciscan University.

The weekend centered around Jesus Christ, present in the Eucharist at Mass and in adoration, and his Holy Spirit, speaking through God’s Word in Scripture and the magisterial teaching of the Church to bring the life and love of the Father to every human heart.

A conference highlight was a quiz-show style contest to win free copies of the new international youth catechism, YouCat, made possible through a partnership with Ignatius Press.

“YouCat is a beautiful gift to Catholics,” said John Beaulieu, Franciscan University’s director of Youth and Young Adult Outreach. “We look forward to helping spread that gift through the conferences, and we are very grateful to Ignatius Press for working with us to make it happen.”

Read the entire article. And for more information, including a complete list of conferences for adults and youth at Franciscan University of Steubenville, go to www.franciscanconferences.com. More information about YouCat can be found at YouCat.us.

The State of Catholic Schools in the U.S.

The State of Catholic Schools in the U.S. | Jeff Ziegler | Catholic World Report

Signs of hope despite a bleak prognosis

The Church worldwide is in the midst of a Catholic education boom. Between 1997 and 2008, the number of Catholic primary schools rose from 86,505 to 93,315—an increase of a dozen schools every week—to keep pace with a 20 percent increase in enrollment in the same period. Likewise, the number of Catholic secondary schools grew from 34,849 to 42,234—an increase of 13 schools each week—alongside a 28 percent rise in enrollment. These gains outstripped the growth in overall Catholic population (16 percent) and world population (15 percent) during the same period.

In the midst of this Catholic education boom worldwide, the Church in the United States has suffered a dramatic decline in its education apostolate. According to the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA), the number of Catholic schools fell from 8,146 to 6,980 between 2000 and 2010—a loss of 117 schools every year. Combined primary and secondary school enrollment also declined 22 percent, from 2,647,301 to 2,065,872.

The roots of this decline stretch back decades. “School enrollment reached its peak during the early 1960s when there were more than 5.2 million students in almost 13,000 schools across the nation,” according to the latest NCEA school data report. In 1990, some 2.5 million students were enrolled in 8,719 schools. The 1990s saw the loss of 573 schools, even as enrollment grew by 150,000. The enrollment gains of the 1990s, however, were wiped away by the steep declines of the last decade.

According to statistics published in the 2011 Catholic Almanac, the 10 dioceses with the highest combined primary and secondary school enrollment are Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Cleveland, St. Louis, Cincinnati, St. Paul-Minneapolis, and Boston. On the other hand, 10 dioceses—Juneau, Anchorage, Lubbock (Texas), Fairbanks, Baker (Oregon), Las Cruces (New Mexico), Amarillo, Pueblo (Colorado), and Cheyenne—have total enrollments of under 1,000 students.

The dioceses with the highest and lowest numbers of students, however, are not necessarily the dioceses where Catholic schools are proportionately strongest and weakest. The 15 dioceses with the highest ratio of Catholic school students to overall Catholic population are Covington (Kentucky), Memphis, Louisville, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Wichita, Jefferson City, Omaha, Mobile, Evansville (Indiana), Jackson (Mississippi), Kansas City-St. Joseph, St. Louis, Lexington (Kentucky), and New Orleans.

Conversely, the 15 dioceses with the weakest culture of Catholic education—the dioceses with the lowest ratio of Catholic school students to overall Catholic population—are Brownsville, Texas (which has the lowest ratio), Las Cruces, Las Vegas, Fresno, Lubbock, El Paso, San Bernardino, Laredo (Texas), San Angelo (Texas), Pueblo, Corpus Christi, Anchorage, Fort Worth, Juneau, and Dallas. Catholic school culture, in general, is thus strongest near the Ohio River, the central Mississippi River, and parts of the Gulf Coast; it is weakest in portions of Texas, California, and in Alaska.

Read the entire article at www.CatholicWorldReport.com...

"Von Balthasar reminds us that what is most fitting is not what is most current."

Anne M. Carpenter, a doctoral student at Marquette University who authors the "Catholic Kung Fu" blog, has a new post titled, "Redeeming Hans Urs von Balthasar" (ht: Christopher Blosser). Carpenter summarizes a number of the common criticisms made of von Balthasar (it's a very good list!) and then writes that "it is true that the majority of his most vocal detractors don’t really understand what he was trying to say. (There are others, quieter, who know him well and who begin to slide apart the broken seams in his work.) But being difficult is not the same as being wrong, and certainly not the same as being unworthy of consideration." She then writes:

No, there is something worthy in von Balthasar. I do not mean merely that he wanted beauty to return to theology. In a post-Balthasar world, the worthiness of such a task is taken too much for granted to have much weight. I mean that his attempt to give beauty its due credit manages on the whole to avoid the two major dangers that most theologies succumb to in one way or another. The first danger is straying into a love of logic that ends in a love of mere coherence, with no room at all for God; the second is using beauty to avoid complex and demanding metaphysical inquiry, as if beauty could compel us beyond the traps that already sit before us. Beauty cannot save us from logic; it places logic, and gives it fullness. This means theology must be more rigorous, not less; it must have more room for mystery, not less. There must be both. That is what beauty tells us, and what von Balthasar for the both part manages to defend.

During the time of its writing, Glory of the Lord was a lightning-bolt that could return to theology old categories such as what is most fitting, which means that we could once again think in terms of what was best and not what seemed most useful. It was a lightning-bolt that let us begin to mend the tragic divorce between theology and spirituality. Reason no longer needed to be reasonable in so narrow a sense.

With these books, feeling returned to numb fingers.

But now, decades after its completion, Glory of the Lord stands at the long end of another spectrum. When theologies of art and beauty now begin to threaten to descend into a loose sentimentalism, Glory reminds us that beauty has its logic. Von Balthasar reminds us that what is most fitting is not what is most current.

It is not enough merely to have feeling; we must also know obedience

It's a post certainly worth reading for anyone with any interest in von Balthasar. Personally, I have benefited tremendously from reading several (fifteen or so) of his books, but I also readily confess that there is so much of his work that I've not read and so many of his ideas that I don't fully comprehend. I, of course, don't think he is infallible or perfect; but I also think that saying, as some do, that "he was too liberal" (false) or "he believed that no one will go to hell" (again, false), is not helpful in the least. In fact, in some cases, it is almost slanderous. He is a great thinker and brilliant theologian whose huge corpus demands a lot of time and effort, and few people have the time, the energy, and the ability to do it justice.

In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, who knew him well: "The example that von Balthasar has given us is, rather, that of a true theologian who in contemplation had discovered a consistent course of action for giving Christian witness in the world. We remember him on this important occasion as a man of faith, a priest who, in obedience and in a hidden life, never sought personal approval, but rather in the true Ignatian spirit always desired the greater glory of God."

For further reading, on Ignatius Insight:

• Biography of Hans Urs von Balthasar
• All Ignatius Press books by Hans Urs von Balthasar
• Excerpts from the writings of Hans Urs von Balthasar
• Ignatius Insight Articles about Hans Urs von Balthasar
• Pope Benedict XVI Praises Hans Urs von Balthasar (Oct. 2005)

An edition of "Hamlet" free of "deconstructionistic, biased bunk"

Faith, writing on her blog, Strewing, has praise for the Ignatius Critical Edition (ICE) of Hamlet:

If you are tired of postmodernist professors writing cockamamie literary analysis that makes you roll your eyeballs at their narrow, deconstructionistic, biased bunk, fret no more! I loved reading both Joseph Pearce's wonderfully in depth Introduction and the several essays at the end of the book. I especially enjoyed Crystal Downing of Messiah College's essay entitled: Reading Hamlet and Richard Harp's of the University of Nevada, essay entitled The Nobility of Hamlet. In fact I've decided that Professor Harp is brilliant because he clarified to me why I was always dissatisfied with seeing Hamlet's problem as one of indecision. I also enjoyed Andrew Moran's essay, Hamlet's Envenomed Foil which really illuminated the tension between Protestantism and Catholicism that Shakespeare so cleverly and brilliantly unfolds in this play.

Read her entire post.

The ICE edition of Hamlet is available in paperback or in e-book format; there is also a study guide. For more about the Ignatius Critical Editions, which now includes fifteen titles, visit www.IgnatiusCriticalEditions.com. Coming soon: Bram Stoker's Dracula, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Metaphysical Poets (Donne, Crashaw, Herbert, etc.), and Romantic Poets (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Byron, Shelley, etc.).