Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog

DNC platform will openly support marriage as being between...

... two adults, regardless of sex. File under, "If you're surprised, we'll assume you've been living on Mars for a while":

Democrats are set to include a pro-gay marriage plank in their convention platform for the first time in history, party sources confirm to POLITICO. The language was approved unanimously by a 15-member platform draft committee, and now heads for approval by the full platform committee in August.

The party’s Platform Drafting Committee agreed, unanimously, to approve the language at a meeting this weekend in Minneapolis.

A source in the meeting said the decision was “not controversial.”

The language will not become official until the party’s full Platform Committee meets Aug. 10 in Detroit.

The effort to include gay marriage in the platform gained increased momentum after President Barack Obama announced in May that his views on the issue had changed to support legalization.

“I don’t think that we had any issues that were controversial,” one member of the committee said Monday. “I think we were pretty much in sync and in agreement with where we ended up.”

Read the entire piece on the Politico site. While we're on the topic of assaults on marriage, family, and commonsense, here is an excerpt from Matthew Franck's review of the book, Debating Same-Sex Marriage, co-authored by John Corvino and Maggie Gallagher:

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Four essays about St. Ignatius of Loyola...

... and the Jesuits, on Ignatius Insight, on the Feast Day of the founder of the Society of Jesus:

Despotism, Distraction, and the Defense of Civilization

An interview with author Roger Kimball about his new book, The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia

Roger Kimball is Editor and Publisher of The New Criterion and President and Publisher of Encounter Books. He is an art critic for National Review and writes a regular column for PJ Media at Roger’s Rules. He has written and edited several books on art, literature, culture, politics, and education. He recently spoke with Catholic World Report about his most recent book, The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia, published by St. Augustine's Press, offering his thoughts on relativism, tyranny, culture, religion, Chesterton, art and architecture, socialism, and the future of Western civilization.

Catholic World Report: In the Preface, you write that the "embrace of relativism was a harbinger, a symptom of a seismic shift in the way people view the world." What was that seismic shift? And how did it set the stage, so to speak, for the rise and growing acceptance of relativism?

Kimball: Perhaps the best way of identifying the nature of that shift is to quote Dostoyevsky’s famous observation, from The Brothers Karamazov, that “If there is no God, everything is permitted.” Dostoyevsky’s great insight was to see that without allegiance to the transcendent, our parochial attachments are anchorless, and, being anchorless, they tend to drift along whichever way the current of sentiment pushes them. As I note in Fortunes, relativism, whether or not it travels under that particular name, has more and more assumed the status of a civil religion in the West. It bearing the promise of liberation from old pieties—just think back to the rancid jubilations of the 1960s and 1970s if you want an example—but regularly delivers new forms of tyranny and enslavement.

 That’s to say, while the first upsurge of relativism can be an intoxicating draught—think again of the giddiness that ushered in the Sixties—the unpleasant hangover, the foundering on the jagged shoals of reality—is not long in coming. What seemed like a welcome liberation soon reveals itself as a vertiginous exile. Which is to say that, at bottom, relativism is a religious problem. “God is dead,” Nietzsche proclaimed in the 1880s. What he observed was an emotional, not an historical, fact. The unspoken allegiance to something transcending the vicissitudes of human desire had been (among the elites, anyway) shattered. The result was nihilism, that existential vacuum which human nature abhors and rushes to fill with a panoply of brazen idols and false gods.

Catholic World Report: An interconnecting theme in the book is how relativism informs a number of modern impulses and trends, including those of tyranny, utopianism, and benevolence. Many people, it is safe to say, think those three have little or no connection at all to one another. How are they connected? Why do many people fail to see the relationship between them? 

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Peter Kreeft talks about C.S. Lewis, philosophy, and "must read" books...

... with blogger and author Brandon Vogt. A taste:

Brandon: Outside the Bible and Catechism, what are the top five books you wish every Catholic would read?

Peter Kreeft: Augustine’s Confessions, Pascal’s Pensees, Frank Sheed’s Theology and Sanity and Society and Sanity, and Brother Lawrence’s The Practice of the Presence of God. All of them bring heart and head together to powerfully push the reader up the road to the meaning of life, which is to be a saint, in head, heart, and hand.

The Confessions is unclassifiable; it has everything. The Pensees is the best modern apologetic book. Sheed’s two classics are the clearest popular introduction to Catholic theology I know. And Br. Lawrence’s is the simplest and most effective book for beginners in the spiritual life.

Read the entire interview.

More about the prolific Peter Kreeft on his Ignatius Insight author page. And:

Related IgnatiusInsight.com Articles and Interviews:

• The Sacraments | From Fundamentals of the Faith
• What's the Point of Creeds? | From Fundamentals of the Faith
• Three Questions Everyone Should Ask Themselves | The Introduction to Because God Is Real: Sixteen Questions, One Answer
• Pascal For Today | From the Preface to Christianity for Modern Pagans: Pascal's Pensées (Edited, Outlined, and Explained)
• The Two Most Important Philosophers Who Ever Lived | The Introduction to Socrates Meets Descartes: The Father of Philosophy Analyzes the Father of Modern Philosophy's Discourse on Method
• The Comprehensive Claim of Marxism | From Socrates Meets Marx: The Father of Philosophy Cross-Examines the Founder of Communism
• On Spiritual Warfare | From The Snakebite Letters
• On Writing and Apologetics | Talking with Peter Kreeft
• Seducing Minds With The Socratic Method | An Interview with Peter Kreeft
• Socrates Meets Sartre: In Hell? | From Socrates Meets Sartre
• The Point of It All | From The God Who Loves You
• The Divinity of Christ | From Fundamentals of the Faith
• How To Read The Bible | From You Can Understand The Bible
• The Presence of Christ in The Lord of the Rings | From The Philosophy of Tolkien
• Abortion: What Can Be Done? | Introduction to Three Approaches to Abortion
• The Question of Hope | From Heaven: The Heart's Deepest Longing

The Shock of the Blessed Sacrament

A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for Sunday, July 29, 2012 | Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time | Carl E. Olson

Readings:
• 2 Kgs 4:42-44
• Ps 145:10-11, 15-16, 17-18
• Eph 4:1-6
• Jn 6:1-15

When, as an Evangelical Protestant, I began working my way through the many Catholic beliefs that both puzzled and attracted me, one really stood out: the Eucharist.

And of all the various Scripture passages I read, re-read, and studied, there was one that especially shook me to the core: the sixth chapter of John. As I read what is among the most astounding and brilliantly realized passages of the Bible, the tension would build to the moment when Jesus, with serene firmness, asked of his murmuring disciples, “Does this shock you?”

Yes, I thought to myself, it does shock me. What to think? What to do?

The center of the shock is located in John 6:51-59, where Jesus stated emphatically, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you” (Jn. 6:53). But to appreciate more profoundly the mystery of the great Bread of Life discourse, we need to start at the beginning of the chapter and slowly work through the various stages of explosive revelation found in what is an argument, a teaching, a prophetic utterance, and, ultimately, a direct encounter with the heart of Jesus Christ.

Today’s Gospel reading is the first of five successive weeks of readings from John 6. These opening fifteen verses establish both the physical and theological context of what follows. Jesus had crossed the Sea of Galilee with a large crowd following on land; the people were curious about the miracles and signs performed by the Nazarene.

St. John notes, quite purposefully, that Jesus “went up on the mountain,” which indicates that God was about to work in a miraculous and startling way. The Evangelist also indicates the feast of Passover was near; this was the second Passover during Jesus’ public ministry. During the first Passover, Jesus had cleared the Temple and then prophesied rather cryptically his death and resurrection (Jn. 2:19-22). Later in John 6, Jesus spoke again about his death and resurrection (6:51). And the third Passover, of course, was when Jesus was arrested, tried and crucified (Jn. 19:14).

The Passover context is significant for this central Jewish feast was a solemn ceremony in remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt, a pivotal and defining moment in Jewish history. At that first Passover (Ex. 12) the people were commanded to take an unblemished lamb, kill it, and spread the blood over the doorposts. They were then commanded to eat the lamb completely, along with unleavened bread. Down through time the Jews celebrated the Passover with a feast involving bread and wine and the singing of Psalms, followed by the sacrificing of lambs in the Temple.

Jesus is described as the Lamb of God “who takes away the sin of the world” in the opening chapter of John’s Gospel (Jn. 1:29). In the sixth chapter, then, the essential themes are sustenance, sacrifice, and salvation. The sustenance was, first of all, physical in nature. Jesus was quite aware of the basic needs of those following him. But the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes was not simply about physical satisfaction, but was the start of spiritual challenge and illumination.

In a pattern described several times in the Fourth Gospel—think of Nicodemus (Jn. 3) or the Samaritan woman at the well (Jn. 4)—Jesus began with a physical object or event, such as birth or water, and used it as a springboard into deep spiritual waters. Those waters, in turn, are shown to be sacramental in nature. As we will see over the next few weeks, the physical sign of multiplying bread—itself a symbol pointing to the reality of the Eucharist—led to the declaration of a spiritual truth, “I am the bread of life” (Jn. 6:35).

That, in turn, will bring us face to face with the sacramental reality—“For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed” (Jn. 6:55)—and the question: “Does this shock you?”

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the July 26, 2009, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

The "crazy" rhetoric of Michael Sean Winters

Being called "crazy" by Michael Sean Winters is like being called a "heretic" by his employer, the National Catholic Reporter—if that particular publication ever admitted the existence of heresy. Such accusations lack gravitas and authenticity; they also come across as a bit, well, crazy:

Those who are prone to conspiratorial explanations of phenomenon tend to be, well, a little bit crazy. And, their craziness is not only intellectual, it is moral.

How else to explain this bizarre article at the Catholic World Report anout the "Nuns on the Bus" tour being linked with financier George Soros. Soros, you see, gave money to the Center for American Progress. The Center for American Progress played a role, not clear what role from this diatribe, in the foundation of the group Faith in Public Life. The group Faith in Public Life apparently was one of the groups that the nuns at NETWORK met with when the idea of having a bus tour was hatched. Q.E.D. Sr. Simone might as well have been caught sitting in Soros' lap! And all for the sake of publicity! The horror. Except that, in a democracy, publicity is not a bad thing, is it? What is so different about the bus tour from the pamphlet "Common Sense"? And, in American democracy today, the idea of trying to garner publicity for the plight of the poor by means of a bus rental is almost quaint, at least when compared to the gobs of money making its way onto the airwaves via the SuperPACs.

And, so what if Sr. Simone had cashed a check direct from Soros? Where did this demonization of Soros begin? I may not agree with all of his politics, but the man has used a considerable amount of his considerable fortune to promote civil society and democratic norms and independent journalism in the countries ravaged by Communism. Is that such a bad thing? I deplore some of his positions, especially his support for euthanasia, but that cannot undo all the good he has done. Ignoring the good, and only emphasizing the bad is, tarring everyone with an association with an indictment, this sort of conpiratorial think is, as I say, crazy.

Folks can read my post and judge its level of intellectual and moral craziness for themselves. For my part, I'm unclear what Winters means by "moral craziness"; is he actually accusing me of a specific depravity, evil, and sin? Or inclination to the same? (I know he believes in sin: it is any action or thought issuing forth from what he calls "Catholic neo-cons".) Perhaps I missed the memo about going easy (as the mainstream media does) on an atheist billionaire who has been convicted of insider trading in France, and who supports a number of dissenting, progressive Catholic groups, some of which are openly pro-abortion, such as Catholics For Choice. And how, for goodness sake, does my post qualify as "conspiratorial"? Especially since Soros's political and social stances are fairly well-known and his support of causes and groups in opposition to Church teaching and authority are equally evident?

Well, I would spend more time analyzing it, but over the years I've learned that analyzing the "logic" of Winters' posts and articles is like looking for a melody and a sax solo in a Sex Pistols "song". Besides, it is obvious Winters knows that his core readership of catechesis-challenged Catholics will dutifully come running when he throws out the "crazy" label. Having penned the post, "Conspiratorial Craziness" (see above) about myself and CWR on July 11th, he quickly followed up with a post titled "More Conspiratorial Craziness" on the same day:

Continue reading on the CWR blog.

Ecology, Politics, and "Love of the Home"

Ecology, Politics, and "Love of the Home" | William L. Patenaude | Catholic World Report

A review of Roger Scruton’s Green Philosophy: How to Think Seriously About the Planet

Nuance is often lacking in discussions about global environmental crises, which makes Roger Scruton’s Green Philosophy: How to Think Seriously About the Planet (Oxford University Press) a gift for those distraught by the doomsday scenarios or outright denial voiced by many today about life on Earth. Scruton’s examinations of agriculture, climate change, widespread plastic pollution, and much more offer sound, challenging food for thought—even if the necessary ingredients to achieve his proposals are left largely unstated, as people of faith will notice.

Scruton is an English writer and philosopher. He labels himself as conservative but his writings and observations can defy the commonly accepted meaning of that label. In How to Think Seriously About the Planet one finds solutions that would, and do, delight liberal ecological crusaders. This is but one example of Scruton’s willingness to seek answers along any path that will do.

In just over 400 pages, the book connects topics that should be connected when discussing ecology: politics, philosophy, aesthetics, economics, sociology, the natural sciences, history, and current events. What is hardly mentioned, however—and when it is, only with the lightest of touches—is faith, especially the Christian faith that Scruton has adopted and that formed the foundational narrative of much of the Western world that he examines. Perhaps Scruton assumes that his audience will be largely secular and so wishes to avoid any terminology—like sin, grace, or God—that may interfere with, or be diminished by, his political message.

Nevertheless, love and sacrifice play big roles in this book. The central proposal for thinking seriously about the planet is “old-fashioned oikophilia”—the love of the home. It is this love, Scruton argues, that provides the best means to counter human-induced ecological crises. Any changes in human practices that are meant for the good of the environment (and, thus, for people) must root themselves in our “individualist” instinct for communities to tend to their own. The opposing “egalitarian” reflex—to solve problems through the actions of strangers within centralized governments, international agencies, or non-government organizations, of which no one political authority is in control—will too often fail and in many cases already has.

Scruton writes that “[t]he conservative understanding of political action that I propose is formulated in terms of trusteeship rather than enterprise, of conversation rather than command, of friendship rather than the pursuit of some common cause. Those ideas lend themselves readily to the environmental project, and it always surprises me that so few environmentalists seem to see this. It is as obvious to a conservative that our reckless pursuit of individual gratification jeopardizes the social order as that it jeopardizes the planet. It is obvious too that the wisest policies are those that strive to protect and keep in place the customs and institutions that place a brake on our appetites, renew the sources of social contentment, and forbid us to pass on the costs of what we do to those who did not incur them.”

It is hard not to hear a dialogue with Christian ethics in Scruton’s definition of political action. Indeed, much of what Pope Benedict XVI has said about ecology and human consumption aligns with Scruton, when stripped of political adjectives. But Scruton’s musings about conservative political philosophies do not journey into faith, even if this is where the entire project seems headed.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Liturgy: The Foundation and Strength of Marriages

Liturgy: The Foundation and Strength of Marriages | Sarah Elizabeth Maple | Homiletic & Pastoral Review

The Eucharistic celebration is a testament to the need for man’s self-gift as response to God’s gift to us through his Son …. to find himself through his own, sincere gift of himself … reflected in his total consecration to God through an earthly marriage.

Of great significance today is the issue of divorce, of increasing concern in our cultural landscape. In a world so broadly influenced, and ministered to, by the Christian mission of “love” and “unity,” many wonder at the reality of this growing divide at the heart and very core of society: divorce within the family. In his 2010 article, “The Era of the Narcissist,” Aaron Kheiriaty states:

Christianity was the leaven that shaped a more humble and humane culture; gave rise to America’s founding values; and, ultimately, prevented us from worshipping ourselves. The cure? Either we will become the salt and light that purge and dispel the insipid narcissism that surrounds us, or our culture will continue to descend deeper into the loud, crass, and aggressive cult of self-worship. 1

In this quote by Kheiriaty, we see the depth of our cultural crisis: narcissism. Our society, with its abundance of divorce statistics, has become more selfish and, therefore, undercutting self-giving. The very foundation of Christianity, of the Church, and, indeed, the Eucharistic liturgy, is about self-sacrifice. But our society is often referred to, now, as a “culture of divorce.” It was nearly 80 years ago that the author, Odo Casel, anticipated the problem and outlined a remedy for our marital crisis. Though Casel does not extensively discuss the sacrament of marriage, per se, his insights of the power of the liturgy are extraordinarily helpful in restoring man’s understanding of his origin and purpose. Controversial within his lifetime, this publication was widely accepted and influential in the crafting of the “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,” of the Second Vatican Council, in December 4, 1963. In his book, “The Mystery of Christian Worship,” Casel considers three points concerning man’s relational nature:

Continue reading at www.HPRweb.com.

The Non-Neutrality of the Secular State

The Non-Neutrality of the Secular State | Benjamin Wiker | Catholic World Report

Jefferson’s view of the First Amendment has become authoritative. That is a problem, because Jefferson did intend to promote religion’s exile from public life.

As the bishops make clear in their statement on religious liberty “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty,” the HHS mandate declaring that Catholic institutions must provide contraception and abortifacients in their insurance coverage is only one of a number of attacks by the secular state against the Church.

Why the attacks? Surely the state would declare that it is merely following the dictates of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which demands, so the Supreme Court tells us, that the federal government “erect a wall of separation between church and State.” Ushering religion out of the public square so that one sect doesn’t set up shop to the exclusion of others and thereby commandeer the government to do its bidding—well, that’s the government’s ordained job. Freedom of religion for everyone demands that no religion gain privileged access, and so all must be kept on the other side of the wall of separation. So we’re told.

The bishops do not agree. In “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty,” they quote from another important document, “In Defense of Religious Freedom,” a statement of Evangelicals and Catholics Together. ECT asserts that the First Amendment’s decree that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” does not “demand a naked public square, shorn of religiously informed moral conviction. The ‘separation of church and state’ is intended to protect freedom for religious conviction; it is not intended to promote religion’s exile from public life.”

I beg to differ, or perhaps, I beg at least to clarify. The historical and constitutional waters are too muddied to make such a clean and clear assertion. It is correct, I think, to assert that the First Amendment’s declaration that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” does not “demand a naked public square.” But if we scratch beyond the surface we find that the “separation of church and state” is in fact “intended to promote religion’s exile from public life.”

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

"Humanae Vitae": 44 years later, it continues to challenge us to love, trust, and sacrifice

My most recent late night post on the Catholic World Report blog:

The encyclical, Humanae Vitae, was promulgated 44 years ago today, on July 25, 1968. The word often used to describe Pope Paul VI's encyclical is "prophetic". It is one of those rather rare cases in which such a daunting, loaded, and strong adjective is exactly on the mark. Being prophetic, in the biblical and apostolic tradition, involves far more than some sort of foretelling of future events. It is, first, a forthtelling of truth, a proclamation of the Word of God. As such, it requires courage and a willingness to be rejected, mocked, and even vilified.

All of that happened to Paul VI, and the case can be made (and has been made many times over) that Humanae Vitae and the immediate response to it—harsh, mocking, dismissive, angry—marked a pivotal moment in the Church's life in the modern era in the West. There was talk then, as there is even today, that the deep divide over the teachings of Humanae Vitae and the subsequent, related teachings by Blessed John Paul II and Benedict XVI might lead to a divided Church. But viewing it in such a way is rather misleading because, first, the Church is One, and as such, cannot be divided into two (or more) bodies. "Unity", the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, "is of the essence of the Church" (par 813). There are wounds to the unity of the Church, and these take the form of "rifts", "serious dissensions", "ruptures", and "heresy, apostasy, and schism" (par 817).

It's hardly a news flash, of course, that there are many who have separated themselves from full communion with the Church because of Paul VI's clear teaching that contraception is sinful and contrary to God's plan for marriage, procreation, and family life. I have no doubt that many Catholics who use contraception are ignorant of what the Church teaches—and why she teaches it. Yet there are those who knowingly, willfully, and without shame insist that they and their convenient (and supposedly perfect) consciences have found the Church's teaching to be inadequate, inconvenient, and incorrect. Taken to its logical, if not altogether comfortable, conclusion, this approach assumes that God himself upholds the dissent founded upon their (poorly formed) consciences.

In other words, if final, definite authority is ascribed to one's conscience, then what it says is "true" must, when push comes to shove, be what God also says is true (unless one is willing to say God can hold contradictory moral beliefs). Yet this is nonsensical. On this feast of St. James, such a faulty, narcissistic approach brings to mind this passage of Scripture:

Continue reading ont the CWR blog.

20% off select books and movies, in honor of St. Ignatius of Loyola

20% off in honor of St. Ignatius of Loyola

Offer ends Tuesday July 31st, 2012 at 12:00 midnight EST. These prices are available online only through Ignatius.com

Saint Ignatius, formerly a soldier, converted to a deeper Catholic faith after he was injured in a battle. During the time he was recovering, he read a number of religious books on the life of Jesus and the saints. These books inspired Saint Ignatius to devote his life to Christ. He went on to found the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) and wrote his powerful and widely influential work, Spiritual Exercises. July 31 marks the Feast of this beloved saint. In celebration of his life and his writings, as well as writings from other Jesuits, Ignatius Press is offering 20% off on the Spiritual Exercises DVD, the Do It at Home Retreat book and more!

Contraception in the United States: A Short History

Contraception in the United States: A Short History | John B. Buescher | Catholic World Report

Many 19th-century promoters of contraceptives were religious zealots who first attacked marriage, then procreation.

Today, Catholic apologetics against contraception and abortion sometimes appear historically naive, as if these issues suddenly fell out of the sky in 1930 with Resolution 15 of the Anglican Lambeth Conference on contraception, or in 1973 with Roe v. Wade.

A little information about the early history of contraception and abortion advocacy in America—especially its deepest objectives—might help. The Catholic Church has vast resources to deploy as long as it understands its opponents well. And one important thing it should understand is that many of contraception and abortion’s early proponents were religious enthusiasts.

The philosophy of fruitlessness

The first public advocacy of contraception was not explicitly religious. It came in the form of a pamphlet by a self-defined “freethinking” materialist—a Massachusetts physician, Charles Knowlton, who wrote and published The Fruits of Philosophy in 1830.

As a young man, Knowlton had been upset by the very fact of his nocturnal emissions and had gone to a handyman and electrical tinkerer in the neighborhood who administered shock treatments for his “condition,” to no avail. Knowlton took a fancy to the electrical tinkerer’s daughter, married her, and found that his “problem” immediately was cured. Later, after conducting some private research into anatomy while studying medicine, he wound up in jail for nocturnal grave robbing, or as he put it, “depriving a parcel of worms of their dinner.” Dr. Knowlton, although he fancied himself to be among the illuminati, would seem to have been something of a creature of the night.

His pamphlet detailed all the methods of contraception that he had come across, including coitus interruptus, condoms, vaginal sponges, and the method he thought most effective, douching with a vaginal syringe. He justified birth control with an argument that remains a standard today, in arguing for sex education in schools as well as in condemning the Catholic Church for not supporting mass condom distribution:

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

"No social movement gets a special dispensation from history..."

Mary Eberstradt talks with Kathryn Jean Lopez about her book, Adam and Eve After the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution, and the widespread denial of the damage done by the sexual revolution:

For decades now, sociologists and other experts have built up a library’s worth of evidence about the toll of this human experiment. Yet a great many sophisticated people deny that this record exists and excoriate anyone who so much as points his thumb at it. This is uncannily reminiscent of what happened during the Cold War, when an impressive number of sophisticated people across the West reacted to Communism . . . by attacking anti-Communists rather than Communists.

Of course in retrospect, everyone can see that Communism was exactly what the anti-Communists said it was: an experiment with enormous costs. Nobody disputes that anymore, not even all those anti-anti-Communists who spent their days defending or rationalizing the thing. The point is that as it turned out, a lot of sophisticated people were wrong all along about a pretty important issue that turned out in retrospect to be a no-brainer.

That’s where the comparison to denial about the legacy of the sexual revolution comes in. Right now, those who might be called the “anti-anti-liberationists” are running the show. In retrospect, though, they’ll be the losers in this debate, just like the anti-anti-Communists were yesterday, and for the same reason: because the facts aren’t on their side.

I think that evolution is happening already, in fact. Just look at the recent article in the New York Times, all about how being married or unmarried is a decisive factor not only in income inequality — married people are financially better off — but also, the author dares to suggest, in children’s overall well-being.

That kind of thinking in the paper of record represents a real turnaround. It means that the evidence assembled by Charles Murray and W. Bradford Wilcox and other tenacious social scientists about the “marriage gap” has finally started to sink in. And I’m betting there’s more of that to come as the adverse economic consequences of non-traditional family arrangements get more attention. The connections between the decline of the traditional family and the economic woes of Western welfare states are only beginning to be understood, but they’re obviously there — and again, you don’t need to be a flack for Rome to see them. Just reading a little secular social science will do. ...

LOPEZ: Given the seminal event the introduction of the contraceptive pill was, and the ubiquitous nature of contraception in American lives, is turning back the clock, as they say, realistic?

EBERSTADT: The vehemence with which people say that the clock can never be turned back on the sexual revolution is pretty ironic. Just think of all the times you heard that phrase during the debates over the HHS mandate — or the one about not putting the genie back in the bottle, or not ever returning to the 1950s, etc.  

All these clichés are shorthand for one word: inevitability. A lot of people for a lot of reasons want to claim that everything about this revolution is now a permanent fact of life, off-limits for contrarian interpretation. And what’s really interesting about that embrace of the idea of inevitability is that history has shown time and again that human beings just don’t operate that way.

As Karl Popper showed in The Poverty of Historicism, history is not, in fact, on the side of movements claiming inevitability for themselves. Just ask the Communists . . . if you can find any. No social movement gets a special dispensation from history, no matter how badly some people might want it to. Human beings are not only moral creatures but also rational ones, at least collectively and over time, and the empirical record about the dark side of the sexual revolution will eventually make a dent. As mentioned, I think it already has made one.

Read the entire interview, "Pill Buzz Kill" on the NRO site.

National Catholic Register recommends...

... My Brother, the Pope, by Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, as a good book for summer reading:

The vital importance of holy, Catholic family life in helping a young man to discern the call to priesthood and all that may follow from that call, including even becoming the Pope, is at the heart of this book-length interview with Msgr. Georg Ratzinger. Midway through the sympathetic interview, conducted by German journalist Michael Hesemann, Pope Benedict XVI’s elder brother cites the Ratzinger family itself as the key ingredient that influenced his and his brother’s decisions to become priests.

“It was clear to me from the beginning — although serving at the altar and, of course, perhaps more than anything else, the spirituality of our family had something to do with it — that I would go into ministry.” Young Joseph Ratzinger later followed his brother into the diocesan seminary, and the two have been intimate blood brothers and brothers in the Lord ever since.

Authenticity is at the heart of their lives and spirituality. “As brothers, Joseph and I were one heart and one soul; naturally we also quarreled and fought, that is part of it, but by and large we were inseparable, and that remained so our whole life long,” Msgr. Ratzinger told Hesemann. The reader quickly comes to believe that Pope Benedict would only reinforce and echo the memories of his brother, so close are the two even up to the present day, with Georg living in Germany and his brother at the Vatican, where regular brotherly reunions take place throughout the year. ...

Msgr. Ratzinger, who became a famous choir director in Regensburg, Germany, is known to have an extraordinarily accurate and detailed memory, which shows itself in various colorful descriptions of the homes, towns, churches and schools where the family lived out their Catholic spirituality. The monsignor displays in his depictions just how Bavarian spirituality, like all solid Catholic spirituality, is earthy, grounded in reality, sacramental, beautiful and joyful.

Read the entire piece on the Register's site.

Cardinal Burke: Theologians’ mandatum should be required by colleges

From the "Campus Notes" blog on the Cardinal Newman Society site:

Catholic families have a right to know which theology professors have the mandatum, and Catholic colleges and universities should require it as a condition for employment, affirmed the Vatican’s chief judge Cardinal Raymond Burke in a new report prompted by recent concerns from Pope Benedict XVI.

Cardinal Burke and several bishops, canon law experts, and theologians discussed the mandatum with The Cardinal Newman Society in an online report published today at www.cardinalnewmansociety.org.

The report, titled “A Mandate for Fidelity,” follows upon a May 5^th address by Pope Benedict to several American bishops during their ad limina visit to Rome.  The Pope expressed concern that “much remains to be done” toward the renewal of Catholic identity in U.S. Catholic colleges and universities, “especially in such areas as compliance with the mandate laid down in Canon 812 for those who teach theological disciplines.”

He cited “the confusion created by instances of apparent dissidence between some representatives of Catholic institutions and the Church’s pastoral leadership.”

Canon 812 of the Catholic Church’s canon law states, “Those who teach theological disciplines in any institutes of higher studies whatsoever must have a mandate from the competent ecclesiastical authority.”

As implemented by the U.S. bishops, a theology professor requests a “mandate” (commonly identified by the Latin mandatum) from the bishop presiding over the diocese where the theologian is employed.  The professor commits, in writing, “to teach authentic Catholic doctrine and to refrain from putting forth as Catholic teaching anything contrary to the Church’s Magisterium,” according to U.S. guidelines.

But in the United States, many Catholic colleges and universities have not required theology professors to have the mandatum, or even to disclose to students and their families which professors have the bishop’s recognition.  The 1990s saw vigorous opposition to the mandatum by some theologians and the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, but the controversy has since cooled down, largely because in practice the mandatum has not had much relevance to students and college leaders.

Now Pope Benedict’s concern about a lack of “compliance” with Canon 812 renews questions about Catholic colleges and universities’ obligations relative to the mandatum.  The Cardinal Newman Society asked several experts including Cardinal Burke, archbishop emeritus of St. Louis and prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican’s highest canon law court, to explain what canon law requires.

Citing Pope Benedict’s description of the mandatum as “a tangible expression of ecclesial communion and solidarity,” Cardinal Burke said:

It’s tangible in the sense that it’s a public declaration, in writing, on the part of the ecclesiastical authority that a theologian is teaching in communion with the Church, and people have a right to know that so that if you, for instance, are at a Catholic university or parents are sending their children to the Catholic university, they know that the professors who are teaching theological disciplines at the university are teaching in communion with the Church. They are assured in that by the public declaration of the diocesan bishop.

“The fact that I teach in accord with the Magisterium is a public factor,” added Cardinal Burke. “That’s not some private, secret thing between myself and the Lord.”

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Muhammad: Man or Myth?

Muhammad: Man or Myth? | J. Mark Nicovich, Ph.D. | Catholic World Report

A review of Robert Spencer's Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry into Islam's Obscure Origins.

In recent decades it has become common in certain circles—often academic, sometimes popular—to challenge the historicity of famous figures and seminal events. The most well-known expression of this trend can be seen in those circles, skeptical and sometimes openly atheistic, that have taken the “search for the historical Jesus” to an extreme, calling into question whether a historical Jesus existed at all. The “Jesus Seminar” is a perfect example of this skeptical and even sensationalist approach. The general argumentation of this sort is centered on attacking the early Christian sources, citing the temporal distance of the Gospels and other writings from the early first century and the heavily biased nature of these texts as reasons to doubt the very existence of Jesus and to suspect he was merely a character invented to justify a particular theology, rather than the actual progenitor of it.

The skeptical cacophony has reached enough of a crescendo that Bart Ehrman, a leading New Testament scholar at UNC-Chapel Hill, recently published Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (HarperOne, 2012), a defense of the historical existence of Jesus. Ehrman is certainly no fundamentalist—in fact, he has publicly identified himself as an agnostic—and in this new work he is fully aware of the biases and pitfalls inherent in the early Christian sources. Yet despite these obvious issues he still demonstrates the overwhelming evidence for the historicity of Jesus, even if he does portray a rather different figure than the one depicted in the Gospels.

A similar series of works have appeared that attempt to work the same kind of radical historical revisionism on the early history of Islam, focusing on the person of Muhammad and the text of the Qu’ran, including Karl-Heinz Ohlig and Gerd-R  Puin’s The Hidden Origins of Islam, Hans Jensen’s Mohammed: Eine Biographie, and an entire body of work by Ibn Warraq. The present work under consideration, Robert Spencer’s Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry into Islam’s Obscure Origins (ISI, 2012) is the latest and perhaps most provocative of these books. 

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

New: "The Confessions" (Ignatius Critical Editions)

Now available from Ignatius Press:

The Confessions: Saint Augustine of Hippo (Ignatius Critical Editions)

• Also available in e-book format

The Confessions of Saint Augustine is considered one of the greatest Christian classics of all time. It is an extended poetic, passionate, intimate prayer that Augustine wrote as an autobiography sometime after his conversion, to confess his sins and proclaim God's goodness. Just as his first hearers were captivated by his powerful conversion story, so also have many millions been over the following sixteen centuries. His experience of God speaks to us across time with little need of transpositions.

This acclaimed new translation by Sister Maria Boulding, O.S.B., masterfully captures his experience, and is written in an elegant and flowing style. Her beautiful contemporary translation of the ancient Confessions makes the classic work more accessible to modern readers. Her translation combines the linguistic accuracy demanded by 4th-century Latin with the poetic power aimed at by Augustine, not as discernable in previous translations.

Featuring the following critical and introductory essays:

• "The Confessions: Augustine's First Treatise on Grace" – Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J.
• "Creation in the Confessions" – Jared Ortiz
• "Confession, Prayer, Transformation" – Allan Fitzgerald, O.S.A.
• "Augustine's Confessions and the Source of Christian Character" – Christopher J. Thompson

David Vincent Meconi, S.J. situates the reader with the introductory essay.

Sr. Maria Boulding, O.S.B. (1929 - 2009), born in Liverpool, was linguistically gifted and theologically astute. Turning down a full scholarship to Oxford, she joined the cloistered Benedictine Nuns at Stanbrook Abbey in September of 1947 where she unceasingly labored for 62 years. She spent much of her later life translating the writings of St. Augustine.

Fr. David Vincent Meconi, S.J., editor of Homiletic & Pastoral Review, is a professor of patristic theology at St. Louis University where he teaches courses on Trinitarian theology, Christology and soteriology in the early Church, with a special interest in the life and thought of St. Augustine of Hippo. He is also the co-editor of the Cambridge University Companion to Augustine.

Spiritual Direction in the Life of a Priest

Fr. Joseph J. Kelly | Homiletic & Pastoral Review

Good and regular spiritual direction can help us work through some of the natural and dangerous currents in the spiritual life. By trusting God to redirect us and keep us afloat, he will help us navigate back to the solid ground of God’s presence.

Remember the joke about the Exodus? “Why did Moses and the Israelites wander 40 years in the desert?” The answer: “Because men hate to ask for directions!”

As a priest, who has been involved in the ministry of spiritual direction for more than half of my 33 years as a priest, I believe that the joke is on us. Although there are many reasons why priests do not continue in spiritual direction after ordination—i.e., time and availability of spiritual directors, to name a few—I am convinced that seeking out and receiving regular, one-on- one, spiritual direction is a graced relationship, worthy of our time and trust.

I would like to begin with a personal story that can serve as a paradigm of how regular, in-person, spiritual direction can act as a relational life preserver for us who are drawn, here and there, by the demands of contemporary ministry and the challenge of relationships.

Once, while vacationing on an Island in the Atlantic, I was informed that a hurricane was on a direct path toward the island. The next morning, I decided to go to the beach early, taking in some sun and bathing in the ocean, before the storm made landfall. That decision almost cost me my life. I learned, especially, to respect riptides: a strong current, opposing other currents, running parallel to the seashore.

With the sun shining and the waves kicking up, I noticed that surfers were out, so I dove in, unconcerned for my safety, swimming about ten yards off-shore. Suddenly, I was caught up in a riptide, rapidly drawing me toward a large formation of rock jutting out from the shore. Driven by a rush of adrenaline, I panicked and began swimming for the shore with all my strength. But the tide was stronger than I was; the tide had me in its control. The fear of crashing into the rocks was overtaking me, and I prayed: “God help me. Please!” From within came a voice—a memory that I recall to this day as being firm and clear—“Go with the rip.”

I let go. I stopped swimming, letting the tide carry me closer and closer to the rocks. Ten yards from the rock formation, the riptide suddenly let me go. I was free to swim ashore.

There is a current that runs in the spiritual life of a Christian, a current below the surface of human experience which moves the heart like no other. Jesus describes this inner reality of the believer this way:

Continue reading at www.HPRweb.com.

“The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.”

A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for Sunday, July 22, 2012, the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time | Carl E. Olson

Readings:
• Jer 23:1-6
• Ps 23:1-3, 3-4, 5, 6
• Eph 2:13-18
• Mk 6:30-34

The Bible refers to many strange and exotic creatures, including dragons, snakes, talking donkeys, and demon-possessed swine. But the most widely discussed and depicted animal in all of Scripture is ordinary, meek, and not altogether bright. Sheep are easily the most-mentioned animals in the Old and New Testaments, with some 400 literal and metaphorical references, in addition to about a hundred references to shepherds.

Along with goats, sheep were essential to the lifestyle—both nomadic and agrarian—of the Hebrews, who relied heavily on the wool, milk, and meat of the sheep. That vital relationship between sheep and shepherd was the basis for figurative language describing a familial and spiritual relationship, sometimes between the people and their leaders, and sometimes between the people and God. The Pentateuch describes God as “the Shepherd” (Gen. 49:24), and expresses the need of the “congregation of the Lord” to have an appointed leader so they “may not be as sheep which have no shepherd” (Num. 27:16-17). There are several references to sheep who have no shepherd or master (1 Kng. 22:17; 2 Chr. 18:16), a theme developed at length by several of the prophets, especially Ezekiel and Jeremiah.

Ezekiel 34 is the longest example of a condemnation of bad shepherds—religious and civil leaders who have failed the people precisely because they have not obeyed the commandments of God. Today’s reading from Jeremiah is another example of a prophetic denunciation of those who “mislead and scatter the flock” of God’s pasture, failing to care for and protect the people.

Jeremiah speaks of a day when God will gather “a remnant” of his flock and appoint shepherds “who will “shepherd them.” This is a prelude to a prophecy about the Messiah—the righteous shoot, or offspring, of David—who will reign, govern, and bring salvation. The rule of the Messiah is a sacred kingship bringing to realization the blessings of the covenant and establishing justice and righteousness. This, of course, is a reference to Jesus Christ, who has, Paul writes in today’s reading from his letter to the Ephesians, reconciled man to God through the Cross and established peace.

This reconciliation through Christ’s flesh, death, and resurrection is concretely realized within the Church. Lumen Gentium, the Second Vatican Council’s dogmatic constitution on the Church, draws deeply from Scripture in describing this truth:

The Church is a sheepfold whose one and indispensable door is Christ. It is a flock of which God Himself foretold He would be the shepherd, and whose sheep, although ruled by human shepherds; are nevertheless continuously led and nourished by Christ Himself, the Good Shepherd and the Prince of the shepherds, who gave His life for the sheep” (par. 6).

Paul explained to readers in Ephesus that Christ came and preached peace so both Jews and Gentiles could have access through him “in one Spirit to the Father.” All men are called to the sheepfold, the household of God, and invited to enter. Some, sadly, will turn away, preferring false freedom over eternal life.

Today’s Gospel depicts the moment between the disciples returning from preaching repentance door to door and the feeding of the five thousand (Mk. 6:35-44). Having invited those who were his disciples to rest a while, Jesus soon thereafter saw the great crowd who were following him, “for they were like sheep without a shepherd.” Here, at last, was a shepherd who truly loves his people!

Each man needs a shepherd, for he is incapable of fulfilling the deepest longings of his soul and heart. As St. Augustine acknowledged in his Confessions, “our heart is restless until it rests in you.” Only the Lord, King David wrote in perhaps his most famous psalm, can lead us by restful waters and refresh our souls. “The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.” The divine shepherd guides us, protects us, and feeds us with his body and blood, soul and divinity. He fills our deepest desire: to dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the July 19, 2009, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

Eleven Churches Not to Miss When You Visit Chicago

Eleven Churches Not to Miss When You Visit Chicago | Jim Graves | Catholic World Report

In a city shaped by immigrant communities, beautiful historic churches reflect the faith and hard work of generations of Catholics.

Chicago is known for its many beautiful and historically significant buildings, not the least of which are its Catholic churches. In the city there are about 365 Catholic churches, which for nearly two centuries have invited the faithful to come and worship their Creator.

This summer, I took a tour of four of these churches in what were originally Polish neighborhoods with Nell Andrzejewski, director of Catholic Church Tours. She refers to Chicago as “Little Rome” because of its many churches built in the old European style. As various immigrant groups came to the United States, they moved into often modest neighborhoods and built grand churches, which would serve as a hub for their communities. And while the ethnicities of these communities would change over time, their houses of worship would endure.

Since Nell began her touring company two years ago, she said, “I’ve fallen in love with the beauty of the Church.”

Each building has something to teach us about the Faith, she continued, and she sees the structures as “poetry in concrete.”

Here are profiles of these four churches, followed by suggestions from Nell and CWR readers of others that are well worth a visit.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.