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“Where Are The Catholics?”

“Where Are The Catholics?” | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. | Catholic World Report

Is Christianity the measure of modernity or is modernity the measure of Christianity?

On the morning after Thanksgiving, I was driving over to Frederick, Maryland with one of my nephews. On the car radio, he was listening to a talk radio program from WMAL in Washington. The host of the program was a man who described himself as a conservative Jew. He was talking of the increasing religious persecution within the United States. Several times throughout the program he pointed out that it was the Catholics who are more and more being singled out and discriminated against. The First Amendment on religious freedom seems almost a dead letter when it comes to Christians in general and Catholics in particular.

The host noted that if any similar criticism is directed toward other religious groups and religions, especially Islam, the whole world knows about it. And in some cases the world is threatened. Churches are burned in Islamic countries, Christians killed, and nothing much is said either by our government or in the press. Almost the only voice that seems systematically to defend a Catholic position, he remarked, is that of Bill Donohue of the Catholic League. The host went on to wonder why this silence is the case. Part of it, he thought, is because Catholics themselves do not seem to care too much, or else they are not aware of the dimensions of the issue. They think it will just go away.

Many writers and voices have pointed out that the present administration is by all odds the most anti-Catholic regime in this country’s history. That did not prevent some 50 percent of Catholics from voting for it. But that may be a clue about the problem. Often the leaders of those measures and decrees most against officially stated Catholic positions are formulated and carried out by those who are Catholics. Several other writers have argued that so long as these high-profile Catholics carry out anti-Catholic policies and remain in apparently good standing in the Church, many Catholics will conclude that, whatever the noise about these issues, it must be all right to be a Catholic and take positions contrary to what the bishops and Church seem to hold.

Why Catholics do not defend themselves against such attacks on their religion and their place in public life has long puzzled many sympathetic citizens.

Continue reading on the CWR site.

Christ the King deserves our praise, obedience, and adoration

A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for Sunday, November 25, 2012, The Solemnity of Christ the King | Carl E. Olson

Readings:
• Dan 7:13-14
• Ps 93:1, 1-2, 5
• Rev 1:5-8
• Jn 18:33b-37

“Would Jesus feel at home among the opulence of The Vatican?” The question was put to me recently after I’d written defending the Church’s ownership of cathedrals, churches, and artwork.

My article, in turn, was in response to remarks made by a professional baseball player—a fallen away Catholic, it turns out—who had visited the Sistine Chapel and later remarked to a reporter: “They could sell all those things, auction them off and probably feed half that world's starving population. There is that much wealth stored in the Sistine Chapel. For it just to be sitting there I think is a crime.”

There are numerous flaws with such myopic thinking, including the athlete failing to recognize that no other Christian group in the world operates as many charitable organizations, orphanages, schools, hospitals, hospices, and shelters as does the Catholic Church. And what about his multi-million dollar contract, paid for by fans coming to watch grown men throw and hit baseballs in huge, expensive stadiums?

Yet, if the stadiums and the teams were sold, what then? Are sporting events evil? Is it wrong to make a good living being an athlete? Of course not.

Which brings up a point directly related to this great feast day: cathedrals, churches, and works of art were created over the course of many centuries as essential features of the Church's worship of Jesus Christ, who is the King of kings. Today’s reading from the opening chapter of The Apocalypse describes Jesus as “the firstborn of the dead and ruler of the kings of the earth.” If Jesus really is God, he deserves our praise; if he is King of all, he deserves our obedience; if he is the Alpha and Omega, he deserves our adoration.

Sacrosanctum concilium, Vatican II’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, observed that “the fine arts are considered to rank among the noblest activities of man's genius … These arts, by their very nature, are oriented toward the infinite beauty of God which they attempt in some way to portray by the work of human hands; they achieve their purpose of redounding to God's praise and glory in proportion as they are directed the more exclusively to the single aim of turning men's minds devoutly toward God.” (par 122). Man was created out of God’s overflowing love, and man returns that love by expressing his love for the Lord, who is king and “robed in majesty,” through prayers, words, songs, art, and architecture.

Ultimately, the cathedrals and statues and artwork belong to the King. This is all the more meaningful when considering that the Eucharist—the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ—is kept in the houses of God. Sure, the Eucharist could be kept in a closet or a gymnasium, but is that any way to show respect and love for the King? 

Jesus told Pilate, “My kingdom does not belong to this world.” Some Christians have mistakenly thought this means they should have no part of churches, vestments and artwork. But it should be understood in light of the Incarnation, which Jesus referred to a moment later, saying, “You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.”

The Son was not of this world, yet he came into the world. He had no beginning, but was born a babe in a manger. He was all-powerful, yet suffered and died. And when he rose from the dead and ascended to the Father, he did not shed his humanity. He is standing in heaven—the Lamb, human and divine, “as though it had been slain” (Rev. 5:6)—surrounded by cherubim and elders singing ceaseless praise.

In other words, Christ’s Kingdom does not belong to the world, but his Church—the “seed and beginning of this kingdom” (CCC 567)—is in the world. And it is growing, mysteriously, not through bloodshed, tyranny, or coercion but through the body and blood of the King, through truth, and through conversion.

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the November 22, 2009, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

Christopher Kaczor on myths about the Church, Galileo, the abuse scandals, contraception, more

Kathryn Jean Lopez, editor of National Review Online, has a lengthy and wide-ranging interview with Dr. Christopher Kaczor, author of The Seven Big Myths about the Catholic Church: Distinguishing Fact from Fiction about Catholicism, recently published by Ignatius Press. Some excerpts:

KJL: In your new book, you explain that “Catholics aren’t anti science, anti-woman, the Aryan nation.” Defensive much?

KACZOR: I think a good defense and a good offense are necessary to make progress towards the truth. Unfortunately, there are many people who believe that the Church is against women or against science. In The Seven Big Myths about the Catholic Church, I challenge the most common myths, the ones that many secular people and inactive Catholics, among others, believe. If many people thought that Catholics were members of the Aryan nation, I would have included a treatment of this as well. Relatively few people believe Catholicism is racist, if only because the majority of Catholics in the world are people of color.

KJL: “Christianity is properly measured not by its great sinners but by its great saints” you write, “for it is the saints who have lived out the Gospel message, not the great sinners.” Isn’t that conveniently counting people there?

KACZOR: Not really. How would you evaluate the effectiveness of a medication in clinical trial? Would you look at how the medication worked for those who took it as directed or would you look at how it worked for people who skipped doses or didn’t take the medication at all? G. K. Chesterton was onto something, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”

KJL: Do you actually defend the Catholic Church’s treatment of Galileo?

KACZOR: No and yes. No, I don’t defend the Catholic Church’s treatment of Galileo insofar as the ecclesial judicial authorities in the trial of Galileo made serious mistakes. The authorities wrongly condemned heliocentricism which was, at that time, a proposed but as yet unproven view. However, this error — and other errors of a disciplinary and judicial nature — were not a formal part of Catholic teaching. Then, as now, Church officials can and do make errors, unfortunately sometimes serious errors, in terms of discipline and order within the Church community. But yes, I do defend the Church insofar as the Galileo case was only partially based on scientific disputes but had much to do with conflicts of personality, politics, and theology of the time. In many people’s minds, the condemnation of Galileo has become a Catholic condemnation of science. In fact, at issue was not chiefly the scientific views of Galileo (which were held by many Catholics of the time, including the Catholic cleric Copernicus and Jesuit priests in good standing), but more centrally whether Galileo broke agreements he had made about in what manner to teach his views and that Galileo insisted on changing the dominant interpretations of scripture at the time. Both Galileo himself (who remained a faithful Catholic his whole life) and those involved in his trial such as St. Robert Bellarmine agreed that there can never be a true conflict between science and faith. Apparent but not real conflicts can arise through a mistaken interpretation of faith (as was made by those who condemned Galileo), a misunderstanding of science (e.g. that science requires atheism), or both. It is a myth — albeit a persistent myth — that the Church opposes science. ...

KJL: Why do you end with the abuse scandals?

KACZOR: The abuse scandals are extremely important and often misunderstood, so I wanted to end the book on the topic. Many people mistakenly believe that celibacy causes pedophilia or that Catholic priests are more likely to sexually abuse children than other kinds of people. In The Seven Big Myths about the Catholic Church, I provide a great deal of evidence that these beliefs are false. ....

KJL: “The point of contraception is to make sure that there is not a complete union between the two.” Aren’t you making a bigger deal of this than it is?

KACZOR: Erotic love — by its very nature — is a drive towards deeper unity with the beloved, and children are a wonderful manifestation of the unity between husband and wife. Each child unifies the husband and wife with each other in a physical sense. Every one of us is a living manifestation of the union of our mother and father, half of our DNA from each. This unity, like erotic love itself, is exclusively bringing together one man and one woman. No other woman is the mother of his child; no other man is the father of her child. As long as the child lives, they are unified in their offspring. This unity is characteristically not limited to the physical. Normally, a unity of will and affection also arises between the mother and father. They both love their child, both want what’s best for that child, both delight in the child’s good fortune, and mourn the child’s misfortunes. Even in the case of divorce, very often the parents still share a united will to help their child and will put away their differences and become united again at important events in the child’s life, like graduations and weddings.

Ideally, the unity of the parents includes running a household and raising the child together. They work together, as mother and father, to provide for the child’s many needs. Their unity which began as a unified sexual act continues over the years as a unity of shared activity ordered to the education and raising of the child.

Children therefore help parents realize the goals of erotic love — to be together, unified physically, psychologically, socially, and emotionally. Each child unifies these two people together, and no one else, in a unity that is lasting and exclusive. Children are a good of marriage that unites the husband and wife in a way that realizes the aspirations of erotic love.

The use of contraception acts against the unity sought by erotic love. A couple only uses contraception when one does not want to a child to unite them. Although their bodies are partially unified, the point of contraception is to make sure that there is not a complete unity between husband and wife. Contraception, through various means, seeks to make sure that part of him (sperm) does not unite with part of her (egg). Contraception also involves, against the goals of erotic love, the acceptance of the whole person. Part of the person, the potential to become a father or a mother, the fertility of one or both parties, is intentionally rejected, at least for the time being. If this analysis is correct, then contraception does not serve the same goals as erotic love.

Read the entire interview on Lopez's blog at Patheos.com. • For more about The Seven Big Myths about the Catholic Church, visit the book's website.

After Tragedy, Irish Abortion Laws Come Under Fire

After Tragedy, Irish Abortion Laws Come Under Fire | Michael Kelly | Catholic World Report

A young woman is dead, and some blame Ireland’s strict anti-abortion laws—but many questions remain unanswered.

The death of a young pregnant woman has thrust the issue of abortion center-stage in Ireland, with pro-choice campaigners blaming the country’s ban on abortion for the woman’s death. However, even a quick perusal of the facts reveals a much more complex scenario. Pro-life advocates insist the tragic case is being used by those trying to overturn Ireland’s pro-life legislative framework. There have even been accusations that Catholic health-care ethics led to the death.

Savita Halappanavar—a native of India who moved to the west of Ireland some years ago—was 17 weeks pregnant when she went to the hospital on October 21, complaining about back pain. The 31-year-old was admitted to Galway University Hospital. According to her husband, doctors determined she was having a miscarriage. Little else is known officially, apart from the fact that a week later, Halappanavar had died from septicaemia, a blood infection.

The only account of the events leading up to her death come from Halappanavar’s distraught husband, who claims his wife asked for a termination of her pregnancy when it became clear that she was miscarrying. He insists that doctors refused because of the presence of a fetal heartbeat. His wife would be alive, Praveen Halappanavar says, if doctors had induced labor and ended the pregnancy as she requested. He told the Irish Times that his wife died because Ireland is a Catholic country and follows Catholic medical ethics.

Cue a torrent of anti-Catholic commentary on social media sites and from prominent journalists and commentators. Despite a lack of facts, the collective outcry was that this tragic incident had occurred because the hospital acted with a Catholic ethos. The country’s Minister for Health, Dr. James Reilly, intervened to warn against prejudging the situation before the conclusion of two independent investigations surrounding the death.

“I am privy to certain facts but I am not privileged to share them,” Dr. Reilly said.

He said that the question of a Catholic ethos preventing or inhibiting medical personnel from carrying out proper medical treatment, as defined by the Medical Council, had been raised. “I have no evidence of that, but, again, I am not going to preclude what a coroner’s court will find, and I want to await that independent investigation that a coroner always undertakes,” Dr. Reilly told the Irish parliament, in response to questions about the incident.

While no one wants to intrude on Mr. Halappanavar’s obvious grief over the death of his wife, medical experts and bioethicists have been quick to express their view that Ireland’s ban on abortion had nothing to do with Mrs. Halappanavar’s death. They insist that guidelines from the Irish Medical Council are perfectly clear that pregnant women must be given all necessary medical treatment.

Continue reading on the CWR site.

The Upside-Down World of Catholic Higher Education

The Upside-Down World of Catholic Higher Education | Anne Hendershott | Catholic World Report

Recent controversies at the University of San Diego underscore the prevalence and influence of dissent on Catholic campuses.

In an ideal Catholic world, if a Catholic theologian promoted a woman’s right to choose abortion and encouraged access to same-sex marriage, while also comparing the sacrifice of the Mass to an act of homosexual intercourse, the work of that theologian would be marginalized. But, in the upside-down world of Catholic higher education in 2012, such dissidence is applauded. Case in point: Tina Beattie, the British theologian whose book, God’s Mother, Eve’s Advocate: A Gynocentric Refiguration of Marian Symbolism in Engagement with Luce Irigaray, promotes such heresy, has been honored as a visionary on Catholic campuses here and abroad.  

Conflict and confusion at the University of San Diego

However, after a decade of honors and accolades from Catholic institutions, Beattie’s writings are finally receiving some criticism. In 2011, Bishop Declan Lang, of the Diocese of Clifton in the UK, cancelled a lecture to be given by Beattie as part of a diocesan speaker series celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council. And last month, Beattie’s invitation to serve as a visiting fellow at the University of San Diego’s Frances G. Harpst Center for Catholic Thought and Culture brought protests from the Catholic community in San Diego and beyond. In fact, the protests were so strong that Mary Lyons, the university’s president, abruptly withdrew the invitation just two weeks before Beattie was scheduled to arrive on the USD campus. 

Lyons’ decision to cancel the Beattie fellowship resulted in a vote of “no confidence” from 99 members of the university’s Academic Assembly of the College of Arts and Sciences (the vote was 99 in support, 16 against, and 19 abstentions). Writing that “[t]he president has shown herself to be ethically bankrupt,” the 99 faculty members claimed that their vote “lets the world know that faculty here do in fact support and believe strongly in academic freedom…this body declares a loss of confidence in [Lyons’] leadership.”

In explaining her decision, Lyons distributed a letter to the University of San Diego community claiming that Beattie “has taken positions that many would say challenge Church teachings.”  And although Lyons stops short of stating she herself would ever claim Beattie challenged Church teachings, the USD president also said that “offering [Beattie] an honorary fellowship would be a betrayal of those benefactors who supported the Center.” Pointing out that the Center was designed and funded by generous men and women who wanted to present the Catholic tradition “with accuracy and respect,” Lyons made the decision to rescind the invitation. In a letter to the chair of the Academic Assembly, Lyons wrote that she would allow Beattie to speak at the university in the spring semester as long as the theologian was not given an “honorary affiliation” with the institution—a reference to Beattie’s expected title of visiting fellow.

The real question is this: Why has Beattie—a theologian who has denigrated the teachings of the Church for more than a decade—been given so many honors in the first place?

Continue reading on the CWR site.

Sex, Lies, and HBO Documentaries: A Review of "Mea Maxima Culpa"

Sex, Lies, and HBO Documentaries | David F. Pierre, Jr. | Catholic World Report

Mea Maxima Culpa is long on vitriol, short on facts

Catholic and non-Catholic moviegoers alike should be concerned about a new film that purports to document decades-old abuse scandals in the Catholic Church.

Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, created by HBO Productions, attempts to chronicle the Church’s response to the crimes of the notorious pedophile priest Lawrence Murphy, who is alleged to have abused dozens of innocent boys at St. John’s School for the Deaf in St. Francis, Wisconsin from the 1950s to the 1970s. The episode was the subject of a series of high-profile articles by the New York Times’ Laurie Goodstein during Lent of 2010.

The film also recounts the criminal episodes from a while back involving Irish priest Tony Walsh and Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legion of Christ.

Indeed, the abusive crimes committed by the profiled priests were abominable. Murphy, Walsh, and Maciel wreaked immeasurable damage to their victims and brought tremendous shame to the Church. We always must be mindful of this.

In fact, one redeeming aspect of Mea Maxima Culpa is that the film allows the victims themselves to effectively describe the grievous harm and criminal activity that was perpetrated upon them and the devastating impact that the abuse had on their lives. The stories from Murphy’s victims are at the same time stomach-turning, heart-rending, and maddening. In this sense, the film has delivered an important service to viewers.

The agenda creeps in

However, the film takes the unfortunate yet predictable turn in simply using the scandals as a tool to advance a nasty anti-Catholic agenda.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Catholics and Evangelicals: Past, Present, and Future

Catholics and Evangelicals: Past, Present, and Future | Carl E. Olson | Catholic World Report

An interview with Kenneth J. Collins, author of Power, Politics, and the Fragmentation of Evangelicalism.

Kenneth J. Collins, PhD is professor of historical theology and Wesley Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. He is the author of several books, including The Theology of John Wesley (Abingdon) and The Evangelical Moment (Baker). His most recent book, Power, Politics, and the Fragmentation of Evangelicalism (InterVarsity Press, 2012), is a history of American Evangelicalism from the late 19th century to the present day, focusing on the cultural influence and political fortunes of Evangelical Protestants; it also addresses many facets of Catholic-Evangelical relations. Dr. Collins spoke recently with Carl E. Olson, the editor of Catholic World Report, about the history of Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism, Catholic and Evangelical relations, and the common challenges facing Christians in the United States today.

CWR: Many Catholics aren’t very familiar with ecumenical relations between Catholics and Evangelicals, or why such relations are important. How would you, as an Evangelical, address the significance of those relations?

Collins: I think there are a lot of ways that Catholics and Evangelicals can work together. I want to strengthen those connections. What we are facing in the days ahead is very important. Catholics are like canaries in a coal mine. We, as Christians, weren’t supposed to bump against a modern liberal democracy; it was supposed to be everyone choosing their own good. But the Catholic Church is bumping up against it, in terms of the contraceptive issue, but also in terms of what Catholic Charities faced in Massachusetts, where the collision between the state government and the Church forced the closure of Catholic Charities, which has had a wonderful history of service to the poor.

CWR: Let’s go back to the beginning, historically. There is a lot of confusion, isn’t there, with the term “Evangelical”? What are the roots of that term in US history?

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

File under: Oh, now you tell us!

The New York Times reviews the new book, Leonardo and The Last Supper, authored by Ross King, and alerts the world to this little news flash:

Mr. King deftly situates the painting in a historical context — against political events in Italy at the time, religious attitudes of the day and contemporaneous developments in art — and also places it in the context of Leonardo’s career, deconstructing the ways the painter broke with tradition and stamped a familiar and much depicted subject with his distinctive vision.

There isn’t much that’s substantially new in the book — Mr. King appears to draw heavily on the work of Mr. Clark and other Leonardo experts, like Martin Kemp, as well as on Leonardo’s writings — but he does a fluent and insightful job of weaving together all his research.

On several much-debated issues, Mr. King does not hesitate to serve up his opinions. He asserts that the girlish-looking figure sitting on Jesus’ right is John — not Mary Magdalene, as a character in Dan Brown’s best seller "The Da Vinci Code" famously argued. John, Mr. King contends, was traditionally portrayed as “a youthful and slightly feminine figure among his mostly bewhiskered and older companions.”

He says that one of Leonardo’s sketches played with “the idea of placing John asleep on Christ’s breast” — the way he was often traditionally depicted at the Last Supper — but that Leonardo ended up having John lean toward Peter instead in order to isolate Jesus spatially in the composition.

When the Times reviewed Brown's mega-selling novel almost ten years ago, however, it somehow overlooked the, uh, significant liberties taken in the pulpy volume with art history—not to mention Scripture, Church history, theology, and much more—describing it as a "riddle-filled, code-breaking, exhilaratingly brainy thriller" and a "gleefully erudite suspense novel". Sure, the novel rushes breathlessly to "the brink of overkill", but no need to question anything in it, as "in the end Mr. Brown gracefully lays to rest all the questions he has raised." (in fact, the ending of the novel is the clunker to outclunk all clunkers). What Mr. King says is correct; in fact, there isn't an actual act historian worth his weight in pigments and paint brushes who would thinks otherwise. As Sandra Miesel and I wrote in The Da Vinci Hoax:

The grouping of John, Judas, and Peter is purposeful. The group [of three] at Christ’s right, John, Judas, and Peter", Steinberg points out, "clusters the three who are destined for roles in the Passion." Judas betrays Jesus, Peter denies Jesus, and John–"the disciple whom Jesus loved" (Jn 13:23;19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20)–was the only apostle to stand at Jesus’ cross (Jn 19:26-7). Steinberg states that there are also "significant pairs" in the painting, including Peter and John, and Jesus and John. Peter and John are often companions (cf. Lk 22:8), and personify "the active and contemplative life" and are "shown putting their heads together". Hearing the prophecy of impending betrayal, Peter lunges forward, his hot temper and desire to defend his Master evident. John is the quiet, reflective contemplative who internalizes the distressing news, his hands folded in a prayerful manner appropriate to the coming death of Jesus. These two true apostles frame Judas, the traitor, who personifies greed and disloyalty. Although Jesus and John are depicted as being apart from each other, their mirrored images indicate that they are "soulmates . . . matched in outline, in (original) hue of garment and tilt of head."

Viewing a reproduction of the painting, Sophie sees "flowing red hair, delicate folded hands, and the hint of a bosom" (243). The figure is undoubtedly effeminate, as Leonardo depicted the youthful John in the early-sixteenth-century Florentine style. This approach can be seen in other paintings of the period, including Leonardo’s own Saint John the Baptist (c. 1413-16), which depicts a young man who is quite effeminate in appearance and also has flowing hair and delicate hands. As for the "hint of bosom", it can only be found in the feverish imagination of those subscribing to Brown’s theory–Leonardo’s painting reveals no "hint" at all, unless viewers are willing to see what Brown suggests they see, despite lack of visual evidence.

There is no suggestion, in Leonardo’s sketches or writings, that the figure is Mary Magdalene. There is, however, evidence that is the apostle John. In a sketch for the painting, Leonardo depicts John "leaning over, face down; Christ resting one arm on John’s back as he turns toward Judas . . ."

The point is this: almost a decade after Brown's novel came out, The Da Vinci Code is cemented as a cultural landmark, to the degree that countless stories about art and religion now make reference to it, as if one must bow low before the silly piece of literary trash before entering the halls of history. One might say it is a situation of the tail wagging the dog, but it's even worse, because the tail doesn't even exist. Still, on the bright side, it's nice that the Times finally got around to curtailing its original enthusiasm about The Da Vinci Code, even if years too late and far too indirectly.

New from Ignatius Press: "A Noble Treason"

Now available:

A Noble Treason The Story of Sophie Scholl and the White Rose Revolt Against Hitler

by Richard Hanser

Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans were handsome, bright university students in 1942 Germany. As members of the Hitler Youth, they had once been enthusiastic supporters of the German renewal promised by National Socialism. But as their realization of Nazi barbarism grew, so did their moral outrage.

Hans and Sophie formed a small group of like-minded friends, which initially included two medical students, a student of philosophy, and a fifty-year-old professor. They self-identified as Christians from various traditions-Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox-and they called themselves the White Rose. In a darkened studio lent them by an artist, they printed eloquent anti-Nazi leaflets, which they ingeniously spread throughout Germany.

A Noble Treason tells the true story of this underground group at the University of Munich that instigated, organized, and carried out the first overt resistance to Hitler's regime. What gives A Noble Treason its unforgettable and inspiring quality is the personality, character, and courage of the White Rose members, as they resisted the pull of wartime patriotism and overcame their fear of the terrible price they would pay for their dissidence.

The story of the White Rose is one of faith-inspired idealism in deadly conflict with ideological tyranny. Its theme is the ultimate victory of that idealism despite its bloody-and seemingly final-destruction by the state.

Richard Hanser served as a psychological warfare specialist in Europe during World War II. He was a reporter and feature writer for newspapers in Buffalo, Cleveland and New York before the war. Afterward he wrote for documentary films and authored several books.

"I thought I knew the story of the White Rose pretty well, but Richard Hanser provides detail, context, and insight that I have not previously encountered. A Noble Treason is an exciting read and a tribute worthy of the defiance and the sacrifices made by those students at the University of Munich when they were under the thumb of Hitler's minions."
- Ronald J. Rychlak, Author, Hitler, the War, and the Pope

"This vivid account gives witness to the true spirit of man. One can only marvel at the patience, ingenuity and determination of these students as they pit themselves against Hitler and his Third Reich. Undeterred by the price to be paid if they were caught, their story reminds us of what true courage is and of our responsibility to do what is right...despite the odds."
- Kurt von Schuschnigg, Author, When Hitler Took Austria

40% off Glenn Dudro's "Employee Pick of the Week"

40% off Glenn Dudro's Pick of the Week*

As we experience the polarized rhetoric of the U.S. presidential election cycle, a book that gives us much to ponder about how we as Catholics should participate in civic life is the novel The Cypresses Believe in God, a fictional account of the lead up to the Spanish Civil War written by Jose Maria Gironella in 1953 and reprinted by Ignatius Press in 2005.

The novel begins in 1931 and is set in the town the author’s own birth, the provincial capital of Gerona. It follows the Alvear family over the next 5 years as the slow breakdown of Spanish society spirals down into a brutal civil war. Masterfully, the author explains the major philosophic movements of the age (anarchism, communism, socialism, Catholicism, monarchism, existentialism, and others) as they collide in the Alvear family and the microcosm that Gerona is of Spain. The author puts a human face (though not always pretty!) on the factions fighting in the confused alliances in the Spanish Civil War and their counterparts in the rest of Europe that are planting the seeds of the coming world war.  

The real power of the novel, however, is in the moving depictions of the Catholic faith that permeates the life of the Alvears in both the ordinary and the extraordinary events of the times. Never sappy or triumphalistic, the author draws some of the most powerful scenes of remorse and forgiveness for sins, I think, in all of literature. Altogether, this is a thoroughly educational , entertaining and edifying novel.
 
Glenn Dudro has been directing the finances, accounting and information systems at Ignatius Press since 1994. His wife, Vivian, also works for Ignatius as a senior editor. They have four mostly grown children and live in San Francisco

*Employee Pick of the Week program features savings of 40% off a book, movie, or compact disc personally chosen and recommended by an Ignatius Press employee.  Each week, an Ignatius Press employee will select a favorite book, movie, or other Ignatius Press product and write a few sentences about why he or she thinks customers will enjoy the particular selection. A short bio of the selecting employee will also be included, giving customers a chance to learn a bit more about the people who are Ignatius Press. 

The Scandal of Faith

The Scandal of Faith | Carl E. Olson | Catholic World Report | Editorial

The Year of Faith and the 50th anniversary of Vatican II are occasion for self-examination and bold proclamation.

"It was by no means only yesterday that truth became embarrassing." With those rather wry words, Jean Daniélou, S.J., opened his book, Scandaleuse Vérité, published in English as The Scandal of Truth in August 1962. Daniélou, whose father was a Communist, was not taken in by the starry-eyed optimism of the early Sixties; on the contrary, he saw clearly that a humanism divorced from faith in Jesus Christ ends in despair and ruin, for "while man may be destined for happiness, he has been injured by sin, and can be healed only by the Cross."

And, in an introductory remark that is just as appropriate today as it was fifty years ago, he stated:

Above all I want to say to young Christians that they should not allow themselves to be over-awed by the false vestiges of modern-day doctrines, who murkiness masks the uprightness of eternal truth. The shocking bankruptcy of Marxist optimism and of the philosophies of despair as well has nothing about it that should impress them.

This, of course, was written before "Marxist optimism", in various forms, set the Western skies aflame and send shockwaves through campuses and governments in the late Sixties, as the supposedly best and brightest of a generation jumped off the crumbling cliff of Western civilization into the murkiness of modern-day doctrines. Much has changed in the years since, but the murkiness remains. Truth is still embarrassing; worse, it is increasingly mocked and savaged as an affront to "progress", "tolerance", and a hundred other empty buzz words co-opted by the post-modern sophists who dominate popular culture, media, and politics.

The Challenge of the Council

Two months after the publication of Daniélou's book—fifty years ago today—the Second Vatican Council opened. In his opening address. Blessed John XXIII stated:

The major interest of the Ecumenical Council is this: that the sacred heritage of Christian truth be safeguarded and expounded with greater efficacy. That doctrine embraces the whole man, body and soul. It bids us live as pilgrims here on earth, as we journey onwards towards our heavenly homeland. ...

John XXIII has sometimes been criticized for an apparently naive optimism. If the Pope's optimism is perceived as merely earthly or pragmatic in nature, the critics are correct. But John XXIII was not merely optimistic, but authentically hopeful, and the difference is essential. The key here is in John XXIII's emphasis on living as pilgrims, as people who, as he stated in the same address, "have a twofold obligation: as citizens of earth, and as citizens of heaven." Christians who live as if this world is all that matters fail their divine vocation, while Christians who live as if this world matters not all also fail their divine vocation, which is to be a disciple amidst the dust and trials of this world. "The Christian optimism," wrote G. K. Chesterton in Orthodoxy, "is based on the fact that we do not fit in to the world. ... The optimist's pleasure was prosaic, for it dwelt on the naturalness of everything; the Christian pleasure was poetic, for it dwelt on the unnaturalness of everything in the light of the supernatural."

This light, John XXIII emphasized, is the light of divine revelation passed down through the Church, in continuity with herself, if such a qualification need be expressed (alas, it does):

What is needed at the present time is a new enthusiasm, a new joy and serenity of mind in the unreserved acceptance by all of the entire Christian faith, without forfeiting that accuracy and precision in its presentation which characterized the proceedings of the Council of Trent and the First Vatican Council. What is needed, and what everyone imbued with a truly Christian, Catholic and apostolic spirit craves today, is that this doctrine shall be more widely known, more deeply understood, and more penetrating in its effects on men's moral lives. What is needed is that this certain and immutable doctrine, to which the faithful owe obedience, be studied afresh and reformulated in contemporary terms. For this deposit of faith, or truths which are contained in our time-honored teaching is one thing; the manner in which these truths are set forth (with their meaning preserved intact) is something else.

Nearly twenty years ago, I was a young Evangelical Protestant who had, by God's grace, survived a couple of crises of faith (one of them while in Bible college), each of which forced me to confront, question, and wrestle with the assumptions of my childhood faith. (Eventually, in 1997, I entered the Catholic Church; for more on that, see my April 2012 editorial, "On Fifteen Years a Catholic".) At the heart of these crises—and I don't use the word "crises" dramatically or loosely, just frankly—were two basic questions: Why do I exist? And does Jesus Christ provide the answers to that question and every question that follows?

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Why Believe? An Apologetic of Faith

Why Believe? An Apologetic of Faith | Carl E. Olson

"Faith is always at a disadvantage; it is a perpetually defeated thing which survives all of its conquerors," wrote G. K. Chesterton.

Faith is the Christian word. Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., in his masterful theology of faith, The Assurance of Things Hoped For, writes, "More than any other religion, Christianity deserves to be called a faith" (3). He points out that in the New Testament the Greek words for "faith" and "belief" occur nearly 500 times, compared to less than 100 for "hope" and about 250 for "charity" or "love." Which is not to say, of course, that faith is more important than love, since Paul makes it clear that love is the greatest of the three theological virtues: "So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love" (1 Cor. 13:13).

But there is no doubt—pun intended—that faith is essential to being a Christian and to having a right relationship with God, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews states, emphatically and succinctly: "And without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him" (Heb. 11:6).

The daunting work of defining and analyzing faith has been described, with perhaps a dose of knowing humor, as the "cross of theologians." As with hope and love, the virtue of faith can appear initially rather simple to define, often as "belief in God." But some digging beneath the surface suggests a far more complicated task, as some basic questions suggest: What is belief? How is faith obtained? Is it human or divine in origin? How should man demonstrate his faith? What is the relationship of faith to the will, to the intellect, and to the emotions?

The apologist, meanwhile, must respond to charges against faith: that it is "irrational" or that it is the cause of conflict and violence. In recent years a number of popular, best-selling books written by atheists have called into question not only tenets of Christianity—the historical reliability of the Bible, the divinity of Jesus, the Resurrection, and so forth—but the viability and rational soundness of faith itself.

One such book is The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris, which repeatedly—mantra-like—uses words such as "ignorant" and "irrational" in making the case that religious faith is not only outdated, but overtly evil. Every religion, Harris muses, "preaches the truth of propositions for which no evidence is even conceivable. This puts the ‘leap’ in Kierkegaard’s leap of faith" (Harris, The End of Faith, 23). He adds: "Religious faith represents so uncompromising a misuse of the power of our minds that it forms a kind of perverse, cultural singularity—a vanishing point beyond which rational discourse proves impossible" (Harris, The End of Faith, 25).

Calling Christians and other religious believers stupid and unreasonable is often the default argument for Harris; it is also an approach, crude yet often effective, embraced by many who believe that religious faith is an offense to enlightened, modern man. With that basic opposition in mind, let us take up two basic tasks: defining what faith is and answering some of the charges against belief.

Do I Trust the Chair?

A witticism goes: "Everybody should believe in something; I believe I’ll have another drink." It is more accurate to say that everybody does believe in something, even if it is belief in the ability to live without belief. Of course, even the skeptic understands that life in the material world requires certain types of belief or faith, using those terms broadly and non-theologically: the belief that stop lights will work correctly, faith that I will be given a paycheck at the end of the month, the trust that my g.asp of basic math will keep me on the good side of the IRS.

One argument posits that sitting upon a chair is an act of faith, so even atheists have faith when they sit on a chair in, say, a home they are visiting for the first time. If for some reason I doubted the chair in question would hold my weight, I could ascertain its load-bearing capabilities by asking my host to sit in it first, thereby ridding myself of concern (and likely puzzling or offending my host). The argument only goes so far when it comes to faith in what cannot be seen, touched, or proven by scientific means. It does, however, suggest what many people are reluctant to admit: that all of us have beliefs and we live our lives based on those beliefs, even if we never articulate or define them. As Joseph Ratzinger observes in Introduction to Christianity, "Every man must adopt some kind of attitude to the basic questions, and no man can do this in any other way but that of entertaining belief." (Introduction to Christianity [2nd ed.], 71)

We, as creatures, have limited, finite knowledge, and so must make decisions—practical, relational, philosophical—without the luxury of proof. We use common sense and rely on our experience and, significantly, on the experience and testimony of others. I may not know for certain that the chair will hold me, but I conclude it is rational to think it will, based on certain observations: The chair looks well-constructed; it appears to be used on a regular basis; and it is in the home of someone who isn’t the sort of person to ask guests to sit on a chair that might fall apart upon human contact. Sitting on the chair is a reasonable thing to do. Implicit here is the matter of trust. Do I trust the chair? Do I trust my host? And, more importantly, do I trust my perception and assessment of the chair?

"The Crisis of Faith" by Fr. John Hardon, S.J.

The Crisis of Faith | By Father John Hardon, S.J.

Every rational human being believes. When we believe we accept the word of another person. Someone knows that something is true, either from experience or reason, and we accept what he tells us because we trust that he knows what he is talking about and is not deceiving us.

On this basis the only unbeliever would be a person who is completely out of his mind. We believe that the persons whom we call our father and mother are our parents. We believe that what we are buying is what the store tells us is worth paying for. We believe that the lessons we learned in childhood are true. Who would even enter marriage unless both partners believed in the spouse with whom they were entering matrimony?

In a word, faith is part of our very nature as rational human beings. However, it is one thing to believe in other people and something else to believe in God. To believe in what people tell us is called human faith. To believe in what God has revealed is called Divine faith. To be still more clear, Divine faith properly so called is the assent of our intellect to what God has revealed, not because we comprehend what God tells us it true, but only because we accept a truth on His authority who can neither deceive, or be deceived.

God cannot deceive because He is all good and therefore cannot tell a lie. He cannot be deceived because He knows all things and therefore can never be wrong.

St. John the Evangelist raises one of the most embarrassing questions in the Bible. How is it, he asked, that we who are so ready to believe in men are so slow to believe in God? The answer is painfully obvious. We are so slow to believe in God because what He demands of us is nothing less than to accept incomprehensible mysteries which are beyond our human capacity even to conceive before they are revealed, and beyond our grasp to fully penetrate even after they are revealed.

We see that faith and revelation are related as cause and effect. God reveals Himself, who He is and what He wants; if we respond we believe.

All of this has been a prelude to the real message of this article, for the present crisis in the Catholic Church is really a crisis of faith.

What is the Crisis?

US Bishops Must Master the Sound Bite

US Bishops Must Master the Sound Bite | David F. Pierre, Jr. | Catholic World Report

Going on the media offensive and strengthening public relations will protect children and educate the public.

Last August in Omaha, Bishop Daniel Conlon of Joliet, Illinois delivered a speech entitled, “Help for Bishops in Rebuilding Trust.” The talk was designed to encourage the lay faithful in speaking up about all of the progress that the Catholic Church has made in providing safe environments for children and protecting kids in light of the abuse scandals.

“You may be in a position to be pastoral assistants to bishops in binding up the Church’s wounds and restoring trust. I hope God calls you to that task and equips you for it,” Bishop Conlon said.

However, more than halfway through his speech, in which he pointed out the urgent need for lay people to spread the Church’s message, Bishop Conlon quipped that the “credibility” of bishops was “shredded” when it came to the issue of child sex abuse.

Uh-oh.

Media outlets immediately jumped all over the opportunity to report that a Catholic bishop had announced that the bishops’ credibility was “shredded.” The bishop’s remark had all the traits of a terrific headline; “R. Daniel Conlon, Catholic Bishop, Says Church’s Credibility On Sex Abuse Is ‘Shredded’” read the headline on David Gibson’s report for Religion News Service.

Never mind that the words were frequently taken out of their original context—Conlon’s larger point was about empowering lay people to fulfill the Church’s role of reaching out to victims and promoting a message of healing. The enemies of the Church had all of the ammunition it needed, and the damage was done.

The importance of the sound bite

Conlon’s episode serves as an invaluable lesson to the Church when it comes to making speeches, issuing off-handed remarks, composing articles, and dealing with the media. We live in a culture of the sound bite, and the enemies of the Church are ready to seize on this.

In a sound-bite culture, context and honesty are easily thrown aside. Bishops and spokespeople need to understand that many in the media are always seeking out anything negative with which to hammer the Catholic Church. Words must be chosen extremely carefully. The Church’s enemies don’t give a rip about context or if you “meant something else.”

Many enemies of the Church have become masters of the sound bite. David Clohessy, the national director of the anti-Catholic group SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) continually rails against bishops who allegedly “ignore, conceal, and enable heinous child sex crimes.” The words make a great sound bite; they look good, and they catch people’s attention. Journalists love this, and many could not care less what the actual facts are.

Catholic officials and diocesan spokespeople need to utilize strong, concise, and engaging sound bites. Such a strategy will not only fortify the Church’s struggling public relations, but it will also educate the public about the unrivaled advances it has taken to protect kids.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

The Tale of Two Religions

The Tale of Two Religions | Michael Coren | Catholic World Report

The West abuses Catholicism but remains too intimidated to stand firm against Islamic extremism.

In late September I went along to what was described as an “anti-blasphemy” rally in the middle of Toronto. It was in response to the notorious “Innocence of Muslims” movie trailer, which was shown on YouTube but watched by very few of the Muslim fanatics who murdered people, destroyed property, and generally fell into paroxysms of theocratic angst as a result. The demonstration took place opposite the US Consulate, and most of the manic yells consisted of condemnations of the United States and Israel, with one genius holding a large poster announcing, “Islam Condones Racism.” Actually it does, and Islamic societies are often grotesquely racist, but he had intended to say “Islam Condemns Racism.” I considered correcting him, but it was much more fun not to, and he’d probably have only said that language was part of a Zionist or Christian conspiracy.

As I was there with a film crew and covering it for my television show, there was a certain, if limited, safety. Nevertheless, I was barged, abused, and threatened. I spoke to dozens of the perhaps 2,000 people who were there. They called for laws protecting Islam from offense, wanted to arrest people who insulted Muslims, and screamed for the death penalty for the man who made the film. They denied that there was such a thing as a blasphemy law in Pakistan, claimed that no Muslim had ever said anything ill about a Christian or persecuted Christians, and generally displayed an invincible ignorance and malice. The brother of Omar Khadr was there. Khadr is the terrorist who killed an American medic in Afghanistan, and was then imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay. As he was born in Canada, Islamic and leftist activists were demanding he be brought back. His brother told me that he was proud of his sibling, who had done nothing wrong, and that he was a good Muslim. There were endless cries of Islamic triumphalism, anti-Semitism, and calls for violence.

Oddly enough, little of this was reported in the mainstream media in Canada, when there is ample evidence on film of what happened.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Dr. Christopher Kaczor on myths, media, and misinformation

Dr. Christopher Kaczor is a professor of philosophy at Loyola Marymount University and the author of several books, including The Ethics of Abortion: Women's Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice; Thomas Aquinas on the Cardinal Virtues; Life Issues - Medical Choices; and How to Stay Catholic in College. His most recent book is The Seven Big Myths about the Catholic Church: Distinguishing Fact from Fiction about Catholicism (Ignatius Press). He spoke recently with Catholic World Report about his reasons for writing the book, the challenge of communicating what the Catholic Church really teaches, and which myths about the Church are most difficult to address and dispel.

CWR: What is the primary audience for your book? Both Catholics and non-Catholics?

Dr. Christopher Kaczor: It is for both Catholics and non-Catholics, ideally. But, more realistically, active Catholics would get and read the book in order to have better conversations and discussions with non-Catholics, especially people who are very secular. There are many myths about the Catholic Church that come from Protestant-Catholic debates, but my book is focused on secularists and non-Catholics who do not hold religious views, but who do, for example, adhere to myths about the Catholic Church that come from the media and Hollywood, among other sources.

CWR: What are some of the key reasons people are so misinformed about the Catholic Church?

Dr. Kaczor: One of the main reasons is that the mainstream media—through television, radio, movies, the internet—misrepresents the Church on the key issues. Take movies, for instance: priests are constantly presented and portrayed in a stereotypical way, especially as drunks or molesters or hypocrites. This informs the imagination and views of people. Another huge factor is that Catholic generally do a poor job of explaining the the history, beliefs, and practices of the Catholic Church. Catholics are apologetic in the wrong way, sometimes even saying, "Yeah, we're behind the times, but we'll eventually catch up!" So Catholics contribute to the malaise and misinformation when hey do not stand up for the Faith and state the truth. They need to be firm in what they believe, but they first need to know what they believe, and why.

CWR: How did you select these seven myths?

Dr. Kaczor: My process of selection was not necessarily scientific, but neither was it random. I've been teaching since 1997, and have often asked myself, "What are the issues that my students are struggling with and wrestling with the most?" It also comes from my experiences of talking with many other people over the past twenty years. All of these myths involved key issues that people really wrestle with; I chose the ones that think are the most malicious and the most widespread when it comes to the Catholic Church.

CWR: What myth is most deeply ingrained in the dominant culture?

Dr. Kaczor: That's hard to say. Myth #7 might be one ["Priestly Celibacy Caused the Crisis of Sexual Abuse of Minors: The Myth of Priestly Pedophilia"]. Lots of people hold that view, and it is very damaging. People rightly expect priests to be holy and upright, and so when a priest is found to have committed abuse, it discredits the priesthood for many people. But what most of these people don't realize is that children are more likely to be molested by a school teacher or a coach than a priest. That's the reality. But people won't stop sending their kids to school or having them in sports programs. However, they will stop going to Church and they will reject Catholicism because a bad priest committed a malicious act. This is particularly bad because it removes them from the life of the Church and undermines, or ends, their participation in the Church.

Part of the issue here is that teachers and coaches are so deeply trusted that many people cannot face up to the evidence, and so we don't see a movement to reform the teaching profession or the football coaching profession. Yet, again, teachers and coaches are more likely to abuse kids than a priest, as studies show and my book demonstrates. And when we look at the horrible situation with [former Penn State coach] Jerry Sandusky, we see that being married does not magically cure the problem.

CWR: Which of these myths is most difficult to address? Does that depend on the situation and people involved?

Dr. Kaczor: I think it does depend on the situation. Perhaps # 4 ["Indifferent to Love, the Church Banned Contraception: The Myth of Opposition between Love and Procreation"] because addressing contraception requires knowing that procreation is a good thing, but that takes a lot of time and background information about sexuality, marriage, and so forth. The same is true when it comes to defending marriage and addressing "same-sex marriage": a quick sound bit doesn't work easily. It really does require time and effort. 

• For more about The Seven Big Myths about the Catholic Church, visit the book's website.

Is "Prometheus" on the "Index of Forbidden Films"?

Is Prometheus on the "Index of Forbidden Films"? | Christopher S. Morrissey | Catholic World Report

Contrary to widespread media opinion, neither the Pope nor "the Vatican" writes movie reviews.

The Pope does not write movie reviews. The Vatican is not keeping a list of prohibited films. But you’d never know that from reading the secular press.

Anti-Catholicism—the last acceptable prejudice, and one that is usually paired with atheism, the last superstition—dies hard in the mainstream media, which persistently keeps alive certain ridiculous clichés about the Catholic Church. One favorite media myth about the Vatican is that it is stuck in the Dark Ages and is staffed with a killjoy Inquisition that sour-facedly watches new movies and issues knee-jerk condemnations.

The dishonest distortions required to propagate this myth were on display again last week. Witness the headline in The Hollywood Reporter, “Official Vatican Newspaper Criticizes Prometheus for ‘Mishandling’ Delicate Questions”, and its accompanying sub-title: “With the criticisms, Prometheus joins a list of films the Vatican dislikes that includes The Da Vinci Code and Avatar.”

Never mind that the only person ultimately responsible for what appears in L’Osservatore Romano is its controversial editor, Italian layman Gian Maria Vian. The Vatican newspaper is allowed to operate with wide latitude in its editorial judgment, which in recent years has dabbled in pop culture reviews that have no magisterial standing whatsoever.

(Even so, that still doesn’t prevent the secular media from going bananas every time “the Vatican’s official newspaper” publishes a pop culture review. Right away, like clockwork, you can expect a misleading headline about what “the Vatican” or “the Pope” has decreed about The Beatles or The Simpsons or Bob Dylan or The Blues Brothers.)

Rather, what is especially egregious this time around is not the recycling of the old myth about how the Vatican has nothing better to do with its time than maintain an Index of Forbidden and Approved Pop Culture Phenomena. It is rather that the story about Prometheus completely misrepresents the review that actually appeared in L’Osservatore Romano.

The review itself, which appeared in Italian, consists mainly of a bland plot summary. But a mere handful of sentences that softly criticize the film were spun in the English language media to give the impression that the Vatican was issuing an angry condemnation of the film.

Yet this is a pure fabrication.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Stop the presses! Jesus was married! Oh no!

The Da Vinci Code may have come and gone, but the same dubious "scholarship", breathless "gotcha!" tactics, and general, sloppy silliness lives on—in the New York Times:

A Faded Piece of Papyrus Refers to Jesus’ Wife
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A historian of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School has identified a scrap of papyrus that she says was written in Coptic in the fourth century and contains a phrase never seen in any piece of Scripture: “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife …'”

The faded papyrus fragment is smaller than a business card, with eight lines on one side, in black ink legible under a magnifying glass. Just below the line about Jesus having a wife, the papyrus includes a second provocative clause that purportedly says, “she will be able to be my disciple.”

The finding was made public in Rome on Tuesday at an international meeting of Coptic scholars by the historian Karen L. King, who has published several books about new Gospel discoveries and is the first woman to hold the nation’s oldest endowed chair, the Hollis professor of divinity.

Let's be clear: I don't have a problem with a news story about this fourth-century scrap of gnostic text that has little or nothing to do with the historical Jesus described in the four Gospels and testified to by first-century Christian witnesses. I do have a problem with how the story is presented, as it is simply misleading. First, the headline: "...Refers to Jesus' Wife". Sure, it may refer to "Jesus' wife", but that is akin to me writing a note with reference to George Washington's harem or mention of Thomas Jefferson's homosexual lover. Saying it doesn't make it so, especially many decades, or even centuries, after the fact.

Continue reading on the CWR blog.

The State and the Sacred

The State and the Sacred | James Kalb | Catholic World Report

Today there is no god higher than Caesar, and Caesar has identified himself with the principle of individual choice and thus with the divinity of the individual will.

Every functional society is based on a system of common understandings about man, the world, and the common good. Otherwise those who take part in it won’t be able to cooperate effectively in the network of complex, enduring, and sometimes very demanding undertakings through which they carry on the life of the society.

Such understandings can exist even though they aren’t held by everyone, or in their entirety by many people at all. It’s only necessary that people who run things make them basic to how they cooperate, and the people at large go along with the arrangement. Thus, a secular society doesn’t have to be one in which most people oppose religion in public life. It just has to be one in which influential people agree religion doesn’t belong there, and find ways to enforce the agreement.

In the early ’60s most people didn’t like the school prayer decisions, which pushed religion out of the public schools. But the decisions stuck, because people who ran things liked them, and it’s hard for the people at large to resist what higher-ups settle on as proper. Since that time the same view of what is proper has meant a continuing trend toward secularism, and many Catholics have come to view the resulting kind of society as entirely consistent with their faith. Government is carried on without reference to religion, but political entanglements are corrupting, the Church is free to carry out her mission in civil society, and in any event American public religion was basically Protestant.

So why aren’t things better now, and why isn’t what we have enough?

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Canada: Ignored, Mysterious, and Very Confused

Canada: Ignored, Mysterious, and Very Confused | Michael Coren | Catholic World Report

The first installment of a new column, “Controversies with Coren”

It’s always a challenge to write a first column, to introduce oneself to a new audience. My brief is to cover pretty much anything I want, but to write about Canada and Britain in particular. The reason is that I spent the first half of my life in London, the second in Toronto. I married a Canadian. We met at a G.K. Chesterton conference in 1986, where I delivered a startlingly boring lecture entitled “Chesterton, Belloc, the Marconi Scandal, and Edwardian Anti-Semitism.” Not a usual subject for future wife attraction, but even so this highly intelligent, extraordinarily beautiful woman approached me at a cocktail party at the end of the conference and exclaimed, “You’re amazing.” She was doubtless drunk.

Thinking this would never happen again, I married her. And I was right: it hasn’t happened again, and as far as I can recall she hasn’t said it again either.

Thus Canada, which is one of those geopolitical mysteries. Like Costa Rica’s peacefulness or the beauty of Bruges. People just don’t usually know. Thirty million inhabitants, incredibly wealthy, absurdly large, enormously successful, culturally and artistically fertile, and often a predictor of what the USA will become 10 years later. But because it’s a former British colony and on top of the world’s only superpower it’s often forgotten, ignored. Frankly, it rather likes it that way. Similarly with the Canadian Church. There are more than 13 million Catholics in Canada, 44 percent of the population. There are eight million Protestants of various denominations, the largest claiming to be the United Church, at around half-a-million members.

It’s the most liberal of the churches and is hemorrhaging adherents. As are the Anglicans and the Presbyterians. Unlike in the US, Evangelicals at around 11 percent are not a major force. Immigration has, of course, enormously increased the Hindu, Sikh, and, in particular, Muslim communities.

There is an extensive and publicly funded Catholic education system in the country, a tiny but still permitted Catholic television station, and in the past two generations it’s been unusual to have a prime minister who is not Catholic. Of a sort.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.