Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog

Dishonest or Dumb--Again

He starts out so well.  Time’s Jeff Israely begins by noting that his article is titled “The Pope and Darwin”, not “The Pope vs. Darwin”. So far, so good.

Then he tells readers about the upcoming meeting of Benedict’s Schülerkreis—student circle—of former theology students this weekend.  The topic: creation and evolution.  Fine.

Next he warns readers not to “expect the Catholic Church to start disputing Darwin’s basic findings”. Still good.

But then, despite the promise, this:

Evolution appears to be very much on the pontiff's mind. It is a 'natural selection' of its own that this was the singular subject chosen by the Pope and his disciples for three days of lectures and discussion. Some conservative Catholics do indeed have growing doubts about the teaching of Darwin, which they say is now used to explain the very meaning of human existence. The issue of evolution has been on this pope's agenda from Day One, as Benedict proclaimed at his installation mass: "We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God."

Now, is evolution very much on the pope's mind?  No doubt it is this week because Benedict will meet with his former students to talk about it.  But does that mean the topic has preoccupied him? Should we supposed he has had this at the top of his list of things to think about during the almost year-and-a-half of his papacy?

To be sure, as Israely notes, Benedict declared at his inaugural Mass, "We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God". And, as Israely later observes, in one of Benedict’s weekly audiences last fall he stated that the Word of God--"this word that created everything and created this intelligent project that is the cosmos--is also love".  That little phrase got many in the media worked up. Benedict had endorsed Intelligent Design (ID)!

Of course, since the pope thinks God exists and created human beings for a purpose, it’s on his mind that there are movements in the modern world that deny God’s existence or think there’s no point to human life. And he said as much. Yet a careful study of the pope’s remarks yields no papal underwriting for ID. To say that the universe is "an intelligent project" is not the same as espousing the specific theory of Intelligent Design, although the former is comptaible with the latter, as it is with the idea that God used cosmic and biological evolution to create.

Israely goes on to make a curious claim. The pope's concerns that human beings not be thought of as "the product of some casual and meaningless product of evolution" supposedly "echo those expressed by backers of intelligent design, who include a mix of mostly Protestants and Roman Catholics". 

True enough.  But the pope’s words also just happen to echo concerns shared by most Christians and, for that matter, most Jews and Muslims. Indeed, they are probably concerns shared by most religious believers, period. Even those believers who are also staunch proponents of evolution and vocal opponents of ID would probably agree with Pope Benedict here.  Why, then, does Time align Benedict XVI with ID?

The ID advocates, we’re told, worry that Darwin “has become ‘Darwinism’—natural science transformed into dogmatic philosophy”. Of course ID proponents do object to Darwinism as a dogmatic philosophy. But then plenty of people who don’t support ID, including those who espouse evolution and creation, would likewise object, if by “dogmatic philosophy” one means a closed-minded adherence to a position, in the face of contrary evidence, or a materialistic presupposition that rejects the idea of God or any kind of divine purpose for human existence.

In fact, almost anyone who affirms the existence of a divine Creator—not just Fundamentalist Creationists or non-Fundamentalist ID advocates—would repudiate “Darwinism” so defined, although not necessarily evolution. Indeed, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger himself, now Pope Benedict XVI, rejected precisely such a materialistic and atheistic denial of God at the same time he affirmed evolution in his book, In the Beginning. Likewise, the International Theological Commission of the Catholic Church, under the same Cardinal Ratzinger, in a document called Communion and Stewardship, published in 2004, held that evolution wasn’t per se incompatible with God as Creator.

Again, why single out ID proponents here, when many others also reject “Darwinism” as a “dogmatic philosophy”?

“The ID proponents have found intellectual allies in the highest reaches of the Catholic hierarchy,” writes Israely. “Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, the influential Archbishop of Vienna, wrote an opinion piece last year in the New York Times that was favorable to the theory of intelligent design”.

Let’s be clear: Cardinal Schönborn’s Times’ piece didn’t embrace ID, but it did espouse the idea that God created the cosmos, including life on this planet. Apparently, that a cardinal of the Catholic Church, someone “in the highest reaches of the Catholic hierarchy”, believes that human beings were created by God now amounts to an endorsement of the ID movement.

Then comes Jesuit Father Fessio, editor of Ignatius Press, publisher of most of the pope’s books in English, and, like Cardinal Schönborn, a former Ratzinger student. Father Fessio, the author declares, “did his best to downplay the significance of the meeting” during an interview with Israely. Translation: Father Fessio refused to play the media hype game.

“This is not a gathering of experts on evolution and creation called in to advise the Holy Father,” he said. “This is just a former professor having an informal gathering with his old students.” As it has been for the decades Ratzinger has been holding the gatherings.

“Fessio does not deny that evolution may be a top papal priority,” Israely writes. His evidence? Father Fessio’s comments: “These are the fundamental questions of any human being who becomes aware of himself. Where did I come from? Where I am going? What is the meaning of life — mine and in general?”

Does asking those questions and not accepting atheism’s or materialism’s answers make you an ID proponent? Apparently according to Israely. He quotes a lecture by Cardinal Schönborn, given last week in Italy, in which the cardinal condemned scientism—the philosophical presupposition that science and only science has the answers.  Concludes Israely, “And so like the Pope himself, Schönborn is an ally of the ID battle, as much as for his theological firepower as for his institutional muscle.”

But Schönborn, we’re told, goes beyond the pope in criticizing scientism and, thus in the end, jibs Israely, “Maybe, after all, we could at least call this the Cardinal vs. Darwin”.

You, O reader, decide whether Time's article inclines in the dishonest or just plain dumb direction.

Saint Francis and Padre Pio

Available soon from Ignatius Press:

Saint Francis (DVD)

Filmed on location in Assisi and other actual locations where St. Francis lived and died, this feature film vividly tells the story of this greatly beloved saint from childhood through his death.

Beautifully filmed with outstanding cinematography and fine acting talent, this film stars Italian actor Raoul Bova as Francis and was directed by acclaimed filmmaker Michele Soavi. Captured by the enemy as a soldier and put in prison, he has a life changing experience that inspires him after being freed to abandon his riches and dedicate his life to living the Gospel in simplicity, poverty and charity towards all.

Available in dubbed English, Italian with English subtitles, or Spanish subtitles. ***Available September 25***

Padre Pio: Miracle Man (DVD)

This movie captures the Capuchin friar's intense faith and devotion, and deep spiritual concern for others, as well as his great compassion for the sick and suffering. It reveals the amazing details and events in Padre Pio's life as a boy and throughout his 50 years as a monk, dramatizing the frequent attacks of the Devil on him, as well as the persecution he suffered at the hands of people, including those in the church.

Starring Italian actor Sergio Castellitto, and directed by Carlo Carlei, this is an outstanding feature film on the amazing life of this great saint.

Available dubbed in English, Italian with English subtitles, and Spanish language. ***Available September 25***

Casey vs. Santorum

In case you missed them, here are two 2005 IgnatiusInsight.com interviews that might be of interest:

• Interview with Bob Casey, Jr. (July 29, 2005)
• IgnatiusInsight.com Interview with Sen. Rick Santorum (June 29,

Recent comments about this race can be found here and here.

Avoiding the activist trap

Collen Carroll Campbell reflects on the dangers of aligning too closely with political parties/causes:

The activist trap that Pope Benedict warns against is a common and familiar one: The temptation to align too closely with a particular political party and demonize opponents, to equate one’s personal judgments with the eternal truths of the faith, and to define “the Christian position” on every policy issue, thus losing focus on the few fundamental moral questions where authentic Christian witness is most countercultural and most needed. Lurking beneath those temptations is the one Benedict criticizes most forcefully: The human urge to use social and political activism to distract from our deepest questions, most intimate struggles, and most urgent longings for truth, goodness, beauty — and God.

More good stuff from Campbell in this April 2005 IgnatiusInsight.com interview.

Intellectuals and Creators

Roger Kimball reviews historian Paul Johnson's new book, Creators, over at NRO. Creators, Kimball notes, "is in part a response to [the] criticism" Johnson received because of his 1988 book, Intellectuals, which took "readers on an entertaining, though decidedly unedifying, tour of typical intellectuals from Shelley and Karl Marx to Bertrand Russell and D. H. Lawrence." I enjoyed reading Intellectuals many years ago and have found Johnson to be always engaging, not least because he doesn't march to the beat of the accepted wisdom (that is, he is often politically-incorrect). Kimball writes:

The biggest offender in Johnson’s menagerie is undoubtedly Picasso, one of the most curious cultural figures of the 20th century. Long before his death in 1973, Picasso had emerged in the public imagination as perhaps the creative artistic genius of the period. For many, Picasso was to art as Einstein was to science. Of course, not everyone was susceptible. Few perhaps went as far as Evelyn Waugh, who for a period ended his letters with the valediction “Death to Picasso.” But there were many who contemplated Picasso’s deliberate assault upon nature and the human figure with horror, not admiration. What seems clear from our vantage point thirty-odd years after Picasso’s death is that his reputation owed as much to the public intoxication as to his achievement. Picasso may have been, as Johnson observes, “the most restless, experimental, and productive artist who ever lived,” but he was also an artist whose primary endowment was the ability to sense “exactly how much the vanguard of the art world would take.”

The two words that best describe Picasso’s activities as an artist — as a man, too — are “cunning” and “rage.” From an early age, Picasso knew (in Gertrude Stein’s phrase) exactly how far to go in going too far. The astonishingly protean quality of Picasso’s work — from the sentimentalities of the Blue Period to the depredations of his cubist and post-cubist “portraits” — bespeaks not only an abundance of creative élan but also a fundamental vacuum at the center of his art. “Obviously,” Picasso said in an aside that speaks volumes about his attitude toward his art, “Nature exists so that we can rape it.” Johnson describes Picasso as “essentially a fashion designer,” catering with perfect pitch to the fickle vicissitudes of avant-garde taste. It is worth noting, I think, how much smaller Picasso’s achievement seems now than it did even a decade ago. In time, I predict, he will be seen primarily as a gifted caricaturist who also happened to be a thoroughly repulsive man.

Strong words, but quite accurate. Having endured a number of art history classes, I know first-hand the sort of unquestioning adulation reserved for Picasso. But I think such adulation is as much or more aimed at Picasso as a Rebel and Big Personality as it is his talent. And while he did have obvious artistic talent, Picasso's greatest gift may have been his ability to shape and sell a cult of personality, setting a template that has been followed by other creative types ever since. But Picasso's art is not just cold and detached, it is often repulsive and misogynist, obsessively (even voyeuristically) chronicling his numerous affairs and conquests.

I prefer artists who are far less obsessed with themselves. Recently, thumbing through Johnson's Art: A New History (2003), I came across this description of another artist, still living, but at the end of a long and productive career. This artist was described by Johnson as "the only narrative artist of genius during the second half of the twentieth century..." This painter, unlike Picasso and his disciples, "usually worked in secret and shunned public notice. He never talked about his work if he could avoid it, believing it spoke for itself to those who would look and listen. He worked slowly, carefully, and conscientously, self-critically, and with absolutely no regard for commercial success, critical notice, contemporary trends or, for that matter, posterity." He is speaking of my favorite twentieth-century artist, Andrew Wyeth, a true creator whose work — dare I say so? — may very well age better than that produced by artists, including Pablo, who receive far more attention and fawning praise.

John Miesel, Reqiescat in Pace

From Sandra Miesel:

John Miesel died peacefully on Wednesday night. He'd spent in last five weeks in a hospice where he received wonderful and loving care. I thank everyone for their prayers during his illness. It was less than five months but it seemed like five years. His funeral Mass will be next Wednesday.

What earthly delight endures unmingled with grief? • What earthly  glory remains immutable? • All things are less than a shadow, • more deluding than a  dream. In a single moment all these are effaced by death; • but in the light of Your  countenance, O Christ, • and in the enjoyment of Your beauty, • grant rest to the one whom  You have chosen; • for You love mankind. — St. John Damascene

Evangelicals at Georgetown

What was behind the termination — at the behest of the Protestant head of campus ministry — of Georgetown University's relationship with six Evangelical ministry groups? Joseph Bottum of First Things (and an alumnus of GU)  has a theory:

The problem, of course, finally boils down to this: The evangelical groups represent only a few hundred students, but they are strongly pro-life and opposed to homosexual marriage. The mainline Protestant employees of Campus Ministry find such things embarrassing, and so they kick the evangelicals off campus, employing the power of the officially Catholic chaplain’s office and the rhetoric of the school’s Catholic identity.

Protestants using "Catholicism" as an excuse to kick other Protestants off of a Catholic ("Catholic"?) campus. I can't wait for the reality television program inspired by this story.

Rabbi: Dan Brown is (sorta) wrong, but liberal German scholars were right

From The Canadian Jewish News:

Author Dan Brown was on the right track, says Rabbi Michael Skobac, education director for Jews for Judaism, but he followed the wrong clues: the book’s main allegations are based on fictions, but research is now pointing to the possibility of a bigger Church cover-up that is rooted in fact.

“A sense among many scholars is emerging that a real history of Christianity has been concealed from the beginning which has serious scholarship behind it. It’s a much more interesting story than Brown’s. It’s not conclusive or the final chapter of the story, but many scholars are beginning to head in this direction,” Rabbi Skobac said.

Sounds fresh, fascinating, and factual! But who are these "many scholars"? And what has this "serious scholarship" revealed?

In 176 CE, Rabbi Skobac said, a philosopher named Kelsus suggested that Jesus’ father was a Roman soldier named Pantera. A Yeshua ben Pantera is listed in talmudic sources as having lived in the Galilee. ...

Sounds familiar. Apparently this notion is based on a text written in the late second century, many decades after the canonical gospels were written. Sounds like it needs to be filed next to another second-century text.

Another slighted aspect of Jesus’ life is the historically documented existence of his brother, James. “If Mary was practically deified, James was marginalized – ironic because scholars say James is the critical link to uncovering who Jesus was. It may not be a coincidence that James is so obscured, specifically because he is the key to understanding Jesus.”

Hmmm...I thought Jesus might be the key to understanding Jesus, but perhaps I've been hoodwinked.

The Book of Acts “practically says nothing about disciples and relatives of Jesus,” Rabbi Skobac said. “It’s all about Paul of Tarsus.

Well, except for the first twelve chapters of The Acts of the Apostles, which are about Peter, John, Stephen, Philip, and others. Details, details.

“Paul never met Jesus but claims that Jesus appeared to him in a vision. For Paul, Jesus becomes the message,” Rabbi Skobac said. “It’s not about what Jesus taught.

“As Paul’s church grew, Torah observance was jettisoned and Christian doctrines became standard. Relatives and Torah-observant disciples of Jesus became an embarrassment to the Church, so they were written out of the story.”

Imagine that: the Christians believed in Christian doctrines! What next? Practicing Christian worship? Singing Christian hymns? As for Paul, didn't he actually address the issue of the Law and Torah observance in some of his epistles? Hmmmm. That's right: the Epistles to the Romans, the Epistle to the Galatians, etc., etc. Which is why so much scholarly ink has been used up addressing Paul's understanding and use of the Torah (see this page, for example).

The Da Vinci Code claims that a story about the origins of Christianity has been concealed. “That is true,” Rabbi Skobac said, “but it doesn’t give us the real story. The real one is substantiable and emerges from the texts.

“Many of us feel that we are living in special times, that we are at a point of unfolding more truth in the world. I feel that this book by Brown could play a part in making people ask more questions and this would lead to uncovering more truths.”

Rabbi Skobac apparently believes that the notion that Paul created Christianity is somehow new and worthy of serious thought. Yet this idea is hardly recent, having roots in 19th-century German Christology and fleshed out by William Wrede (1859–1906). Catholic theologian Karl Adam (1876 - 1966), author of the excellent The Spirit of Catholicism, wrote this about Wrede:

Wrede wrote a daring book [Das Messiasgeheimnis in Den Evangelien] upon the contrast—which he claimed was obvious and irreconcilable—between the picture of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels and the picture of Christ derived from St. Paul and St. John. He maintained that the true creator of the Church's Christology was St. Paul. he alone was able to range Christ with the Godhead because he had never had the opportunity of knowing him personally, so his speculations, nourished upon late Judaic eschatology and mysticism, had not been fettered by the memory of the poor and simple life Jesus had led. This ideal image of Christ soon became the dominant one in the Christian communities, and even overlaid certain features of the Synoptic picture of Jesus. (The Christ of Faith: The Christology of the Church, First English edition, 1957)

Adam then states, "Wrede's suggestions have found practically no supporters, not even among the Biblical critics." I'm not sure if that would hold true for the past fifty years. Regardless, it seems that the liberal German Protestant Wrede does carry some weight (even if unknowingly) with a Jewish rabbi intent on proving that orthodox Christianity is a sham. And I thought the "Dan Brown works with Archbishop Milingo" story was strange...

Theology of the (Resurrected) Body, Revisited

Philosophers Robert George and Patrick Lee continue their discussion of the Resurrection of the Body with physicist Stephen Barr.  They argue that some kind of material continuity between the natural body and the glorified, resurrected body makes sense and seems to have the support of Scripture and theological tradition.

Here is the latest: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=449.

Do they make their case?

Here is Stephen Barr's previous post: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=416.

Here is George and Lee's comments that gave rise to Barr's response above: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=412.

Here is Barr's initial response that got the discussion going: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=398.

And here is the item to which he initially responded: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=393.

Finally, here are the posts on this site at which Stephen Barr responds to comments on IgnatiusInsight.com: http://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2006/08/resurrection_of_1.html and http://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2006/08/resurrection_of.html.

Your thoughts on this discussion? If George and Lee are wrong, then to insist on material continuity between the "natural body" and the "resurrected body" would seem to make the resurrection of the body unintelligible, from the perspective of modern physics.  On the other hand, if they are correct, does this have implications for our understanding of quantum physics?  Must it be flawed? Or is Stephen Barr's interpretation of quantum physics the problem, rather than quantum physics itself? Should we even try to speculate on the nature of resurrected bodies in relation to natural bodies? George and Lee's most recent argument might lead us to ask what, exactly, do we mean when we refer to bodies, whether natural (living) bodies, non-living bodies, or resurrected bodies?

Holy Grail!

Back on August 11th, Sandra Miesel guested on "Catholic Answers Live!" and spent the hour discussing the facts and the fiction about the Holy Grail. You can access it through the calendar page, or here in several audio media formats. Sandra and I can also be heard discussing the Coded Craziness on this March 17, 2006 "Catholic Answers Live!" program.

John Paul the Great | William Oddie

John Paul the Great | William Oddie | A selection John Paul the Great: Maker of the Post-Conciliar Church

About a decade ago, the late Professor Adrian Hastings -- having the previous year published his controversial though unsurprising book The Theology of a Protestant Catholic -- edited a substantial volume entitled Modern Catholicism, Vatican II and After. It was a collection of essays containing contributions from what the dust jacket described as 'an   international team of leading Catholic scholars'; and among these contributions was an assessment of the pontificate thus far of the Pope from Poland, by the distinguished commentator on Vatican affairs, the late Peter Hebblethwaite. It concluded with these words:

One would like to think that John Paul continues to learn from his stay in the West, not to mention his world-wide journeys; and that he might spend as much time trying to understand the rest of us as we have spent trying to understand him. It may be that his providential role is to test the conservative hypothesis to breaking point. At the conclave that elected him, it was possible to argue that the Church needed a strong hand on the tiller. At the next conclave, that argument will not wash: the conservative option will have been tried, and may well be found wanting. In the spiritual life, everyone fails. The seed falls into the ground and dies. But this will be a magnificent heroic failure on a cosmic scale, with that special Polish dash.

A year or two later, in a little restaurant close to St Peter's, the same writer was quoted in the Catholic World Report as saying that 'Nothing he has done will outlast him. Not the Catechism, not Veritatis splendor, not the document on the ordination of women ... The new man will put aside everything John Paul has done and start ... again'.

Continue reading...

Schuelerkreis

In one sense the attention being given to Pope Benedict XVI's upcoming Schuelerkreis is a great thing.  Media attention to theological matters can help underscore for people the importance of theology in reflecting on the Big Questions. The subject of evolution and creation is a high yield stock right now, so let's have some coverage of it.

And yet. 1. Much of the media gets it wrong when it comes to religion.  And really wrong when it comes to evolution and religion. See my blogservations below. 2.  Thus far, we have plenty of evidence the MSM will botch this story as it has so many others on the subject.

This meeting is not an official Vatican function. The participants are former theology students of Joseph Ratzinger who are interested in this topic but who are, for the most part, by no means experts on the subject, certainly not on the scientific details of it.  Nor do they represent themselves as experts. Their expertise is theology.

To be sure, the organizers of the Schuelerkreis have asked some experts on evolution and philosophy to participate. But their participation seems aimed at helping the theologians present to discuss the subject matter with greater scientific and philosophical precision. There is no indication of a forthcoming formal agreement by theologians and scientists or formal statement on the subject once the discussion ends.

Will the Schuelerkreis meeting wind up a sort of Papal Braintrust regarding evolution and creation? Not likely. Benedict XVI surely values his former students' opinions and ideas.  And many, if not all of the participants, have first-rate theological minds. But if the Holy Father wanted to get the best theological minds on the subject into a Braintrust, surely he would have included some folks who won't be attending.

In the end, it seems that the best way to describe the Schuelerkreis meeting is as a gathering of former Ratzinger students to discuss a theological topic of interest to the group and about which some measure of scientific expertise from outside the group would be beneficial. No less but no more. The participants will, no doubt, benefit from the meeting. The rest of the Church, to the extent the participants are influential, may receive some indirect benefit.  Perhaps certain ideas will be clarified in the Holy Father's mind, although he seems to be up on the main points of the topic so no clarification may be needed. Whether any direct, immediate benefit will result for the rest of us because of the meeting remains to be seen.  We have no reason to think so, regardless of what the MSM is apt to claim.

Pope to debate evolution with former students

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

PARIS (Reuters) - Pope Benedict gathers some of his former theology students on Friday for a private weekend debate on evolution and religion, an issue conservative Christians have turned into a political cause in the United States.

The whole story: http://thestar.com.my/services/printerfriendly.asp?file=/2006/8/30/worldupdates/2006-08-30T180806Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-265455-1.asp&sec=worldupdates.

Another story: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9877-papal-summit-to-debate-darwinian-evolution.html.

Quashed!

Rumors. The e-mail in question can, apparently, be read here.

What he said!

A fine explanation of one man's love for reading the works of Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar:

In Balthasar, I discovered the heart of Western (literary) tradition in the person of Jesus Christ. And Balthasar also educated me to discover a way of living that tradition in my everyday life.

Balthasar showed me that the beauty of the Western cultural tradition is Christ, a beauty Who is symphonic and thus capable of bringing together a dazzling pluralism of temperaments. In his survey of Theological Aesthetics (Clerical Styles, Lay Styles), Balthasar explores the breadth and depth of this tradition through its most original and lucid representatives: Irenaeus, Augustine, Dionysius, Anselm, Bonaventure, Dante, John of the Cross, Pascal, Hamann, Soloviev, Hopkins, and Peguy. This chorus of voices cannot be systematized, but together they sing the diverse approaches to Christian beauty found in other authors.

Seeing the Form (Volume 1 of the Theological Aesthetics) set before me the ideal of the Christian form of life. For Balthasar, formation is based on the form of Jesus Christ found in the Gospels and encountered decisively in experiences synthesized in the Spiritual Exercises. Together with Adrienne von Speyr, Balthasar developed the theme of the Christian life as transparency to the splendor of Christ. This splendor is rooted in listening to the Word of God through Scripture (see Prayer), lived out by following the path that Jesus walked in coming to us (see The Threefold Garland), and expressed through missionary kenosis (see Mysterium Paschale and The Moment of Christian Witness).

For bio, links, articles, and excerpts, visit von Balthasar's IgnatiusInsight.com author page.

Free B16 "wallpaper"!

 

As well as several preview pages from Pope Benedict XVI: Servant of the Truth, a very beautiful and captivating book about the Holy Father's life. Check it out!

"The way that you correct a wrong is by outlawing."

That would be Democrat Fabian Nunez, the Speaker of the California State Assembly, talking about his staunch support of the bill SB 1437— signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — as reported by the Center for American Cultural Renewal:

The Democrat-controlled Assembly, on August 21, passed SB 1437, one of four bills that would allow sexual indoctrination of schoolchildren (even kindergarten children) and college students. “SB 1437 would alter K-12 public education textbooks, instructional materials, and school-sponsored activities to positively reference transsexuality, transvestitism, bisexuality, and homosexuality, including homosexual ‘marriage,’” reports Christian Newswire. The Assembly floor vote was 46-31 (five more than needed to achieve a 41-vote majority) along party lines. The bill now goes to the state Senate for a concurrence vote.

In this context, what "wrong" was Nunez referring to? The Culture and Family Institute reports:

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles), who floor-managed SB 1437, said in his floor statement that the bill was about the "safety" of "sexual minority kids." He said that the schools had an obligation to prohibit anything that, as the bill puts it, "reflects adversely" on homosexuality. "The way that you correct a wrong is by outlawing. 'Cause if you don't outlaw it, then people's biases tend to take over and dominate the perspective and the point of view," Nunez said.

An overview of the other three bills:

SB 1441, sponsored by Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), which requires all businesses, schools and institutions that accept any state money to promote homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexuality, or face a funding cutoff. No religious exemption is included, so the state could threaten child care centers and Christian schools that accept CalWORKS childcare vouchers and Cal Grant college grants. As of Tuesday, the bill was in the Senate.

AB 606, sponsored by Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys), would give the state superintendent of schools the power to withhold funds to schools that do not establish and publicize antidiscrimination policies based on "gender identity" and "sexual orientation." It also authorizes the creation of new curricula to promote acceptance of all manner of sexual activity to schoolchildren. As of Tuesday, the bill was on the Senate floor.

AB 1056, sponsored by Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park), would authorize $250,000 for a "tolerance education" voluntary pilot program at several schools that would effectively outlaw any expression of traditional values, including a preference for marriage. As of Tuesday, the bill was on the Senate floor. "What's voluntary today becomes mandatory tomorrow," said Cindy Moles, CWA California state director.

More detailed analysis of the three bills can be found on the Campaign for Children and Families site. Meanwhile, a homosexual website explains that Schwarzenegger has "a mixed record on LGBT issues."

He came to office promoting himself as a moderate, signing several LGBT rights bills, and angering conservatives. But he lost gay support last year he vetoed a bill that would have legalized same-sex marriage in the state.

They have a point. If Schwarzenegger is going to pass legislation that essentially states that homosexuality (and other "lifestyles") are not only normal but deserve special protection, as well as legislation that outlaws criticism of those same activities, then why hesitate to legalize "same-sex" marriage?

Convert to the Religion of Peace. Or else.

Andrew G. Bostom, the author of "The Legacy of Jihad," considers the peaceful nature of Islam (ht: Michelle Malkin):

Forced conversions in Islamic history are not exceptional—they have been the norm, across three continents—Asia, Africa, and Europe—for over 13 centuries. Orders for conversion were decreed under all the early Islamic dynasties—Umayyads, Abbasids, Fatimids, and Mamluks. Additional extensive examples of forced conversion were recorded under both Seljuk and Ottoman Turkish rule (the latter until its collapse in the 20th century), the Shi’ite Safavid and Qajar dynasties of Persia/Iran, and during the jihad ravages on the Indian subcontinent, beginning with the early 11th century campaigns of Mahmud of Ghazni, and recurring under the Delhi Sultanate, and Moghul dynasty until the collapse of Muslim suzerainty in the 18th century following the British conquest of India.

Robert Spencer explains how some of this love and peace is currently being spread among young Muslims. English philosopher Roger Scruton has written many articles on terrorism, as well as the book, The West and the Rest (excerpted at NRO in 2002):

Nevertheless, Islamist terrorism is a distinct development in two ways. Islamism is not a nationalist movement, still less a bid to establish a new kind of secular state. It rejects the modern state and its secular law in the name of a "brotherhood" that reaches secretly to all Muslim hearts, uniting them against the infidel. And because its purpose is religious rather than political, the goal is incapable of realization. The Muslim Brotherhood failed even to change the political order of Egypt, let alone to establish itself as a model of Koranic government throughout the Muslim world. Where Islamists succeed in gaining power — as in Iran, Sudan, and Afghanistan — the result is not the reign of peace and piety promised by the Prophet, but murder and persecution on a scale matched in our time only by the Nazis and the Communists. The Islamist, like the Russian nihilist, is an exile in this world; and when he succeeds in obtaining power over his fellow human beings, it is in order to punish them for being human.

Scruton again, in a recent article ("'Islamofascism': Beware of a religion without irony"; August 20, 2006) in the Wall Street Journal:

Now of course it is wrong to give gratuitous offence to people of other faiths; it is right to respect people's beliefs, when these beliefs pose no threat to civil order; and we should extend toward resident Muslims all the toleration and neighborly goodwill that we hope to receive from them. But recent events have caused people to wonder exactly where Muslims stand in such matters. Although Islam is derived from the same root as salaam, it does not mean peace but submission. And although the Koran tells us that there shall be no compulsion in matters of religion, it does not overflow with kindness toward those who refuse to submit to God's will. The best they can hope for is to be protected by a treaty (dhimmah), and the privileges of the dhimmi are purchased by onerous taxation and humiliating rites of subservience. As for apostates, it remains as dangerous today as it was in the time of the prophet publicly to renounce the Muslim faith. Even if you cannot be compelled to adopt the faith, you can certainly be compelled to retain it. And the anger with which public Muslims greet any attempt to challenge, to ridicule or to marginalize their faith is every bit as ferocious as that which animated the murderer of Theo Van Gogh. Ordinary Christians, who suffer a daily diet of ridicule and skepticism, cannot help feeling that Muslims protest too much, and that the wounds, which they ostentatiously display to the world, are largely self-inflicted.

Theology be damned, what about our feelings?

An August 26, 2006, article in The New York Times laments the plight of women who attend divinity school and then find it hard to break through the stain-glass ceiling, become pastors, and be ordained bishops:

Whether they come from theologically liberal denominations or conservative ones, black churches or white, women in the clergy still bump against what many call the stained-glass ceiling — longstanding limits, preferences and prejudices within their denominations that keep them from leading bigger congregations and having the opportunity to shape the faith of more people.

Women now make up 51 percent of the students in divinity school. But in the mainline Protestant churches that have been ordaining women for decades, women account for only a small percentage — about 3 percent, according to one survey by a professor at Duke University — of pastors who lead large congregations, those with average Sunday attendance over 350. In evangelical churches, most of which do not ordain women, some women opt to leave for other denominations that will accept them as ministers. Women from historically black churches who want to ascend to the pulpit often start their own congregations.

No mention is made of the Catholic Church, but that didn't keep Rev. Tom Zelinski, a Capuchin priest in Wisconsin, from responding to the article and "explaining" what the real problem is:

“Clergywomen Find Hard Path to Bigger Pulpit” (front page, Aug. 26) shows the continuing role that sheer prejudice plays in the lives of many people. In my church, we simply don’t ordain women ...yet. Theological reasons are given, even though women do much of the heavy lifting in many ministries.

One wonders what lies behind “theology” in both Roman Catholic and Protestant churches when it comes to our attitudes toward women.

At issue may be some deeply ingrained feelings about what women can and can’t do — even when many women do it very well, as in preaching, doing pastoral work, administering large organizations.

I often wonder why some women themselves do not accept women in pastoral leadership. Is this some sort of strange jealousy or envy? And for men, various sorts of the “old boy” network go on and on.

Well, if you have to ask, perhaps you should lay off the psychoanalysis and spend a little more time actually studying Catholic doctrine and theology. A fine starting point for this topic is Fr. Manfred Hauke's Women In the Priesthood (Ignatius, 1988); Fr. Hauke has a doctorate in theology and teaches theology at the University of Augsburg, so there's a good chance he understands "what lies behind" the "theology" in question.

Chesterton responds to book meme

The great Gilbert Keith responds to a book meme that has been floating around the Catholic blogosphere for a few weeks (here are my responses). As always, G.K. is well worth the read. For more Chesterton, check out his IgnatiusInsight.com author page.