Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog

Catholic Commencements and Pro-Abortion Politicians

Catholic Commencements and Pro-Abortion Politicians | James V. Schall, S.J. | June 1, 2007 (orig. June 4, 2005)

Editor's Note: This essay by Fr. Schall was originally published on IgnatiusInsight.com on June 4, 2005, with the title, "Catholic Commencements: A Time for Truth to Be Honored." Since it is that time of year again and because various pro-abortion Catholic politicians have been in the news on a regular basis (including Rudy Giuliani, whose views are discussed by Fr. Schall), this essay is being republished.

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The tradition of commencement speakers at colleges and universities is an age-old and laudable one. It is a mutual relationship. The school awards someone with an honorary degree because of an outstanding intellectual, social, religious, artistic, or political accomplishment.

Who is chosen to be honored makes a statement about what the school upholds. In turn, the invited speaker, in agreeing to accept, honors the school by his presence on the occasion of another class of graduating students. He is there partly to speak to them of the world he knows and upholds, partly to alert and encourage them about the importance of what they have accomplished in completing their university education and where it leads.

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Catholic Coke Commercial?

Most of us have seen far too many titillating, suggestive commercials for soda, beer, cars, clothes, burgers, and just about everything else. Here's a commercial from Europe that starts out in the usual fashion (girl, guy, beach, etc.), but ends with a, um, blessed little twist.

Finally, a theatrical production...

... that "exposes" the truth about the death of Pope John Paul I:

The Last Confession

Monday, June 4 until Saturday, June 9, Theatre Royal Bath.

David Suchet stars in The Last Confession, an incisive new thriller that delves into the dark chambers of one of the most highly guarded institutions in the world.

With a cast of 16, this extraordinary play takes an explosive look behind the closed doors of the Vatican into a world where everything is confidential but nothing is secret.

In 1978, a little known Cardinal from Venice is elected to succeed Pope Paul VI. Known as the "smiling Pope", Pope John Paul I quickly shows himself to be the liberal that the reactionaries within the Catholic Church feared the most. Just 33 days later, he is dead. No official investigation is conducted, no autopsy is performed and the Vatican's press release about the cause of death is later found to be, in large part, false. Only Cardinal Benelli (Suchet) has the power to challenge the dead Pope's enemies.

As Cardinal Benelli delves into the dark secrets at the very heart of the Vatican he discovers that the Pope had warned three of the most hostile Cardinals that they would be replaced. His death marks the climax of 15 troubled years of controversy with the Church, schisms threaten its unity and the shadow of the Mafia hangs over its financial affairs. As questions about the Pope's death begin to surface, Cardinal Benelli is faced with a crisis of faith and conscience.

A positive review of the play in Church Times, an Anglican newspaper, provides further details:

THE LAST CONFESSION, Roger Crane’s new play about Pope John Paul I, has been a long time in the making. Mr Crane has a day job as an attorney in New York City, specialising in commercial law. But he always wanted to be a playwright, and has worked on this script for nearly a decade. ...

The play deals with the mysterious death of Pope John Paul I in 1978, after only 33 days in office. It is based on history that has been told before, notably in books by David Yallop and John Cornwell.

There you have it: the truth about the death of Pope John Paul I, told by a former NYC lawyer and based on the historical insights of John Cornwell, the same man who slandered Pius XII as "Hitler's Pope" and then had to backpedal when much of his vaunted "research" was exposed as rotten nonsense. Ah well; at least folks don't put much stock in plays about popes. Or do they?

Lunch with Father Fessio

Gerald Augustinus of "The Cafeteria Is Closed" visited the Ignatius Press home office (in a several-storied former townhouse) in San Fran and had lunch with Father Joseph Fessio and the IP crew. Gerald plans to post a video of an interview with Father Fessio; as soon as he does, I'll link to it.

Sen. Brownback on Evolution

Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), who is campaigning to be the 2008 Republican nominee for the Presidency, offers his thoughts on science and faith in the pages of The New York Times:

If belief in evolution means simply assenting to microevolution, small changes over time within a species, I am happy to say, as I have in the past, that I believe it to be true. If, on the other hand, it means assenting to an exclusively materialistic, deterministic vision of the world that holds no place for a guiding intelligence, then I reject it.

There is no one single theory of evolution, as proponents of punctuated equilibrium and classical Darwinism continue to feud today. Many questions raised by evolutionary theory — like whether man has a unique place in the world or is merely the chance product of random mutations — go beyond empirical science and are better addressed in the realm of philosophy or theology.

The most passionate advocates of evolutionary theory offer a vision of man as a kind of historical accident. That being the case, many believers — myself included — reject arguments for evolution that dismiss the possibility of divine causality.

Ultimately, on the question of the origins of the universe, I am happy to let the facts speak for themselves. There are aspects of evolutionary biology that reveal a great deal about the nature of the world, like the small changes that take place within a species. Yet I believe, as do many biologists and people of faith, that the process of creation — and indeed life today — is sustained by the hand of God in a manner known fully only to him. It does not strike me as anti-science or anti-reason to question the philosophical presuppositions behind theories offered by scientists who, in excluding the possibility of design or purpose, venture far beyond their realm of empirical science.

• Read a 2005 IgnatiusInsight.com interview with Brownback, in which he discusses why he, a former Evangelical Protestant, decided to enter the Catholic Church. 

Kreeft and Socrates on Marxism

The Comprehensive Claim of Marxism | Peter Kreeft | From Socrates Meets Marx: The Father of Philosophy Cross-Examines the Founder of Communism

Introduction

This book is one in a series of Socratic explorations of some of the Great Books. Books in this series are intended to be short, clear, and non-technical, thus fully understandable by beginners. They also introduce (or review) the basic questions in the fundamental divisions of philosophy (see the chapter titles): metaphysics, epistemology, anthropology, ethics, logic, and method. They are designed both for classroom use and for educational do-it-yourselfers. The "Socrates Meets . . ." books can be read and understood completely on their own, but each is best appreciated after reading the little classic it engages in dialogue.

The setting – Socrates and the author of the Great Book meeting in the afterlife – need not deter readers who do not believe there is an afterlife. For although the two characters and their philosophies are historically real, their conversation, of course, is not and requires a "willing suspension of disbelief ". There is no reason the skeptic cannot extend this literary belief also to the setting.

This excerpt is Chapter 2 of Socrates Meets Marx.

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SOCRATES: Perhaps it would be best for you to introduce your book first, to explain its context and its purpose, as if you were teaching it in a university classroom. I think you are much readier to lecture than to dialogue at this point, so perhaps this method would relieve that itch a bit.

MARX: Do you really expect me to respond to an insulting invitation like that?

SOCRATES: Yes.

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"One of the best books I ever read"

So writes "Dymphna", who describes herself as "a Catholic chick" who "loves God, her family, books, Virginia and boiled peanuts." The books is A Right to Be Merry by Mother Mary Francis. "She was a beautiful writer and this is a marvelous peek into the extraordinary life of the Poor Clares."

Those who read the book like it. Love it. Here are a couple of amazon.com reader reviews:

So full of joy it practically glows!

What a fabulous book this is! The author is a paragon of wisdom and a gifted writer to boot. Her joyful love for God, for Saint Clare, for the life she has chosen (or been chosen for), and really, for all of frail humanity, practically bound off the page. I didn't expect to laugh out loud while reading a book of this nature, but I certainly did! Mother Mary Francis has such a wonderfully whimsical way of looking at the most ordinary things and events; the reader is enfolded in her charm and warmth. At other times I found myself reading through a film of tears; the whole book is a subtle torch that melts the heart.

Though this book is about life in an enclosed order of nuns, it's not just for Catholics. I'm not a Catholic myself, but I feel like I gained about as much from it as anyone could, and I don't feel any separation or strangeness between myself and the sisters. I strongly recommend this book to seekers of God from whatever path or religion, because don't we all share the same human nature and face the same struggles? And this author kindly shares one way of gracefully navigating the difficult waters. Since the Poor Clares have been following the same path for over 750 years now, without dying out or changing their ways, we know that it is one road, no matter how unusual, that does work, and we can all take something from it.

Finally, I appreciated the prefaces that Mother Mary Francis added to this 2001 edition of her book. Since the book was written in the 1950's, don't you want to know what has happened in the Roswell monastery since then? I did! So the additonal material from the years 1973 and 2000 was most welcome.

And:

A classic in books about religious life, July 10, 2001

I loved this book so much, that I marked passages of it to share with other women I know who are discerning religious life. Mother Mary Francis tells us about a group of Poor Clare nuns beginning a new foundation in New Mexico. But that is just the superficial framework of the book. What she really gives us is a superb view of the theology of life as a Poor Clare nun.

In her writings on Saints Francis and Clare, her pen paints pictures that make these wonderful saints come alive for us. Mother Mary Francis shares with us their teachings to their nuns, and what impact those teachings have on their lives. So many consider the cloisered religious life to be a dark, solitary, very solemn life, but that is far from the truth. A monastery is a place of love, and light, and laughter, and no one tells us that so well as Mother Mary Francis.

I highly recommend this book to any and all, but especially to those discerning religious life and to those with a devotion to St. Clare.

Mother Mary Francis died in February 2006 at the age of 85. Five of her books have been published by Ignatius Press, including But I Have Called You Friends: Reflections on the Art of Christian Friendship, published last year.

• Ignatius Press author page for Mother Mary Francis, with mini-bio and info about the five books.

Kennedy's Catholicism: "identification, affiliation and ritual observance"

Yesterday marked the 90th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's birth. Kennedy, of course, was the first and, so far, only Catholic president. Dr. Gary Scott Smith, head the History Department at Grove City College and the author of Faith and the Presidency: From George Washington to George W. Bush (Oxford University Press, 2006), discusses the enigmatic character of JFK's Catholic faith:

Theodore Sorensen, his long-time policy advisor and speechwriter, contended that he did not care ‘a whit for theology.’ Kennedy’s loyalty to the Catholic Church seemed to be based much more on identification, affiliation and ritual observance rather than on following its moral teachings or its principles that were relevant to political life. Kennedy’s private behavior, especially his vulgarity, sexual infidelity and deceit, differed sharply from his public persona and violated traditional Christian moral tenets. That Kennedy had many sexual partners while he lived in the White House is well documented. Throughout his life, the Democrat carefully covered up not only his sexual indiscretions but his serious health problems.

Despite his moral flaws, Kennedy masterfully played the role of the nation’s high priest of civil religion, quoted the Bible frequently, and spoke at all three presidential prayer breakfasts during his years in office. Kennedy sometimes used religious language to describe his personal sense of mission. Like many Protestant presidents, he accentuated America’s religious heritage and asserted that God had commissioned the United States to promote freedom around the world.

Moreover, while the relationship between his policies and his faith seems tenuous, Kennedy did present moral rationales for his stances on numerous issues, including education, juvenile delinquency, women’s rights, world hunger, poverty, the Alliance for Progress, the Peace Corps, Civil Rights and the Limited Test Ban Treaty.

Kennedy’s life demonstrates the irreducible complexity of human beings: Many people’s beliefs and behaviors seem to others to be inconsistent, if not contradictory. How Kennedy could regularly attend church, profess to be a good Catholic and convince some of his closest associates that his faith was genuine while violating his church’s most fundamental teachings about marital fidelity, sexual purity and honesty is difficult to understand.

Is it really so difficult to understand? I'm not so sure it is. And a cynical part of me thinks that JFK was simply a Catholic "ahead of his time" in the sense that today, over forty years after his death, a substantial number of Catholics in the U.S. have little or no interest in upholding, supporting, or living the Church's teachings about numerous moral matters, many of them sexual in nature. One recent poll (and I do take poll's with a big grain of salt, but...) found that less than 30% of Catholics in this country support the Pope's recent remarks about pro-abort, Catholic politicians:

The Pope recently made headlines for stating that Catholic politicians supporting a pro-choice law in Mexico City should not receive communion. Twenty-three percent (23%) of Americans agree with the Pope’s position while 53% disagree. Seventy-six percent (76%) of pro-Choice Americans disagree with the Pope while only 50% of pro-Choice Americans support his position. Among Evangelical Christians, a plurality agrees with the Pope. Only 28% of Catholics share that view.

Smith does find a silver lining in Kennedy's approach to Catholicism:

More positively, his approach to the office and policies helped convince Protestants and Jews that Catholics would not seek to impose their views of faith and morality on others when they held political power and helped increase dialogue between Catholics and other Americans. His scrupulous adherence to the separation of church and state helped improve relations between Catholics and Protestants. Finally, his presidency helped inspire Catholics to engage more fully and fruitfully with the larger American culture.

Really? More fully and fruitfully? Again, I admit to some cynicism, or perhaps simple disbelief. It's one thing to say, "I promise my fellow Americans I'm not going to open up the doors to albino Catholic monks so they can steal the minds and souls of your children." (Not that Kennedy said that, but you get my drift.) It's another to say, as Kennedy essentially did, that his beliefs as a Catholic were personal and would not affect his political decisions. More on that and the resulting repercussions are covered in detail in Colleen Carroll Campbell's recent Catholic World Report article, "The Enduring Costs of John F. Kennedy's Compromise."

The Mercenary

The Mercenary | Susan Peek | From Chapter 1 of A Soldier Surrenders: The Conversion of St. Camillus de Lellis (A Novel)

The novel, A Soldier Surrenders, is the story of the dramatic conversion and inspiring goodness of the soldier Camillus de Lellis who lived in the late 1500's, and became the founder of the religious order known then as "Ministers of the Sick", and today now called the "Hospitallers". The story of St. Camillus is one that is filled with an intriguing combination of drama, military battles, sickness and disease, conversion to         God, and great charity for countless suffering people, be they dying soldiers, prisoners or patients in the hospitals that he founded.

Camillus is a saint that anyone can identitfy with since he was a very worldly man, a huge man at 6 foot 6 inches height, a soldier who fought against the Turks, and one who had a terrible addiction to gambling that continually reduced him to poverty and shame. He also suffered tremendously throughout his life from various ongoing ailments including a crippling leg disease for 46 years, a rupture for 38 years, chronically painful feet problems, and a distaste for food that caused him an inability to retain it. None of his own great sufferings kept him from always thinking of others first, and striving to serve the many sick and dying people under his care.

He eventually conquered his personal weaknesses like gambling, but not without a long and constant struggle, an example of perseverance that will inspire anyone with their own personal moral, spiritual or physical struggles. God rewarded him with many followers who joined his order to serve the sick and dying, as well as great spiritual gifts including prophecy and miracles. St. Camillus was a forerunner of the work of the International Red Cross, and he used that same symbol for his own religious order. Camillus was canonized by Pope Benedict XIV in 1746, and was proclaimed patron of the sick and of hospitals in 1886 by Pope Leo XIII.

This excerpt is from the opening pages of A Soldier Surrenders.

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ITALY; 1570 / Snow swirled around the two tired soldiers as they trudged along the deserted country road. Dusk was falling rapidly, and with it the temperature was likewise dropping. The one in the lead pulled his cloak tighter around him, for whatever scant protection it could afford, and stopped to take a drink from his flask.

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Beckwith credits Ratzinger, early Fathers, Catechism

Tim Drake of the National Catholic Register interviews Dr. Francis Beckwith about his journey from and back to the Catholic Church. On why he left the Catholic Church as a teen, Beckwith states:

But I was also impressed with the personal warmth and commitment to Scripture that I found among charismatic Protestants with whom I had interacted at Maranatha House.

Looking back, and knowing what I know now, I believe that the Church’s weakness was presenting the renewal movements as something new and not part of the Church’s theological traditions.

For someone like me, who was interested in both the spiritual and intellectual grounding of the Christian faith, I didn’t need the “folk Mass” with cute nuns and hip priests playing “Kumbaya” with guitars, tambourines and harmonicas. And it was all badly done.

After all, we listened to the Byrds, Neil Young and Bob Dylan, and we knew the Church just couldn’t compete with them.

But that’s what the Church offered to the young people of my day: lousy pop music and a gutted Mass. If they were trying to make Catholicism unattractive to young and inquisitive Catholics, they were succeeding.

What I needed, and what many of us desired, were intelligent and winsome ambassadors for Christ who knew the intellectual basis for the Catholic faith, respected and understood the solemnity and theological truths behind the liturgy, and could explain the renewal movements in light of these.

On certain authors and books that helped him along his path back to Rome:

So, I read Truth and Tolerance by Ratzinger and portions of his Introduction to Christianity. Out of curiosity, I picked up a book I saw while browsing the stacks at a local bookstore: David Currie, Born Fundamentalist, Born-Again Catholic.

I was not entirely convinced by all his arguments, but he did raise some issues about the Church Fathers and the Catholic doctrines of the Eucharist and infant baptism that led me to more scholarly sources.

In mid-November I was elected president of ETS while still embracing Reformation theology on the four key issues I just mentioned.

In early January 2007, I began reading the Early Church Fathers and the Catechism, focusing on the doctrines that I thought were key.

I also read Mark Noll’s book, Is the Reformation Over?

This led me to read the “Joint Declaration on Justification” by Lutheran and Catholic scholars. While consulting these sources, I read portions of a book by my friends Norm Geisler and Ralph MacKenzie, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences. It is a fair-minded book.

A NCR editorial discusses Beckwith's testimony.

Related IgnatiusInsight.com links:

• Has The Reformation Ended? An Interview with Dr. Mark Noll
• Excerpts from Truth and Tolerance
• Evangelicals and Catholics In Conversation

Going Post-al over Archbishop Burke

GetReligion.org's Mollie Hemingway, who is Lutheran, has a great post about an article in today's edition of The Washington Post, "St. Louis Prelate Aims to Bring Flock in Line," that attempts to outline everything the reporter, Peter Slevin, thinks is wrong with Archbishop Raymond Burke. Hemingway's post is a must read, and I won't cover the same ground, but will just note a couple of items.

Slevin informs readers that the archbishop upsets some of "his flock," goes against "significant segments of the Catholic population" who are rejecting Church teaching on numerous issues sexual and moral, that he has "roiled the church in St. Louis," he challenges "Catholic public figures," and so forth.

I say, let's have more bishops like Archbishop Burke!

Dr. James Hitchcock, the fine historian and author who has published some books with Ignatius Press, sums up matters well:

Burke "has relatively little concern for, let's say, negative reaction," said James Hitchcock, a professor at Saint Louis University who writes for the diocesan press and calls Burke "a very humble man in his personal life."

"He sees himself as being obliged to do what he thinks is the right thing, and he's not too concerned with strategy or how he might finesse the thing," Hitchcock said. "There are quite obviously deep divisions within the church. Archbishop Burke is one bishop who has chosen to confront them directly, as opposed to other bishops who may prefer to minimize them."

That is to say, Burke has a backbone and he uses it. He knows, understands, and adheres to Church teaching, which is offensive to those who don't—especially those who insist on being Catholic without, well, being Catholic. Hemingway—again, a non-Catholic—thinks the piece is garbage, and she is correct in that assessement:

As a Lutheran, I feel confident saying that Rome doesn’t exactly have a history of acting like a democracy. Or the faculty of UC-Berkeley for that matter. I understand that Burke is noteworthy for the manner in which he adheres to church teachings . . . but the language of this piece is just so one-sided and out of touch. It reads like Washington Post vs. Catholic orthodoxy rather than insight into Catholic struggles about the proper role for archbishop.

As one reader who sent along the story commented, “This article in the Post by Peter Slevin isn’t journalism; it’s trash-talk.” The reader said Slevin’s purpose seemed to be mocking Burke for how he doesn’t align his views with the rest of the world and how he’s supposedly driving everyone away from the Church.

The article’s headfake toward balance occurs with the quoting of Burke defender James Hitchcock, a professor at Saint Louis University who writes for the diocesan press. But the rest of the article — and particularly the explosive language used by Slevin — betrays the reporter’s bias. I’ve commented on his bias before — but at least then he was writing for the Style pages.

Previous related posts:

• Archbishop Burke: "If Crow, no go." (April 25, 2007)
• Archbishop Burke Takes the Lead (April 26, 2007)

Happy Birthday, G.K.!

Monsignor Ronald Knox: Convert, Priest, Apologist

Monsignor Ronald Knox: Convert, Priest, Apologist | An Interview with Fr. Milton Walsh, author of Ronald Knox As Apologist: Wit, Laughter, and the Popish Creed              

Throughout the first half of the past century, both as an Anglican and then as a Catholic priest, Ronald Knox was a well-known part of the English literary landscape. He was a favored preacher for occasions great and small; his articles on a host of topics found a place in the newspapers and monthly literary magazines; his voice was heard   often on the BBC. Most significant was the tide of books that flowed from his pen and found a wide readership in Great Britain and the USA.

In his book, Ronald Knox As Apologist, Fr. Milton Walsh, an expert on Knox's writing, has analyzed and provided ample quotations from the most significant writings of Knox that fall under the genre of apologetics. Knox was a superb apologist because as a priest he was a man of deep faith, and as a writer he had a wonderful way of expressing the Christian truths in an elegant and clear language. Knox was also a man with a grand sense of humor and a keen wit, as well as empathy and kindness, and both his humor and charity are captured well in these writings. Ronald Knox stands alongside G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, and Evelyn Waugh as a great spiritual and literary British writer whose works are once again receiving wide readership and appreciation.

Carl E. Olson, editor of IgnatiusInsight.com, recently interviewed Fr. Walsh about the life and work of Monsignor Ronald Knox.

IgnatiusInsight.com: How and when did you first encounter Ronald Knox? What attracted you to his writings?

Continue reading this inteview...

Ratzinger on Pentecost

A day late, a couple of paragraphs from Joseph Ratzinger's Images of Hope: Meditations on Major Feasts (Ignatius Press, 2006):

The Holy Spirit points to the Trinity, and thereby he points to us. For the trinitarian God is the archetype of the new united humanity, the archetype of the Church, as the prayer of Jesus may be seen as its word of institution: "that they may be one, even as we are one" (Jn 17:11b, cf. 21f.). The Trinity is measure and foundation of the Church. The Trinity brings the word of creation day to its goal, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Gen 1:26). In the Trinity, mankind, which in its disunity became a counter image of God, should become once again the one Adam, whose image, as the Fathers say, was defaced by sin and now lies about in pieces. The divine measure of man should again come to prominence, unity, in it, "as we are one". So the Trinity, God himself, is the archetype of the Church. Church does not mean another idea in addition to man, but rather man on the way to himself. If the Holy Spirit expresses and is the unity of God, then he is the real vital element of the Church in which distinction is reconciled in togetherness and the dispersed pieces of Adam are fit together again. ...

A tongue of fire has been added to being human. We must now correct this expression. Fire is never something that is simply due to another and therefore exists beside him. Fire burns and transforms. Faith is a tongue of fire that burns us and melts us so that ever more it is true: I and no longer I. Whoever, of course, meets the average Christian of today must ask himself: Where is the tongue of fire? That which comes from Christian tongues is unfortunately frequently anything but fire. It tastes therefore like stale, barely lukewarm water, not warm and not cold. We do not want to burn ourselves or others, but in this way we keep distant from the Holy Spirit, and Christian faith deteriorates into a self-made world-view that as far as possible does not want to infringe on any of our comforts and saves the sharpness of protest for where it can hardly disturb us in our way of life. When we yield to the burning fire of the Holy Spirit, being Christian becomes comfortable only at first glance. The comfort of the individual is the discomfort of the whole. When we no longer expose ourselves to the fire of God, the frictions with one another become unbearable and the Church is, as Basil expressed it, torn by the shouts of factions. Only when we do not fear the tongue of fire and the storm it brings with it does the Church become the icon of the Holy Spirit. And only then does she open the world to the light of God. Church began as the disciples assembled and prayed together in the room of the Last Supper. Thus she begins again and again. In prayer to the Holy Spirit we must call for this anew each day. 

More about Images of Hope, including some of the artwork in the book.

Are pro-abortion Catholics still Catholic?

Dr. Ed Peters says, "Yes," and explains why.

The Goodness and Divinity of Jesus

A week ago I posted about a review of Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth written by Geza Vermes, a Jewish scholar (and ex-Catholic priest), for The Times (London). I wasn't very impressed by Vermes's comments, nor was Father Dwight Longenecker, and some other Catholic bloggers. Some folks, including Father Joseph O'Leary (in a very long "review" of Benedict's book) and "Sarx," thought Vermes was spot on, with the latter scoffing at my criticism of the review: "Props to Ignatius 'Insight' which, having ironically pre-decided the truth, seem to close their eyes to anything with which they pre-disagree." Not the deepest or most compelling of counter-arguments, reminding me of Chesterton's famous remark, "It is generally the man who is not ready to argue, who is ready to sneer."

Anyhow, in my original post I examined Vermes's remark about Jesus and his disciples being "sent only to the 'lost sheep of Israel'" and found it wanting. There was also this criticism from Vermes, which I didn't address:

For a scholarly critic, one of the most disturbing aspects of the book is the  absence of reference to texts that in some way contradict Benedict’s  cherished beliefs. For instance, he finds in the Gospels scores of allusions  to the divinity of Christ. They are all made explicit by the Pope and  considered as proven. Yet, try as you may, nowhere will you read in this  “Gospel according to Benedict” that Jesus refused to accept the title, “Good  Master” on the grounds that it would implicitly suggest that he possessed a  divine quality. “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone”  (Mark x, 18).

Mark Brumley, fortunately, left an excellent comment, which I overlooked initially, but am now posting here for the benefit of friends and foes alike:

Set aside the question of Jesus' divinity for a moment. Do Synoptics really regard Jesus as not being truly "good"? For that is one implication of Vermes' argument, and necessary element of his argument against Jesus' divinity.

When Mk, for example, quotes the Roman Centurion looking at the crucified Jesus as saying, "Truly this man was the Son of God" (Mk 15:39), we are to understand that Mk does not regard Jesus as "good"? Or when Mk describes the Transfiguration of Jesus and Mk declares that Jesus' "garments became glistening, intensely white, as no fuller on earth could bleach them" (Mk 9:3), this should be understood as meaning that Jesus was "not good"? That Mk's graphic language about Jesus' appearance is about the quality of Jesus' clothing only and should not be taken as implying anything about Jesus' "goodness"? Likewise, when Mk depicts the voice of the Father from heaven saying of Jesus, "This is my beloved Son; listen to him", Mk means us to understand that Jesus isn't really "good", not even derivatively as Son of God?

Similarly, when Mt depicts John the Baptist saying to Jesus upon the latter's approaching the former for "baptism of repentance from sin", "I need to be baptized by you and you come to me?", we are to think that Mt does not regard Jesus as "good" (Mt 3:14)? Or when Lk depicts Gabriel saying to Mary at the Annunciation, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God" (Lk 1:35), that Lk wants us to understand that although Jesus was to be "holy" and "the Son of God", Lk does not think Jesus was "good"? Or when Mk tells of Jesus' encounter with the demon-possessed man at Capernaum (Mk 1:21) and the man is depicted as saying with diabolic supernatural knowledge of Jesus, "I know who you are, the Holy One of God", Mk recounts this story in the manner he does because he does not think Jesus is "good" and he wants his readers to know it?

And so on and so on.

"Yes, but," you might object, "Vermes' point is about the divinity of Jesus, not his goodness." But that point misses the point. For Jesus' comment to have force against any claim to divinity for him, it must be understood as a denial by Jesus that he is good. Otherwise, if God alone is good and Jesus doesn't deny that he is good, then Jesus' comments can't be taken as a denial that he is God.

Now it is theoretically possible, though highly unlikely for reasons I can't go into here, that on this point the Synoptic writers simply misunderstood Jesus. That Jesus meant to deny that he was God and that he did so by denying that he was good. I think there are plenty of historical arguments to be mustered against that conclusion, but right now that's not really my point.

Whatever you think of that scenario, you must see that the Synoptic writers themselves did not understand Jesus to be implicitly denying that he was God because the Synoptic writers did not regard it as true that Jesus wasn't good. They stated that he was good in any number of ways. And therefore since Jesus is presented to us by the Synoptic writers as good, it cannot be the case that they intend us to see him as denying being divinity because "no one is good but God".

There is insufficient space here to develop the way the various Synoptic authors deal with the question of Jesus' identity and how Jesus interacts with people who either explicitly or implicit make claims about his identity that those people themselves do not understand. However, I think readers who review the pertinent exchange between Jesus and the Rich Young Man in Mk 10:17-22--to take what many modern scholars, whether rightly or wrongly, regard as the most primitive version of the incident among the Synoptics--can see that Jesus doesn't say, "I am not good" and therefore by implication, "I am not God". He asks a question of the young man, who presumes to address Jesus as "Good Master", without seeming to be aware of the full implication of the word "good". Jesus' response, as reported by Mk, does at least two things. First, it underscores that God alone is the source of all goodness and therefore the term "good" should not be used of mere human beings as if they possessed this quality in their own right and not as derived from a relationship with God. Second, it conceals Jesus' identity without Jesus denying the truth of the attribution of goodness. This is a major theme in the Synoptics, especially in Mk. Those who should know Jesus' identity don't, and this is partly due to Jesus' keeping it a secret (the so-called Messianic secret) and thus requiring of his audience a proper disposition of heart to be open to the Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus' identity. And those whom we might expect would not know Jesus' identity--the Roman centurion looking at Jesus dying on the cross--do (Mk 15:39). (What's more some of those who do know who Jesus is are depicted in Mk as having imperfect knowledge because they have imperfect faith and they have not allowed themselves to believe that the Christ, the Son of God, must suffer and die [such as the disciples of Jesus, see Mk 8].)

I realize that Mk has selected among the sayings and deeds of Jesus and that he has told his story to make certain points about Jesus. Those points differ (though they do not for that reason contradict) certain points the other Evangelists make, sometimes using the same material. My point here is that notwithstanding that process, it remains clear that Mk regards Jesus as "good" and therefore that whatever Mk wants us to make of the Rich Young Man's comment to Jesus--patronization, naive yet genuine respect, or whatever--and whatever Mk intends us to make of Jesus' reply--a subtle rebuke to the patronization, a challenge to a naive young man to understand the implication of his words, or a subtle redirection that conceals Jesus' identity, etc--Mk does not want us to think that he regards Jesus as not "good". Since Mk does not intend for us to think Jesus is not good, he cannot, on the principle that "no one is good but God", intend for us to conclude that Jesus is not God or that Jesus denied being divine.

We could make an even stronger argument against thinking that the Evangelists understand Jesus as denying his divinity, if we looked at Mt and Lk's treatment of the incident (especially Mt, Mt 19:16-22). We don't have time for that here, but they would be worth people's perusal in light of other things Jesus says and does in those gospels.

One last point--and this is a return the theoretical possibility I mentioned. It could be claimed that Jesus himself--whatever the Synoptics and others later thought about him and what he said--denied that he was good and by implication that he was divine. Refuting that claim would require a hefty amount of historical work. Here we can only say that the burden of proof rests on those who make the claim and the case seems weighted against them.

It is clear that the earliest witnesses to Jesus' exchange with the Rich Young Man--Mt, Mk, and Lk--did not understand Jesus to have denied that he was good and therefore that they did not understand Jesus to have denied being divine. One might argue that Mt slightly revised Jesus' wording to avoid people drawing the conclusion Vermes' and others draw. (One can also argue that Mk may have played up the starkest form of the exchange for reasons of his own and that Mt didn't follow him here.) In any case, though, Mt thinks it the wrong conclusion to draw from the exchange. And Mk, regardless of his more provocative form of the exchange, clearly doesn't read it as Vermes and others do. He, too, rejects Vermes et al. on the point. Likewise, Lk.

Thus, the earliest witnesses to Jesus' exchange--the ones on whom we are wholly dependent for our knowledge of the incident at all--did not think Jesus meant to deny either his goodness or his divinity. If we are to contradict these sources, we need some rational or historical grounds for saying that their understand of Jesus is wrong. In other words, we need more than a priori assumptions or theories based on an interpretation of much later sources.

Moreover, Jesus' words can be interpreted in a way consistent with the other things these sources, and other early sources, tell us about Jesus. Meanwhile, Vermes and others' interpretation of Jesus' words and actions are inconsistent with those other sources--for example, with what we understand about Jesus' perception of his relation to the Father, his mode of acting as the Father's emissary, his evident identification of himself as the Son of Man of the Book of Daniel and of the righteous suffering Servant of Second Isaiah. (To name only a few things.)

Of course Vermes and others can dispute that the historical evidence supports the aforementioned points, but, again, the burden of proof rests upon them to prove their position. Our earliest and best sources--the NT writings considered as historical documents and not as canon--lead us to think otherwise. Why, then, should we think Vermes et al. know better? As Father Groeschel likes to ask such critics, "You were there?"

How Should We Worship? | Joseph Ratzinger

How Should We Worship? | Preface to The Organic Development of the Liturgy by Alcuin Reid, O.S.B. | by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

In the last few decades, the matter of the right way to celebrate the Liturgy has increasingly become one of the points around which much of the controversy has centred concerning the Second Vatican Council, about how it should be evaluated, and about its reception in the life of the Church.

There are the relentless supporters of reform, for whom the fact that, under certain conditions, the celebration of the Eucharist in accordance with the most recent edition of the missal before the Council–that of 1962–has once more been permitted represents an intolerable fall from grace. At the same time, of course, the Liturgy is regarded as "semper reformanda", so that in the end it is whatever "congregation" is involved that makes "its" Liturgy, in which it expresses itself. A Protestant "Liturgical Compendium" (edited by C. Grethlein [Ruddat, 2003]) recently presented worship as a "project for reform" (pp. 13-41) and thereby also expressed the way many Catholic liturgists think about it. And then, on the other hand, there are the embittered critics of liturgical reform–critical not only of its application in practice, but equally of its basis in the Council. They can see salvation only in total rejection of the reform.

Between these two groups, the radical reformers and their radical opponents, the voices of those people who regard the Liturgy as something living, and thus as growing and renewing itself both in its reception and in its finished form, are often lost.


Read the entire Preface...

The Curtain Closes on PNAC

The Curtain Closes on PNAC with Loss to Redemptoris Mater | Joseph Previtali | May 26, 2007

The Pontifical North American College was defeated by Redemptoris Mater, 1-0, in the first round of the playoff section of the 2007 Clericus Cup on Saturday, May 12. With the loss, the NAC's 2007 Clericus Cup run comes to an end.

Read the entire story...

Did I just say something nice about Commonweal?

Gotcha! Actually, I just wanted to bring attention to some interesting and thoughtful remarks made on the Commonweal blog by Dr. Lawrence S. Cunningham, O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, about Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth:

I have just finished reading  and it is with some trepidation that I post this message since the blogosphere is cluttered with reactions. It is not my intention to review the work but let me say that I did think it is a powerful book. Those who think it only a work of devotion are mistaken as are those who think his approach to the scriptures is retrograde or those who hail it as the greatest thing since the Summa. One should read this work from the perspective of Josef Ratzinger the theologian. The following points might prove helpful: (1) Ratzinger writes as a theologian in the honorable tradition of the Anselmian 'faith seeking understanding' which is to say, he writes as a believer seeking understanding; as a consequence, he writes from the angle of the hermeneutics of trust and not of suspicion. (2) He understands the competence of the exegete but he refuses to allow the exegete to have the final say and, further, he appreciates that biblical exegesis did not begin for Catholics in the twentieth century. What he has learned from the "Third Quest" (as my esteemed colleague John Meier has said) is that if we do not see Jesus against the backkground of Judaism we see him wrongly. (3) His work takes into account the  of the text and, thus, does not find it out of court to call on Cyprian when discussing the Lord's Prayer or Origen on the same subject. (4) His real antagonists are those who would reduce Jesus down to a genteel liberal Protestant or a political revolutionary or a philosopher (pick your reductionist category).

Read the entire post. Order the book. Buy copies for your friends, your priest, and your boss. I hope to have it read by June. Which June, you ask? I'm not saying.

Beckwith on Romney, Mormonism

Dr. Francis Beckwith reviews Hugh Hewitt's book, A Mormon In The White House?, for First Things, and reflects on the relationship between creed and political convictions:

As for “the Mormon Question,” Hewitt accurately presents LDS theology and does a fine job of shooting down the sorts of ridiculous bigotries that Romney will likely face during his run. Hewitt also offers clear and persuasive responses to several more serious objections to Romney’s candidacy—for example, “A Mormon president will supercharge Mormons’ missionary work,” “[Mormonism] is just too weird.” Most important, Hewitt addresses what I call the Creedal Mistake.

This mistake occurs when a Christian citizen believes that the planks of his creed are the best standard by which to judge the suitability of a political candidate. For example, suppose a Presbyterian votes for one of Romney’s primary opponents solely on the basis of the governor’s rejection of the Nicene Creed. An elder who did this would not truly understand the purpose of creeds: to provide church members and the world at large a summary of beliefs that one must embrace in order to be considered an orthodox member of that body. Creeds are not meant to measure the qualifications of a political candidate in a liberal democracy. Not only does the formulation of Christendom’s most important creeds predate the existence of liberal democracies, their subject matter bears no relation to assessing those attributes that we consider essential to the leadership of a political regime. In practice, most Christians already fully grasp this truth.

For example, many evangelicals in the 1980 presidential election voted for Ronald W. Reagan over Jimmy Carter, even though Carter was clearly more evangelical in his theology and church participation than Reagan. For Reagan’s supporters, it was his policies and not his theology that was decisive for them. Although these evangelicals would have likely chosen Carter over Reagan to teach Sunday school, they preferred Reagan in the Oval Office because they believed that Reagan’s policies best advanced the common good.

If one believes that the common good is achieved when a political regime treats justly its citizens and the many institutions that help develop and sustain their virtue, a candidate who embraces these ideals, even if he or she is not a Christian, is a candidate that a Christian can support with a clear conscience. Hewitt trots out a number of historical examples to make this point.

Dr. Beckwith, btw, is one of the editors of an excellent book on Mormonism, The New Mormon Challenge (Zondervan, 2002), praised by one LDS scholar, Blake Ostler, as "the best effort to date by evangelicals to assess and critique Mormon worldviews." I'd also recommend it for Catholics.