Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog

Well-known priest leaves the Legion of Christ...

... to join the Archdiocese of New York. CNA reports:

Fr. Thomas Berg, Executive Director of the New York-based Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person, announced today that he will be leaving the Legion of Christ to join the Archdiocese of New York and will continue his ministry as the head of the institute.

Fr. Berg released a brief statement explaining his decision and his motivations for the change:

“After nearly 23 years of life as a Legionary of Christ, I have discerned that it is time for me to continue following Christ in the diocesan priesthood.  Although the recent revelations about the Legion’s founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel, were profoundly disturbing, my decision has actually been in the making for nearly three years.

Read the entire statement.

The Ingredient for Priestly Vocations

The ingredient for priestly vocations | Rev. Jacek Stefanski | Homiletic & Pastoral Review | May 2009

In order to fulfill their ideals and challenges, young people are in desperate need of priestly inspiration.

It is truly uplifting to read about the great number of people who are received into full communion in the Roman Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil in so many parishes across the United States. This gives the Church a reason to rejoice and fills her with hope, for the Lord is thereby giving us another sign, that he does not abandon his Church. Moreover, it is a beautiful indication that Christ’s command to the apostles—“Go and teach all nations and baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”—is carried out even in places where prosperity and a misunderstood notion of freedom often divert man’s thoughts from his eternal destiny.

At the same time, we see a strange inconsistency. On the one hand, there is a steady increase in the number of Catholics, and on the other hand, there is closing and clustering of parishes and Catholic schools in many dioceses across the United States. Catholic churches are being sold—sometimes to Protestants, sometimes to developers who need more land for new malls or homes. And this is not only sad, but tragic, bearing in mind the numerous faith-filled, hard working immigrants who, while often experiencing economic hardships, came to the United States with the right priorities. For them, the need to build a beautiful house for the Lord came first; financial success and even a good job came second. Actually, looking at those churches, one can see that they were built to stay, as an edifice of glory and praise to our Heavenly Father. Moreover, many of those churches had schools built right next to them, since the immigrants could not imagine that their children would be educated in any other place, but right there, next to God’s house, where they would be instructed in virtue and love for God and neighbor.

Obviously, not all of those churches and schools were established by immigrants. Churches and schools which have been built more recently are also being eliminated, or clustered. Logically, though, one would think that since the number of Catholics is growing, it would be necessary to accommodate them all. In addition, a larger number of Catholics—especially the thousands who are received into the Catholic Church at the yearly Easter Vigil—should be an indication of more fertile soil for vocations to the priesthood and religious life. One would think that there should be more authentically Catholic homes, where the young are encouraged to think about a calling to serve the Lord in the priesthood or the religious life. Besides, since the number of Catholics is growing, Mass attendance should be on the rise, as well as the number of people who go to confession, for there is no spiritual growth without a constant conversion from sin. One may think that all this should be the case. But it isn’t.

Read the entire piece...

"Make your vows to the LORD your God, and perform them"

There are two basic views on vows.

One view is put forth by CBS Early Show co-host Maggie Rodriguez, who, while interviewing CBS religion analyst Father Thomas Williams, said:

The Catholic Church, as you know, has been criticized, and you and I have talked about this, for being outdated and losing both parishioners and people who may want to serve, because it is so rigid. Do you think it's time for the Catholic Church to reconsider the vow of celibacy that it requires of its priests?

Rodriguez and Fr. Williams were talking about the case of Fr. Alberto Cutie, a priest in southern Florida who was recently photographed snuggling and cuddling with a woman on the beach. (Fr. Cutie is apparently known to some by the curious nickname, "Padre Oprah".) A bit later Rodriguez asks Fr. Williams:

I guess what people might be curious about is why this vow of celibacy is so important. Isn't it almost setting a nearly impossible standard? You, as a man, as a human being, isn't that a difficult vow to keep?

I'll call this the "animal view" of vows, by which I mean it is primarily based in an anthropology focused on base needs and primal desires, mostly physical in nature. In the animal view, whatever seems to keep someone from fulfilling their natural desires—often described as "personal fulfillment"—is unnecessary and likely "unhealthy." A vow of chastity or celibacy is seen as a cage and a form of imprisonment; in addition, it is understood as demeaning or even antagonistic toward sex. Since sex is understood (correctly) as something good and natural, it is assumed (incorrectly) that abstaining from sex is bad and unnatural.

Of course, if we are simply complex animals whose passions and natural desires point us unerringly to what is most important and vital for us, the animal view makes sense. The animal view would say that vows are fine and dandy to the degree that they help us find "personal fulfillment" and, perhaps, aid us in getting along with others. Wedding vows, then, are nice because they express a certain romantic sentiment and help us feel good about ourselves and our spouses; naturally, if those feelings and needs change (as, alas, they often do), the vow goes to the wayside. ("We love each other very much," someone I know recently said about getting divorced, "but when it comes to being in a relationship with each other, we aren't compatible.") It served a purpose, but it makes no sense to force yourself or someone else to adhere to it if it threatens to stifle or thwart your desires.

In the World According to Oprah, one of the darkest sins of all is to fail to be "true to yourself." In her recent interview with Ted Haggard, for instance, Oprah was clearly most bothered by Haggard's refusal to say he is homosexual and is thus "living a lie". A summary of the show captures the essence of the discussion:

The 28th Annual G.K. Chesterton Conference...

... will be held August 6-8, 2009, in Seattle, Washington, at the Pigott Auditorium at Seattle University. Featured speakers will include Dale Ahlquist, the President of the American Chesterton Society, Mark Shea, Rod Bennett, Kevin O’Brien, Michael Ward, and many others. Check it out!

Nuno Alvares Pereira, Portugal's Fighting Saint

Portugal's Fighting Saint  | Sandra Miesel | Web Exclusive for Catholic World Report

By canonizing Nuno Alvares Pereira last month, Benedict XVI has given the Church a compelling new saint with a colorful history.

Nuno Alvares Pereira is not a household name in America. His canonization on April 26 is unlikely to change that. But in Portugal, Nuno is a beloved national hero whose feats of valor in the 14th century insured his country’s survival.

A bit of historical background helps for understanding Nuno’s significance. Portugal grew from territory granted by Alfonso VI of León-Castile–el Cid’s overlord–to his illegitimate daughter Teresa and her husband Henry of Burgundy. Their son Afonso I Henriques proclaimed Portugal an independent kingdom in 1139. Two centuries later, the Burgundian dynasty floundered on the romantic entanglements of a crown prince. The future Pedro I so openly preferred the charms of his mistress Inés de Castro, lady-in-waiting to his bride, that the king had Inés murdered. When Pedro ascended the throne in 1357, he had his mistress exhumed, forced her murderers to kiss her corpse’s hand, and then ordered their hearts torn out.

Pedro I’s legitimate son Fernando I died in 1383, leaving a daughter as his sole heir. Unfortunately, she was already married to King Juan I of Castile. The Portuguese people had no wish to be absorbed by their larger Spanish neighbor. So they persuaded one of Pedro’s bastard sons by yet another mistress to repel the coming Castilian invasion. This young man was João, Grand Master of the military Order of Aviz. In his new role as Defender of the Realm, João found a commander even younger than himself—Nuno Alvares Pereira.

Nuno, born in 1360, was one of 23 children sired by the Portuguese Prior of the Knights Hospitaller (now called the Knights of Malta). His paternal grandfather had been archbishop of Braga. The family claimed descent from Charlemagne.

Nuno first went to war at age 13, fighting in skirmishes along the Castilian border. Ten years later, his service during João’s first victory over the invaders earned Nuno the honor of being named Protector and Constable of Portugal as well as Count of Ourém. Nuno used guerilla tactics trying to dislodge the Castilian army besieging Lisbon in 1384 but plague finally drove them away. The following spring the Portuguese national assembly chose João as king.

Read the entire article...

The Question of the Day...

... comes from my four-year-old son, uttered as he watched me make an Americano this morning:

"Daddy, why do you only drink coffee or beer or Pepsi?"

Now, son, please be fair: I had a glass of water a couple of weeks ago. And while I may not have finished it, I had the best of intentions in pouring it.

Benedict XVI on St. John Damascene, "an important witness of the veneration of icons"

From the Vatican Information Service:

ST. JOHN DAMASCENE, A LEADING FIGURE OF BYZANTINE THEOLOGY

VATICAN CITY, 6 MAY 2009 (VIS) - In his general audience held this morning in St. Peter's Square, the Pope focused his remarks on St. John Damascene (675-749), "a leading figure in the history of Byzantine theology".

 Above all, said Benedict XVI, this saint was "an eye witness to the move from the Greek and Syriac culture shared by the eastern part of the Byzantine Empire, to the novelty of Islam whose military conquests opened a space in the territory today known as the Middle or Near East".

 St. John Damascene "was born to a rich Christian family and as a young man held the office ... of economic administrator of the caliphate. Soon, however, dissatisfied with life at court, ... he entered the Monastery of San Saba near Jerusalem around the year 700. ... There he dedicated all his energies to asceticism and writing, not disdaining some pastoral work, of which testimony is to be found in his numerous Homilies. ... Leo XIII proclaimed him a Doctor of the Universal Church in 1890".

 The Pope explained how St. John Damascene's fame rests, above all, "on his three 'Discourses against the Iconoclasts' which, following his death, were condemned by the iconoclast Council of Hieria (754)". These Discourses, he went on, represent "the first attempt to legitimise the veneration of sacred images, associating them with the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God in the bosom of the Virgin Mary.

 "St. John Damascene", the Holy Father added, "was among the first to make the distinction, in the public and private devotions of Christians, between adoration ('latreia') and veneration ('proskynesis'): the former may only be addressed to God, Who is supremely spiritual, while the latter may use an image to address the person represented in that image".

 "It immediately became clear that this distinction was important in order to provide a Christian response to people who insisted that the severe Old Testament ban against the liturgical use of images was universal and perennial. This was a also a subject of great discussion in the Muslim world, which accepts this Hebrew tradition of the complete exclusion of all images from worship. In this context Christians, for their part, discussed the problem and found the justification for the veneration of images".

 Benedict XVI went on to highlight how St. John Damascene "remains an important witness of the veneration of icons, which would become one of the most distinctive aspects of Eastern theology and spirituality, even until today. His teaching is part of the tradition of the Universal Church whose sacramental doctrine allows elements taken from nature to become channels of grace, by virtue of the invocation ('epiclesis') of the Holy Spirit, accompanied by the confession of the true faith".

 This Syrian saint also admitted "the veneration of the relics of saints, on the basis of the conviction that Christian saints, having been made participants in the resurrection of Christ, may not be simply considered a 'dead'".

 Finally, the Pope referred to "the optimism" of St. John Damascene's contemplation of the natural world: the fact that "he saw the good, the beautiful and the true in the visible creation. Such Christian optimism is not ingenuous optimism. It makes allowance for the wound inflicted on human nature by the freedom of choice decreed by God and improperly used by man, with all the consequences of widespread disharmony this has led to. From here arose the need, which the theologian of Damascus saw clearly, for 'nature to be reinforced and renewed' by the descent of the Son of God into the flesh".

For more on St. John Damascus, see Adrian Fortescue's The Greek Fathers: Their Lives and Writings (Ignatius Press, 2007), which also has chapters on St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzos, St. John Chrysostom, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, and St. Cyril of Alexandria.

Espresso-ing...

... a point about Dan Brown with venti-sized humor and a grande cup of spendy java.

A quote to float your publicly-educated boat

The Los Angeles Times recently ran a lengthy and, somewhat surprisingly, negative piece, "Firing tenured teachers can be a costly and tortuous task" (May 3, 2009) about public education, which included surreal sprinkles of tax-funded stardust such as this:

The district wanted to fire a high school teacher who kept a stash of pornography, marijuana and vials with cocaine residue at school, but a commission balked, suggesting that firing was too harsh. L.A. Unified officials were also unsuccessful in firing a male middle school teacher spotted lying on top of a female colleague in the metal shop, saying the district did not prove that the two were having sex.

The district fared no better in its case against elementary school special education teacher Gloria Hsi, despite allegations that included poor judgment, failing to report child abuse, yelling at and insulting children, planning lessons inadequately and failing to supervise her class.

Not a single charge was upheld. The commission found the school's evaluators were unqualified because they did not have special education training. Moreover, it said they went to the class at especially difficult periods and didn't stay long enough.

Which finally leads to this admission:

Classroom ineffectiveness is hard to prove, administrators and principals said. "One of the toughest things to document, ironically, is [teachers'] ability to teach," Wallace, the Daniel Webster principal, said. "It's an amorphous thing."

Well, I think we all know what is needed: more money. Yep. Loads of dough. Well, that and less sexual activity among teachers in the metal shop. They really should find a more comfortable room.

In all seriousness, I'm not suggesting that these examples are par for the course when it comes to most public school teachers. The issue, for me, is that the public school system in the U.S. is, overall, an artificially-constructed, intellectually-destructive, morally-rotten, poorly-operated bureaucratic behemoth that is not really "public" and doesn't do much by way of genuine "education", learning, and schooling. H.L. Mencken may have written the following with a slight smile, but his comments in this 1924 article do not seem funny at all now:

That erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and make them fit to discharge the duties citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be from the truth.

The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever pretensions of politicians, pedagogues other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.

As a more recent English critic has written of public education in the U.S.:

In the United States above all, the principle of the absolute separation of Church and State has been carried so far that it involves a refusal to recognize the Church as a corporate entity, so that anything of the nature of a concordat would be regarded as a violation of the Constitution. Similarly in the domain of public education, the principle of the separation of the Church and State is now interpreted so rigorously as to ban any kind of positive Christian teaching from the school, with the result that the educational system inevitably favors the pagan and secularist minority against the Christian and Jewish elements who probably represent a large majority of the population. Now this leads, on the one hand, to the propagation of that kind of substitute religion which I have already described as the established faith of the democratic state; and on the other hand, to the devaluation of traditional religion as unessential, non-vital, exceptional and perhaps even unsocial.

So wrote the great Catholic historian Christopher Dawson in 1961—almost fifty years ago!—in The Crisis of Western Education, a book that lamented the increasingly poor quality of public education. Now, in 2009, we cannot even lament the poor quality of public education since, as Principal Wallace admits, it's not even possible to document the actual quality of that education—even when teachers are laying down on the job and on one another.

"The Christian is the person who does not calculate"

A couple of passages from Credo For Today: What Christians Believe (Ignatius Press, 2009), by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI):

The Christian is the person who does not calculate; rather, he does something extra. He is in fact the lover, who does not ask, "How much farther can I go and still remain within the realm of venial sin, stopping short of mortal sin?" Rather, the Christian is the one who simply seeks what is good, without any calculation. A merely righteous man, the one who is only concerned with doing what is correct, is a Pharisee; only he who is not merely righteous is beginning to be a Christian. Of course, that does not, by a long way, mean that a Christian is a person who does nothing wrong and has no failings. On the contrary, he is the person who knows that he does have failings and who is generous with God and with other people because he knows how much he depends on the generosity of God and of his fellowmen. The generosity of someone who knows he is in debt to everyone else, who is quite unable to attempt to maintain a correctness that would allow him to make strict demands in return: that is the true guiding light of the ethical code that Jesus is proclaiming (cf. mt 18:13-35). This is the mystery, at once incredibly demanding and liberating, to be found behind the word "superabundance", without which there can be no Christian righteousness. (pp. 14-15)

 Even today, if you keep your eyes open, you can still meet people who are a living witness to the liberating power of the Christian faith. And there is nothing wrong with being and remaining a Christian, too, on account of the people who exemplified Christianity for us and through their lives made it worth believing and loving. After all, it is an illusion when a human being tries to make himself into a sort of transcendental subject in whom only that which is not accidental has any validity. Certainly there is a duty then to reflect on such experiences, to test their reliability, to purify them and comply with them anew. But even then, in this necessary process of making them objective, is it not a respectable proof of Christianity that it has made human beings human by uniting them with God? Is not the most subjective element here at the same time something completely objective for which we do not have to apologize to anyone? (pp 198-99).

Credo For Today: What Christians Believe
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

What do Christians believe? What gives meaning to our life? What is the purpose of life? The Christian answer to these questions is found in the Creed, in the profession of faith. But what do the articles of this confession actually mean? And how to they affect our lives?

Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, takes a fresh look at these timeless questions. This work is a reflection of the profound, personal insights of Benedict XVI, but also of the great foundations of Christianity: faith, hope, and charity.

Ratzinger writes eloquently and persuasively about the importance for followers of Christ to understand well what they believe so one can live as a serious Christian in today's secular world. He talks in depth about the true meaning of faith, hope, and love--the love of God and the love of neighbor. He also discusses the crucial importance of a lived faith, for the believer himself as well as being a witness for our age, and striving to bring faith in line with the present age that has veered off into rampant secularism and materialism. Continue reading...

I don't really get the whole "Star Trek" thing...

... but I've never disliked it, either. It—that is, the fascination, even obsession, some people ("Trekkies" and related clan) have with "Star Trek" in some or all of its forms—has long been something I've never fully understood or even pondered at length, but have accepted as "one of those things." I'm not much for science fiction and I didn't watch "Star Trek" as a kid as we didn't have a TV in the house until 1986, when I was a junior in high school (I didn't watch any of the "Star Wars" movies until years after they'd been in theaters). In fact, I don't think I watched an episode of the original TV series until I was in college. ("Hey, isn't 'Jeopardy' on the other channel?")

All of which to say: I'm actually curious about the new Star Trek movie, due out this week. It looks intriguing. I doubt I'll see it on opening weekend, but I'll likely see it on the big screen as it seems to be one of those movies that might be worthy of the large screen (and large ticket price). Unlike, say, the second "X-Files" movie, which I watched on video a few weeks ago and then wept at the sheer horror of it all (the thin plot, the mailed-in lead performances, the lack of aliens, etc.).

But why does "Star Trek" continue to go on and on and on and...on? Gary D. Robinson, writing for Christianity Today, takes a stab at explaining it and comes up with:

1. Geek-love. Don't laugh: he might be on to something. I'm clueless about the world of geeks; according to this quiz, I don't have a geek bone in my body.
2. The characters. Yeah, I can see that.
3. The relationships. It's a bit Freudian, but the case seems rather solid.
4. The bedazzling costumes and special effects. Okay, I made that one up.

There you go, for what it's worth. What do you think, for what it's worth?

Words from a shepherd

Bishop Salvatore J. Cordileone was installed as the Bishop of Oakland at a noon Mass today, Tuesday, May 5th. Here is part of his homily:

In God’s inscrutable plan, for me this means that, in a sense, I return to where I began. It was close to one-hundred years ago that my grandparents came from Sicily and settled across the bay (before moving down to San Diego some years later), where my grandfather established his fishing trade. Like countless others, they labored under the hardship of immigrants – a new land, with a different language and different customs, struggling to be accepted and to fit in. Yet, somehow they found a welcome, and were able to make a better life for themselves.

 Of course, much has changed since then. It seems our nation has become a much less welcoming place, even, sometimes, downright inhospitable: unwelcoming to the countless new strangers seeking to come to this land to make a better life for themselves and enrich the lives of us all; unwelcoming toward those who may place a burden on us because they are terminally ill or otherwise “unproductive”; unwelcoming toward those who could be given a chance to prove themselves capable of repentance and rehabilitation for their crimes, and instead eliminating them from society; worst of all, a land that shows itself all too often unwelcoming toward the most defenseless of our brothers and sisters who are not even given a chance to be born, and so are eliminated from society even before they see the light of day. This inhospitality, this hostility, creates a tsunami of moral and physical violence which leaves countless damaged and destroyed lives in its wake – moral and physical violence which, as recent events have tragically shown, hits very close to home here in Oakland.

 This is not what God has created us for. Jesus makes that abundantly clear in the gospel for today’s Mass: “that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete.” He created us for joy. That is why he gives us the commandment to love one another, and teaches and models what love really is; that is the only way to the joy he wills for us. In other words, love cannot be separated from the truth. As Pope Benedict teaches us in his Encyclical God is Love, Christ’s death on the cross is “love its most radical form” (n. 12), and it is only through a life of fidelity to God that one can experience this radical love of God and thereby discover “joy in truth and in righteousness – a joy in God which becomes [the individual’s] essential happiness” (n. 9). This, then, is why St. Paul exhorts us in his Letter to the Ephesians to live the truth in love. Let us not be tricked by the imposters, which reduce love to a commodity and relativize the truth out of existence. Yes, we are now reaping the very bad, very strange fruit of counterfeit love and the trashing of the truth of who we are and are called to be as human persons.

 Christ is the answer. Let us draw near to him, and abide in him, so that we will not be tossed about by the waves of deception and swept along by the teachings of destructive imposters. This means that we must claim Jesus Christ as our only ruler; it means that we place ourselves completely under his dominion. Let there be no doubt: if, as his Church, we are to be his faithful bride, it means that Jesus Christ must have dominion over every aspect of our life. Nothing and no one may be exempt from his rule. Whether in public or in private, whether professional or personal, no matter how intimate, we must claim him as our Lord. If nothing else, the painful experience of our Church over these last several years should make clear to us more than ever the dire consequences of failure in this regard. To exclude the rule of Christ from any aspect of our lives, no matter how intimate or personal, at best makes us ourselves the impostors; more often, in some way or another we even become accomplices of the moral and physical violence we claim to abhor.

Read the entire homily (PDF format). LifeSiteNews.com reports on the Mass and installation. The Oakland Tribune has more information and photos.

"Useless stupidity."

One can only hope and dream to be so pithy and wise—and only a 103 years young!

"Shame on you, Mr. Olson!"

A reader comments. He adds:

Words are cheap, and yours seem plentiful. One does not elevate oneself on another's ascribed dung heap. One does not justify oneself on account of other people's ascribed failings. This broad painting of the Protestant brush does no justice to the piety and strengths of a great swath of what is known as the Evangelical churches. To generalize by calling Protestantism "dangerous" is disgraceful. I do not think Pope Benedict would ever support this kind of polemic. Need one ask: Where is Christian charity? For the first time I am disappointed that Ignatius Insight would associate itself with this level of polemic. For good measure, let me add that I am only a recent Catholic "convert," and am I grateful that the Church has had people like Joseph Ratzinger to make up for apologists of your caliber.

The only problem? I wasn't the one who wrote, "Protestantism is dangerous." Nope, it was a Protestant.

Conversion?

Father Oakes ponders the question/possibility/likelihood.

A clerihew...

... to pass the time, about a man lost in time:

The writings of progressive Richard McBrien,
Can best be described as mystifyin',
They claim to be completely up to date,
Yet they are clearly stuck in 1968.

And, just for kicks and a (hopefully) humorous interlude, here are some I wrote in 2005 and 2006, along with a piece of very serious art I rendered many years ago:

French deconstructionist Derrida
Said words really mean nada,
Convinced he was onto something
He wrote endlessly about nothing.

The philosopher Socrates
Was conflicted about democracies,
But he showed hardly any emotion
When draining the deadly potion.

Secretive novelist Dan Brown
Cleverly uses the verb and the noun,
But plot, character, and diction
Cannot be found in his fiction.

The Apocalypse, said Joachim of Fiore
Describes the End of earth’s story,
But his predictions of that inevitable fate,
Are now nearly eight hundred years late.

“I think,” exclaimed the thinker Descartes,
—reputed to be unbelievably smart—
“therefore I am," as if he was not
 worth much more than a passing thought.   

Suffering ends, said Siddhartha Gautama,
When you cease all desire and enter nirvana,
So that is how you extinguish the fire:
You constantly desire to cease all desire.

Your turn!

“You were right about him ... you were right!"

From a new column by Dr. Paul Kengor:

Rudman had pushed the Souter nomination. He ensured liberal colleagues that Souter was their guy. Rudman, a pro-choice Republican, had been Souter’s boss at the New Hampshire office of attorney general. He privately concluded that Souter would not vote against Roe. Rudman’s reasons, which he acknowledged only after he left the Senate, ranged from the legal to humanitarian: Given that Souter was “a compassionate human being,” averred Rudman, he would naturally support continued legalization of abortion—which has produced the deaths of over 40 million unborn babies since 1973.

But Rudman’s allies on the Democratic side weren’t so sure. And Rudman had to walk a fine line, since his pro-life president wanted a pro-life justice. So, Rudman quietly sought to assuage liberals. He urged them to trust him.

That silent trust was critical, since Souter’s position on abortion had to be dealt with stealthily. In fact, it was handled so delicately that the nominee’s true thinking was apparently unknown even to the White House.

Alas, with Casey v. Planned Parenthood, America had its answer, as Souter authorized the sanctity of Roe v. Wade.

As fate would have it, on that same day Senator Rudman and Senator Joe Biden bumped into each other at the train station, not in Washington, DC but in Wilmington, Delaware.

“At first, I didn’t see Joe; then I spotted him waving at me from far down the platform,” Rudman later recorded in his memoirs, Combat: Twelve Years in the U.S. Senate. “Joe had agonized over his vote for David, and I knew how thrilled he must be. We started running through the crowd toward each other, and when we met, we embraced, laughing and crying.”

An ecstatic Biden wept tears of joy, telling Rudman over and over: “You were right about him [Souter]! ... You were right!”

The two men were so jubilant, so giddy—practically dancing—that Rudman said onlookers thought they were crazy: “[B]ut we just kept laughing and yelling and hugging each other because sometimes, there are happy endings.”

It was sheer bliss: Roe v. Wade had been saved; it was alive. The two senators, liberal Democrat and liberal Republican, were so overcome that they sobbed. It was the most joyous moment.

Thanks to David Souter, Rudman celebrated: “The combined efforts of the Reagan and Bush administrations and the religious right to overthrow Roe had been defeated, probably for good.”

Read the entire column. It's enough to make a school girl blush—but only if she isn't a politician. Of course, the tears shed by the two senators must have been for show only since it has been said ad nauseum for months, if not years, that it is foolish to wish or try to overturn Roe v. Wade, one of the most sacred events known to (late 20th century) man. Sure, those who say Roe v. Wade will not, cannot, and must not ever be overturned are usually staunch supporters of that decision. But as Rudman's own account demonstrates, such folks are nothing if not trustworthy. Abortion: it brings liberals together while tearing babies apart.

Do Your Kids Know About Chris and Rihanna?

Do Your Kids Know About Chris and Rihanna? | Mary Beth Bonacci | Ignatius Insight

If they do--and they probably do--it's time to talk to them about dating and abuse.

Don't you just love it when the misdeeds of pop culture icons threaten to undo everything you're trying to teach your kids?

In this case, the culprits are 19-year-old R&B singer Chris Brown and his 21-year-old pop star girlfriend Rihanna. On February 8th, Brown turned himself in to police after allegedly beating the stuffing out of Rihanna. The fight apparently began when she discovered a text message from an ex-girlfriend on his cell phone. According to a police affidavit, he punched her repeatedly, tried to push her out of a moving car, bashed her head against the car window, bit her ear and fingers, and choked her until she nearly passed out. He is now free on $50,000 bail while awaiting trial on two felonies in connection with the incident.

Here's the kicker—they're already back together. A source close to the couple says "They are definitely together and care a great deal about each other."

Charming.

Read the entire column...

The John Paul II of the Orthodox Church?

From an Inside the Vatican magazine article, "Will Kirill and Benedict Meet?", by Robert Moynihan, which is a very informative profile of the new Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church:

Now, four years into Benedicts's pontificate and nearly 100 days into Kirill's patriarchate, nearly all Vatican observers agree that, as Pope John Paul II was driven by the desire to end the scourge of atheist Communism, so Pope Benedict XVI still hopes passionately to see the restoration of a unified Church.
 
And the path toward achieving that vision passes by way of Kirill.
 
Benedict's hopes for reunion stem from his religious conviction that Christians should present a united witness to the world, but also from his pragmatic judgment that the increasingly relativistic and "anti-life" West needs the spiritual and moral support of the Orthodox world to overcome a secular mindset which has begun to penetrate into the western Church herself.
 
This explains why Benedict has, since the moment Kirill was elected, made numerous gestures toward him of welcome and appreciation.
 
Benedict XVI publicly expressed his joy at Kirill's January 27 election at a general audience the next day in Rome, saying, "I invoke upon him the light of the Holy Spirit for a generous service to the Russian Orthodox Church, entrusting him to the special protection of the Mother of God."
 
In a telegram sent to the newly-elected Patriarch, the Pope wrote: "May the Almighty bless your efforts to maintain communion among the Orthodox Churches and to seek that fullness of communion which is the goal of Catholic-Orthodox collaboration and dialogue. I assure Your Holiness of my spiritual closeness and of the Catholic Church's commitment to co-operate with the Russian Orthodox Church for an ever clearer witness of the truth of the Christian message and to the values which alone can sustain today's world along the way of peace, justice and loving care of the marginalised."
 
The Catholic Archbishop in Moscow, Paolo Pezzi, called the election "very positive news" and said that it promised "continuity and recognition of the work of the former patriarch, Alexi II."
 
The Vatican's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity noted that Kirill was "a Patriarch with whom we have maintained fraternal relations for many years, and who met the Holy Father immediately following his election in April 2005, and again in the months of May 2006 and December 2007."
 
The Council statement continued: "We trust we will be able to continue together down the path of mutual understanding we have already begun. We do not, of course, wish to lose sight of the difficulties that still remain, but we are ready and willing to co-operate in the social and cultural fields in order to bear witness to Christian values while, nonetheless, not forgetting that the ultimate aim of dialogue is the realisation of the testament of Jesus Christ our Lord: the full communion of all His disciples."

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And here is Mary Ann Glendon's address to Benedict XVI...

... courtesy of ZENIT:

Holy Father,

Your Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences comes before you this morning with immense gratitude for the encouragement you have given us, as we strive to be ever more useful to the Church in the development of her social teachings.

Over the years, no matter what aspect of economics, law, sociology or political sciences claimed our attention, there has been one central theme, one golden thread that has stitched all our work together. Our central focus has always been on the dignity of the human person and the common good. This week, Your Holiness, our Plenary Session has been entirely devoted to the way that theme has found expression in the concept of universal human rights.

In so doing, we have been mindful of the Church's long engagement with human rights, of her own decisive contributions to the dignitarian vision of rights embodied in so many human rights instruments, including a Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and of the Holy See as a fearless champion of that vision in international settings. That engagement has been characterized by a prudent recognition that the modern human rights project, like all human enterprises, constantly needs to be called to what is highest and best in its aspirations.

We have also been mindful of the fact that in today's world, ironically, many threats to the dignity of the person have appeared in the guise of human rights. As you pointed out in your memorable speech to the United Nations last year, there are mounting pressures to "move away from the protection of human dignity towards the satisfaction of simple interests, often particular interests."

Read the entire address.

Mulling over the comment, "many threats to the dignity of the person have appeared in the guise of human rights," it might be said that when wrongs become "rights," then what is right will increasingly dismissed as "wrong."

Abortion became a "right" years ago and now it is considered "wrong" (as well as hateful, narrow-minded, judgmental, etc.) to call it what is it: murder. "Same sex marriage" is becoming a "right" in more states, and it is becoming "wrong" to point out that it isn't marriage, nor does it reflect basic commonsense, nor is it rooted in traditional morality.

How can the free world do justice to its moral responsibility? Freedom preserves its dignity only as long as it retains the relationship to its ethical foundations and to its ethical task. A freedom that consisted solely in the possibility of satisfying one's needs would not be human freedom, since it would remain in the animal realm. An individual freedom without substance dissolves into meaninglessness, since the individual's freedom can exist only in an order of freedoms. Freedom requires a communal substance, which we could define as the guaranteeing of human rights. We can put this in other terms: the very essence of the concept of "freedom" demands that it be complemented by two other concepts, those of law and of the good. We might say that freedom entails the ability of the conscience to perceive the fundamental value of humanity, a value that concerns every individual. ... Freedom demands that we undertake to understand morality as a public and communal obligation. Morality in itself has no power, but we must recognize that only the moral dimension possesses the true power to promote man. Freedom demands that governments and all those who bear responsibility bow down before a reality that is defenseless and incapable of exercising any coercion: morality.

From Values In a Time of Upheaval (Ignatius Press, 2006), by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (pp. 48-49).