Catching up; or, a veritable cornucopia of links

You may (just maybe!) have noticed that the dominant topic of the past ten days or so on Insight Scoop has been Wikileak, the Oregon Ducks, the greatest Christmas rap songs of all time, the sound and fury over the Pope's remarks about condoms in Light of the World. While that issue is undoubtedly significant and has generated a landslide of interest in the book, it's nice to see that more and more people are recognizing that the Holy Father addresses many other matters in his interview with Peter Seewald, including women's ordination, homosexuality and the priesthood, being elected pope, the possibility of "Vatican III", and the return of Jesus Christ.

Anyhow, I'll continue to post about that from time to time; you can also visit the Light of the World blog for much more. But during the next few days I also plan to:

• Post some excerpts from God and the World and Salt fo the Earth.
• Post a piece by Fr. Schall on Fr. Robert Spitzer's new book.
• Post my thoughts and observations about Verbum Domini, Benedict XVI's outstanding (and criminally ignored) apostolic exhortation on the Word of God.

And here are a number of links and brief bits about various matters that have been logjammed in my posting queue:

• Several readers have expressed interest in hearing an audio sample from The Truth and Life Dramatized Audio Bible: New Testament (RSV-CE), produced by Zondervan and available through Ignatius Press. Well, here you go!

• Archbishop Barry Hickey emphasizes that the Pope has called people to conversion, not to condoms.

• From a Christianity Today article, "The Leavers: Young Doubters Exit the Church", this bit of depressing (but hardly surprising) information: "According to Rainer Research, approximately 70 percent of American youth drop out of church between the age of 18 and 22." Also:

The percentage of Americans claiming "no religion" almost doubled in about two decades, climbing from 8.1 percent in 1990 to 15 percent in 2008. The trend wasn't confined to one region. Those marking "no religion," called the "Nones," made up the only group to have grown in every state, from the secular Northeast to the conservative Bible Belt. The Nones were most numerous among the young: a whopping 22 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds claimed no religion, up from 11 percent in 1990. The study also found that 73 percent of Nones came from religious homes; 66 percent were described by the study as "de-converts."

• Handel's "Hallelujah!" breaks out at Macy's in Center City, Philadelphia (ht: Fr. Richard).

• Here is the leading candidate for Most Ridiculous Take by a Catholic on the Pope's Remarks About Condoms.

• On the other end of the scale, Fr. Roger J. Landry of "Catholic Preaching" has an excellent post on the topic, as does Fr. Richard on the "Catholic Morality" blog.

• I'm looking forward to eventually seeing "Walker Percy: A Documentary Film".

• A good post by Dr. Edward Feser on St. Anselm’s ontological argument.

• My very talented sister, Amy Seeley, has just released her fourth album, "Plum Coulee". I think it is her best work yet, a beautiful and often haunting set of songs about Montana, life, and love.

• From Benedict XVI's recent address, given to members of the "Romano Guardini" Foundation of Berlin, on the life and thought of Monsignor Romano Guardini, one of the pope's mentors:

Guardini was a man of dialogue. His works arose, almost without exception, from a conversation, at least interior. The lessons of the professor of the philosophy of religion and of Christian Weltanschauung at the University of Berlin in the 20s represented above all meetings with personalities of the history of thought. Guardini read the works of these authors, listened to them, learned how they saw the world and entered into dialogue with them to develop, in conversation with them, what he, in so far as Catholic thinker, had to say to their thought. He continued this custom in Munich, and, in fact, it was also the peculiarity of the style of his lessons, being in dialogue with the Thinkers. His key word was "look," because he wanted to lead us to "see" and he himself was in a common interior dialogue with his listeners.

For more about Guardini, see Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar's book, Romano Guardini: Reform From the Source.

• I find it fascinating—nay, maddening—that someone could write an essay titled, "Why I'm (Still) Catholic", and never mention Jesus Christ, or the Eucharist, or the sacraments in general. Bishop Thomas Olmsted provides the antidote.

• And this from Dr. Tracey Rowland, who has written two fine books about Benedict XVI:

Since his election to the papacy, Ratzinger has published three encyclicals, Deus Caritas Est (God is Love), Spe Salvi (Saved by Hope) and Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), and one apostolic exhortation Sacramentum caritatis (the Sacrament of Charity).
 
He has also published the first of a several volume series on the life of Jesus of Nazareth.   A recurring theme in these publications is the idea that Christianity is primarily about a person’s participation in the life and love of the Trinity, mediated through Sacraments, particularly the Eucharist.   For Benedict, the reduction of Christianity to the status of an ethical code is an impoverished representation of true Christianity.

He also emphasises the significance of the virtues of faith, hope and love, and argues that these virtues have become mutated by various secularist ideologies.

For example, he believes that faith is coming to mean trust in technology or scientific reason, hope is becoming hope in material progress, and love has become truncated to eros (sexual desire) without a telos (higher end).  He is concerned that for many people these virtues no longer have anything to do with Christ.

• The USCCB has an Advent page, with a calendar, prayers, suggested activities, and more.

• Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami on Light of the World:

The humility of Pope Ratzinger is clearly evident throughout the interview but so also is his keen mind and formidable intellect. A prolific writer, this one-time professor and long-time ``enforcer'' of Catholic orthodoxy as head of the Holy Office (now known as The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith) is also perhaps the church's greatest living theologian. ...

All readers -- whether they do not count themselves among his flock as well as those who, like the Holy Father, call the church ``mother'' -- can profit from engaging in this ``conversation'' with a man who continues to surprise and disarm his critics with the authenticity of his witness. As an intellectual and as a pastor, Benedict witnesses -- with great joy and unwavering hope -- that ``God does matter.''

• And this from Bishop David A. Zubik of Pittsburgh: "The book is a marvelous insight into the mind of the Holy Father. The book reads as if you are sitting in an easy chair next to the Holy Father, engaging in a wide-ranging conversation over coffee."

• NPR helps spread the Gospel of Now:

A few weeks ago, Bishop Jim Swilley sat down in front of his congregation at Church in the Now near Atlanta to get a few things off his chest.

"There are two things in my life that are an absolute," the megachurch pastor told his flock. "I did not ask for either one of them, both of them were imposed upon me, I had no control over either of them.  One was the call of God on my life... and the other thing ... was my sexual orientation."

For some, alas, the weight of free will is too much. "Every Christian," wrote St. Thomas Aquinas, "is bound to hold that acts which issue from man's own will, namely all his human acts properly so called, are not subject to determinism." Of course, Aquinas was interested in timeless, objective truth, not the ever skittering "truth" of Now.

• The theme for the November/December 2010 issue of Saint Austin Review is "Apocalyptic Visions: Faith and Science Fiction". An article, "Carrying the Fire: Lessons for Life in Three Post-Apocalyptic Novels", by Michael M. Jordan, can be downloaded from the magazine's site.