Excessive Entanglement?

An old friend brought this to my attention today. I don't care all that much for a lay person's take on the law, but it is rather humorous that supporting a Jesuit institution isn't considered excessive entanglement with the Catholic Church. Although the built a sports arena, not a church for cryin' out loud.

Catholic "Radio Radio"

No, this isn't about Elvis Costello, but it could be if Elvis worked for EWTN.

Tonight I went to a Catholic radio fundraiser in Indy. I of course was invited as I could not afford shelling out the few hundred bills it would have taken otherwise.

Anyway, the speaker was Fr. Mitch Pacwa and he spoke about the last few decades in the Catholic Church, the challenge of secularism, and the challenge of Islam. I don't know if you guys know about Fr. Pacwa but he is an excellent speaker and linguist with an extremely deft understanding of contemporary cultures from Europe to the Middle East. Here are some points that Fr. Pacwa addressed that I would like to share.

First and foremost, echoing some of the sentiments Qahal and I have expressed on another blog, he explained how strong Catholic positions on cultural-political matters are. He explained that for some reason, at about the time that Archbishop Sheen went off the air the Catholic confrontation with contemporary issues switched from active engagement to outright cowering. Catholics were almost universally portrayed as good and valuable through to the early 60's and then were treated with outright contempt which is one of the reasons Mother Angelica started EWTN.
The problem wasn't Vatican II, it was something more like a passivity that crept into the ranks coupled with an increasing antagonism on the part of Hollywood. (E. Michael Jones's book "Libido Dominandi" makes the case that Hollywood was ruled by Catholics until guys like Leo Pfeffer took the kulturkampf into the Sup. Ct.)
Pacwa of course stressed that Catholics have nothing at all to be ashamed of. He related that in parishes and schools where teachers and priests push a sort of moral relativism the people involved will always slouch toward the lowest of aspirations. Interesting to say the least. I have had a few friends convert from Protestantism and none of them came into the fold because the Church was all inclusive, it was because it was ideologically exclusive; oh, and because we venerate some Saints that have killed people. I guess we can say with Aristotle that the passions want that kind of garbage and the intellect wants the good stuff. (Note how these relativist Catholic people are the same that looooove guitar Masses and couldn't tell the difference between Mozart and Bach if the fugue was right in their face.)

Second, he showed that since the election of John Paul II, the quality of priests and seminaries has steadily increased. He had just returned from Indonesia where the seminaries are turning people away en masse. Good news eh? Looks like the "priest shortage" news is actually pushed mostly by people pushing for women's ordination.

Most importantly, he talked about secular humanism (SH) and how it is preparing the West for absolute destruction be it from Islam or nuclear holocaust. SH presumes both anarchy and nihilism. It weakens social institutions and the ability for valid authorities to shape and affect individual choices. As nice as it can sound "you believe what you believe and...blah blah blah," the moral and psychological effect is devastating. The upside to SH is that Catholics are uniquely poised to offer the panacea so long as they know their faith and are unabashed about it.
America is religiously Catholic and it has been for pretty much 100 years. Protestant ranks are dying out except for charismatics who are disorganized and anarchial. SH is, well, meaningless and barren. So gentlemen and lady, Fr. Pacwa thinks that the future belongs to us as long as we keep up the good work of having kids, catechizing them, and bringing as many non-Catholics the good news as possible. Lets go smoke 'em.

People of Intelligence

Here's a midly interesting commentary on the recent Imus controversy. This guy is a sports writer that has been picked up into the national spotlight recently because of his criticism of Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. He did an occasional fill in on ESPN, but he lost his job writing for Page 2 because he called out the guys he worked with. Ironically enough, you can see that he doesn't exactly speak all that intelligently. The really funny thing is that I can't stand his opinions when he writes about sports, but he starts talking about culture and it's not that bad. Although, he does quote Hillary Clinton: "It takes a village," but his point I find interesting: Pop culture is so pervasive that families can't avoid its influence no matter how hard they try.

Snoop Dogg can speak to your child daily, and he does. He and many other entertainers of every color are abusing that privilege. They’re corrupting minds and redefining cultural norms that were once set by people of intelligence.

The idiots are running the world now, and they’re telling our kids to sell crack and shoot each other over the slightest disrespect. We’ve even dressed the idiots up and passed them off as respectable, influential members of society. Snoop Dogg is as mainstream as apple pie. Any intelligent person who thinks today’s pop culture is as harmless as yesterday’s hasn’t raised a child, or he has a financial stake in the continuation of the cultural genocide.

Our Thumb, Their Eye

Score one for our team. I called the Right to Life office about the Supreme Court decision today and heard what could only have been loud and celebratory drinking in the back. What a day. I will say, however, that in my short experience, the cogs of law and culture move really slowly. There is a big question that folks our age are going to have to reckon with in the next 10-15 years which is whether the right will maintain its socially conservative/economically libertarian model once the abortion issue is not such an issue anymore. So excuse me for not joining in with the wine, I am planning on taking down a lot of whiskey in the future and don't want to get ahead of myself.

But despite the ominous future of the right in America, the opinion was great. I just read it and wanted to share with you some of the lil' nuggets of wisdom that I found interesting.

Ginsberg, bitching about disrespect for Casey affirmed, "[abortion rights] do not seek to vindicate some generalzed notion of prvacy; rather, they center on a woman's autonomy to determine her life's course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship." Awesome, autonomy and equality right there in the same sentence, but it seems that privacy isn't the issue anymore.

She later states, "THis way of thinking reflects the ancient notions about women's place in the family and under the Constitution-ideas that have long since been discredited." She is referring to the bond between woman and child. Apparently when my wife gets real excited about baby clothes she is actually going through a rational process of self-determination in radical choice theory. Awesome.

Finally the Yenta speaks, "Today's decision is alarming." Not to us, but to some dried up scion of a dying generation. Say hi to Brennan when you get to the other side, I am sure you two will have a lot to talk about.

On the flip side, the decision is pretty specific in its claims and isn't really all that interesting. Thomas, my main man, joins with Scalia affirming that Roe has no foundation in the Constitution and then takes a swipe at the other side wondering why no one challenged the act on jurisdictional grounds under the commerce clause. I don't know why he said this, maybe he was just pointing out the fact that the foundations of Roe are all but vanished and if the ladies of the left want to play ball in Roberts' SCOTUS, they are going to have to leave the garbage that they learned from Prof. Judy Rodham-Trotsky and rethink their strategy. What do you guys think?

Monthly Crisis Check-Up

Here were some mildly interesting articles in the most recent Crisis issue. While I could just tell you all to read it monthly, I figure it is just easier to peruse it myself for articles that I think you would appreciate. That's just how much I love you guys.

Here's a snippet on the best novel ever written, per Mr. and Mrs. Ransom.

And here's a somewhat lacking inquiry into the roots of neoconservatism with Michael Novak. It left me with the impression that neoconservatism is merely a reactionary political ideology. I think I would be more drawn to an original political approach that can be based on Catholic principles. Instead I see two somewhat distinct principles trying to coexist:

Alexis de Tocqueville asserted in Democracy in America that someday Catholics would be able to give the best arguments in favor of the American system. The Catholic sense of community and its distinctive feeling for equality, as well as the long Catholic sense of history, add new notes to the American mind. On equality, for example, whether you are a peasant or a serf or a noble, a count or a duke or a king, you meet at the same communion table. My point is: There are real riches in the Catholic tradition, which are highly instructive in interpreting the American experience. That is why Father Neuhaus, who was not a Catholic until 1990, wrote that in trying to understand social policy, one is well-advised to look at it through such Catholic notions as subsidiarity, associations, the common good, subjectivity (in Pope John Paul II’s sense), and the person as distinct from the individual. In this way, the day-to-day language of America is becoming more and more Catholic. The American genius, in forming associations on the local level, owes a great deal to the confraternities and associations of the Catholic medieval period, and so does Anglo-American common law.

But later he says:

We have an implicit rule in the United States that is not often articulated, but it is there nonetheless. It says: “Bring your own heritage with you; you do not have to renounce it. But do not make it geographical. You cannot declare a piece of land as your community, with your own values and customs. You must become part of the larger community, with its own laws and rules. There must be one law for all.” Now this has worked very well for us; but as I said, not many Americans have ever made this rule explicit, as it should be.

By the way, wouldn't the incorporation doctrine applying the federal bill of rights against the states be a pretty explicit rule in that direction?

P.S. I suggested to my pastor that I was interested in helping out with high school religious ed. Yesterday I met with the lady in charge of S.O.R. (school of religion, I think) to talk about how I could be involved. I regrettably discovered a youth group for the high school kids rather than a religious ed program. This woman happily described the current state of affairs, generally beginning her sentences as such, "Well, the kids would really like to..." or "The kids decided to..." I don't know if it is a product of hiring parish workers that are incompetent or perhaps have too much on their plate and are therefore forced to take a hands-off approach (or maybe it is both). What other position can you think of where people get hired to run a program and then don't contribute anything to it whatsoever other than taking surveys? Can you imagine a coach saying to high school athletes, "What do you want to do for practice today?" or a parent asking their kids, "How do you want us to spend our money on you this month?" or a priest asking his congregation: "How do you want to worship?" Wait, that last one actually happens.

Anyway, I've come up with a new term that I will use to refer to this backward approach that only seems to pop up in youth ministry. Youthanizing. This lady has youthanized her high school religious education program, and I'm not really sure if I should try to jump in and resurrect it.

Preference and Malevolence

To keep with the theme below, I wanted to show you fellow uprisers out there this test that you can take online that will show your automatic preference for blacks or whites... er... african or european americans.

http://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/

Here is what I got.

Preference:
Strong White 27%
Moderate White 27%
Slight White 16&
No Preference 17%
Strong Black 2%
Moderate Black 4%
Slight Black 6%

Big surprise right? Try it out and see what you guys get. Most people prefer their own race even if they are nappy headed white lawyers.

Nappy Headed Hos (the non-offensive kind)

This article (first item) is pretty good, but I posted it because I couldn't help but laugh when I read the lyrics to Ludacris's popular(?) song, "You'Z A Hoe":

Ho (Ho)
You'z a Ho, (Ho)
You'z a Ho, I said that you'z a Ho (Ho)
You'z a Ho, (Ho)

You'z a Ho, (Ho)
You'z a Ho, I said that you'z a Ho (Ho)

You doing Ho activities
With Ho tendencies
Hos are your friends,
Hos are your enemies

This should shed some light to Underhill's post about an ignored Josh Bell--he has a lot to compete with in popular music. Maybe he just isn't as good as the article tried to portray him. Think about it, that Bach guy's music that Bell was playing doesn't have any lyrics, let alone lyrics that reach this level of poetric transcendence.

The Business of the Feminine Mistake

Following up Qahal's post, here is an Opinion Journal article on the subject.

What is Beauty?

What is beauty? Is it a measurable fact (Gottfried
Leibniz), or merely an opinion (David Hume), or is it a little of each, colored
by the immediate state of mind of the observer (Immanuel Kant)?

I don't read the Wasington Post, so I need to credit gillie17 for finding this gem.

Must Read

If you get a chance, check out this article about Jared Cheek and the guy who lost control of the car they were in.

High-Risk Behavior?

So the Today show is back with some more "news". They interviewed the author of a new book called The Feminine Mistake. Here is an excerpt. There's actually a pretty funny typo in the introductory paragraph:

There's been a lot of talk about career women who give it all up to raise their children. Some say it's a throwback to another generation. But for those who can afford to be stay at home Moms, it's a difficult, and very personal, decision. A controversial new book, “The Feminine Mistake”, by Vanity Fair writer, Leslie Bennetts looks at the risks women take when they put their careers on hold, even for a short time. Leslie Bennetts was invited to appear on TODAY to discuss his book.

The author is a woman. She is apparently an angry woman. She's angry that women would have the audacity to stay home and raise their children. Here's an interview with the author. And here's a video of her interview on the Today show.

This is just another case of people using exceptions to develop a rule. Even if those exceptions are prevalent, they are still abnormalities. I don't need to preach to the choir about the beauty of sacrifice within marriage and the joy of service to your spouse and children. This author prefers to invest in work rather than family:

But the truth is that meaningful work is the source of great rewards in many women's lives, and a lot of the ones I interviewed found it unexpectedly refreshing to be given permission to talk openly about how satisfying it is to have your own work, your own identity, your own money, your own recognition, and your own agenda, particularly as your children get older and don't want you hovering over them all the time.

Sounds like a big, fat "Me" Monster. But apparently the author is just trying to get women to look out for themselves, because marriage is a high-risk behavior:

Our culture is not informing women adequately about the dangers of depending on a man to support them, and I think the media have misled women into thinking that the stay-at-home life is a better and less stressful choice. The facts would indicate otherwise -- working women tend to be not only happier but even healthier than full-time homemakers, as I have documented in the book.

And what is so dangerous about this course of action you might ask? Well, what if the marriage ends in divorce or the husband dies? Or what if the husband loses his job? Hmmm... 1) Exception, 2) Exception, and 3) Exception to the norm. And here's three alternatives: 1) Life-long commitment and fidelity to your spouse. 2) Life insurance (term life is so cheap for our age its ridiculous not to have it). 3) Have your husband get his ass out there and get another job.

This scenario, oddly enough, reminds me of youth ministry. It starts as a solution to situations in which there is a break from the norm (parents not educating their children). Then it goes from simply a solution or an alternative to a norm of its own (We need youth ministry because it is good). The Good has been twisted entirely. On what basis? Exceptions. Sins. Thankfully, we have a new Good: Every woman for herself. Have fun with that.

making easter even better

I am not sure how to go about it, but I would like to petition for a replacement of the traditional Easter Animal. Sure, the Easter bunny has been a steadfast symbol of chocolate and egg hunts and all things secular about Easter, but I think my new mascot, the Easter miatonic goat, symbolizes the Resurrection in a very tangible way:


Also, to focus your Holy Week, here is a little spiritual video to meditate upon: