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Bishop Fulton Sheen on Netflix

2007-08-14T23:15:00.000-07:00

Netflix now has 4 Bishop Sheen videos available for instant viewing plus more you can add to your queue.

Love and Law

2007-08-11T18:40:00.000-07:00

In a letter to the Catholic Voice Nancy LeBlanc of Livermore asks:

The force of law is not a loving, Christian means for increasing the world’s morality. So why is the Church asking the state to prevent abortion and assisted suicide?

Taken to its logical conclusion, this premise would argue for anarchy, since all law entails the use of force rather than love. Suppose a man had brutally murdered a member of your family, should armed agents of the law apprehend that person and force him to spend the rest of his life in jail? Or would you instead wish to meet with the man, forgive him, share with him your Catholic faith, and pray he chooses to repent rather than kill again?

Or, to take perhaps a less extreme example, suppose I own a factory and choose to pay my workers $1 an hour and dump industrial waste into a nearby stream. What gives you the right to force me to pay minimum wage to my workers and respect the environment?

I went through a Libertarian phase in my early twenties so I know many of that presuasion would agree with my 2nd example and a few would even agree that murder would be better addressed by self defense and private security firms than by government. But what is the teaching of the Catholic Church on this issue? From Catechism of the Catholic Church 2266:

The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people's rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and the duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people's safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.

100% Chalcedon Compliant

2006-05-21T22:10:00.000-07:00

You scored as Chalcedon compliant. You are Chalcedon compliant. Congratulations, you're not a heretic. You believe that Jesus is truly God and truly man and like us in every respect, apart from sin. Officially approved in 451.

Chalcedon compliant

100%

Pelagianism

58%

Nestorianism

33%

Apollanarian

33%

Monophysitism

33%

Modalism

25%

Arianism

Monarchianism

Docetism

Adoptionist

Donatism

Albigensianism

Gnosticism

Socinianism

Are you a heretic?
created with QuizFarm.com

Walk for Life 2006

2006-01-13T00:03:00.000-08:00

Mark your calendar: the 2nd Annual Walk for Life West Coast is on January 21, 2006.

The Constitution Is Not Complicated

2005-10-05T22:46:00.000-07:00

Lost amid all the debate over whether Harriet Miers is qualified to sit on the Supreme Court is the simple fact that our Constitution is an extraordinarily simple document. I thought it was a remarkable straightforward, easily comprehensible document the first time I read it. I was probably about nine or ten years old at the time.

I only began to appreciate its hidden subtitles when I read in my high school civics textbook that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" actually referred to the right of state governments to organize National Guard regiments. I was further perplexed when I learned that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" really meant that the Supreme Court could prohibit the free exercise of religion in schools, town squares, and other public places nationwide.

But I still didn’t fathom the true profundities of our Constitution until I learned that somewhere within it lurks the right of a woman to terminate her unwanted pregnancy. Try as I might, I still can’t find that clause in my copy. Perhaps I own the expurgated version? Maybe that bit was printed in invisible ink?

So you see, I have only recently come to understand that the real Constitution bears no relation to the one I found in my parent’s almanac so many years ago. That Constitution is purely ornamental, for display purposes only. It’s the one we put out to make a good impression when we have guests over to dinner. The real Constitution is a document so monumentally complex and abstruse that only a handful of experienced judges and legal scholars can even begin to understand it. Harriet Miers has probably never even read the real Constitution, so you can see why she’s not even remotely qualified to serve on the SCOTUS. She might even make a complete fool of herself and base her rulings on that quaint little document in my parents' almanac...

Aristotle on Abortion

2005-07-05T23:10:00.000-07:00

I was flipping through my copy of The Politics the other day (yes, this is the sort of thing I do with my spare time) and I came across this passage:

If contrary to these arrangements copulation does take place and a child is conceived, abortion should be procured before the embryo has acquired life and sensation; the presence of life and sensation will be the mark of division between right and wrong here.

Our modern knowledge of fetal development tells us that brain waves can be recorded and the embryo responds to touch by around the 6th week of pregnancy, so applying Aristotle's "life and sensation" standard would at minimum restrict abortion to the 1st half of the 1st trimester of pregnancy.

Why is this interesting? First, because Aristotle's views cannot be said to derive in any way from Christian revelation or Catholic dogma, but purely from reason and natural law. Second, because I found it not in his works on metaphysics or ethics but specifically in his work on politics. Clearly Aristotle did not consider abortion a matter of private religious or ethical opinion, he simply assumed it was a proper subject of public policy.

This once again refutes the claim that the pro-life position is inherently theological or a matter of Christians "imposing their religion" on others. Of course abortion is and must be a political issue.

The Lost Generation

2005-07-01T01:33:00.000-07:00

I have a small core group of friends that I've known since high school; we all went to college in the Bay Area and stayed in touch ever since, though the number of us who still live here dwindles. None of these friends are remotely religious, they range from nonpracticing but vaguely spiritual to agnostic to outright atheist in their beliefs. I suspect this contributed substantially to my own gradual loss of faith during my high school and college years, and therefore in this regard they were a very bad influence on me indeed, a somewhat painful conclusion as these have been the dearest and most valued friends in my life. Not only that, but they are all very bright, top students, and good people: kind, loyal, generous, and idealistic.

Now here's the twist: every one of them is at least nominally a Catholic. I'm pretty sure they were all baptized, and they all come from Catholic families, though mostly of the type that only went to Mass for baptisms, weddings, funerals, and perhaps the occasional Christmas or Easter.

I certainly never sought out lapsed Catholics for my circle of friends, nor did I give it any thought at the time, but in retrospect it's a highly interesting phenomena. It is as though we were subconsciously drawn together, perhaps due to cultural similarities, or maybe because the residual effects of a vaguely Catholic upbringing imparted the good qualities I listed above. A further interesting pattern is that each of these friends' parents had divorced, and I have to assume this was at least a factor in their respective families drifting away from the Faith.

I'm pondering all this tonight because I just learned that my friend's wife, whom I've known since they first met nine years ago and who is another of my dearest friends, also comes from a family of nonpracticing Catholics. And, true to form, her parents also divorced when she was very young. I seem to have surrounded myself with a whole lost generation of lapsed Catholics whose families were torn apart by the scourge of divorce that runs rampant through our society.

Goeth Before a Fall

2005-06-28T00:37:00.000-07:00

We've just concluded Pride Weekend here in San Francisco, featuring a Pride Celebration and the famous Pride Parade. It was once called the Gay Pride Parade, but that of course was too narrow and exclusive; so now we have the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Pride Parade, but that was too hard to say; hence Pride Parade. Though really, perhaps Lust Parade would be more apt?

I understand the Sloth Parade was canceled yet again this year, the organizers just couldn't be bothered...

Youth and Heroism

2005-05-16T00:41:00.000-07:00

I was reading an interesting thread on Why Men Hate Church, and it reminded me of a passage from a book I’m currently reading called Letters to a Doubter by Paul Claudel:

Don’t listen to those who tell you that youth is the time for enjoyment. Youth is not formed for pleasure, but for heroism. The word is not too strong. A young man must be a hero today to resist the temptations that surround him, to be the lonely believer in a despised doctrine, to face the arguments, the blasphemy, the scurrility which fill our books, our newspapers, and our streets, without giving way a finger’s breadth – to resist his family and his friends, to be one against many, to be faithful against all.

I don’t recall ever hearing Catholicism presented this way before, and I found it incredibly appealing. By watering the Faith down and trying to make it "easy" and "convenient", you might actually be driving the young men away. We respond to a challenge, we aspire to courage and to heroism. Why do you think we are drawn to Star Wars and James Bond movies, why do we watch the National Football League? Why do so many young men aspire to be soldiers, quarterbacks, or astronauts when they grow up?

Why don’t we ever hear about St. Michael the Archangel casting Satan down from Heaven or St. George slaying the dragon any more? What about the Christian knights, or the martyrs who bravely faced brutal deaths for their Faith? We need to find a way to tap into this yearning for heroism to attract and retain young men in the Church today.

Greatest. Commercial. Ever.

2005-05-10T01:04:00.000-07:00

I know, old news, it came out in 2003, but something reminded me of it today and I wanted to see it again. Sure enough, I found it online here (I love the Internet), as well as info about the making of it.

I first saw this spot when it ran before a movie at the Metreon. Usually commercials before movies just annoy me, but seeing this on the big screen was deeply moving. It is a truly spectacular piece of short film. It is technically and artistically impressive, but more importantly it captures perfectly the feeling of ennui, of mindless routine, and of desperate loneliness that sometimes pervades the life of a single 20-something man in his first office job out of college.

It says something very interesting about our culture that such a seemingly counter cultural message can be embedded in a car commercial. Is it subversive, did the Volkswagon corporation not fully understand what they subsidized here? Or rather, does it subtly redirect our instinct to rebel against the soulless corporations that run our lives with the seductive message that the only feasible escape is through consumerism? "Is your life empty and meaningless? Then you need a new Volkswagon convertible!"

Also, I always wondered which city this was filmed in. After studying this still, I’m pretty sure this shot was filmed here in downtown San Francisco, not far from where I work. I think it was filmed right about here. Note the angled red roof in the lower left and the Transbay Bus Terminal in the upper right are both visible in the shot, and you can see the Bay Bridge in the background.

The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America

2005-05-08T13:28:00.000-07:00

I finished a fascinating book recently: The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America by David Carlin. Unlike many liberal or progressive Catholic authors he recognizes that the U.S. Church has been in a steep decline in the post-Vatican II era, and he does not prescribe married and women priests or the election of bishops by the laity as the solution. On the other hand he is no traditionalist either, he calls Vatican II an historically necessary event and does not call for a return to the Tridentine Mass and a retreat into the “Catholic ghetto.” So what does he believe?

Well, his basic thesis is that three forces came together at the same time to knock our Church on its heels: Vatican II, the acceptance of Catholics into mainstream American culture, and the rise of secularism as the dominant force in that culture. Carlin makes the case that from the founding of our nation until the 1960's America had a Protestant culture, and Catholics were an excluded and sometimes persecuted minority within that culture. While this position had many drawbacks, one benefit to living in the “Catholic ghetto” was that it tended to preserve the solidarity and cultural identity of Catholics while shielding them from the influence of the broader culture.

This isolation was not just an American phenomenon, rather Carlin asserts that is was in part a deliberate strategy put in place by the council of Trent and the counter-Reformation. In response to the threat of the Reformation, the Church defined Protestantism as enemy number one and created a “fortress” mentality to protect the Church. By the time of Vatican II however, the Church fathers judged (in Carlin’s view correctly) that Protestantism was no longer a major threat and thus the “fortress” was no longer needed; in fact it now served as a barrier preventing the Church from effectively evangelizing to the world, hence the need for “aggiornamento.”

When the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended, many Americans during the 1990's falsely assumed that there were no more enemies left in the world and that foreign policy was no longer relevant. In a similar way American bishops blindly assumed after Vatican II that the Church had no enemies left worth fighting and were caught completely unprepared when the cultural revolution of the Sixties overthrew American’s “Judeo-Christian” culture and replaced it with the rampant secularism that predominates today. Vatican II may have been necessary (though Carlin never fully explains why) but it came at the worst possible time; the Church threw open the gates of its fortress just as a brand new enemy arrived on the scene to storm the walls. And all this at the very time that socioeconomic forces were bringing more and more Catholic families out of the old ghettos and into mainstream American suburban middle-class life.

So what do we do now? Carlin admits he doesn’t have all the answers, but proposes that the first order of business is to officially declare that “secularism” (for lack of a better term) is the new enemy number one. He points out that people often define themselves as much by what they are against as by what they are for, consider for instance the recent elections. For the past 500 years many Catholics defined themselves as not Protestant, and now we can forge a similar unity by aggressively defining ourselves as not secularist.

Carlin was a Rhode Island state senator for over a decade and clearly he understand party politics. He draws a second analogy from politics and suggests that the Church needs to “tend to its base.” Politicians who spend all their time courting “middle of the road” voters while ignoring their hardcore supporters tend to lose elections; Carlin suggests that the Church has spent too much time and effort trying to make itself appealing to lukewarm and largely secularized Catholics while ignoring the needs and demands of the most orthodox and loyal Catholics who make up its base.

None of these ideas were entirely new to me but Carlin brings them all together in a compelling and readable book. I highly recommend it.

Rootless Americans

2005-05-04T02:10:00.000-07:00

The rootlessness of modern American society perturbs me deeply. Throughout history, most people lived their entire lives in the same village as their ancestors. All their relatives lived nearby, and they knew all their neighbors. Walking down the street, they could address everyone they met my name. I recently read the trenchant observation that Americans are the first people in history who expect that their children will live thousands of miles away from them, as though this were perfectly natural (I forget where I read this or I’d cite my source). It may be true that today we have airlines, cell phones, email, and other such technologies that allow us to remain “connected” with friends and relatives around the globe, but there’s something so coldly impersonal and inhuman about this as a substitute for being surrounded by kith and kin you’ve known all your life. It also makes it so much easier to “drift apart” and stop calling or writing over time.

I’m feeling very lonely and isolated right now. Two dear friends of mine, a couple who just recently married after many, many years of dating, are moving to the East Coast in a few months. I just found out today that one of my close coworkers is moving back East as well, which triggered this current funk. It got me thinking of the number of other coworkers who have drifted away over the past few years. People cycle through jobs fairly quickly in the software industry, especially at a small company like mine. A lot of brilliant, passionate people, many just recently out of college, were attracted there in the heyday of the dot com boom and there was a spirit, an energy, a Zeitgeist if you will that is difficult to put into words unless you’ve experienced something of the sort. That energy has largely dissipated and many of those folks have dispersed to other jobs around the country, and while it is still a fun place to work and I cherish many of my coworkers who remain, there is a lingering sense of fragility, of impermanence, that everyone still there may be gone in a few more years.

I’m single, I live alone, I don’t have any roommates. I’ve lived in the same apartment for years but I don’t know any of my neighbors. I’ve never much thought of this as “home” because I’ve always toyed with the idea of moving somewhere to shorten my commute.

I don’t doubt that much of this is of my own making. I could make more effort to keep in touch with those who have moved away, I could introduce myself to my neighbors, I could get involved in my local parish, etc. And I probably should. And maybe I will. But right now it’s 2:00 AM and I’m having trouble falling asleep, and it is so much easier to blame my heartache on the rootlessness of modern society...

Mass for New Pope Tomorrow

2005-04-24T20:42:00.000-07:00

As the Diocese of Oakland gives thanks
for the election of Pope Benedict XVI
The Most Reverend Allen Vigneron,
Bishop of Oakland,
will preside at the following service:

Monday, April 25, 2005 7:30 p.m.
Mass of Thanksgiving
St Augustine Church
400 Alcatraz Avenue
Oakland, CA 94609

John Paul I

2005-04-24T03:26:00.000-07:00

Before the coverage of the Inauguration Mass began, MSNBC showed some archive footage of newscasts covering the election, inauguration, and sudden death of Pope John Paul I. He left his mark on the Papacy despite his tragically short tenure, in particular by refusing the traditional Papal Coronation and crowning with the Triple Tiara, preferring instead to receive the more modest symbols of authority, the Pallium and the Ring. He also dropped the use of the royal "we". In short, he transformed the ethos of the Papacy from royalty to humble servant, a precedent that both his successors have followed.

What a Great Preacher!

2005-04-24T02:57:00.000-07:00

I’m watching the Inauguration Mass of Benedict XVI right now on MSNBC, and was moved and inspired by the Holy Father’s homily. In a few short words he managed to pay tribute to his predecessor and lay out his vision of ecclesiology, of the Church as the communion of Saints and all of the baptized, a Church very much alive, even young, today. He touched on the meaning of life, which is Christ Jesus, to know and follow His will is a joy rather than a burden, the source of our authentic freedom. He shared an infectious enthusiasm for spreading the Good News to the whole world, and for reuniting all believers under one shepherd. Truly this is a man who loves God and rejoices in the Gospel!

At one point he touched on the dignity of each and every human being as a unique creation of God:

"We’re not some casual and meaningless product of evolution, each of us is the result of a thought of God, each of us is willed. Each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."

What a beautiful thought! Let me guess, the headlines in tomorrow’s papers will be: New Pope Denounces Evolution.

Dictatorship of Relativism

2005-04-21T00:34:00.000-07:00

The pope's idea of freedom is in conflict with modern secular thinking, which is relativistic, with no absolute truths. He will have a considerable challenge promoting his concept of human freedom, particularly in the West, where that view conflicts with current political and social thinking.

This quote from an editorial in today's Contra Costa Times took me aback somewhat, it makes it sound as though relativism is already the established mainstream view in "the West" today. The drift toward relativism is undeniable, and it has clearly attained the status of orthodoxy at most major universities (despite the apparent oxymoron of an orthodoxy of relativism). It may well be the dominant belief system in newsrooms and TV studios across the country.

But are most Americans today actually professed, practicing relativists? Have we really abandoned belief in any and all absolute truths? Somehow I doubt that Red State America, the slight majority of the country who voted for Bush last November, would agree with the statement that there are "no absolute truths."

And what about Blue State America? As a resident of the Very Dark Blue Bay Area I can attest that claims of absolute truth do make most folks around here mighty uncomfortable, but what then motivates their passionate beliefs? Why are they so strongly against the war in Iraq, oil drilling in the ANWR, and genetically modified foods, and so strongly in favor of stem cell research, gay marriage, and affirmative action? They generally claim that such beliefs derive from their deeply-held commitment to values like equality, diversity, civil rights, and environmentalism, and in most cases I take them at their word and believe they are fully sincere even when (as in the above examples) I disagree with the conclusions they reach.

Yet aren’t these values at some level absolute truths as well? If someone were to contradict these core values and say "the Earth is my trash can and I have a right to pollute it as much as I want to" or "people of my racial group are superior", precious few liberals that I know would respond with "everything is relative, you’re entitled to your view and I’m entitled to mine." No, most would say "you’re wrong" or "how dare you!" and possibly get very angry, because when it comes right down to it nearly all Americans still cling to certain absolute truths, whether they are fully cognizant of that fact or not.

Old Habits Die Hard

2005-04-20T23:26:00.000-07:00

Seems I’m not the only one still adjusting to the idea of a new Pope. At a special Mass today in honor of the new Holy Father, after delivering a homily about him, rote memory took over and my priest said "make us grow in love, together with John Paul our... Benedict the Sixteenth our Pope."

Vatican II

2005-04-20T11:57:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post my thoughts on Pope Benedict and Vatican II, but Amy beat me to it. Go read this right now.

I couldn't have put it half so well myself.

Incidentally, I could almost be the "20-something web designer in San Francisco in 2005" she mentions, though technically I'm not a web designer, but I do write web software in San Francisco. My blog layout would be a bit more original if I actually knew something about web design. :-)

Benedictum XVI

2005-04-20T00:53:00.000-07:00

HABEMUS PAPAM. Almighty God be praised!

Wow. What a day. I went to work but I didn’t get much work done, I spent most of the day reading news and blogs and watching bits of streaming video.

My only disappointment is that I missed the live announcement. I was up very late last night waiting for what turned out to be black smoke from the morning vote, then went to bed figuring the afternoon vote wouldn’t happen until nearly lunch time, so I’d have to watch it from the office. I woke up around 8:30 and should have turned the TV on then, but instead I showered, dressed, and went through my whole morning routine before I finally switched on the TV for a quick check before heading out the door and there was the headline: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger Elected New Pope.

My initial reaction was surprise, quite frankly I was stunned. I was almost certain he would not be chosen for two basic reasons:

He was clearly the favorite according to the media, and as the old saying goes, “he who enters the conclave as Pope leaves as a Cardinal.”

I thought he had too much baggage, and that the Cardinals would prefer a less controversial, less polarizing figure.

But once I picked my jaw up off the floor and pinched myself a few times to make sure I really was awake, I broke out into a huge grin. Though this whole idea of a new Pope will still take some getting used to, already I love our new Holy Father. What struck me most about his Urbi et Orbi blessing (I saw the replay on the Fox News website) was how humble he seemed, joyful yet almost overwhelmed by the great task ahead. He said he would rely on our prayers and I intend to do my part. My local parish announced last Sunday that it would have three Masses to celebrate the day after the selection of a new Pope, so I need to get to bed soon so I can make the morning service. More thoughts to come.

Joannes Paulus II

2005-04-19T00:51:00.000-07:00

I must confess I’m completely addicted to all the conclave coverage and to speculating on who will be (and who should be) the next Pope. This is all so unprecedented for me, as I was only 2 years old the last time around. For me and for my generation John Paul II was not just a great Pope, he was quite simply the Pope. While my mind realizes that the papacy is an office that has been held by 264 different men, to my heart the Pope is a single man who has now gone to his rest in the hope of rising again. Though I will welcome his successor with gladness, it will take some time to adjust to the idea that another man could in any sense replace him.

For not only was he the only Pope I knew, but in this polarized landscape of “liberal” and “conservative” American Catholics I have come in the past few years to label myself a “JP II Catholic.” For just as I have no memory of Bl. John XXIII or Paul VI, so too I have no memory of Vatican II or the publication of Humane Vitae, the two seminal events in the life of many American Baby Boomer Catholics. For me the Novus Ordo is the traditional Mass of the Church, I don’t perceive endless “liturgical innovations” because the liturgy hasn’t changed all that much in my lifetime. The parish I grew up in still had altar rails, but I never once saw them used, and I used to sit sometimes at Mass and wonder what they were for; why they would put a row of kneelers where no one ever used them. This mystery remained unsolved until just a few years ago when I first encountered the endless liturgical debates here in the blogosphere.

In my encounters with the more extreme Trads (especially those of the SSPX persuasion) I cannot help but think of that wonderful phrase “more Catholic than the Pope.” How exquisitely ironic that a group claiming to be the true heirs of the pure and undefiled doctrine of the Council of Trent would fall into schism with Rome. Yet before you label me “Progressive”, let me first say that I’m quite happy with Church doctrine as it stands, thank you very much. The Church has no authority to ordain women as priests, and John Paul’s wonderful Theology of the Body has put to rest any lingering doubts about the truth of Humane Vitae. And while I prefer the Mass in my native tongue and find the Sign of Peace a rather touching gesture of congregational reconciliation and unity (who can deny that all those diverse world political and spiritual leaders making this Sign during his funeral was a fitting tribute to his legacy?), I never did think the acoustic guitar a suitable sacred instrument. Folk hymnody, besides banal and uninspiring, isn’t even relevant anymore. Here’s a hint: you won’t attract the youth by playing a style of music that's gathering dust in their parents' old LP collections. Try offering them something timeless and transcendent instead.

I may have strayed a bit from my central point there, namely: somewhere between the Scylla of “Vatican II is the greatest disaster in the history of the Church” and the Charybdis of “we must follow the spirit of Vatican II and modernize the Church” lies a third path through the wilderness blazed by John Paul II, a path that embraces VII as a source of great renewal and untapped treasures while interpreting it in the light of all the Councils and dogmas that came before it. This is the Church of JPII, the Church I was baptized and raised in, and the Church I have embraced as an adult revert. May he rest in peace, and may the Holy Spirit send us a worthy successor to pick up where he left off.

SuperPope

2005-02-23T23:31:00.000-08:00

SuperPope battles a demon in Flash anime.

Equality in Heaven?

2005-02-21T22:31:00.000-08:00

Flipping through the channels the other day I came across “Bishop” Bob Jackson of the Acts Full Gospel Church and stopped to watch long enough to hear something I found most interesting. He was preaching about the Judgement and the importance of doing good works and even quoted James 3:26 “faith without works is dead,” while at the same time defending the standard Protestant belief in sola fide and the perseverance of the saints.

Perhaps I misunderstood him, but he seemed to reconcile the apparent contradiction here by saying that all the saved would of course go to Heaven, but once there they will be judged and rewarded according to their works, implying a hierarchy of rewards in heaven. I suppose this must be a fairly common idea since “seventh heaven” is a standard figure of speech and the various levels of heaven were described at least as far back as Dante’s Paradiso, but it’s not an idea I run across very often in contemporary circles, either Protestant or Catholic. I guess it just does not fit in with the reigning egalitarian spirit of our age.

This can’t be a distinctly Protestant idea given that it dates back to Dante, but it seems especially useful to them to solve the dilemma raised once you discard the doctrines of Purgatory and mortal sin, namely: what happens to someone who accepts Jesus as his savior and then relapses into a life of sin? He can’t go to Hell if you don’t believe in mortal sin, and he can’t go to Purgatory if you’ve rejected the whole concept of Purgatory, but surely justice demands some distinction between the reprobate and the pious, does it not? Hence: greater and lesser rewards in heaven. A tidy solution, I’ll grant him that much.

Get Out of Jail Free Cards

2005-02-18T21:56:00.000-08:00

I’m off to a good start this Lent. If I understand the fine print correctly, I may have qualified for two plenary indulgences today. I attended the evening Mass at St. Patrick’s and stayed for the Stations of the Cross (#63 in the Enchiridion of Indulgences) and the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament (new indulgence for the Year of the Eucharist). I also fulfilled the “usual conditions” by going to Confession on Tuesday, taking Communion then and again today, and praying a Rosary for the Pope’s intentions tonight.

Of course, that still leaves the tricky fourth hurdle of “a spirit of total detachment from any inclination to sin” to overcome. I’m not quite sure how to interpret that clause, so I’ll have to leave it in God’s hands to judge. At the very least I gained a partial indulgence, and that’s better than nothing, right? Plus it’s a beautiful tradition carried out in one of San Francisco’s most beautiful churches, if you live in the Bay Area I cannot recommend it strongly enough: every Friday after 5:15 Mass through the end of Lent.

Zoning Out

2005-02-14T23:10:00.000-08:00

I caught the wrong BART home from work today, I was all the way to Walnut Creek before I noticed. Oops! Took an extra 2 transfers and 45 minutes to get home.

I blame it all on Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. I often play my GBA to kill time during the commute home from work. Sometimes I read, but often I find my brain too frazzled after a long day to make much progress on a book. Video games are the perfect way to relax and zone out for a while, though not usually to the degree that I don’t notice which train I’m on...

FFTA is a fantasy RPG, a genre I played for hours on end back in junior high but have not been willing or able to invest the necessary time in since, until now. I’ve been playing for 38 hours so far, for some odd reason the game keeps track of how long you play it. In the game you build up a “clan” of characters and accomplish missions by winning a series of battles. Each battle takes place one of 30 or so different terrains, a little chessboard with hills, rivers, buildings, etc. where the action unfolds.

First you select up to 6 members of you clan to deploy. Each member has a specialized job, such as soldier, archer, hunter, white mage, black mage, and on to the more esoteric like beastmaster and time mage. Each character gets a turn, and on each turn you can move and fight or cast a spell on enemies within range. The characters are endearing little cartoon half-human half-animal critters: reptile men, elephant men, and so on.

Interestingly, no one ever dies in this world; after exhausting their allotted hit points a character gets “K.O.ed” and is out for the rest of battle but fine thereafter. I assume this is intended for the benefit of younger players. I wonder, though, is it really so vital to shield them from the very concept of death? And on the other hand, is it healthy to imply that you can attack someone with swords and burn them with magic fire without doing any lasting damage?

Ash Wednesday

2005-02-13T20:50:00.000-08:00

No, I haven't given up blogging for Lent. As you can see from the general infrequency of my posts, giving it up would be no great sacrifice anyway...

I went to Ash Wednesday Mass at the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi, one of many beautiful old churches downtown. The music was equally beautiful, chanted by their schola cantorum from the old choir loft. So that's what a choir loft is for... No musical instruments, just beautiful voices singing the ancient music of the Church in mixed Latin and English.

And then to top it all off they rang sanctus bells at the consecration!

I dearly miss the bells, few parishes here in the Bay Area use them any more. They were rung without fail at my neighborhood parish growing up, and I can remember when I was a very small child it was always my favorite part of the Mass. Of course I was too young then to understand what they meant, but isn't it all the more fitting that even at that age I looked forward to the consecration every Sunday? Yet now, even at the children's Mass at my parish where they are willing to mangle and distort the rubrics and norms in an attempt to appeal to children, they still don't ring any bells... puzzling.

Abortion Compromise?

2005-02-05T01:53:00.000-08:00

I read a fascinating debate between bloggers Matteo and Chadster including this highlight:

I don't know if you expressed yourself the way you meant to, or if there is something revealing in this, or whether it's just metaphysical confusion, but you said, "But who is to say whether the life of a child brought forth by a 14 year old girl in the trailer park will be of much less quality than the life of that same child if the girl had an abortion, went to college, bought a nice house, could afford groceries and then had the child." You know, the child she had later is not the same child she aborted, so there is no better life in store for it. It's dead. Right?

This neatly sums up the priorities of both sides of the abortion debate in America today. The pro-choice side focuses on the right of women to choose when to have children, while the pro-life side focuses on the right of human beings, once conceived, to continue to live.

Is there any possibility for compromise here? The standard formula proposed by pro-aborts is “safe, legal, and rare,” trotted out most recently by Hilary Clinton (as parodied here). But “rare” is a slippery slope, and any compromise in which the murder of innocent human life remains legal does not address the concerns of the pro-lifers.

Of course, one fact the pro-aborts tend to gloss over is that, with the exception of rape, women can control when and how many children to have by choosing when and with whom to have sex. What is really desired is the ability to control reproduction and have unlimited casual sex, and that requires 100% effective contraception. Thus the shape of a true compromise emerges: outlaw abortion, strictly enforce the laws against rape, and make highly effective non-abortifacient contraception freely available.

Note that I am not endorsing the use of contraception or denying the Catholic position on its use. That’s why I called it a compromise. No doubt the pro-aborts would quickly point out that no form of contraception is actually 100% effective; ironic really, when you consider that they normally sing the praises of contraception and rush to condemn anyone who dares question the effectiveness of “safe” sex.

Which brings my to final point: our courts have held tobacco companies liable when people who voluntarily use their products develop cancer. Some folks are suing fast food chains trying to blame them for the health problems of their obese customers. Gun manufacturers have even been held responsible for a murders committed using their products. Applying the same logic, shouldn't condom manufactures be held liable every time one of their customers gets pregnant? Here at last is a potential solution for Chadster’s hypothetical 14 year old pregnant girl: she’ll be able to afford a nice home and groceries after all with her million-dollar settlement from Church & Dwight Co. Inc.

Sunday Night Mass

2005-02-02T23:59:00.000-08:00

Sunday Night Mass Critical to Retaining Young Adults

Amen! I will often drive to Sunday night Mass even though my local parish is a two minute walk from my apartment. Those of you in the Bay Area might run into me at St. Joseph at 5:30PM or Newman Hall at 10:00PM on a Sunday.

Of Jedi

2005-01-31T22:46:00.000-08:00

Less than 4 months until Revenge of the Sith comes out... are you as excited as I am?

I'm a Star Wars fanatic, so much so that I even love Episodes I and II. "So you think they are as a good as the classic trilogy?" you might ask. Well no, they don't hold a candle to the original Star Wars or my personal favorite The Empire Strikes Back, but as every true fan knows, neither did Return of the Jedi. In fact I think I would rank the films as follows:

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Episode IV: A New Hope
Episode II: Attack of the Clones
Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Where Ep III will fall remains to be seen, but I have high hopes that it will at least make the top three.

Anyway, I recently reread the classic list of 50 Reasons Why Jedi Sucks. Now, anyone reasonably familiar with George Lucas knows that he was heavily influenced by Joseph Campbell's theory of the monomyth, the idea that there are archetypes common to the myths of all cultures. From there Campbell proceeds down the same road as Aldous Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy to the theory that all the world's religions are different expressions of the same underlying (and ultimately unknowable) mystic truth, an idea with great currency among the New Agers.

Lucas clearly lifted many of his plot elements straight from the monomyth (cf. Supernatural Aid and Apotheosis), but he also seems to have derived the overall Jedi philosophy and Yoda's Zen-like sayings largely from Campbell's amorphous pantheism. The Force is certainly not God as orthodox Christians know Him. And yet, it never struck me until I reread #32 Jedi Afterlife just how strongly the theme of Christian salvation plays into the resolution of the whole series. Consider the dialog as Anakin/Darth Vader lies dying:

LUKE
No. You're coming with me. I can't leave you here.
I've got to save you.

ANAKIN
You already have, Luke.

And indeed the end of the film suggests that Anakin’s soul has survived and reached “Jedi Heaven”. I remember as a child I was confused and even frustrated by the climatic scene where Luke casts aside his lightsaber and declares:

LUKE
Never! I'll never turn to the dark side. You've failed, Your Highness.
I am a Jedi, like my father before me.

The Emperor then proceeds to electrocute Luke and would have killed him were it not for Vader's last minute repentance and intervention. I remember thinking "what an idiot!" Luke had fought Vader reluctantly only because he stood between Luke and the Emperor. Now that Vader lay helpless on the floor, why didn't Luke just bum rush the Emperor and slice him in half?

Instead, he throws down his weapon and refuses to fight, the son prepared to sacrifice his life for love of the father. This act of self-sacrifice not only defeats the ultimate evil power and sets the galaxy free, but it also saves Anakin’s immortal soul. "That isn't how the hero is supposed to win!" I thought. Is it?

Perhaps Jedi is better than I give it credit for. If only it didn't have so many Ewoks...

Historic Day in Iraq

2005-01-30T18:28:00.000-08:00

I’ve been watching CNN and Fox News and reading Iraqi blogs such as Healing Iraq, Kurdo's World, and Baghdad Dweller. I’m very proud of the role our brave soldiers played in making this election possible and moved by the courage of so many of the Iraqi people to risk their lives to stand up for their rights by voting.

Now that the people have spoken, what sort of government will the newly elected leaders of Iraq construct? The two key questions are:

Will the Shiites and Sunni find a way to peacefully coexist?
What role will religion play in the new government?

Many commentators oversimplify this latter question as “will the new government be Islamic or secular?” when in fact there is such a wide spectrum of possibilities between, say, Afghanistan under the Taliban and France (though ironically both would be inclined to prohibit students from wearing crosses to school).

The recent election here in the U.S. and the court cases involving “gay marriage” and the pledge of allegiance remind us that many (perhaps most) American are uncomfortable with a militantly secularist government. If Americans feel this way, it seems safe to assume that most Iraqis would not welcome a French- or Dutch-model secularist government either. On the other hand, an Iranian-model theocracy run by Iraqi Shiite clerics would be equally unacceptable to the Sunni minority and would likely plunge the country into all-out civil war.

So it seems that Iraqis must forge a comprise and find a middle way between the two extremes. For inspiration they might look to American history. The United States has always been a Christian nation, yet to forge a successful federal government our Founding Fathers realized that they could not establish a national church or restrict the free exercise of religion. If they had tried to do so, the Puritans of New England, the Anglicans of Virginia, the Quakers of Pennsylvania, the Catholics of Maryland, and the many other Christian sects throughout the colonies would never have banded together and we would have become the 13 disunited states of America.

On the other hand Christian values have shaped both the national government and culture. On the cultural side we have “In God We Trust” on our coins, frequent references to “Almighty Providence” and “God Bless America” in the public speeches of nearly every President in history, and the celebration of public holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. Beyond the symbolic, Christian values have shaped our policy and been prominent in the national political dialog, for instance both sides in the great debates over slavery tried to invoke the Bible to justify their position. The territory of Utah was denied statehood until its Mormon-dominated government agreed to outlaw polygamy, indicating that only the mainstream Christian definition of marriage would be granted legal standing in our country.

This compromise served us well and held our nation together for over 200 years, though of late some cracks have begun to appear in that foundation. The newly-minted Iraqi government should follow a similar model: keep the symbols of public Islam intact, such as the Arabic for “God is Great” on the national flag. Observe public holidays on Islam’s holy days. Do not attempt to exclude religious leaders or arguments derived from Islam or the Koran from the public debate. At the same time, the government should not establish Shiite Islam as the state religion, and must guarantee the rights of all Iraqis, whether Sunni, Christian, Jewish, or otherwise, to freely practice their chosen faith. If their government so constituted survives for 200 years, today shall be remembered as a very historic day indeed.

Out of the Loop

2005-01-25T21:21:00.000-08:00

I didn't hear about the West Coast Walk for Life until Sunday, i.e. the day after it took place. A shame, I would have liked to participate. I also missed out on the rally to defend marriage last year, again I only heard about it after the fact. I guess I must be out of the proverbial loop.

So how does one get into the loop? Is there a blog that announces upcoming Bay Area pro-life/pro-family marches and demonstrations? Or perhaps an email list? How do the good folks who organize such events get the word out?

Enjoying My New CD

2005-01-17T23:33:00.000-08:00

I bought a new CD today: Shine: The Hits by Newsboys. Yes, I still buy CDs, I haven't gone completely over to MP3s just yet. A few months ago a coworker asked me "which media player do you use?" and I hesitantly responded "um... my CD Walkman?" He looked at me as though I were from the Stone Age.

I actually did get into MP3s pretty heavily back during the heyday of Napster, but after my reversion I finally admitted to myself that downloading copyrighted material without paying for it constitutes stealing no matter how hard you try to rationalize otherwise, and there's a pretty clear Commandment on that topic. So I gave it up, albeit reluctantly. Recently I've subscribed to the new (legal) Napster Premium service, which is how I discovered Newsboys. I suppose I could have purchased their music in MP3 form as well, but I still insist that CDs sound better, and I can listen to them in my car. That, and when I shell out $15 I like to get something I can hold in my hand in exchange... perhaps my coworker was right about me after all.

Reading II

2005-01-16T22:50:00.000-08:00

Am I the only one who finds it a bit surprising that today's 2nd reading (1 Cor 1:1-3) merits inclusion in the cycle of Sunday readings? It boils down to Paul saying "Hello." Surely out of the whole treasury of our Bible there must be some excerpt more... pertinent? relevant? meaningful? I wonder if some resourceful priest somewhere on the globe found a way to build a stirring homily around this passage today...

The Power of Words

2005-01-15T19:39:00.000-08:00

A recent letter to the Catholic Voice reads:

Be careful with language

Janet, of Parents Right to Know, (Voice, Dec. 13) was allowed to refer to physicians as abortionists in her paid political advertisement. If persons who pay to advertise in The Catholic Voice are unable to adhere to standards of common courtesy, their advertisements should be rejected.

Civilized discourse must be the order of the day in a church publication.

Joyce Mitchell
Oakland

The word abortionist quite simply means "one who performs abortions." It speaks volumes about the mentality of the pro-aborts that they would take great umbrage at such a plain statement of fact.

Perhaps it is because they secretly recognize the horrific, gruesome nature of abortion that they feel compelled to use the euphemisms of "choice" and insist that a word that describes what these physicians actually do falls outside the bounds of "civilized discourse."

Hello World!

2005-01-15T19:08:00.000-08:00

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