Month: July 2007

Happy St. Ignatius of Loyola Day!

That includes, especially, all of the members of the Society of Jesus!

Though it may be somewhat impolitic to say so, I’ve often remarked that Jesuits are like the "little girl with the little curl, right in the middle of her forhead." When they’re good, they’re very, very good, and when they’re bad, their horrid.

But I just got an e-mail from some of the good ones.

He writes:

I visit your website and I just wanted to drop you a note
and let you know about something:

July 31st is the feast of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the
Society of Jesus – a.k.a. the Jesuits. For his feast day,
www.companionofjesus.com (my website) is launching Jesuit Review, a 10
installment set of internet videos focusing on Jesuit/Ignatian
spirituality, Jesuit history and contemporary Jesuits. You can find
the first installment by clicking the Jesuit Review link at
www.companionofjesus.com.

Carlos Esparza, SJ and I have created the series of internet videos
that hopefully will give some insight into Jesuit/Ignatian
spirituality. I think you’ll like them. Given all of the press that
Jesuits get, we thought it would be important to offer some basic
introductory material about what Saint Ignatius hoped would drive the
Society of Jesus.

I have to admit, Carlos and I are amateurs. Neither of us had ever
been in front or behind a camera before and we had certainly never
played around with video editing software. But, in the 4 weeks we had
to complete the project, I think we came a long way.

I’m writing you in hopes that you will help spread the word about the
videos. If we are successful in getting people to learn
more about Jesuit/Ignatian spirituality, I expect that the New Orleans
Province of the Society of Jesus will encourage us to work on more
projects of a similar kind.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

CHECK IT OUT.

The Most Merciful Thing In The World Goes Kablooey

H. P. Lovecraft’s fictional narrator begins the story The Call of Cthulhu, by writing:

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of
the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in
its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the
piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying
vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall
either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace
and safety of a new dark age.

Well, that situation has just gone kablooey.

I mean, Google has been eating away at the fact that there are so many disparate bits of knowledge that no one person can piece them all together, but then there’s this:

From one perspective, this is wicked awesome–amazing!–but from another perspective it is really, really frightening (and like a good horror story, it starts normal–cool even–and gets scarier as it goes).

Somewhere, Lovecraft’s narrator is screaming.

(CHT to the readers who have e-mailed!)

Summorum Pontificum Contact Database

Long-time readers know that I’m interested in how technology is changing society, including the role it will play in the religious world.

I’m therefore pleased to point to the Summoroum Pontificum Contact Database, which is designed to help make connections between people interested in having the extraordinary form of the Latin rite liturgy celebrated in their area (i.e., the "Tridentine Mass").

It’s only been out (so far as I know) since the motu proprio was released, and it’s already got 1400 contacts listed. The interface even allows you to specify possible ways that you might be able to help out (e.g., if you are a priest willing to say the Tridentine liturgy, if you’re willing to sing in a schola, if you’re able to help train altar servers).

If you have an interest in having the Tridentine form Mass in your area–whether you can help out in a special way or just help by your attendance–I’d encourage you to check it out.

ACCESS THE DATABASE.

(CHT to the reader who e-mailed!)

The Economics of Magic

The Pharisaic Approach to Purity
Over at Jimmy’s blog, the discussion of Harry Potter proceeds apace, with the inevitable appearance of the Harry Haters who, not content with not wanting to read the books (which is their perfect right), also bound and determined to arraign Rowling as an evil person and those who enjoy the books as dupes and/or traitors to the Pure Faith, etc. ad nauseam. One comment in particular stands out for me as nicely summing up the failure of a particular sort of approach to the Faith, which is really not faith in the Catholic sense at all, but is more like Phariseeism:
One drop of poison in a clear glass of water still poisons the whole glass.
One drop of anything not authentically Catholic poisons the whole glass.
The thing is that since almost everything is poisoned these days, you have to go for the one that won’t kill you and still get rid of your thirst.
But then, that accomplishes the purpose of those books.
Give your thirst for true beauty and splendor a glass of poisoned water.

Updated: 7:49 a.m. PT Aug 1, 2007
BRADENTON, Fla. – Sometimes it’s a hassle being Harry Potter.
Especially when you’re a 78-year-old man who happens to share the name of a certain fictional boy wizard who is famous the world over.
Each time a new Harry Potter book or movie comes out, Bradenton resident Harry Potter starts getting phone calls from children, interview requests from the TV networks and autograph requests.

I am not a fan of the Harry Potter novels. I know lots of people who are, including people who are serious Catholics, but I’m uncomfortable with them for a variety of reasons.

While they’re not going to turn every kid who reads them into a practitioner of Wicca, at least some kids will be influenced by the novels into exploring the occult. That’s a risk that is taken whenever magic is explored in fiction. Lord of the Rings did the same thing.

The thing about literature (fiction or non-fiction) is that somebody in the audience is always going to go off in some crazy direction based on what they read.

Want proof?

Let’s take a very well-known piece of literature . . . the best-selling book in human history, in fact: The Bible.

Has anybody gone off in a crazy direction after reading that?

Well, let’s see . . . Marcion, Sabellius, Montanus, Tertullian, Arius, . . . uh, the list might get a little long, so let’s move on.

Authors can’t let the fact that somebody in the audience is going to go nuts based on what they write stop them from writing. If they did, we wouldn’t have the Bible. But authors can craft their work in a way that tries to minimize potential harmful effects, and I have sympathy for those who think that J.K. Rowling didn’t do as good a job of this in writing the Harry Potter series as J.R.R. Tolkien did in the Lord of the Rings.

And the fact is that the vast majority of kids who read Harry Potter are not going to turn into neopagans, so I can’t tell people that it’s morally impermissible for any child to read them.

There is another reason I’m uncomfortable with them: I just don’t like the way they’re written.

Now, you know what they say about disputing about tastes, and if Harry Potter is something that you really enjoy and that doesn’t challenge your faith then good for you. But I think that Rowling did not do a good job in several respects literarily, and here’s why.

I read the first novel back when there was a huge controversy about it and whether it was healthy for children, and from the opening pages I found myself not liking it. The reason is that Rowling is just too ham fisted in how she sets the plot in motion.

Harry Potter–the character, not the book series–is the most important boy in the magical world, yet he doesn’t know it.

Until chapter two. (Or whatever.)

Then, as soon as he’s introduced into the magical world, he’s suddently the center of attention, people are fawning all over him, privilege is lavished upon him, and a glorious new future is handed to him on a silver platter.

Too. Much. Wish. Fulfillment.

This is bad plotting. Harry Potter is catapulted out of ordinary life to the apex of magical society virtually instantaneously. There may be lots of interesting concepts that Rowling uses as tinsel to sparkle up her world–and this is what I think people really find attractive about the books (the tinsel, not the substance)–but you don’t slather on the wish fulfillment in this way.

Not unless you’re writing fan fic.

If you really want to have somebody be the most important boy in the world, you let this fact emerge piecemeal, a bit at a time, with the character paying his dues as his true identity becomes clear.

If you want to see that plot done right,

CHECK OUT THIS BOOK.

BTW, I recently gave this book to Steve and Janet Ray and they loved it.

Others have also commented on the ham fisted way Rowling writes–in fact the piece I’m about to link even uses the term "ham fisted."

It’s a piece by an economics reporter who looks at the bad economics in the book–and she doesn’t mean money. She means the magical economy:

If magic is too powerful then the characters will be omnipotent gods, and there won’t be a plot. Magic must have rules and limits in order to leave the author enough room to tell a story. In economic terms, there must be scarcity: magical power must be a finite resource.

GET THE STORY.

Quo Vadis, Europa?

John Allen had an interesting piece today regarding how the Holy See’s relationship with Europe is likely to change in coming years. There are a lot of interesting things in the piece, but I’ll call attention to and comment on a few.

First, the growing secularization of Europe (resulting in an unwillingness to take into account or adhere to Catholic values) will result in the Holy See taking a less pragmatic and more principled stand in its dealings with the European Union. That’s a good thing, because if you don’t stand up for your principles, problems result. A singificant part of the problems we find ourselves in today are due to an excessive pragmatism in the past. If bishops had started excommunicating pro-abort Catholic politicians back when Catholic identity mattered to the politicians in a substantive way, there’d be a lot fewer pro-abort Catholic politicians than there are now.

It also seems to me that there’s a sequence in which pragmatism and principle are likely to alternate as an entity’s fortunes wane. If an entity (like the Church) is in the ascendancy in a culture–if it’s substantially running the show culturally–then it’s going to be very pragmatic in its approach because it’s trying to hold a culture together and that involves countless difficulties of a pragmatic nature. But if it’s lost that influence (as the Church in Europe has) then it’s going to be much more principled in its approach since it (a) no longer needs to run the whole culture and (b) needs to shore up its own identity contra the culture. If the culture begins to actively persecute it, however, a shift back to pragmatism occurs, only this time the pragmatism isn’t directed toward running a culture but toward survival. This is what we see in Christian communities in the Middle East, where Christians have to be extraordinarily diplomatic and careful in order to prevent Muslim reprisals. Ultimately, though, if persecution goes far enough, a return to principle will occur–or not. There is a point, known as martyrdom, where you have to decide whether you will ultimately stick with your core principles or not, and you either do or don’t.

We have Christ’s assurance that the Church as a whole will survive, but it may fare very ill in Europe and we might actually get martyr popes one day, which leads to one of Allen’s points:

Vatican policy on Europe will be more uncompromising and less amenable to Realpolitk solutions which aim to make a separate peace with secularism. This will have consequences across the [board], but one area likely to be especially combustible is same-sex marriage and gay rights. A more identity-driven Catholicism may run up against the growing legal protection of homosexuality in Europe to produce legal action against the church under hate speech and anti-discrimination laws. One under-40 Catholic priest I know, in this case a Canadian though he might easily be European, tells me that among priests of his generation, it’s taken for granted that some may go to jail for defending Catholic teaching on sexuality. It’s reminiscent of the way Catholic priests in Eastern Europe used to realistically accept that some of them might end up in Soviet gulags.

Allen also makes the point that the Holy See’s relations with Europe are likely to shift from supporting particular short-term policy outcomes to articulating matters of fundamental principle that will (hopefully) bear fruit in the longer term.

To my mind this is also a good thing. Bishops around the world, out of a commendable desire to help their flocks, have been tempted to engage the Church in supporting particular political projects that stray too far from matters of principle and too far into matters of application. It’s one thing to say "No homosexual marriage!" It’s another thing to say "This farm bill has it’s subsidies misallocated!" The first is far more within the Church’s brief than is the second.

As is illustrated by one of Allen’s final points, which–although he doesn’t say it this way–shows that Catholics have different perspectives on these matters, and the globalization of the Catholic Church is going to make these differences felt in Europe:

Not only does a multipolar Vatican diplomacy leave Europe a bit out in the cold, it also promises sharper conflicts with Europe, and this time not just on gay rights. Catholic leaders from the global south are often bitterly critical of Europe and the United States on matters of economic justice and militarism; for example, many southern bishops talk about the World Bank and the IMF the way American bishops do Planned Parenthood, that is, as the church’s central bête noir. Perceptions of unfair trading practices in Europe, especially its massive agricultural subsidies, are a matter of deep southern Catholic resentment. Under the impress of multipolar diplomacy, we might anticipate a future in which the flashpoints of church/state relations in Europe could be expressed as "sex, secularism, and subsidies."

GET THE STORY.

CNS: “Religious leaders urge more justice, fairness in farm bill”

The researchers have calculated that one beef cow during its lifetime is responsible for 10,000 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent (that is, greenhouse gases with the same heat-trapping power as that much CO2). In more user-friendly terms, that means a couple pounds of beef—about what Americans would buy to grill for a family of four carnivores this weekend—is responsible for about as much greenhouse gas emissions as “driving for three hours while leaving all the lights on back home,” as the British weekly New Scientist calculates.
Link:
What, Me Sacrifice? Take 2

The above is the headline of a CNS news story about a farm funding bill (that touches all kinds of other things besides farm subsidies) that is currently being worked on by Congress.

It cites religious leaders from a variety of groups urging more "justice" and "fairness" in the bill.

I agree with them.

The bill does need more justice and fairness.

But I think I’m viewing what counts as justice and fairness through a somewhat different lens than the people quoted in the article (or at least many of them; there is one guy at the end who may be more on the same page I am).

To my mind, making the bill more just and fair would involve this: ending all farm subsidies.

Government subsidies create a distorting effect in the economy and make it inefficient. Carried to extremes, you could get things like what you had in Soviet Russia, where bread was so cheap that people were feeding it to farm animals at the same time they were unable to get basic foodstuffs other than bread.

The issue of farm subsidies was a big deal back in the 1970s, when there was a lot of concern about the disappearance of family farms in the face of advancing technology and economic development in the agriculture industry.

I understood the pain of the people who were having to break from a family tradition of being farmers, but the government should not be in the business of funding family traditions at taxpayer expense. If that was the government’s job then it should have subsidized all the horse breeders and stable managers and veterinarians and carriage makers and street cleaners that existed at the time the automobile was introduced, so that they could keep their prior occupations even though a new and better means of personal transportation had been developed.

And it should have subsidized all of the old radio networks once television came along.

And it should have subsidized Hollywood studios once television came along.

It should similarly subsidize newspapers now that the Internet is putting them out
of business.

And it should similarly subsidize everyone in every occupation so that they can maintain their traditional way of life when a new and better means of doing the same thing comes along.

Such a society, of course, would be completely unworkable. You wouldn’t have the economic resources you’d need to maintain a huge chunk of the population in obsolete, unneeded jobs and simultaneously maintain a new, separate economy–or set of economies–based on more efficient means of doing the same things. The whole thing would be an arcane mess that would impoverish people by stifling economic development and burdening the population with an even more massive tax load than it currently bears.

So if this is unworkable for society as a whole then justice and fairness would dictate that there not be privileged groups–like family farmers and agri-business conglomerates–that get subsidies.

Of course, if all subsidies vanished overnight there would be a massive shock to the system, so it could be reasonable to phase them out over time, and one could argue that there should be measures to help people find new lines of work (which would cost far less than maintaining the subsidies indefinitely), but the goal should be eliminating the subsidies, not ramping them up.

GET THE STORY.

Mmmmm-mmmmmm. Giant Donut.

Homer_giant

So the marketers for the upcoming Simpsons Movie have painted a 180-foot tall Homer Simpson next to the Cerne Abbas Giant.

I think it’s hilarious.

The local pagans, however, are annoyed, as they consider the giant (a) sacred or something like that and (b) a fertility symbol dating from ancient times.

In reality, it was made in the 17th century and may be a lampoon on Oliver Cromwell depicted as a naked Hercules.

In other words, it’s one more phony claim of a pagan survival in Britain. Y’know, like Wicca and stuff.

I’m just sayin’.

GET THE STORY. (WARNING: Story discusses the fact that the giant is anatomically correct and has images of such.)

MORE ON THE CERNE ABBAS GIANT. (WARNING: Article discusses the fact that the giant is anatomically correct and has images of such.)

An Itch For Information (A Cure For The Curious)

Things change when you have a live Internet connection in your pocket.

Most smart phones access a crippled version of the Internet, but the iPhone accesses the real deal–and it changes things when you’ve got an Internet connection as close as your cell phone.

I began to experience this the first night I had my iPhone. I had done a blog post from the phone itself and then gone square dancing, and at a couple of points in the evening we were between tips (a tip is a pair of square dance songs–usually one done as a patter call and one as a singing call) and I didn’t happen to be talking to anybody at the moment and I thought, "I’ll check the blog and see if anybody has commented," so I did.

I haven’t done that since, but I have used the phone to clean up nasty comment spam when I wasn’t at my laptop.

Yesterday I was in church and a spot on my back started itching, and I thought, "I bet Wikipedia has an article on itching and what function it plays for us. I mean, I know it involves the chemical histamine–and for some time I’ve wanted to know what useful function histamine plays, anyway, since I’m always having to take anti-histamines for allergies and such. What good is histamine anyway?" But, well, I was at Mass, and I didn’t want to pull up Wikipedia and start reading it during Mass, so I didn’t.

Afterwards I went to Wal-Mart to get some keys duplicated, and then I had to stand in the ultra-long Sunday afternoon line to check out, and I thought, "Hey! It wouldn’t be sacreligious to check Wikipedia here, while I’m killing time in an otherwise boring checkout line!" So I pulled out the iPhone and spent the rest of my time in line reading about itching and what it does for us (encourages us to scratch off parasites that might be clinging to us).

Then while square dancing on Sunday night my partner liked one particular song and wanted to know who did it (the song "I’m Gonna Be [500 Miles]), so I looked it up on the Internet to see who did it (the Proclaimers).

So . . . it’s just kinda different when you’ve got a live Internet connection in your pocket.

BTW, I’ve got requests from folks to give periodic updates on what the iPhone is like, so that’s what this is.

Oh, and . . .

HERE’S THE ARTICLE ON ITCHING THAT I WAS READING.

Ex-Catholic Anti-Catholic Bigot at CNN

“It’s telling to note the contemporary works that sparked Beckwith’s return to the Catholic Church. He cites the “Joint Declaration on the doctrine of Justification” by Lutheran and Catholic scholars and Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences by Norm Geisler and Ralph MacKenzie. He also refers generally to First Things magazine, the journal of religion, culture, and public life which is edited by Father Richard John Neuhaus, who was a Lutheran pastor before his own conversion.
Each of these works is concerned with promoting mutual understanding between Catholics and Protestants.”
Enough said.
Largest U.S. denomination
About 22 percent of the U.S. population identifies itself as Roman Catholic, the largest single denomination in the country. That figure is little changed from 1965…
One commenter says it all:
“The church is much bigger than any one parish or any one diocese. It’s not about the bishops. I attend because I believe,” said Mike, 41, as he left a lunchtime Mass at Saint Francis Xavier church in downtown Cincinnati Tuesday.
He is not an anomaly. According to figures put together in 2006 by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, a Catholic university in Washington, there was a slight dip in Mass attendance after the Boston scandals broke.
But it said an analysis of surveys and polls since shows little evidence Roman Catholics have left the church in significant numbers or cut back what they toss in the collection baskets.
Hopefully, all the blasted “Judas”es in the Church who committed such heinous crimes against both the innocent and God will be filtered out and a Renewal of the Catholic Church in America actually starts happening!
Largest U.S. denomination
About 22 percent of the U.S. population identifies itself as Roman Catholic, the largest single denomination in the country. That figure is little changed from 1965…
One commenter says it all:
“The church is much bigger than any one parish or any one diocese. It’s not about the bishops. I attend because I believe,” said Mike, 41, as he left a lunchtime Mass at Saint Francis Xavier church in downtown Cincinnati Tuesday.
He is not an anomaly. According to figures put together in 2006 by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, a Catholic university in Washington, there was a slight dip in Mass attendance after the Boston scandals broke.
But it said an analysis of surveys and polls since shows little evidence Roman Catholics have left the church in significant numbers or cut back what they toss in the collection baskets.
Hopefully, all the blasted “Judas”es in the Church who committed such heinous crimes against both the innocent and God will be filtered out and a Renewal of the Catholic Church in America actually starts happening!

UNBELIEVABLE. ABSOLUTELY UNBELIEVABLE.

Can’t even get the facts straight.

How do I contact someone at CNN to see about writing a response editorial?