Author: SDG

Laudare

Dominicannuns_2

What is your first reaction when you see a picture like this? Is it "It’s wonderful to see nuns in full habit having fun"? Perhaps it is "How charming!" Or maybe it’s just a smile. If these guesses are close to your first reaction, you may be surprised to hear of another gut reaction given by one Catholic:

"Dominican sisters become the last word in the decadent fashion of modern religious life."

GET THE POST.

Back in the Glory Days of the Catholic Counter-Reformation of the sixteenth century, one young nun shocked her sisters by jumping on a table and dancing while merrily clicking her castanets. What happened to this rebel sister? Was she dragged off by the Inquisition, never to be heard of again? It may surprise those shocked by the fun-loving nuns in the picture above to know that dancing nun was eventually canonized and made a Doctor of the Church.

She is known today as St. Teresa of Avila who is famous for saying "From silly devotions and sour-faced saints, good Lord deliver us."

Amen.

Bad Reactions

Peanuts_1

I had heard that some people who suffer severe allergies to certain food can suffer reactions because of proximity to, rather than ingestion of, the food in question. For example, I once heard of a child allergic to peanuts who went into anaphylactic shock upon stepping into his classroom, where it turned out that there was a Snickers wrapper in the wastebasket. I believe that child survived. A young woman allergic to peanuts, who went into anaphylactic shock after kissing her boyfriend who had just eaten peanuts, tragically did not survive.

"A 15-year-old girl with a peanut allergy died after kissing her boyfriend, who had just eaten a peanut butter snack, hospital officials said Monday.

"Christina Desforges died in a Quebec hospital Wednesday after doctors were unable to treat her allergic reaction to the kiss the previous weekend.

"Desforges, who lived in Saguenay, about 155 miles north of Quebec City, was almost immediately given a shot of adrenaline, a standard tool for treating the anaphylactic shock brought on by a peanut allergy, officials said."

GET THE STORY.

What a terrible story, but it does shed light for parents on the necessity to determine just how severe food allergies are and exactly what kind of proximity to the food can trigger an attack. It can also show that one person’s food allergy may require an adjustment in eating habits not just for that person but for family and friends.

America’s Ministry Of Propaganda

Wesley J. Smith, a noted writer on life issues, catalogues a recent case of anti-life propaganda pushed by America’s premier newspaper Pravda… er, I mean the New York Times:

"Today’s Times has a front page story on Woo-Suk Hwang’s ethical lapses in obtaining eggs for therapeutic cloning, which I blogged on yesterday. Toward the end of the article, the story shifts from describing his bad ethics to defending therapeutic cloning. While the story mentions cloning embryos when describing the egg issue, it leaves that fact out entirely when actually describing the process of ‘therapeutic cloning,’ which, readers are told, consists merely of ‘converting one of a patient’s adult cells into an embryonic cell, and then converting that cell into new adult cells to replace any damaged tissue.’

"This description omits the crucial point: In somatic cell nuclear transfer, the nucleus of the adult cell is fused with the egg to create a new human embryo through asexual means — the act of human cloning. The embryo is developed for about a week and then destroyed to obtain its stem cells. This is not merely reverting an adult cell to a stem cell. It is creating a new human organism, a human life, for the purpose of destroying and harvesting it.

"The point of the inaccurate reporting is to conveniently skip past the part that causes people to be wary of the therapeutic cloning enterprise. This is bad journalism and an example of bias-by-omission for which the New York Times is becoming infamous."

GET THE POST.

This must be why God created bloggers.

Christmas Peace Veteran Dies

Cenotaph

In Europe in 1914, when Christmas was still considered to be a holy day and an occasion for peace rather than an excuse to party, the combatants of World War I observed a truce in honor of the holiday. The last surviving Allied veteran to witness the 1914 Christmas Peace has died at the age of 109.

"Alfred Anderson was the oldest man in Scotland and the last known surviving Scottish veteran of the war.

"’I remember the silence, the eerie sound of silence,’ he was quoted as saying in the Observer newspaper last year, describing the day-long Christmas Truce of 1914, which began spontaneously when German soldiers sang carols in the trenches, and British soldiers responded in English.

"’All I’d heard for two months in the trenches was the hissing, cracking and whining of bullets in flight, machinegun fire and distant German voices. But there was a dead silence that morning across the land as far as you could see.’

"’We shouted "Merry Christmas" even though nobody felt merry. The silence ended early in the afternoon and the killing started again.’"

GET THE STORY.

May Mr. Anderson and all of the witnesses of that Christmas Peace finally be reunited this holiday season to witness the everlasting peace of heaven.

The Grace Box

Writer Andrew Santella, in a column slyly titled "The Sin Box," wants to know where all the sinners have gone. Why aren’t they lining up outside the confessional the way they did years ago, especially in a tell-all day-and-age when some people tell their sins to anyone who will listen.

"A generation ago, you’d see a lot of us lined up inside Catholic churches on Saturday afternoons, waiting to take our turn in one of the confessionals. We’d recite the familiar phrases (‘Bless me Father, for I have sinned’), list our transgressions and the number of times we’d committed them, maybe endure a priestly lecture, and emerge to recite a few Hail Marys as an act of penance. … Yet in most parishes, the lines for the confessionals have pretty much disappeared. Confession — or the sacrament of reconciliation, as it’s officially known — has become the one sacrament casual Catholics feel free to skip. We’ll get married in church, we’ll be buried from church, and we’ll take Communion at Mass. But regularly confessing one’s sins to God and the parish priest seems to be a part of fewer and fewer Catholic lives. Where have all the sinners gone?

[…]

"[I]t’s strange that so many lay Catholics should have abandoned the confessional even while secular culture is increasingly awash in confession, apology, and acts of contrition of every sort. Parents own up to pedophilia on Jerry Springer. Authors reveal their fetishes and infidelities in self-lacerating memoirs. On Web sites like Daily Confession and Not Proud, the anonymous poster can unburden his conscience electronically. The confessions on these sites are displayed in categories borrowed from Sunday school lessons: the Ten Commandments or the seven deadly sins. At least one posting I read was framed in the language of the Catholic confessional. ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,’ it began before going on to catalog a series of mostly mundane misdeeds. (Others are simply odd: ‘I eat ants but only the little red ones. They’re sweet as hell and I just can’t get enough.’)"

GET THE STORY.

(Nod to the reader who sent the link.)

The article is filled with confusions (e.g., "Dying with unconfessed mortal sin on your soul meant eternal torment"; uhm, no, that’s an unrepented mortal sin) and "witty" asides (e.g., "I know one [Catholic woman] who says she’ll go back to confession when she can confide in a female priest"), but the question asked is a serious one: Where have all the sinners gone?

They’re still around, of course, but as G. K. Chesterton once pointed out, they’ve traded the confessional for the psychoanalyst’s couch — or the talk show diva’s couch — and now have a form of "confession" far less satisfying and infinitely less healing. That’s because "the sin box" does not have as its purpose to wallow in sin but to dispense grace.

Vatican Express

Vaticancc_1 A few weeks ago I actually found myself contemplating getting a Starbucks credit card since I often find myself heading in there for a hot chocolate and a gossip-fest with my sister and a mutual friend. Then I came to my senses and decided not to drink materialism’s Kool-Aid by getting plastic to buy a cup of cocoa.  In any event, the Curt Jester has devised a credit card offer that I’d like to find in my mailbox: The Vatican credit card, the slogan of which is, naturally enough, "Don’t leave Rome without it!"

"Sure you receive offers everyday in the mail and you promptly throw them away, but this offer is truly different. Tired of false promises and fine print that discloses how you are going to be raked over the coals if you actually charge anything? Tired of big banks that will only get bigger by charging you a fortune in interest and late fees. If you are tired and disillusioned by business cons then you will actually love this new credit card that actually delivers on its promises.

[…]

"But wait there is more! Each member gets automatically enrolled in our debt warning system. If your charges become disordered in relationship to your salary automatic stewardship warnings are mailed to your house or sent via email. Our group of dedicated contemplative money managers will also immediately start asking St. John of the Cross to intercede for you in the area of detachment from material things.

"From the Church that brought you Western civilization finally there is a name you can trust on the card you carry around with you in your wallet."

GET THE POST.

Sign me up as quickly as possible so I can be sure to use it next time at Starbucks!

“Mary Is My Homegirl”

Marytshirt

In what might be dubbed a sequel to my post Growing Protestant Devotion To Mary, here is a report on teenage girls who are becoming, er, chummy, with the Blessed Virgin Mary.

"They’re wearing ‘Mary Is My Homegirl’ T-shirts and bracelets, and not all of them are Roman Catholic.

[…]

"’Mary Is My Homegirl’ T-shirts made by Teenage Millionaire, a California-based clothing company, have become one of the company’s biggest sellers nationwide and recently got a mention on The Gilmore Girls, a humorous TV drama about a mother-daughter relationship.

"The shirt sports a figure of the Virgin Mary, some made in gold or silver lame on a black background.

"’In the past, there have been reservations about what some people see as "Mary-olatry [sic, Mariolatry]," or seeming to worship Mary,’ said the Rev. James Lyon, pastor of Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in downtown Columbia.

"’The new position is that there’s nothing wrong with appropriate devotion. The key is to keep in mind that Mary can be seen as someone who points the way toward her son, Jesus Christ.’"

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Although the Rev. Lyon’s comments are great and sound downright Catholic (he even calls Mary "an intercessor for the people of God"), a quick peek at the t-shirts the article discusses leaves me thinking that this is less a case of teenage devotion to Mary than a case of fad-following. But if the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, then perhaps this fad might ultimately lead to a religious interest in Mary, which in turn might lead in the direction that the Rev. Lyon noted that all true Marian devotion ultimately leads.

Go Tofurky!

Tofurky

What’s a vegan to do when the whole country eats Thanksgiving turkey and all he believes he can gnaw on is a lump of tofu? The creative vegan might respond that when life gives you tofu, make tofurky!

A company specializing in making food for vegans, ironically called Turtle Island Foods because it makes one wonder about just what is ground into the tofu, has created tofu turkeys for vegans who long for a meatless turkey around holiday time:

"Turtle Island Foods has been providing premium quality soy products at affordable prices since 1980.

"From our home on the banks of the Columbia River we manufacture Tofurky, Tempeh and other innovative soy products.

"Our goal is to produce alternatives to meat products of uncompromising taste and texture that are made from traditional soy foods like Tofu and Tempeh, not solvent extracted soy powders, isolates and concentrates. We are certified organic processors (by Oregon Tilth) and certified vegan (by the Vegan Society)."

Oh, and if your sense of gratitude at having spared the life of a turkey by slaughtering a tofurky spilleth over this holiday season, you can enter an essay contest devoted to honoring the best story about "featuring Tofurky in a peacemaking situation." No, first prize isn’t a turkey (or a tofurky), but an iPod.

SEE CONTEST FLYER. (Warning: Evil .pdf format.)

JIMMY ADDS: Although I personally have no problem with offing turkeys for Thanksgiving or any other occasion, I had to chime in on this one because I’ve actually eaten the Italian sausage tofurky franks pictured above, and (despite the fact it tastes nothing like turkey or Italian sausage) I actually kind of like it in a weird sort of way. (Though de gustibus non disputandum est.) They’re also low-carb.

The Heathen And The Christian Film

Professor and screenwriter Thom Parham has written a great analysis of why heathens make the best Christian films and why Christians themselves often fall down on that job.

"Secular filmmakers tend to observe life more objectively than Christians. They see the world the way it really is, warts and all. Christian filmmakers, on the other hand, tend to see the world the way they want it to be. Ignoring life’s complexities, they paint a simplistic, unrealistic portrait of the world."

I wouldn’t quite say that Christians do not see the warts or ignore the complexities.  Many Christians are also quite objective in their analysis of the world.  Rather, I’d say that many Christians in various artistic disciplines sometimes fear showing the warts or delving too deeply into the complexities, perhaps out of a misplaced scrupulosity that doing so is somehow "un-Christian."

"’If you want to send a message, try Western Union,’ said Frank Capra, a Christian who made hugely popular mainstream films."

This I do think is a huge problem for Christian artists. I can’t tell you how many defenses of The Message I’ve seen by Christian artists, whatever their medium. They tend to think of their art as a ministry and nurture romantic dreams of converting the world through a well-crafted apologetic. While I wouldn’t say that art and apologetics are mutually exclusive, I would say that the artist must be an artist first. The reason The Passion of the Christ worked so well as art and evangelization was because Mel Gibson is a Christian artist who has spent thirty years in the industry working as an artist on secular films. He knows how to make a great film and knows how to incorporate theme without sacrificing art. Until you’re as successful as an artist as is Mel Gibson, don’t try to do what he did.

"The idea that Christians will go see films targeted at them has not been borne out by the marketplace. Christians, it turns out, see the same films as everyone else."

And are as discerning about what constitutes a great movie as secular theater-goers. Christian artists must learn that they are not going to win a Christian audience by pandering to them. And Christian artists also are not going to win a secular audience by preaching to them.

GET THE STORY.

(Nod to Relapsed Catholic for the link.)

BTW, the book from which this essay was taken, Behind the Screen: Hollywood Insiders on Faith, Film, And Culture, edited by Spencer Lewerenz and St. Blog parishioner Barbara Nicolosi, sounds great.

GET THE BOOK.