SDG – Page 27 – Jimmy Akin

Friends, Americans, Bloggers…

Maybe it’s my current interest in all things Shakespearean — having just read The Winter’s Tale and now about to take on The Merchant of Venice — but this piece of political satire linking the Miers nomination to Julius Caesar had me screaming with laughter:

"Friends, Americans, bloggers, lend me your ears
I come to bury Miers, not to confirm her.
The evil that Justices do lives after them;
The good is oft preserved by rejecting their nominations;
So let it be with Miers.

"The noble Bush hath told you Harriet is conservative;
If it be so, ’tis a glorious qualification,
And gloriously may Miers answer it in her hearings.
Here, under leave of Bush and the rest,–
For Bush is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men,–
Come I to speak before Miers’ hearings."

GET THE POST.

Mythic Art

"Myth must be kept alive. The people who can keep it alive are the artists of one kind or another. The function of the artist is the mythologization of the environment and the world." –Joseph Campbell

The day after I saw a fabulous performance of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale — although, to be honest, just about any performance would have been "fabulous" to me since I had never seen Shakespeare performed onstage before — was the feast day of St. Wenceslaus, King of Bohemia. If you know the play, then you know that the King of Bohemia is an important character in that play. If you know Shakespeare, then you know that nothing in Shakespeare is coincidental, so I wondered if the play had any connection to the old English Christmas carol Good King Wenceslaus.

Thanks to Google, I found this extremely interesting article on the influence of the English holiday cycle on Shakespeare’s plays. But I’ve also learned that if you surf the host site when Google points you to extremely interesting articles, you can oftentimes find extremely interesting sites. This is not always true. I still remember my consternation when I found that the only online host I could find for the introduction to Dr. Ludwig Ott’s classic Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma was a rabidly radical traditionalist site that seriously proposed that John Paul the Great was a murderer. (The site is so repugnant that you’ll have to Google for it yourself if you’re really that interested in reading its ramblings. If you want to find the Introduction to Ott’s book, just Google "Introduction Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma Ludwig Ott" for that link alone.)

In any case, the host for the Shakespeare article was much more interesting. It is called The Endicott Studio and is a kind of online gallery for mythic art. The art it hosts is from various disciplines: fiction, poetry, articles, and artwork. It’s a secular site and the secularism shows, but it is interesting. It’s worth a visit.

THE ENDICOTT STUDIO

AAP: “Prevent Crib Death By Putting Babies In Cribs!”

Okay, BIG RED DISCLAIMER: I’m not a parent (yet) or a medical expert on this type of thing, or a medical expert on any type of thing, and you should not be getting infant-care advice from a stranger on the Internet. That said, I couldn’t help but note this recent release from the American Academy of Pediatrics:

"Infants should be put to sleep on their backs only, not their sides, and pacifiers can be used to help prevent sudden infant death syndrome [SIDS], U.S. pediatricians said on Monday.

"Revised guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics [AAP] issued on Monday also discourage parents from sleeping with their infants at all, saying babies are safer in their own cribs.

"SIDS, the sudden, unexplained death of an infant in the first year of life, is the third leading cause of infant mortality in the United States, causing the deaths of 2,500 infants each year.

"Campaigns to encourage parents and other caregivers to put babies to sleep on their backs instead of their tummies slashed the death rates from SIDS, also known as crib death or cot death, in countries such as Britain and the United States in the 1980s and 1990s."

GET THE STORY.

Does it strike anyone else as strange that the AAP is advising parents to avoid SIDS, also known as "crib death," by advising parents to put their babies in cribs? I might also note that SIDS is extremely rare outside of Western society. In developing societies, parents routinely sleep with their babies and are bemused that Western parents put their infants in cribs that are often in separate rooms from the parental bed. (One very interesting book that explores these differences in parenting styles between Western society and developing societies is Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent by Meredith F. Small.)

Now, whether the "family bed" or some variant of it, such as a sidecar crib attachment, is the right solution for families is something that each family will have to study and decide for itself, and families should definitely consider what medical science has to say when doing so. But it just seems strange to me that the AAP thinks the solution to the tragedy of crib death is to encourage parents to use cribs.

Do You Know What Your Kids Are Up To?

You may think that you have an open and honest relationship with your children. You may think that of course they’d know that they could always tell you anything, no matter how bad. And you may even be right. But, in this day and age, they may be out arranging for an abortion behind your back.

"In 1985, the summer after my freshman year in high school, my 16-year-old sister told me she was pregnant. Andrea, a National Merit Scholar, knew two things: She wanted an abortion and she didn’t want to tell mom and dad.

"’I’ll help you,’ I said, honored that she’d turned to me.

"Andrea wasn’t worried that my parents would throw her out or beat her. She, like many minors who become pregnant, was more concerned about preserving her relationship with her family.

"’I remember feeling like I can’t add this to the official roster of things I’ve done,’ Andrea told me recently. ‘I was too young emotionally to have sex, but physically I wasn’t. Any conversation I would have had with mom and dad would have ended with them telling me not to do it.’ She didn’t want them to know anything about what felt to her like ‘a big mistake.’"

From the point of view of a teenager, it might seem reasonable to help your sister hide an embarrassing "mistake" from your parents, but surely the adults to whom this duo turned would encourage them to tell Mom and Dad anyway, particularly since the pregnant girl knew her parents would not hurt her and even more particularly since there was a parental notification law in place requiring that both parents consent to this young woman’s abortion.

If you were naive enough to think that, you thought wrong.

"Andrea had $60 saved from her job at Burger King. I helped her raise the additional $200 she needed by borrowing it from an acquaintance at school. Although North Dakota had had an abortion clinic since 1980, there was also a law, in place since 1981, stipulating that both parents consent to a minor’s abortion. Andrea went through the process of getting a judicial bypass. The clinic steered her though an interview with an amenable judge, I got her the money just in time and Andrea got her abortion. Although the experience was difficult for her, we were rather proud that we’d gone through it alone."

GET THE STORY.

Two young girls, one sixteen and the other probably fourteen or fifteen, managed to go to court and obtain a "judicial bypass" around their state’s parental consent laws, all without their parents ever being the wiser… at the time. Once Mom and Dad found out, they were rightly "heartsick and frustrated." The author of this essay professes "understanding" for their pain, yet still piously pronounces that parents should only know that their minor daughter is undergoing a major medical procedure — setting aside the fact that the major medical procedure in question also kills their grandchild — if their daughter "willingly" wants to tell them.

Words fail to capture just how mind-bogglingly stupid our society has become. But then, as Mark Shea has so pithily put it, sin makes you stupid.

Gay Blessings From The Church Of Sweden

The Church of England has taken it on the chin for its capitulation to the sexual revolution in all of its perverse forms, but it is not the only national church in the process of shrugging off traditional Christian morality. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sweden is inching closer to offering "blessing ceremonies" to homosexual couples, who profess themselves still dissatisfied at the potential compromise and holding out for "marriage":

"The Church of Sweden has come a step closer to introducing church blessings for gay couples who have signed civil partnership agreements, after a powerful church committee overwhelmingly approved the plans.

"Gay rights group RFSL welcomed the news, but said it would not be satisfied until same-sex couples got the same treatment as their straight counterparts.

"The liturgical committee of the Church Assembly has said that a service of blessing for gay partnerships should be included in the church’s official guidelines.

"The final decision will be taken by the full Church Assembly later this month, but the proposal won a large majority on the committee, with twelve out of fifteen members supporting the blessings."

A gay rights activist worries that it will take another generation before the Church of Sweden allows for gay "marriage":

"Gay rights groups have welcomed the announcement, but Sören Andersson, chairman of Sweden’s largest gay organisation, RFSL, told The Local that he would have liked the church to have gone further.

"’While I think this is a positive step that they are acknowledging relationships is this way, I think it’s sad that they won’t offer the same ceremonies to all couples.’

"’It has taken 30 years for us to come this far; I hope it doesn’t take another 30 years for us to be offered the same ceremonies.’"

GET THE STORY.

Oh, I don’t think he need worry about that. The way things are going, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Church of Sweden cave to the pressure for gay "marriage" within five years.

When Martin Luther and his fellow Reformers stripped northern Europe from the Catholic Church and nationalized the churches in Protestant countries, I wonder if they realized that they would be politicizing religion? History has shown that Caesar is rarely satisfied with his due; without a universal Church led by a supranational pope to keep Caesar in check, the church in a particular country is all too vulnerable to becoming the plaything of Caesar’s lobbyists and activists.

Spaying Men?

Well, it’s not quite to the point of "spaying" men, of course (since men don’t have ovaries to be removed), but apparently medical science is prepared to introduce a whole new line of male contraceptives, including pills, patches, and gels. But there are a couple of creases in Contraceptive Wonderland that have yet to be ironed out. Some men are cool with the idea of having "choice" but don’t like the idea of medicating themselves:

"Forty-year-old Scott Hardin says he’s glad that men may soon have a new choice when it comes to birth control. But, he adds, he would not even consider taking a male hormonal contraceptive. Hardin is like many men who are pleased to hear they may have a new option but are wary of taking any type of hormones.

"’I would rather rely on a solution that doesn’t involving medicating myself and the problems women have had with hormone therapy doesn’t make me anxious to want to sign on to taking a hormone-type therapy,’ says Hardin, who is single and a college administrator."

Other men are thrilled at the idea of "protecting" themselves. The only problem is that they are eager to "protect" themselves from the real or imagined evil designs of the women they mistrust but have no problem sleeping with:

"[Quentin] Brown has been taking hormonal contraceptives for more than a year. He reports no problems with weight gain or acne, two side effects that occurred in earlier versions of MHCs [male hormonal contraceptives] tested in the 1990s.

"Brown, who is married and has three children, hopes his kids will one day be able to benefit from the new technology. His would like his son, who is now 17, to one day have the option of taking a male birth control pill. Brown believes many men will see ‘their pill’ as a good idea and will want to use it.

"’It is time for men to have some control. I think it would empower men and deter some women out there from their nefarious plans,’ says Brown. ‘Some women are out there to use men to get pregnant. This could deter women from doing this. An athlete or a singer is someone who could be a target and they could put a stop to that.’"

GET THE STORY.

So, once again, contraceptive technology breeds disrespect for and abuse of women. Whether it is the sense that it is a woman’s "job" to "fumigate" herself, something a man rightly figures he doesn’t want to do to himself but has no apparent problem with subjecting a woman to, or whether it is a fear that women are conniving gold-diggers whom a man may use for sex but avoid further responsibility to, Pope Paul VI’s warning in Humanae Vitae that contraception can only have dire consequences for the relationships between men and women is once more proven right.

Operation Pagan Excalibur

British police who launched an offensive to crack down on seasonal crime have been pressured into renaming their operation. After protests from a pagan group, the name Operation Pagan was scrapped:

"It had seemed a good idea for Kent police to name the six-week campaign Operation Pagan because it coincided with Hallowe’en. However, the force had not reckoned with the Pagan Federation, which said the name of the operation, to tackle vandalism and violence linked to longer autumn nights, was offensive.

"Brian Botham, a spokesman for the federation, said: ‘They wouldn’t have called it Operation Christian, Operation Jew or Operation Muslim. So why Operation Pagan?’"

Perhaps because the word pagan has traditionally had a wider usage as a synonym for hedonist before it was constricted by the resurgence of people who consider the term a badge of honor. In any event, the police have rolled their eyes, made the change, and could not resist poking a bit of fun at the hyper-sensitive climate of contemporary society:

"A police spokesman said: ‘We’re sorry if the name caused distress.’ The operation has been renamed Excalibur. ‘We’re waiting for some Arthurian society to complain that we’re besmirching Camelot,’ said one officer."

GET THE STORY.

Reinventing The Halloween Light

It’s that time of year again … when autumn leaves begin to crackle, scents of apple and cinnamon fill the kitchen, and howls of Christian indignation over Halloween split the silence. What’s a faithful Christian to do when his kid pleads to take part in the annual Free Candy Fest? Should he let his kid dress up in the Most Popular Costume of the Year and beg treats from the neighbors? Should he make the child dress up as a saint and go to an All Saints’ Eve Party? But what if he’s not a Catholic and doesn’t believe in letting his kid admire saints? Perhaps he should honor the Great Pumpkin by throwing a Celebration Of Autumn Day or honor Martin Luther on Protestant Reformation Day?

Personally, even before I became Catholic, I never saw why there was such confusion over Halloween. It was just a day for little kids to dress up and charm the neighbors into forking over miniature chocolate bars. For older kids and grownups, it was a time to indulge in a little black humor. A relative of mine, when she hit the age in between being too old for kiddie costumes and yet still young enough to enjoy trying to shock adults, dressed up as Jason from the Friday the 13th movies, wore a sign that said "Friday the 13th, Part 12: Jason Raids the Animal Shelter," and carried a stuffed-toy "Pound Puppy" tied to a length of rope. (You’ll be happy to know that she is now a well-adjusted wife, mother, and contributor to society.) After seeing that, I really could not get freaked out by kids dressing up as spooks and hobgoblins.

But now that I am a practicing Catholic, I do realize that not everyone, especially every Christian, is comfortable with allowing such, uh, dark creativity for their own children. (To be clear, in retrospect, I too would be uncomfortable allowing children of mine to pick out costumes of the type my relative chose that year.) Saints’ day parties, fall festivals, and, for Protestants, Reformation Day celebrations are perfectly reasonable alternatives to the traditional Halloween activities. One Christian company in New Zealand is even offering a "Light Party":

"When Halloween comes along, we face a tradition that encourages poor behaviour, ‘rewards on demand’ by trick or treating and celebrates evil by wearing scary masks or costumes.

"Many parents are not happy about this negative influence and are looking for a positive alternative …

"Are you looking for a celebration to bring your community together? Now you too can help to bring your church and community together to celebrate all that is good on October 31 with a Light Party™!"

THE LIGHT PARTY SITE.

I just wish that all of these people busily searching for alternatives to Halloween traditions that they feel are no longer appropriate for Christian families would realize that they are reinventing the light bulb. Halloween began as a Christian alternative to the prevailing pagan autumn holidays. Halloween originally was a Christian light struck in the darkness; not the darkness itself. Rather than eradicate Halloween, perhaps the job of Christians ought to be to reclaim it.

IS CATHOLICISM PAGAN?

CAN CATHOLICS CELEBRATE HALLOWEEN?

UPDATE: I goofed in naming the horror series that inspired my relative’s costume. It was Friday the 13th, not Halloween. I’ve fixed the post. Nod and gratitude to the reader who caught my error.

Bd. John Paul I?

It would not surprise me in the slightest if someday the Church canonized all of the popes of the twentieth century. During the first few centuries of Christianity, God blessed the Church with saintly pontiffs to lead us through the Age of Martyrs (the first non-saint pontiff was Liberius in the fourth century), and it seems fitting that he would grant the Church another slew of saintly popes for the Second Age of Martyrs through which we now appear to be passing.

Already, we have St. Pius X and Bd. John XXIII. Causes have been opened for Pius XII, Paul VI, and John Paul the Great. And, as if in a nod that canonization does not depend on what you do but rather on the person you become by grace, there is even an active cause open for Pope John Paul I, the September Pope of 1978, who is now being reported to be on the fast-track to beatification:

"Pope John Paul I, who died in 1978 after a reign of only 34 days, could be the next addition to the growing list of possible papal saints.

"The beatification process for the Italian pontiff has moved swiftly ahead since its 2003 launch, the official in charge of the cause said in an interview marking the 27th anniversary of the pope’s death.

"’We have testimony of an apparent miracle which we are evaluating and which we are thinking of presenting to the Vatican,’ Monsignor Giorgio Lise told a Catholic website."

GET THE STORY.

Interestingly, I have only been able to find discussion of John Paul I’s possible beatification on stridently radical traditionalist sites, where there is the usual teeth-gnashing over "Vatican modernists … obviously trying to canonize the whole New Religion by putting each and every one of their leaders on the road to ‘sainthood’" (source) and bewailing of a supposed desire by the Church to "canonise these popes to prove the holiness and rightness of Vatican II" (source).

Why the news of JPI’s road to beatification has only appeared to come to the attention of those who sneer at the possibility, I don’t know, but I decided to rectify the situation by posting notice of it here.

DUTCH TAX SHELTER: Witchcraft 101

The Netherlands, the country that has legalized everything from prostitution (WARNING: Evil file format! [.pdf]) to euthanasia, is now giving tax breaks to student witches:

"Dutch tax authorities have allowed a woman to deduct the 2,210 euros it cost her to take a one-year course in witchcraft, an inland revenue official said Wednesday.

"The 39-year actress and artist learned how to use crystal balls and prepare herbs, and also spells and other witchcraft skills at the course held in the country’s northwest.

"’The woman used the training in order to start … giving workshops, so she used it to extend her professional knowledge,’ the tax official told Reuters.

"Margarita Roland, who gave the course and whose Web site (http://www.heksehoeve.nl/) [Editor’s note: The site is in Dutch and its URL was published by the source article. –MA] shows her with a broomstick and pointed hat, said she teaches apprentices all they need to know to become a witch, using magic as a force for good.

"’A witch is a wise woman or man who knows about the magic of life in general and the magic of the earth in particular," said Roland, known as the ‘witch of Appelscha’ after her home town."

GET THE STORY.

Does anyone have any idea how the Netherlands became the center of kookiness in Europe?