Category: Web/Tech

No, not Jimmy Akin (this time). The other JA–John Allen. He explains:

My next book is titled "The Upside Down Church," a sort of sneak preview of Catholic history in the 21st century. I outline a series of mega-trends which I believe are turning the church on its head, especially with respect to the dominant paradigms in the 40-plus years since the close of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). In order for that analysis to hold water, however, I have to identify these mega-trends correctly.

By "mega-trend," I mean a deep impulse shaping Catholic thought and life at the universal level, a sort of "tectonic plate" whose shifts lie beneath the fault lines and upheavals of the present. I have in mind not single issues, but currents of history which cause some issues to rise in importance and others to fall. A mega-trend, by the way, does not have to be specifically Catholic, but rather something that affects Catholicism in a significant way. For example, the rise of Islam, especially its more radical forms, certainly belongs on the list.

My request is this: Read this list, and ponder it. Are there major forces I’ve neglected? Are there items here that don’t belong? Does this list correspond with your own sense of what’s happening in the church?

The items on his list (in summary form and no particular order) are:

The North/South Shift
The Quest for Catholic Identity
The Rise of Islam
The Movements
The Biotech Revolution
The Wireless World
The Wojtyla Revolution
Globalization
Polarization and Its Discontents
The Sexual Abuse Crisis

READ THE ARTICLE FOR MORE INFO ON EACH.

Of the trends that JA lists, the ones that leap out at me as having the largest impact on the next century are the North/South shift, the rise of Islam, the biotech revolution, and the wireless world. I’ve already commented on  the blog on the impact that each of these will have, though without using JA’s labels for them. Globalization will be a big one, too.

What he calls the Wojtyla revolution–basically pointing the Church away from post-Vatican II navel gazing and tinkering and instead engaging the culture–may have a large impact on 21st century Catholicism, but this depends on the course charted by future popes in a way that the other trends do not. It was the actions of recent popes that were in significant measure responsible for the situation that developed prior to "the Wojtyla revolution" (e.g., Paul VI’s ineffectual response to the Humanae Vitae dissenters) and an unsteady hand from future popes could undo the gains of the revolution.

I’m less sure about the polarization and the sexual abuse crisis and whether they will play century-spanning roles in shaping the Church. Some amount of polarization in the Church has always been with us (read 1 Corinthians) and always will be with us. The kind of extreme, ideological polarization that we’ve seen in the last number of years, however, strikes me as something that has already begun to abate–due to the Wojtyla revolution and due to the fact that one of the major poles–liberal Catholicism–is inherently unstable.

The ideological equivalent of the Roe Effect is at work here. Religious liberalism of the kind that we’ve dealt with of late is and has in every context in Christendom proved itself to be an unviable in the long-term. It doesn’t reproduce itself, which is why religious orders that have been infected with it are dying, while those that have resisted it are surviving or growing. One can’t have a strongly polarized environment–at least one gravitating around two poles–if one pole evaporates to the point that it is no longer a serious ideological competitor to the other.

There will still be polarization, but we’ve already likely seen the high water mark of liberal dissent in the Church–as long as future popes keep a steady hand on matters.

As far as sexual scandal goes, I think that there is significant potential for future damage, but I suspect that it will change form somewhat. We may have (in the English-speaking world) seen the high water mark of the scandal of priests having sexual relations with minors. How widespread that problem has been outside the English-speaking world, I don’t know. What I suspect is that, while there may be periodic flare-ups of scandal involving minors, that the really big scandal is one that the media has yet to frame in such a way that it reaches critical mass. That scandal will be sexual relations between priests and other consenting adults. In particular, I would anticipate three kinds of scandals that, while there are precedents, have not yet exploded the way the sexual abuse crisis did:

1) Heterosexual priests living in concubinage and fathering children, particularly in the developing world.

2) Lay ex-lovers (both hetero- and homosexual), particularly in the developed world, who finger clerical paramours (some of whom may have pressured them into having abortions)

3) Rings of homosexual clerics who have colluded to further each others’ interests (as well as having sex with each other) and who have committed a variety of crimes–up to and including murder–to protect those in the ring from exposure.

None of this, incidentally, will be unique to the Catholic Church. This stuff is part of the fallen human condition, and the exact same things happen in non-Catholic churches and non-Christian religions and in secular society. But becaue of the Church’s commitment to celibacy, the taste of the press for scandal (which is stronger even than its desire to promote non-traditional sexual mores), and its anti-Catholic animus, I expect to see particular attention focused on each of these three areas in the next century.

Needless to say, the quicker the Church cleans up the problems mentioned above and the sources feeding them, such as ordination of homosexuals to the priesthood, the more the effects can be blunted.

Let’s keep the century ahead in prayer.

A BIG CHT to the reader who recommended

THIS SITE.

Which was suggested to him by a gracious Christian lady.

It’s a free, Internet jukebox that you can use while you are reading blogs–or otherwise surfing the Internet.

It advertises itself as "The best of the top 100 from the golden years of popular music," and the main section is divided into years from 1952 to 1982. When you click on a year, it generates a pop-up window with a playlist of famous songs from that year that you can listen to in the background as you surf other sites.

In addition, it has links to specialized collections, such as the "Swing Era" (before 1952), the featured artist of the week (e.g., Nat King Cole), Movie Themes, TV Themes, Christmas music, Pop Gospel, and others.

The playlists aren’t (so far as I can tell) randomly generated, making it easy to pick up where you left off last time if you weren’t finished with one. Just scroll down to the same song you left off on.

Enjoy.

GET THE TUNES!

P.S. I really love the fact that the 1955 playlist has the Ames Brothers’ "The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane" (it’s #13 on the list; scroll down and click on it). This is a song I’m used to round dancing to that presents itself as if it’s naughty, but which reveals itself in the last two verses  (and really the last line of the song) to be entirely innocent. Great fake-out. Good things come to those who wait.

Wasn’t able to blog last night.

Feel free to do your own guest blogging in the combox, though!

Zenit reports:

The daily Mass readings are now downloadable from the Web site of the U.S. bishops’ Catholic Communication Campaign.

The program was prepared in association with the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine using audio recordings of the readings from the New American Bible.

Information on downloading the audio can be found on the "Daily Readings" section of the bishops’ Web site at www.usccb.org/nab.

"The Internet is now a part of our lives and a medium which can help provide for spiritual enrichment," said Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Communications. He said the new service "responds to the many requests for ‘podcasts’ of the readings."

The committee approved a $30,000 grant for the podcast project last June.

Patricia Ryan Garcia, project coordinator, noted: "Several readers, including bishops, clergy, and laity from different ethnic backgrounds, have lent their voices to the project so listeners will hear at least three different voices on any given day."

The audio recordings are accessible free of charge through several popular Internet audio content aggregators including Apple’s iTunes, Feedburner and Podcast Alley.

The Catholic Communication Campaign develops media programming, public service announcements, and other resources to promote Gospel values.

GET THE PODCAST.

2 Tired. 2 Blog. 2 Nite.

Sorry.

Back in the early days of the blog, I tried keeping a page of recommended resources for folks, and I meant to add to it whenever I recommended a new one. That way if someone had a question, for example, about what Bible translation or Greek study tool I recommend, they could look on the recommendations page and find out.

This proved to be impractical. Blogging software is not set up to make maintaining this kind of page easy, and it proved too difficult and cumbersome to fish the page out of the archives and add to it (and remember to do this), and so the page fell into desuetude.

Things change fast on the Internet, though, and Amazon.com has now come up with a tool that allows me to do this kind of thing much more easily. They call the tool an "aStore," and they introduced it in a beta version a few months ago, asking people to test it out and give them feedback. I tested it out, and knew immediately that it wasn’t anywhere near flexible enough to be very useful, but they’ve now added new functionality that allows me to use it for the kind of standing recommendations page that I’d wanted early on.

In other words, I don’t have to fight the software any more, trying to press it into a purpose it’s not designed for. With the aStore, I can quickly and easily add products that I recommend or that I think readers may be interested in.

So this weekend I reorganized and expanded the store to include a variety of categories and products. Over time, I’ll add more, as well as adding reviews for products I feel particularly strongly about.

There is one category in particular, I’d like to call attention to. This category is called In The Mail, and I’m using it for products that publishers have sent me review copies of. To try to get the word out about their books, DVDs, CDs, or what have you, publishers generally send out review copies to media outlets–magazines, newspapers, TV and radio shows, and now blogs.

So every so often I get an unexpected book or DVD in the mail with a note from the publisher saying, "We thought that your readers might be interested in this, and we hope that you’ll enjoy this review copy and perhaps let your readers know about it."

And most of the time (not all of the time), the publishers are right and it is something I think readers would be interested in. I might not be interested in it myself, but I can see how others would be. A good example would be The Catholic Home by Meredith Gould. This is a book about Catholic traditions and activities for things that your family can do at different times in the liturgical year and when a family member is preparing to receive a particular sacrament. Since I don’t have a family at the moment, this kind of book isn’t of much use to me, but since most folks are more fortunate than I am family-wise, I can see how it would be of interest to a lot of readers.

And so, as long as I think that the product would be interesting to people and as long as a quick look at it suggests that it is "Mostly Harmless," I’m happy to go ahead and let folks know about it. So that’s what I’m putting in the "In The Mail" category on the store.

As I add new items to this category, I’ll also put a notice on the blog so that people will know that they are there and, in some cases, I’ll add a brief (or not so brief) review of the product. If you look at the category at the moment, you’ll see that I have several products there that I haven’t yet put up notices for or reviewed. I plan to do that, but I’ll have to do it over time because I am always concerned about maintaining the right mix of topics on the blog so that it stays interesting to people. I don’t want it to be a blog about reviews of Catholic books and videos, though letting people know about Catholic (or other) resources that they may be interested in is something that I’m not opposed to.

I thought I’d explain all this so that folks would understand how this works and what purposes I’m intending to use the aStore for.

In the interest of full disclosure, I do get a (tiny) cut of the proceeds on the products sold through the aStore, which I figure will help defray the costs of maintaining the blog, which I pay for out of my own pocket. The amount of money I get from the store is not great, though I was shocked when I checked my quarter-to-date earnings report and found out that the blog may have actually paid for itself this quarter.

I know some blogs try to maintain themselves by using advertisements, and that’s fine, though I’ve always resisted that–even when people have asked if they could advertise on JA.O. I don’t like it when a blog is cluttered up with advertising–usually for products or services that the blogmasters have little or no control over. JA.O is not a commercial venture for me, and if I were in it for the money I could make a lot more by devoting my blog writing time to paying projects. The blog is something I do for fun, and it’s great if it pays for itself (at least the costs I pay TypePad), but I’d rather have that happen through recommending products I think readers will actually enjoy and benefit from rather than ads from an Internet ad service.

Hope that explains matters and, if you’d like to browse some books, DVDs, or CDs that you might find of interest,

CHECK OUT THE STORE.

As if we didn’t have enough already.

My sincere apologies to everyone who experienced problems with the blog yesterday.

Something happened yesterday that caused the blog not to display with all the posts it should have on the top page for those using Internet Explorer. I was initially unaware of this–and then unable to confirm it when people pointed it out–because I don’t use Internet Explorer (normally).

With the assistance of the good folks at TypePad, I was able to track down the source of the problem and correct it.

It turnsout that there was hidden code buried in the text of the e-mail from Fr. Frank Pavone that caused Internet Explorer not to display the posts below the one in which this coding appeared.

 

Fr. Frank may want to check with the people coding his e-mail blasts to see if they can avoid this problem and allow other people to help him get out his message.

For the rest of us, this is another illustration of Internet Explorer’s inherent problems.

So once again my sincere apologies to all, and my recommendation that you get Firefox (or Opera, or ANYTHING besides Internet Explorer), Firefox being a FAR, FAR superior browser that has immeasurably enhanced the online experience of myself and countless others.

GET FIREFOX.

CHT to the reader who e-mailed THIS STORY.

It’s a piece written by Mollie Ziegler Hemmingway, who is a reporter in Washington, DC and a blogger at GetReligion.Org, which deals with the fact that–as their slugline says–"The press . . . just doesn’t get religion."

That’s certainly true, and I wish them the best in their efforts to comment on and correct news stories that don’t handle the subject of religion accurately, but the post linked above itself needs some correction.

In the post, Mollie discusses a story about a Wisconsin Synod Lutheran candidate for public office from Minnesota who lefty bloggers have gone after on the basis of her religion. It’s a divide and conquer strategy: The bloggers point out that the confessional documents of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) refer to the pope as the antichrist and then they try to drive Catholic voters (and other voters who like the pope) away from the candidate by painting her as an extremeist.

When asked by a radio interviewer whether her church teaches that the pope is the antichrist, the candidate denied it and said that some of her family members are Catholic.

I have a lot of sympathy for the candidate. In fact, the WELS’ confessional documents do indeed describe the pope as the antichrist, but this is something that a lot of WELS members don’t know, it doesn’t reflect their own views, it doesn’t stop them from having good relations with Catholics, and it is unfair to try to paint the candidate as an extremist in this way.

So sympathy there.

In her post, Mollie covers a story from the infamous Minneapolis Star-Tribune that covers the controversy and compliments the reporter for going beyond simply what the candidate said and checking with other sources rather than relying on the candidate’s statement. Unfortunately, the reporter only quotes from a minister at a WELS church who–at least as quoted–admits that Luther viewed the papacy as the antichrist but seemed to spin what the WELS confessional documents actually say, downplaying this view somewhat.

It is praiseworthy that the reporter asked other sources, but this guy wasn’t necessarily the best one. Simply Googling "WELS lutheran antichrist" turns up a WELS doctrinal statement on the official WELS web site that is titled Statement on the Antichrist. After reviewing the history of the Lutheran doctrine regarding the antichrist, the statement concludes:

Therefore on the basis of a renewed study of the pertinent Scriptures we reaffirm the statement of the Lutheran Confessions, that “the Pope is the very Antichrist” (cf. Section II), especially since he anathematizes the doctrine of the justification by faith alone and sets himself up as the infallible head of the Church.

We thereby affirm that we identify this “Antichrist” with the Papacy as it is known to us today, which shall, as 2 Thessalonians 2:8 states, continue to the end of time, whatever form or guise it may take. This neither means nor implies a blanket condemnation of all members of the Roman Catholic Church, for despite all the errors taught in that church the Word of God is still heard there, and that Word is an effectual Word. Isa 55:10, 11; cf. Apology XXIV, 98, cited above under II.

We make this confession in the confidence of faith. The Antichrist cannot deceive us if we remain under the revelation given us in the Apostolic word (2 Th 2:13-17), for in God’s gracious governance of history the Antichrist can deceive only those who “refused to love the truth” (2 Th 2:10-12).

And we make this confession in the confidence of hope. The Antichrist shall not destroy us but shall himself be destroyed—“Whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming” (2 Th 2:8).

We reject the idea that the fulfillment of this prophecy is to be sought in the workings of any merely secular political power (2 Th 2:4; cf. Treatise on the Power and the Primacy of the Pope 39).

We reject the idea that the teaching that the Papacy is the Antichrist rests on a merely human interpretation of history or is an open question. We hold rather that this teaching rests on the revelation of God in Scripture which finds its fulfillment in history. The Holy Spirit reveals this fulfillment to the eyes of faith (cf. The Abiding Word, Vol. 2, p. 764). Since Scripture teaches that the Antichrist would be revealed and gives the marks by which the Antichrist is to be recognized (2 Th 2:6,8), and since this prophecy has been clearly fulfilled in the history and development of the Roman Papacy, it is Scripture which reveals that the Papacy is the Antichrist.

What the Strib reporter should have done was check the WELS official doctrinal statements and then ask a representative of the church (preferably at its home office) for comment.

Unfortunately, what Mollie does in her commentary on the story is even worse than what the reporter from the Strib does. Essentially, she tries a tu quoque (Latin, meaning roughly "You’re another" or "You’re no better") strategy that seeks to make Catholics look like extremists–at least to the extent they adhere to their own confessional documents.

Here’s what she says:

But if reporter Pamela Miller is going to turn this political season
into a referendum on religious doctrines, I wonder how far she’ll take
it. Is she covering any Roman Catholic candidates? What do Roman
Catholics believe about Lutherans? It just so happens that we covered
this in my church this week when my pastor read declarations of the Council of Trent (the Roman Catholic response to the Reformation), it being Reformation Day and all. Here are a few of that council’s statements:

Canon 9: If anyone says that the sinner is justified by
faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in
order to obtain the grace of justification . . . let him be anathema.

Canon 32: If anyone says that the good works of the one justified
are in such manner the gifts of God that they are not also the good
merits of him justified; or that the one justified by the good works
that he performs . . . does not truly merit . . . eternal life . . .
let him be anathema.

In other words, if anyone is Lutheran, let him be cursed and damned to hell. The church councils haven’t exactly backtracked on those views.

I can compliment Mollie for not sticking with simply what the Strib reporter did and checking sources, but the thing about tu quoque approaches is that they (a) often distract rather than enlighten and (b) you’d jolly well better be right in what you say.

It’s generally not a good idea to take things that you only just heard about from your pastor when he was criticizing other people and rush into print with them. At a minimum, and as a reporter should know, you need to check with the people in question to find out if what your pastor said accurately represents their position.

What Mollie says about Catholics is flat wrong.

The Church does not say that "if anyone is a Lutheran, let him be cursed and damned to hell." That is not the meaning of the term "anathema" as used by Trent, the mighty Dictionary.Com notwithstanding.

In fact, Mollie hasn’t even read the Dictionary.Com references with sufficient thoroughness, because some of them actually get the definition of anathema in ecclesiastical documents almost right, viz:

3.a formal ecclesiastical curse involving excommunication.
1. A formal ecclesiastical ban, curse, or excommunication.
2: a formal ecclesiastical curse accompanied by excommunication

In fact, anathema was a kind of canonical penalty involving excommunication that used to be found in Church law that could be imposed for various offenses, including certain doctrinal ones. It did not take place automatically but had to be imposed by an ecclesiastical court and, since Church tribunals have better things to do than millions of trials for purposes of excommunicating every Lutheran in the world, it was never applied to more than a handful of individuals. It tended to be applied–and then rarely–only to people who made a pretense of staying within the Catholic community.

Excommunication also does not damn people to hell–it’s an equivalent of disfellowshipping (cf. Matt. 18:17, 1 Cor. 5:1-2) meant to prompt the sinner to repentance (2 Cor. 2:5-8).

Further, anathema no longer exists in Church law. It ceased to exist with the release of the 1983 Code of Canon Law.

How Mollie could feel so confident as to make the sweeping statement "The church councils haven’t exactly backtracked on those views [i.e., that Lutherans are or are to be damned to hell]" is simply mind boggling.

Hello? Vatican II anybody? The Church has never taught that all Lutherans are going to hell, but even apart from that the positive tone taken by Vatican II toward other Christians should give Mollie pause.

Or perhaps she means that the Church has not backtracked on the canons of Trent, which she has misinterpreted as condeming all Lutherans to hell. It’s true that the Church hasn’t backtracked on the doctrinal content of the canons (properly understood), but it has clarified their understanding in a way that definitely casts matters in a very different light than the one Mollie presents us.

Mollie herself is a member of the Missouri Synod Lutheran church, and that body is not a signatory of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification that I just linked, but it is simple misrepresentation to present the Catholic Church as holding remotely what Mollie presents it as holding regarding Lutherans

In other words, Mollie is flat wrong, and as a reporter–particularly one with an interest in correcting bad press coverage of religion–she should have known better than to try a tu quoque strategy against Catholics based on what her pastor said and what she chose to get out of definitions found on Dictionary.Com and then make sweeping statements that act like the last four hundred years of conciliar and canonical history didn’t happen.

Most bloggers, when caught in an error of this magnitude, are quick to make a correction, and I hope that Mollie will make one and do so–in keeping with the best journalistic practice–giving the correction equal prominence  with the original mistake (i.e., a new blog post) so that her readers will not continue to be misled.

I’m writing this on Saturday, so by the time this post goes up Monday she may have already done so. I know it’s been pointed out in the combox of her post that she is wrong about these matters, though I can’t fault her if she doesn’t keep up with everything said in her combox.

If she has not done so, I hope that she will display the journalistic and blogger integrity that I am confident she has and issue a correction post promptly.

I’d also invite her–if she has questions in the future about what Catholics do and don’t believe–to contact me and I’ll point her toward the right sources.

MORE ON ANATHEMAS HERE.

CHT to American Papist for providing a link to where folks can hear my recent appearance on the Hugh Hewitt show.

HERE’S THE LINK.

The segment with me starts a little bit after the 10 minute mark. You can just drag the indicator to the 10 minute mark if you want to get there in a hurry.

Also, thanks to American Papist for identifing the "party cardinal" in his wicked awesome logo (i.e., the one doing the cool, hip finger move). According to AmP:

I thought everyone would like to know that the grooving prelate is Franciszek Cardinal Macharski,
Archbishop-emeritus of Krakow, Poland. The Cardinal, apparently, has a
tendency of hamming it up for the cameras and that day he was in fine
form.

Hmmm. . . . Hugh described me as "Catholic blogger extraordinaire." I should add that to an endorsements element in the margin or something.

Last Thursday through Saturday I was at GodBlogCon 2006, hosted at Biola University in La Mirada, California (that’s in the L.A. area). I found the confab very stimulating, and I met a bunch of really enthusiastic, passionate folks concerned about using blogs to promote Christian faith and values.

Speakers and attendees came from Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic backgrounds. I was the only Catholic among the speakers, though I was not the only Catholic blogger in attendance. I’ll be telling you about some of them in coming weeks. After attending the event, I decided to do a series featuring individual bloggers I met and talk about their blogs. They’re an interesting bunch of folks.

One thing I thought I’d mention now was something that some folks queried about last week, which was whether I’d encounter anti-Catholicism at the event.

The short answer is: I didn’t. Not any.

No attempt was made to marginalize me. In fact, I was a little startled at how much my opinion was asked for, particularly in a break-out session where I planned simply to listen and not say much if anything. Not only was I treated very respectfully by everyone there, but the convention organizers went out of their way to make the point that they are interested in having greater Catholic involvement in the future.

What was most gratifying, though, was the way some of the speakers expressed themselves on Catholic matters. In talking to the audience, which was largely Evangelical, there were matter-of-fact references to "John Paul the Great" and "Benedict" and they way the two are able to articulate the "culture of life," with the unstated but clear assumption that these men are important leaders to which the audience should pay attention and appreciate. It was another illustration for me of how the pope today serves as a moral leader even for Christians who are not part of the Catholic Church.

It was an energizing event for me as a blogger, and the convention got some wheels turning in my mind about some topics I should blog on in the future.

I don’t want to make this post over-long, though, so I’ll close by sharing with you a photograph I took of a mural that is painted on one of the buildings on campus. Photography never seems to capture just how impressive something like this is when you turn a corner and see it for the first time, the original is quite striking.

It also contains elements of symbolism. I am informed, for example, that the shadows are meant to evoke the Trinity, and the pages of the Bible are the same color as Jesus’ skin tone, reflecting the duality of the Incarnate and written Word of God.