Aesthetic Escalator

Hey, Tim Jones, here. The following is a post I just put up at my blog, but I thought Jimmy’s readers might find of interest;

St_joseph_rb_lg
I’m going to hurriedly try to respond to some recent art posts over at
The Aesthetic Elevator, even though I can’t give them the time and
thought they deserve, right now.

First, on the art of Guy Kemper
(pictured); Here’s the long and short, for me; this represents
precisely the problem with a lot of contemporary Catholic liturgical
art, and more broadly with non-representational art… the question is
this; where couldn’t this art function just as well as it does
here (the Catholic Memorial at Ground Zero)? It would be as much at
home in the entryway to a shopping mall, or a high school, or in one of
our new, featureless contemporary church buildings. It is art devoid of
communication. It’s called "Rise". It could be called anything.

It does do one thing admirably well; it breaks up the enervating
monotony of rectangles that make up the space. It beats looking out on
the parking lot. Let’s be honest, modern architecture doesn’t make use
of repeated rectangles because the rectangle is a shape the meaning of
which we just never get tired of exploring. Rectangles are cheap and
plentiful, and curves cost money. Look at the granite slab tub at the
left. A baptismal font, or a water feature with coi fish? Generic
acoustic ceiling tiles (how daring!) and floor tiles just like I have
in my bathroom. Look, I know the architect is dealing with a limited
budget, as well as building codes, so a lot of this is simply
fore-ordained and out of his/her control. Our culture just makes dull
buildings, that’s all. In this context, the artwork is a
welcome relief from the assembly-line blankness of the space. It is
aesthetically pleasing (competently composed and harmonious) and gives
the eye something to do for a few seconds. In that sense, it performs a
function. That’s setting the bar awfully low, but there you go. Kemper
doesn’t need me to like his art… he is successful and there are
plenty of people who love this sort of thing. It functions as a
placeholder for the idea of a piece of art, and it offends (could
offend) no one.

This is the kind of art that I hope the Vatican’s Council for
Catholic Culture studiously avoids in it’s search for new talent, which
TAE notes here.

Moving on…

TAE has some thoughts
on the Catholic League’s Bill Donahue having some thoughts about the
art of some college student, who further has some novel thoughts
regarding the proper use of rosaries and other devotional items…

"Whoa, lad! That crucifix doesn’t go there!" (think Robert Mapplethorpe).

TAE makes one good point; nine times out of ten, pounding the table
about stuff like this only draws attention to it. In that sense, I
would rather that "Shoutin’ Bill" would just let things be. His heart
is in the right place, but I look forward to seeing him on the news
probably about as much as thoughtful evangelicals look forward to
seeing Jerry Falwell.

That said, how anyone could mistake the art for anything but plain,
bigoted hate speech is beyond me. The paintings are calculated to
disgust and offend, and yet TAE manages only;

"I can’t help but think he could have approached his canvases in a more deft manner."

Deft manner? Does anyone really hold out the possibility that the
artist has some genuine, thoughtful critique of the Catholic Church,
but (poor boy) chose an unfortunate way to express it? Is anyone naive
enough to suppose that the artist seethes with loathing for Catholics,
but generally thinks highly of other Christians? Do you figure that he
quite approves of Pentecostals, for instance? Yeah, and rosaries might
fly out my butt.

Let’s imagine a college art exhibit critical of gay marriage that
made it’s point by pornographically lampooning Matthew Shepard and
Harvey Milk. How many hours would it be be open before someone was
fired? Yet, this art is no different. Some adolescent wanted attention,
and his fawning professors (with the help of the Catholic League) have
obliged.

Finally, in his post on Donahue, TAE says;

Referring back to Donahue’s criticisms, perhaps he believes his own
denomination to be Divine and infallible as an institution. I’ve known
of Catholics with this attitude, although I don’t sense it’s a
prevailing conviction. If I may be so bold, this would in fact be a
naive belief, and I don’t understand how anyone could presently think
so highly of the Catholic Church in light of the recent scandals that —
unfortunately — plagued this enduring institution. No part of the Body
of Christ can say with a straight face that they or their particular
congregation has not made certain gross missteps along the way…"

This
will require another post to address, but in brief, it (unsurprisingly)
reflects what seems to be an incomplete and overly simplistic view of
what the Catholic Church believes on the subject(s)…  very similar to
what I thought Catholics believed… before I became one!

A good year for family films?

SDG here.

The last couple of years haven’t produced a lot of good family films.

Take last year. The best bets from 2007 were Ratatouille, In the Shadow of the Moon and Mr. Bean’s Holiday. After that it went downhill pretty quick.

Walden Media released a couple of okay films, Bridge to Terabithia and The Water Horse. National Treasure: Book of Secrets was diverting, and lots of people liked Enchanted, although Mrs. Decent Films’ minority report on that one has gotten a lot of positive feedback).

Then what? A string of utterly forgettable fare: Shrek the Third, Happily N’Ever Ever, Bee Movie, etc.

2006 wasn’t much better. The year’s best films, Akeelah and the Bee and Lassie, hardly made a ripple. Cars was the closest thing to a disappointment from Pixar since, like, A Bug’s Life. A few others were worth catching once: Monster House, Over the Hedge, Flushed Away and even Ice Age 2: The Meltdown (mostly for Scrat’s brilliant slapstick). After that, though, forget it.

2008, though, looks like it could be shaping up to be a better year for family films than either of the last two years, at least for quality.

It started with The Spiderwick Chronicles, a strong family thriller with goblins attacking a troubled family, which dealt with a number of daunting themes — divorce, parental abandonment, death — in surprisingly effective ways. (I’ll be reviewing it soon for the DVD release.)

Then Blue Sky Studios produced their best film to date, the delightful and gratifyingly pro-life Horton Hears a Who.

This weekend, DreamWorks Animation releases the charming, entertaining Kung Fu Panda. I seem to be in the critical mainstream in enjoying the film, though I may be among a comparative minority who, not having been bowled over by the Shrek films (1 2 3), thinks this may be DreamWorks Animation’s best CGI cartoon to date (beating out Over the Hedge, Shark Tale and Madagascar as well as the Shrek flicks).

(Note: This is not to say Kung Fu Panda is DreamWorks Animation’s best animated film — only that it is possibly (IMO) their best computer-animated film. The Prince of Egypt remains their masterpiece, and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas is the best animated swashbuckler of all time.)

The year’s most anticipated release, of course, is Pixar’s WALL*E, coming out later this month. I’ve seen advance footage from this one, and, well, let’s just say my anticipation is through the roof. If it meets my expectations, this film could power 2008 to the best family-film year since, like, 2004 and 2005 combined.

Prince Caspian, not a great film, is still a good ride. And Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is Indy’s most family-friendly outing since, like, 1981 (this being the first Indy film since the original without some sort of bedroom scene).

What else? A little off the beaten path, Son of Rambow is a flawed but endearing film that might be okay for families with older kids (the story is about two young British schoolboys in the 1980s who set out to create a homemade sequel to First Blood).

And the year’s not over.

Looking further ahead, I’m getting no vibes on 20th Century’s Space Chimps, but I’m more intrigued by Fly Me to the Moon, a Belgian English-language cartoon about houseflies stowing aboard the Apollo 11. (Neil Armstrong voices himself?! He couldn’t be bothered to participate in In the Shadow of the Moon, but he turns out for this?)

Then there’s City of Ember, a Walden Media adaptation from the director of Monster House — and the first Walden film to set off my spider-sense in a good way since, like, Holes. (I liked Because of Winn-Dixie, but I didn’t get the same vibe from it… and I’ve been ambivalent about the Narnia films.) One of Walden’s problems in recent years has always been not having the right creative team. Could this break the pattern?

What else? Could The Clone Wars possibly be worth catching? The PG-rated Brandon Fraser Journey to the Center of the Earth could be fun (I missed an early screening due to a conflict). Disney tries another home-grown CGI cartoon, yawn (Bolt). For Harry fans, December will bring The Half-Blood Prince.

Of course, not all the news has been good. Speed Racer anyone? We saw another tepid VeggieTales movie (The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything). And, yikes, DreamWorks is releasing a Madagascar sequel.

On the other hand, there are no fantasy films this year selling atheism to children, and that’s a good thing.

One way to stack up the year against other recent years is to compare this year’s films with recent counterparts.

Horton Hears a Who easily beats Blue Sky’s most recent efforts, Ice Age 2 and Robots. Kung Fu Panda stands taller than DreamWorks’ previous Shrek the Third and Over the Hedge.

Spiderwick beats out Bridge to Terabithia (or Monster House, whichever you prefer). And I probably liked Prince Caspian better than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

I’m looking forward to comparing City of Ember to The Golden Compass. And how will WALL*E stack up to Ratatouille and Cars? I have a hunch it may compare favorably indeed.

GET MY KUNG FU PANDA REVIEW. EDIT: Link fixed!

New CDF Document! New CDF Document!

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is not normally tasked with adding provisions to canon law, but under the direction of the pope, it can do whatever he wants it to.

And it has.

A new CDF document provides a latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication for those who attempt to ordain women and for those women who receive such attempted ordinations.

TEXT:

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

General Decree

On the delict of attempted sacred ordination of a woman

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in virtue of the special faculty granted to it by the Supreme Authority of the Church (cf. Can. 30, Code of Canon Law), in order to safeguard the nature and validity of the sacrament of Holy Orders, decreed, in the Ordinary Session of December 19, 2007:

In accordance with what is disposed by Can. 1378 of the Code of Canon Law, he who shall have attempted to confer holy orders on a woman, as well as the woman who may have attempted to receive Holy Orders, incurs in a latae sententiae excommunication, reserved to the Apostolic See.

If he who shall have attempted to confer Holy Orders on a woman or if the woman who shall have attempted to received Holy Orders is a faithful bound to the Code of Canons of the Oriental Churches, he is to be punished with the major excommunication, whose remission remains reserved to the Apostolic See, in accordance with can. 1443 of the same Code (cf. can. 1423, Code of Canons of the Oriental Churches).

The present decree enters in force immediately after its publication in L’Osservatore Romano.

William Cardinal Levada
Prefect
Angelo Amato, s.d.b.
Titular Archbishop of Sila
Secretary

First, HERE’S CANON 1378 IN THE CIC.

And HERE’S CANON 1443 OF THE CCEO.

Now, SOME COMMENTARY BY ED PETERS.

Finally, a few thoughts of my own:

It’s interesting, as Ed points out, that the Holy See has gone in the direction of creating a new latae sententiae penalty rather than continuing the trend of abolishing them.

On the part of bishops there may be something of a preference for latae sententiae penalties in that they do not require the bishop to himself take the action of imposing a canonical penalty on one of his subjects–an action that is bound to be portrayed in terms of the harsh disciplinarian stereotype in the popular press. It is much easier for a bishop to say "So-and-so has excommunicated himself/herself by these actions" than "I hereby excommunicate so-and-so for these actions."

I think that in this case, though, there may be an additional and perhaps more fundamental reason for the penalty (at least in the Latin rite) being a latae sententiae one: These ordinations frequently occur in secret.

That’s how they got started, after all: If the claims of the original group of female ordinands are to be believed, they found a Catholic bishop somewhere who was willing to perform the initial ordinations. That man’s identity has not been revealed.

And subsequent to that event, some of these women have simulated ordination in secret or at least without their identities initially being known to their bishops.

The use of a latae sententiae penalty in this case sends a signal that simply keeping the identities of the parties a secret will not keep them from suffering excommunication. You can’t tell yourself, if you are a bishop or a prospective ordinand, "I’m free of canonical penalties as long as nobody knows I did this so that no penalties can be imposed on me."

Instead, the latae sententiae penalty in this case says, "The Church takes this crime so seriously that it provides for excommunication even when the parties, or even the fact, of the crime are unknown."

The same can be said of all the other latae sententiae penalties, such as the excommunication provided for abortion.

One might still question whether we should have latae sententiae penalties in the Latin rite, but I think that the reason for this one is more than just a desire to get bishops "off the hook" for having to impose a penalty. It’s a sign of the Church’s particularly strong desire to alert those who attempt these ordinations to the gravity of their actions.

Since the current decree is not retroactive, it will not touch those who have previously attempted these ordinations (including the original bishop, assuming that there was one), but it does send the signal going forward to all who would participate in them.

Of Raiders and Crystal Skulls

Why RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK is the greatest action–adventure film in history.

Why INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL is worth catching.

Eight years ago, before Decent Films existed, I jotted down a few quick sentences on Raiders as part of a list of 35 or so movies I particularly liked and recommended. Those sentences wound up on the first version of Decent Films, and have remained on the site ever since… until yesterday, when I finally posted a full-length review. I hope to get around to writing up Temple of Doom and Last Crusade sometime soon… I’ll have to see how it goes.

Incidentally, it occurs to me that as an "action–adventure film," Raiders straddles two overlapping but distinct genres: Not all adventure films are action films, and not all action films are adventure films.

For instance, consider Star Wars and Die Hard. Star Wars is a classic adventure story, but I wouldn’t call it an "action film." Likewise, Die Hard is one of the pinnacles of action moviemaking, but I wouldn’t call it "adventure."

Raiders, on the other hand, is clearly both action and adventure. That’s part of the reason that, while all three are four-star classics in my book (though Die Hard in particular certainly isn’t for everyone), Raiders would probably make my personal all-time top 10 list, if I ever drew one up, while Star Wars and Die Hard wouldn’t. (They’d probably make the top 100, though.)

Sacramental Marriage

When is a marriage sacramental?

This is a question that is subject to significant confusion. For a start, some individuals use the word "sacramental" when they mean "valid." In other words, they are under the impression that any marriage that is not sacramental is invalid.

This is not the case. Many people have marriages that are valid in the eyes of God, yet these marriages are not sacramental.

Why?

Because marriage as a sacrament can exist only between two baptized persons. Therefore, if either or both persons are not baptized then their marriage is not a sacrament. That doesn’t mean that it’s invalid. It’s just not a sacrament.

But what about marriages between the baptized? What makes their marriages sacramental? Is it the act of getting married itself that results in the sacrament or, as I’ve heard more than one person suggest recently, is it the act of consummation that makes a marriage between the baptized sacramental?

The answer is found in the Code of Canon Law.

Canon 1055 states:

Can.  1055 §1. The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized.

§2. For this reason, a valid matrimonial contract cannot exist between the baptized without it being by that fact a sacrament.

This means that as soon as the matrimonial contract comes into existence between two baptized persons, they have a sacramental marriage. The moment of sacramentality does not wait upon consummation or anything else.

We can show this, for example, by reading a few additional canons:

Can.  1061 §1. A valid marriage between the baptized is called ratum tantum [established only] if it has not been consummated; it is called ratum et consummatum [established and consummated] if the spouses have performed between themselves in a human fashion a conjugal act which is suitable in itself for the procreation of offspring, to which marriage is ordered by its nature and by which the spouses become one flesh.

So there are two kinds of valid–and thus sacramental–marriages between the baptized: those that are established but unconsummated (ratum tantum) and those that are established and consummated (ratum et consummatum). Hence consummation is not necessary for validity or, between the baptized, for sacramentality.

If that’s the case, what does happen at consummation?

Can.  1141 A marriage that is ratum et consummatum can be dissolved by no human power and by no cause, except death.

Can.  1142 For a just cause, the Roman Pontiff can dissolve a non-consummated marriage between baptized persons or between a baptized party and a non-baptized party at the request of both parties or of one of them, even if the other party is unwilling.

It is consummation that makes valid sacramental marriages indissoluble. Prior to that point, even valid sacramental marriages can be dissolved, as can marriages in which a baptized person is validly but non-sacramentally married to an unbaptized person.

These cases are referred to colloquially as "Petrine privilege" cases, since they involve the action of the Roman Pontiff. (So-called "Pauline privilege" cases involve two unbaptized persons are do not require the intervention of the pope.)

So, to sum up, here are the types of valid marriages that can exist:

  • Non-sacramental marriages between unbaptized persons
  • Non-sacramental marriages between a baptized person and an unbaptized person
  • Sacramental marriages (i.e., between two baptized persons) that are unconsummated
  • Sacramental marriages (i.e., between two baptized persons) that are consummated

The last of these categories is intrinsically indissoluble. The first three categories are at least potentially dissoluble.

Hope this clarifies matters.

This Can’t Be Right…

Grailwitch… everyone knows that only Christians burn witches.
The story brings up another interesting element that is often ignored
in looking at better known witch hunts through history… that the
accusers often had a personal beef with the accused. It was not always
a case of hysterical superstition run wild, sometimes it was more
likely just a case of vendetta. Like in the post-war years, if you
wanted to ruin someone, you just started a rumor that they were a
communist sympathizer. No evidence necessary.

(Visit Tim Jones’ blog, Old World Swine)

Turkish Delight for the eyes

Narnian eye candy. That’s what The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian amounts to, for the most part.

That’s not a bad thing. It’s a lot less than Lewis fans might have wanted, but in some ways it’s actually better than we might have expected.

Judged on its own merits, the filmmakers have made a better movie than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. They’ve also departed more from the source material — in some ways to the betterment of the film. Structurally, the book has issues, both as drama and as source material for a film. Some of the best bits in the film, especially the central set piece at Miraz’s castle, aren’t in the book, but are basically compatible with the book and help make for a better movie. Plotwise, character-wise, strategy-wise, it works — and it’s great eye candy too.

My biggest complaints are twofold. First, Prince Caspian introduces two of Lewis’s best characters — and the film gets them both wrong.

Peter Dinklage, a strong actor, is effective as Trumpkin, except he’s not playing Trumpkin. He’s playing some other, more soulful, less hearty dwarf. And Reepicheep — well. Let’s just say I remember him as more dashing and less sarcastic.

Secondly, I don’t mind a somewhat revisionistic approach to the story, as long as it honors the spirit of the book, as long as it honors the themes. Caspian gets the spirit of Lewis’s plot, but eviscerates his themes. I’ve said in the past that LW&W got maybe two-thirds of Lewis’s intended meaning; if so, Caspian might get a quarter — if it’s lucky.

Here’s the thesis of my review in this regard:

Thematically, Prince Caspian the book may be said to be about the triumph of mythic imagination over Enlightenment rationalism and skepticism. The movie almost entirely omits the skepticism, and greatly diminishes the triumph of mythic imagination.

Basically, to enjoy Prince Caspian, you have to put C. S. Lewis out of your head and enjoy an action-packed movie with gorgeous vistas and special effects, a dazzling central set piece, and a bizarrely annoying pop song in the last five minutes.

Even though it’s more revisionistic, Caspian is less annoying to me than LW&W, in large part because LW&W is a more important story. I mean, the triumph of mythic imagination over Enlightenment rationalism and skepticism is all well and good, but it isn’t exactly the passion and redemption, you know what I mean?

Still and all, I was hoping that Caspian might put the franchise on firmer footing for the third film, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Now that is a story they must get right, especially if the franchise is to continue.

In that regard, I’m glad to see that a new creative team is coming on board: Andrew Adamson and his two-time screenwriting team are moving on, and director Michael Apted will be taking the helm for Dawn Treader with screenwriter Steven Knight, who previously collaborated with Apted on Amazing Grace (also for Walden).

I have no idea whether Apted and Knight are the right team for Dawn Treader. I just know for sure Adamson and company aren’t. Let us just hope and pray that they rise to the occasion and sail the Dawn Treader straight and true.

Incidentally, wondering why, even with Lewis’s stepson Doug Gresham producing, these films are so far from the mark? I’ve interviewed Gresham, and I haven’t been particularly impressed with the perspicacity of his take on his stepfather’s work.

Get that story.

Prince Caspian review

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe review

A Little Cylon Speculation

Ellen_tigh_1I’ve been thinking for a while about doing a post on who I think the final cylon is. I’ve even started the post at least once, but I haven’t finished it.

This post isn’t it, by the way. (So let’s not speculate on who the final cylon is in the combox; let’s save that for next time.)

But I thought I would do a little bit of speculating about who is a cylon in this post, and I think that the woman on the left is.

Who is she?

Well, it’s Ellen Tigh, wife of Col. Saul Tigh.

Why do I think she’s a cylon? A big reason is that there was a lot of hinting in the very first episode she appeared in that she is a cylon.

Remember? She was found mysteriously on one of the ships of the ragtag fleet, unconscious, with nobody remembering how she got there. Then she wakes up and is brought to the Galactica, where she proceeds to bring out all the worst aspects of her husband, like a cylon sleeper agent might want to do to undermine fleet command.

And to settle the question of whether she is a cylon, Dr. Baltar gives her his cylon-detector test and publicly says that she’s a human but privately admits to Head Six that the test may have indicated otherwise but that he’ll "never tell" if it did.

So there’s all that.

It later became clear that, if Ellen was a cylon, she wasn’t a sleeper agent who knew what she was doing, because she was willing to risk everything to help her husband during the cylon occupation of New Caprica. Or at least she didn’t care about betraying cylons to help her husband.

But that’s not a problem since not all cylon sleeper agents know that they’re cylons. The original Sharon "Boomer" Valerii, for example, did not know she was a cylon and others, like Sharon "Athena" Valerii have sided with humans against cylons.

So things were looking pretty inconclusive regarding Ellen, until . . .

"Wait!" you say, "I haven’t seen any season 4 episodes! Don’t spoil this for me!"

Okay.

I won’t.

Stop reading now.

"Wait!" you say, "How can you say this post isn’t going to be about who the final cylon is if you’re about to say that Ellen Tigh is a cylon? Wouldn’t her being a cylon mean that she’s the final cylon?"

No, because I think she’s just a version of one of the cylons that has already been established.

Specifically: I think she’s a Six.

She’s just an older version of Six–perhaps one of the first Sixes to be made.

After all, the Sixes don’t all look the same. Even when they’re played by Tricia Helfer, they look different. Some, like the "Gina" Six (the one who was on the Pegasus and later set off the nuke) or the current "Natalie" Six (the one leading the cylon resistance to the Ones, Fours, and Fives) wear their hair notably different than the platinum blond curls of Caprica Six or Head Six (and Head Six herself has worn her hair differently, as she did in the episode where she got Baltar to get the brainscan that convinced him she wasn’t a chip in his wetware).

So Sixes don’t all have to have an identical physical appearance, and thus there might be older versions of some models that have aged in a way that simulates human aging.

But that’s not the core reason.

The core reason is that in the recent episode "Escape Velocity," Col. Tigh interrogates Caprica Six in her cell on the Galactica and, during the course of the event, starts hallucinating that Caprica Six is Ellen.

What they did was bring back the actress who plays Ellen and got her dressed up and coiffed as Caprica Six, platinum blond curls and all.

And, wow, is it convincing.

There are moments, watching the transitions between Six and Ellen, when you say "Which actress am I looking at here? They’re so close once you put the same hair on them!"

And then there’s this . . .

The characters act the same.

They’re both highly manipulative and willing to use their feminine wiles to achieve their ends.

Also, neither seems to mind the concept of extra-marital affairs as long as some kind of fundamental love/loyalty-to-one-spouse isn’t compromised.

And–perhaps most uniquely–they’re both manipulating their Significant Others to make something more of themselves in the world.

I mean, think about it: From the moment Head Six shows up, she starts manipulating Gaius Baltar to ensure that he assumes his "destiny," right?

And from the moment Ellen Tigh shows up, she starts manipulating Saul to get him to assume command of the fleet/increase his influence and power, right?

Both of them are catty, morally loose manipulators who are trying to drive their chosen men reluctantly into positions of prominence and power.

So, not only do they look the same, they act the same. They have the same basic personality and modus operandi.

Okay, that’s it.

Unless the creators of the show choose to establish otherwise on screen, as far as I’m concerned, Ellen Tigh is simply a more mature Six.

Which makes her story all the more interesting.