Teenage Book Recommend?

A reader writes:

I’m one of the refugees from Mark’s blog.  I’ve really enjoyed your blog as well, even some of your more "bizarre" stories (what the heck is a "chupacabra" anyway? Reminds me of my children’s favorite magic word "abachugaba"….but I digress.)

My question for you has to do with my teen.  She’s 18, and doesn’t have the strongest faith.  She is "interested" in a 19 yo boy, who doesn’t have ANY faith, but is open to Catholicism (and is baptized, btw).  Do you have any ideas for a book or two to keep on hand should any real questions come up?   He’s rather immature, so the Catechism isn’t going to cut it yet.  One of my favorite books for info about what Catholics believe is "The Faith Explained" by Fr. Leo Trese, but again, this isn’t for someone to cut their teeth on.

In regard to your first question, a chupacabra is a legendary create credited with sucking the blood from goats and other small livestock (e.g., chickens). The name is Spanish for "goat sucker" (chupa="it sucks" cabra="goat"). I don’t believe in chupacabras, but I have a taste for X-File-like material and find it interesting to entertain the question of whether some of the creatures mentioned on the blog might be part of the things inspiring the chupacabra legend.

As to your second question, I don’t know of how much help I can be. Not being married (unfortunatly), I don’t have any kids of that age (or any age) and so I haven’t researched the books that might be good for them. In the age that we’re talking about, though, they may be ready for easier-to-read books written for adults. I might give him a book of conversion stories like Surprised by Truth.

Other suggestions, folks?

Zachariah & Mary: Double Standard?

A reader writes:

I know there is a different explanation, but when reading the biblical account of Zachary’s not understanding the angels message about John the Baptist, and Mary’s not understanding about when the angel told her about Jesus, they seem the same.  Yet, Zacahry was punished while Mary was praised.  I’m curious about how to explain this to non-Catholic friends who look for "holes" in Catholic teaching, and sometimes the bible itself.
I appreciate the difficulty you are perceiving, as it’s something I’ve had to ponder myself. And it’s not just a problem for Catholics. I wondered about this as a Protestant.
Here’s what we’re told about the case of Zechariah:
And Zechari’ah said to the angel, "How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years." And the angel answered him, "I am Gabriel, who stand in the presence of God; and I was sent to speak to you, and to bring you this good news. And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things come to pass, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time" [Luke 1:18-20].
And here’s what we’re told about Mary:
And Mary said to the angel, "How shall this be, since I have no husband?"
And the angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible."
And Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her [Luke 1:34-38].
And we’re told:
[Elizabeth:] "And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord" [Luke 1:45].
On its face, it could appear that a different standard is being applied to Zechariah than to Mary. Both query the angel about the prophesied miraculous birth, yet when this happens Zechariah is struck mute while Mary is given an explanation and a non-painful sign (i.e., the fact Elizabeth is already miraculously present). Then we have a blessing pronounced upon Mary for her belief.
It seems to me that there are several possible explanations:
  1. We are not meant to understand the praise of Mary as a contrast to Zechariah. It’s simply praise made without reference to his situation. The difference of the signs they are given is just part of the mystery of God’s providence and is not meant to be understood as a punishment or criticism of Zechariah’s response.
  2. We are meant to understand that Mary is being praised and favorably treated in comparison to Zechariah, but this is due to something not captured, or fully captured, in the text, such as a inward disposition on Zechariah’s part in comparison to Mary’s inward disposition.
  3. We are meant to understand a contrast between the two but there is something about the two situations that makes Mary’s reaction more reasonable than Zechariah’s. For example, it might be argued that what is being proposed in Mary’s case requires a far greater leap of faith (a birth with no man involved) in comparison to what is being proposed in Zechariah’s (a birth past the normal age). Thus it might be more reasonable for Mary to ask questions up front than it was for Zechariah, and when these questions were answered, she was ready to believe.
  4. We are meant to understand a contrast between the two and the text does hint at the basis for the contrast. For example, Zecharaiah asks a different question that Mary does. Zechariah asks the angel for a sign to prove it to him ("How will I know this?"), whereas Mary only asks for an explanation ("How will this be?"). Taken on their faces, Mary’s question is more open to the miraculous than Zechariah’s is. She is more ready to believe, and thus she is praised for this. One might even assert (consistently with the text though not required by it) that she had already believe what the angel said when she asked her question. She was just wanting clarification of the means by which it would happen rather than demanding proof that it would.

Hope this helps!

Zachariah & Mary: Double Standard?

A reader writes:

I know there is a different explanation, but when reading the biblical account of Zachary’s not understanding the angels message about John the Baptist, and Mary’s not understanding about when the angel told her about Jesus, they seem the same.  Yet, Zacahry was punished while Mary was praised.  I’m curious about how to explain this to non-Catholic friends who look for "holes" in Catholic teaching, and sometimes the bible itself.
I appreciate the difficulty you are perceiving, as it’s something I’ve had to ponder myself. And it’s not just a problem for Catholics. I wondered about this as a Protestant.
Here’s what we’re told about the case of Zechariah:
And Zechari’ah said to the angel, "How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years." And the angel answered him, "I am Gabriel, who stand in the presence of God; and I was sent to speak to you, and to bring you this good news. And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things come to pass, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time" [Luke 1:18-20].
And here’s what we’re told about Mary:
And Mary said to the angel, "How shall this be, since I have no husband?"
And the angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible."
And Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her [Luke 1:34-38].
And we’re told:
[Elizabeth:] "And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord" [Luke 1:45].
On its face, it could appear that a different standard is being applied to Zechariah than to Mary. Both query the angel about the prophesied miraculous birth, yet when this happens Zechariah is struck mute while Mary is given an explanation and a non-painful sign (i.e., the fact Elizabeth is already miraculously present). Then we have a blessing pronounced upon Mary for her belief.
It seems to me that there are several possible explanations:
  1. We are not meant to understand the praise of Mary as a contrast to Zechariah. It’s simply praise made without reference to his situation. The difference of the signs they are given is just part of the mystery of God’s providence and is not meant to be understood as a punishment or criticism of Zechariah’s response.
  2. We are meant to understand that Mary is being praised and favorably treated in comparison to Zechariah, but this is due to something not captured, or fully captured, in the text, such as a inward disposition on Zechariah’s part in comparison to Mary’s inward disposition.
  3. We are meant to understand a contrast between the two but there is something about the two situations that makes Mary’s reaction more reasonable than Zechariah’s. For example, it might be argued that what is being proposed in Mary’s case requires a far greater leap of faith (a birth with no man involved) in comparison to what is being proposed in Zechariah’s (a birth past the normal age). Thus it might be more reasonable for Mary to ask questions up front than it was for Zechariah, and when these questions were answered, she was ready to believe.
  4. We are meant to understand a contrast between the two and the text does hint at the basis for the contrast. For example, Zecharaiah asks a different question that Mary does. Zechariah asks the angel for a sign to prove it to him ("How will I know this?"), whereas Mary only asks for an explanation ("How will this be?"). Taken on their faces, Mary’s question is more open to the miraculous than Zechariah’s is. She is more ready to believe, and thus she is praised for this. One might even assert (consistently with the text though not required by it) that she had already believe what the angel said when she asked her question. She was just wanting clarification of the means by which it would happen rather than demanding proof that it would.

Hope this helps!

This Week's Second Show (Feb. 17, 2005)

LISTEN TO THE SHOW.

DOWNLOAD THE SHOW.

HIGHLIGHTS:

  • Can the gospel readings during Lent be done in dialogue form?
  • Does God love the devil?
  • Do diocesan priests have to take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience?
  • Should Gentiles pay more attention to the writings of Paul than other authors?
  • Did anybody get into heaven prior to the Resurrection of Christ?
  • Religious Ed director said it’s very hard for anyone to commit mortal sin.
  • Daughter’s friend killed himself. Can he be saved? (Also: I make a special prayer request for caller’s husband, who is quite sick.)
  • A Protestant caller asks why the pope doesn’t resign (and is quite pleased with the answer).
  • If medicine can be used to affect the course of nature, why can’t contraception? Why can’t people in the third world use contraception to control overpopulation?
  • What does it mean to unite our sufferings with those of Christ?

This Week’s Second Show (Feb. 17, 2005)

LISTEN TO THE SHOW.

DOWNLOAD THE SHOW.

HIGHLIGHTS:

  • Can the gospel readings during Lent be done in dialogue form?
  • Does God love the devil?
  • Do diocesan priests have to take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience?
  • Should Gentiles pay more attention to the writings of Paul than other authors?
  • Did anybody get into heaven prior to the Resurrection of Christ?
  • Religious Ed director said it’s very hard for anyone to commit mortal sin.
  • Daughter’s friend killed himself. Can he be saved? (Also: I make a special prayer request for caller’s husband, who is quite sick.)
  • A Protestant caller asks why the pope doesn’t resign (and is quite pleased with the answer).
  • If medicine can be used to affect the course of nature, why can’t contraception? Why can’t people in the third world use contraception to control overpopulation?
  • What does it mean to unite our sufferings with those of Christ?

More NYT Nuggets

A couple three more nuggets from the

NYT PIECE ON THE MAYBE-KINDA-SORTA DEMOCRAT ABORTION RETHINK.

Here’s the first:

Emily’s List and other groups have also sounded alarms about the direction the party leadership is taking over all. During the search for a national Democratic chairman, Ms. White posted a rallying cry on the group’s Web site: "We fought like mad to beat back the Republicans. Little did we know that we would have just as much to fear from some within the Democratic Party who seem to be using choice as a scapegoat for our top-of-the-ticket losses."

No. This issue is not a scapegoat. The Democratic Party is losing more votes than it’s gaining by its bloodthirty support of babykilling, and with thin margins of victory, that is what keeps them out of office.

It’s The Abortion, Stupid.

"The Democrats have to be very careful about this because they could end up undercutting themselves with the donor base," Ms. Stone [of Republicans for Choice] said. "The pro-choice donors in both parties tend to be the more wealthy."

Durhay!

Of course they have more disposable cash to give to political parties! They aren’t spending that cash on raising children! (They’ve also been brainpoisoned by the college and grad school degrees of liberal academia that are a key to greater wealth, and they have been putting their careers–i.e., wealth–ahead of raising children.)

But y’know what: Because they’re not raising children they’re not raising new votes. You can have your choice between short-term cash and long-term votes.

I choose the latter.

But abortion rights advocates warn of a bigger revolt within the party if its members start compromising on new abortion restrictions like parental notification laws or the fetal-pain bill. Karen Pearl, interim president of Planned Parenthood, said some of her allies were saying that "to the degree that the Democrats move away from choice, that could be the real birth of a third-party movement."

Yes, which is part of why–though I haven’t talked about this publicly before–I think that depending on how things go . . . we may be nearing the breakup of the Democratic Party.

More on that later.

More From The Abortion Queen

Okay,

HERE’S THIS PIECE FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES (which, for some reason, seems not to be subject to their NYTnoid registration hassle).

It’s all about the maybe-kinda-sorta-thinking-about-rethinking-but-also-wanting-to-just-deceive-voters rethink of abortion that is maybe-kinda-sorta happening in the Democratic Party. Maybe.

It has a number of interesting things in it, some from the Abortion Queen. F’rinstance:

Another large abortion rights group, Naral Pro-Choice, is reversing course, saying it will drop its opposition to the proposed Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act, a bill that would require doctors to offer anesthetic for the fetuses of women seeking abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Nancy Keenan, president of Naral Pro-Choice, said the organization was saving its ammunition to fight judicial nominees who might overturn Roe v. Wade. "We are standing strong in the next Supreme Court battle," Ms. Keenan said.

WHOA.

That’s significant.

If NARAL is regrouping to save their ammo for the forthcoming Battles Supreme then it means they’re on the defensive. They’ve got limited resources and are feeling the pinch of needing to conserve them. (Thanks, Thomas Sowell, for reminiding us about the myth of unlimited enemies: Pro-lifers need to realize that pro-aborts Have Their Limits And Can Be Beat.)

It’s a significant capitulation, because if the law passes and doctors are force to anesthetize babies before killing them after 20 weeks then it’s going to inject a whole lotta awareness of the subject of fetal pain into popular consciousness, and that will significantly help pro-lifers.

READ THE WHOLE THING.

Jesus Saves

A kindly reader (cowboy hat tip to him) sent me a link to the following cartoon.

First a little background, though: In Dungeons and Dragons and similar games, players are given a "saving throw"–a roll of the dice to determine whether they will fall victim to certain kinds of attacks (e.g., magical ones). A character who succeeds in this roll is said to have "saved."

Now with that background . . .

Saving_throw

[SOURCE.]

Score One For The CSICOPs!

The Center for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), which publishes Skeptical Inquirer magazine, has an anti-supernatural bias, but occasionally they get on right.

They just did!

(Well, technically they did in their November-December 2004 issue, which just showed up onlin.)

HERE’S A PIECE DEBUNKING THAT WHOLE DA VINCI CODE, HOLY BLOOD HOLY GRAIL NONSENSE ABOUT THE RENNES-LE-CHATEAU, THE PRIORY OF ZION, THE MEROVINGIAN KING LINE BEING DESCENDED FROM JESUS, WHO WAS MARRIED TO MARY MAGDALENE, ETC.

(I wonder if everyone on their staff is a P-10. Sure would be helpful in ferreting out information for their magazine.)

Our Friends, The Turks

TKS blogger Jim Geraghty is going to be moving to Turkey soon because his wife’s job is taking her there.

As a result, he’s been studying up on NATO-member Turkey, learning Turkish, etc.

In the course of his studies, he came across an interesting Wall Street Journal piece about anti-Americanism in Turkey.

Here are a few excerpts:

Among the paper’s "scoops" have been the 1,000 Israeli soldiers deployed alongside U.S. forces in Iraq, and that U.S. forces have been harvesting the innards of dead Iraqis for sale on the U.S. "organ market."

It’s not much better in the secular press. The mainstream Hurriyet has accused Israeli hit squads of assassinating Turkish security personnel in Mosul, and the U.S. of starting an occupation of Indonesia under the guise of humanitarian assistance. At Sabah, a columnist last fall accused the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Eric Edelman, of letting his "ethnic origins" — guess what, he’s Jewish — determine his behavior. Mr. Edelman is indeed the all-too-rare foreign-service officer who takes seriously his obligation to defend America’s image and interests abroad. The intellectual climate in which he’s operating has gone so mad that he actually felt compelled to organize a conference call with scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey to explain that secret U.S. nuclear testing did not cause the recent tsunami.

Never in an ostensibly friendly country have I had the impression of embassy staff so besieged. Mr. Erdogan’s office recently forbade Turkish officials from attending a reception at the ambassador’s residence in honor of the "Ecumenical" Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, who resides in Istanbul. Why? Because "ecumenical" means universal, which somehow makes it all part of a plot to carve up Turkey.

Perhaps the most bizarre anti-American story au courant in the Turkish capital is the "eighth planet" theory, which holds not only that the U.S. knows of an impending asteroid strike, but that we know it’s going to hit North America. Hence our desire to colonize the Middle East.

It all sounds loony, I know. But such stories are told in all seriousness at the most powerful dinner tables in Ankara. The common thread is that almost everything the U.S. is doing in the world — even tsunami relief — has malevolent motivations, usually with the implication that we’re acting as muscle for the Jews.

In the face of such slanders Turkish politicians have been utterly silent. In fact, Turkish parliamentarians themselves have accused the U.S. of "genocide" in Iraq, while Mr. Erdogan (who we once hoped would set for the Muslim world an example of democracy) was among the few world leaders to question the legitimacy of the Iraqi elections. When confronted, Turkish pols claim they can’t risk going against "public opinion."

GET THE STORY.

Have fun in Turkey, Jim!