Massachussetts: to ban AND not to ban . . .

The state of Massachussetts won the brilliance in logic award recently as it moved boldly toward banning "same sex marriages" on March 29th . . . as it simultaneously planned to begin issuing marriage licenses to gay couples in seven weeks.

Mexico's forbidden "saint"

Santa Muerte, imaged as a scythe-weilding skeleton with a blood-curdling grin, looks like a vision of hell, but attracts thousands of Mexico's destitude.

5,000 mph jet ready for test flight

I doubt the Wright brothers ever imagined this.

The Passion: offensive . . . as it should be . . .

A penetrating review from Against the Grain.

Yawning at the homosexual revolution?

As one listening in on this discussion, I occasionally have a passing thought on the matter. The Ramsey Colloquium, which dealt with the issue of homosexuality from an inter-faith vantage point of view (Catholics, Protestants, Jews) made one extremely salient observation in it's report: it is impossible to deal with the "homosexual revolution" apart from the "sexual revolution" that is the legacy of the seventies. The "sexual floodgates" were thrown open long before the homosexual issue ever surfaced on the national radar. Dale Vree, the editor of the New Oxford Review, when recently asked what he thought about the "same-sex marriage" question, responded with a yawn: when we're already slaughtering close to 4000 unborn humans/day, fruit of the commerce of wanton heterosexual sin, it's hard to get excessively excited about recent homosexual issues-- not in the least to belittle them. Perhaps this is one respect in which Bill Mahr's remark makes at least some sense: "They're here, they're queer, get bored with it." Your thoughts?

Best regards,
PB

Jim Caviezel's acting role

Jim Caviezel, who plays Jesus Christ in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, has quite an interesting record in the film industry. He is also already pressing ahead in new films. For the the whole scoop, click here.

Bob Marley as collegiate world literature

I may get in trouble for this, but when I heard that a colleague of mine is offering a summer course on "Bob Marley and World Poetry," I thought I could do no less that create an online page promiting his class. (Um . . . it may take a sense of humor to appreciate my perspective here . . .)

Why Europeans feel marginalized by the USA: lessons from Zapatero

A very interesting NRO article by David Frum, "What Zapatero Said" (Mar. 18, 2004).

Grandstanding for the anti-Gibson groupthink

Tom Ehrich, an Episcopal priest in Durham, NC, who now works as a computer consultant and writes a column for the Religious News Service, has finally done it. He has bitten the bullet and written a brave piece in the Charlotte Observer telling the world: "Why I won't go to 'The Passion.'" His piece is subtitled: "Faith is a matter of yearning, not an appeal to base emotions or groupthink." He insists that he "didn't question the sincerity of those who do see it and find it meaningful," but his subtitle clearly suggests that he thinks them pathetic victims "base emotions" and mindless groupthink. Not only does this smell like an ingenuous and self-congratulatory stab at being fashionably "different" from those masses of Fundamentalists and Catholics confounded by Gibson's "groupthink." It looks suspiciously ignorant of the meaning of Christ's passion to say that "faith is a matter of yearning," as opposed to "100 minutes of cinematic torture." What is the centerpiece of the Christian Faith if not human sacrifice? Yes, folks, human blood sacrifice. Nothing more primitive and barbaric than that, is there! But that's what we celebrate upon every Catholic altar throughout the world every time the sacrifice of the Mass is celebrated.
Ehrich doesn't care "whether Mel Gibson strikes it rich with his cleverly marketed film," though he "found it sad that Gibson couldn't allow his film to make its own way, but had to dangle the bait of anti-Semitism, as if he had a loser on his hands and had to play the Hollywood game of rescuing a dog by promising something dirty." (And this, after assuring us that he "didn't question the sincerity of those who do see [the film] and find it meaningful"?!) Ehrich sees "two worrisome undercurrents, which will outlive Gibson's dash to the bank"-- namely, that "Christians are spoiling for a fight," and that the "Passion" is reduced to a momentary and narrow "religious adventure."

So what's the full Gospel that folks should be hearing, in that case? Ehrich: "Faith is a matter of yearning" and "we who claim faith have a responsibility to treat that yearning with respect." Say what? So what's this piece about, Mr. Ehrich? Is this how you demonstrate your respect for the yearnings of the millions of your fellow American Christians who flocked to Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" to weep for love of the Savior who loved them and gave Himself for them? Huh?

Caviezel "shamelessly Catholic"

Benjamin posts excerpts from a new Jim Caviezel interview on his blog at Ad Limena Apostolorum, suggesting that Caviezel embodies what it means to be, in his words, "shamelessly Catholic." Refreshing!

Liturgical reform?

Catholic World News recently reported that the long-awaited Vatican document on the Eucharist will be published on Holy Thursday, April 8. Commenting on this announcement in his blog, Ad Limina Apostolorum, Benjamin observes:

Whether or not these norms will make any difference in the actual liturgical life of the Church at large, of course, is another question. But liturgical reform, like all reform, is an incremental process. Even a small step in the right direction is key in the long run. But this may be a large step, even if it takes a long time to take effect.

I hope this is true. At times, however, I am not inclined to be so sanquine (which is not always a good thing, if it inclines me toward despair). This has been one of the most prolific pontificates in history, and in terms of what has been written, often of exceptional quality. Yet it has also been one of the most ignored pontificates. Papal encyclicals, apostolic letters, decrees of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, have been routinely ignored in many quarters.

Recently we hosted an ecumenical conference at Lenoir-Rhyne College called "Listening to the East," devoted to Eastern Orthodoxy, with speakers from that tradition, as well as from the Eastern-right Catholic tradition, and from the Lutheran tradition-- particularly those enamored of Eastern Orthodoxy. The single Catholic speaker, a Ukranian Rite Catholic, satisfied his Sunday obligation by attending at a local Catholic parish. He observed nothing heretical or illicit about the Mass, yet noted that they did about as well as he has seen done anywhere the kind of Novus Ordo Liturgy done in the style that he personally finds appallingly pedestrian and banal. The number of times the priest paused during his Eucharistic prayer to make eye contact with individuals in the congregation and nod, he said, furnished ample argument against saying Mass facing the people. The "hymns" (I use the term lightly) were equally appalling, etc., etc.

This Catholic had personally turned East in order to find reverence and dignity in worship by joining an Ukrainian Rite Catholic church. He noted how lucky he was to live in an area with several Easter rite Catholic churches. How lucky others are to be living in an area with the indult Tridentine Mass. How lucky even those are who live in an area where the Novus Ordo Mass is celebrated with great reverence and dignity befitting a house of God, such as those in South Kensington, London, who have the Brompton Oratory in their neighborhood.

In the course of the conference, this Ukranian Rite Catholic suggested that the next pontificate, which could possibly bring another "conservative" pontiff to Rome, could very well lead to dissenting Catholic parishes in Australia, Canada, and parts of the United States into open schism. As tragic as this may be, my inclination is to say, at this point: none too early; it's time to clean out the dead wood.

Don't be a slave: be a Catholic!

"The Catholic Church is the only thing which saves a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age." - G.K. Chesterton

Unanimous Decision by California Supreme Court to Stop Homosexual "Marriages" in San Francisco

In a historic decision today, the California Supreme Court unanimously ordered the rogue mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, to immediately stop selling fraudulent marriage licenses. (see the full story in March 12, 2004, issue of The Washington Times) In addition, The Christian Family Coalition adds the following observations:

• City officials in Phoenix, Arizona put a stop to a mail-in by homosexual extremists trying to obtain marriage licenses
  
• A lesbian town clerk in Iowa City, Iowa refuses to sell fraudulent marriage licenses to homosexual couples citing her obligation to uphold the law
  
• City officials in Chicago decide against selling fraudulent marriage licenses to homosexual couples
  
• The Attorney General in New Mexico orders a clerk to immediately stop selling fraudulent marriage licenses to homosexual couples and orders the sheriff's office to stop the madness
  
• A state judge in New York orders Mayor Jason Paltz to stop selling fraudulent marriage licenses

Personally, I find it hard to be optimistic about the short run (i.e., the next 100 years), but with the Church Militant, I watch and pray.

Who betrays the Church? Who is faithful?

The grand inquisitors of the Lidless Eye Inquisition blog, who are devoted to exposing "the crackpots of the lunatic self-styled 'traditionalists' fringe who disingenuously pose as faithful Catholics" sport the following quotation from Pope St. Pius X on their sidebar:

"Do not allow yourselves to be deceived by the cunning statements of those who persistently claim to wish to be with the Church, to love the Church, to fight so that people do not leave Her...But judge them by their works. If they despise the shepherds of the Church and even the Pope, if they attempt all means of evading their authority in order to elude their directives and judgments..., then about which Church do these men mean to speak? Certainly not about that established on the foundations of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone (Eph. 2:20)." [Pope St. Pius X (c. May 10, 1909)]

These brilliant and illuminating words of St. Pius X serve as a warning, of course, not only against those on the lunatic self-styled "traditionalist" fringe who protest their fidelity to the Catholic Church even while they undermine the confidence of the faithful in the authority of Rome, but also--and often more pointedly these days--against those on the lunatic self-styled "progressivist" fringe, who, I fear, are ever becoming more mainstream, protesting their fidelity to the Catholic Church even while they undermine the confidence of the faithful in the authenticity of traditional Church teaching, the reliability and credibility of the Bible, and the importance of the Sacraments of the Church. See, for example, my review of a magazine that has been sometimes aptly (mis-) titled "U.S. Protestant," "U.S. Heretic," or "U.S. Dissident"--namely, U.S. Catholic ("What I Learned from U.S. Catholic," originally published in This Rock magazine).

For more on modernist and traditionalist dissent and confusion, click here.

Chick Tracts and Jack Chick

If you've ever picked up a Chick Tract and read one, you know how rabidly anti-Catholic they are. Jimmy Akin recently posted to his blog, Defensor Fidei, what he calls "the original courtesy of the Jack T. Chick Museum of Fine Art," a site devoted to Jack Chick's tracts, featuring upon entry the famous tract entitled "The Death Cookie," referencing the wafer or host used in the Catholic Mass, complete with background music reminiscent of the theme from The Exorcist.

The good news is that the six-part Catholic Answers Special Report that Jimmy Akin wrote on "Chic Tracts: Their Origin and Refutation" can be found online. In addition, Akin also says that he will soon have online an article he wrote about his personal meeting with Jack T. Chick, which promises to be very interesting.

(For more on anti-Catholicism, click here.)

In passing, we also note that Akin was recently interviewed by BBC concerning Gibson's film, The Passion of the Christ--an interview that is apparently to be aired in a 5-7 minute segment on the BBC's Heaven and Earth Show.