Pray for renewal of faith in Cuba

An influential acquaintance and friend recently made a second trip with her husband to Cuba. She writes:

The Cuban people are among the most resourceful, determined, resilient and passionate folk I’ve encountered. You would know that following the extended suppression of religious practice, spiritual apathy is widespread and pervasive. For a large portion of the younger generation, true religiosity is something associated with a by-gone age and tangible connection with Catholicism is essentially cultural. Crucifixes are worn, but prayers are not part of the mix.

I was surprised and delighted to learn that there is an effort to establish Traditional Latin Mass [TLM] in Matanzas, a city east of Havana. An oratory was devised and the TLM [has] begun to gain supporters. Currently, Una Voce Cuba is the project of a gentleman in Dallas, Albert Doskey, whose mother was Cuban. He lived with his mother’s parents over some 9 years, no doubt developing a taste for cafécita as well as a sense of Cuba. I’ve shared some correspondence with him (and personally contributed to a GoFundMe campaign for UVC).

The Remnant posted about UVC, and I shared the information with local TLM followers.

Truth and beauty do persist, one thinks, and certainly both are joined in the usus antiquior.

So pray for Cuba and the people of Cuba -- both practicing and prospective practicing Catholics. They've been through a spiritual desert, and they need the solid resources offered by Sacred Tradition rather than the commercialized erzatz peddled by alternative religionists.

Tridentine Community News - Evangelizing with a Catholic vocabulary; Tridentine Masses this coming week

"I will go in unto the Altar of God
To God, Who giveth joy to my youth"
Tridentine Community News by Alex Begin (March 4, 2018):

March 4, 2018 – Third Sunday of Lent

Evangelizing with a Catholic Vocabulary

Catholic social media over the past few weeks has been awash with heretical and pushing-the-boundaries statements of progressive theologians, journalists, priests, and bishops. At face value, it can seem as though the Church were turning in an official new direction. Indeed, certain individuals have become famous for spouting what would have been roundly condemned by Church authorities just a few years ago. Many in the upper echelons of the Church are now silent in the face of this relatively small handful of outspoken, high-profile individuals. It’s enough to get one depressed, except ...

The scenario is all too reminiscent of something that happened to this writer in the secular world. Allow a personal note: For decades, I used to be in the business of selling small computer mainframe systems and software. These were reliable, proven systems, but with text-based, admittedly boring-looking screens. A significant portion of my competition was flashy, Windows-based systems with visually appealing screens. The salespeople for those systems had embraced a term designed to denigrate my offerings: they called them “legacy systems,” a backhanded way to maintain that they were outdated, old-looking, obsolete technology.


What my competitors failed to tell the potential customers was that their systems were pretty, all right, but their feature list was a small fraction of my offerings. Yes, my legacy systems in fact did a whole lot more than their relative quickly cobbled-together systems did, because mine had had many more years to have much more functionality and reliability built into them, thanks to the feedback of our customers [an analogy to Ordinary vs. Extraordinary Form is tempting]. So how to communicate this succinctly to the prospects? We needed our own vocabulary to counter the competition’s, and so we came up with our own term: The others were pushing “bimbo systems”: pretty, but they didn’t do a whole lot! And beware, what is considered attractive today may itself be considered “legacy” in a few years when standards change.

And so it is when traditionally-inclined Catholics are called rigid, clinging-to-the-past, out-of-touch, and whatever belittling term du jour is cast our way. We might benefit from developing our own term akin to the overused “hater”, which is often applied to anyone with sincerely held convictions. It would be useful to have a term which pejoratively refers to those too eager to embrace modern causes often juxtaposed to immemorial Church teachings. Something like, “she’s an amour”, meaning a person all too willing to swoon over the latest theological guru or fad.

Of course, we have a higher calling than battling with words. Evangelizing, or more specifically reaching out to those seeking a spiritual home, is more successfully done with love, with enthusiasm, with the carrot rather than the stick. We traditional Catholics really do have the advantage here: We can evangelize with beauty. Traditional sacred art, architecture, liturgy, and music can speak to the soul in ways that bland modern theology and liturgy cannot. Modernists appeal to the emotion and the desire to be free of restrictions. Little of what they are pushing will save the soul, and to their credit, rarely if ever do they maintain it will.

Their day-to-day vocabulary can make one shudder. Even if some of these terms did not originally have a modern connotation, when used in the context of progressive Catholic talk, there is no mistaking the orientation of the person or institution using them:

Narthex or vestibule vs. Gathering Space
Altar vs. Table of the Lord
Holy Communion vs. Eucharist
Congregation vs. Assembly
Pulpit vs. Ambo
Mass vs. Liturgy
Confession vs. Reconciliation
Extreme Unction vs. Sacrament of the Sick

“Legacy Catholics”, too, should make use of expressions that convey our mindset. Consider working traditional Catholic terminology into your own conversations. Use terms such as:

Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
Holy Ghost
Sacred Body
Precious Blood
Deo grátias

We’ll be better off taking the energy we put into reading and commenting about or to the high-profile heretics of the day into gently and steadily promoting all that we love, the full and undiluted Roman Catholic faith. For each dissenting Catholic that chooses to follow those celebrities of the moment, we should be able to attract at least as many sincere souls to the Truth.

Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

• Tue. 03/05 7:00 PM: Low Mass at Holy Name of Mary, Windsor (Tuesday in the Third Week of Lent)
• Sat. 03/10 8:30 AM: Low Mass at Miles Christi (Saturday in the Third Week of Lent)

[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@detroitlatinmass.org. Previous columns are available at http://www.detroitlatinmass.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Albertus (Detroit), Academy of the Sacred Heart (Bloomfield Hills), and St. Alphonsus and Holy Name of Mary Churches (Windsor) bulletin inserts for March 4, 2018. Hat tip to Alex Begin, author of the column.]

"The Courage of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship"

Rod Dreher, "The Courage of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship" (American Conservative, October 6, 2016):

We are so accustomed these days to one Christian church or ministry falling by the wayside when it comes to Christian orthodoxy on sexual matters. So it comes as a shock when one — especially a major one — takes a firm and uncompromising stand for orthodoxy. InterVarsity Christian Fellowship has done just that. Excerpt:

One of the largest evangelical organizations on college campuses nationwide has told its 1,300 staff members they will be fired if they personally support gay marriage or otherwise disagree with its newly detailed positions on sexuality starting on Nov. 11.

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA says that it will start a process for “involuntary terminations” for any staffer who comes forward to disagree with its positions on human sexuality, which holds that any sexual activity outside of a husband and wife is immoral.

Staffers are not being required to sign a document agreeing with the group’s position, and supervisors are not proactively asking employees to verbally affirm it. Instead, staffers are being asked to come forward voluntarily if they disagree with the theological position. When they inform their supervisor of their disagreement, a two-week period is triggered, concluding in their last day. InterVarsity has offered to cover outplacement service costs for one month after employment ends to help dismissed staff with their resumes and job search strategies.

More:

InterVarsity has more than 1,000 chapters on 667 college campuses around the country. More than 41,000 students and faculty were actively involved in organization in the last school year, and donations topped $80 million last fiscal year. The group is focused on undergraduate outreach, but it also has specific programs for athletes, international students, nurses, sororities and fraternities, and others. InterVarsity also hosts the Urbana conference, one of the largest student missionary conferences in the world.

Read the whole thing.

Given how hostile colleges are, and how strongly young adults feel about this issue, taking this stand is likely to be very, very costly, but InterVarsity recognizes the stakes for the integrity of the Christian message. God bless InterVarsity for its impressive courage and steadfastness! ...

... Update:

A reader writes that InterVarsity has posted this on its Facebook page tonight:

You may have seen this evening’s article in TIME about InterVarsity.

We’re disappointed that Elizabeth Dias’ headline and article wrongly stated that InterVarsity is firing employees for supporting gay marriage. That is not the case....

... we believe Christlikeness, for our part, includes both embracing Scripture’s teachings on human sexuality—uncomfortable and difficult as they may be—as well as upholding the dignity of all people, because we are all made in God’s image.

... Within InterVarsity and elsewhere in the Church, there are LGBTQI people who agree with this theology, at great personal cost. We are learning together to follow Jesus.

Another reader, a lawyer and a liberal, writes:

This is a smart legal move on their part. Federal law makes it pretty much impossible to take a stance along the lines of, “This is what we believe, but out of compassion and pragmatism we’re willing to be flexible for a certain amount of time, with certain people, and/or in certain situations.” Either you have a blanket policy that applies to all people in all instances, or federal courts will rule that you don’t “really” have a principled position ....

I appreciate this comment for its honesty. I’ve talked to people in religious schools, both Catholic and Protestant, who are being advised by their lawyers to draw clear, bright doctrinal lines right now, and enforce them. If they don’t, the lawyers advise, they are going to have a hard time in court if they get sued.

[Hat tip to JM]

A Krehbiel classic: the Bible and the Catholic apologist

A tune-up for Catholic apologetics

By  Greg Krehbiel (Crowhill Weblog, July 1, 2004)

Back in 1992 I had a near miss with the Catholic Church. I almost converted. For the next seven years or so I couldn't shake the habit of falling into online discussions, arguments, dialog and, let's face it, fights, with other Christians. This nasty habit is usually called apologetics.

My almost-Catholic-yet-vigorously-and-reluctantly-Protestant status was like a bull's eye painted on my email address.  Apologists of every stripe tried to do their best and some to bring me into the church and some to pull me away from the precipice. I learned what it's like to be apologetic prey. Generally speaking, I didn't mind. I like a good fight. But the experience has given me a taste of the ugly side of apologetics. From almost eight years of struggling to be an almost Catholic, I developed a unique perspective on both the Protestant and Catholic versions of this nasty business.

But before I share my reflections on apologetics, let me clarify one thing. I am a Catholic and I believe everything the Catholic Church teaches. That doesn't mean I accept every garden-variety argument used to support those teachings, and I hope you can keep that distinction in mind as I criticize some common apologetic arguments.

One more thing. Yes, I know the Protestants make their mistakes too. When I was a Protestant, I picked on them. But let's get the log out of our eye before we take the splinter out of our brother's.

The Church is Infallible and So Am I

The Church is the community of those people who have been called out of the world and filled with the Holy Spirit. It is the Body of Christ in the world, and certain things are true of the church because of its participation in the life of Christ. For example, it cannot fail, and it will come to know all truth. (Jn 16:13) One manifestation of this is the infallibility of the church's Magisterium in certain cases.

Of course the doctrine of infallibility is a big subject of dispute between Catholics and Protestants. But there's another side to it, which could be illustrated by a fight on the playground.

"Well my daddy's an engineer, and he says ...," by which Junior wants you to hear "I know what an engineer knows, and I say …."

The Church's decrees on doctrine and morals are infallible, but how do you know you understand and apply them properly? Furthermore, sometimes the church holds to a doctrine without necessarily endorsing how we should prove or demonstrate it. Even if you understand the church's position, the argument you use to convince others may be faulty. There is such a thing as a bad argument to support the right conclusion.

The Catholic apologist has to guard against believing that his methods are right because his conclusions are right. A more healthy approach would say, "This is the Catholic faith as I understand it, and this is why I find that position reasonable. But please go to the church's official documents and check it out for yourself."

BAD HABIT: Assuming that you are right because the church is right.

REMEDY: Listen to your critics. Yes, even to non-Catholics. You may not know as much as you think you know.

Proper Conclusions Don't Fix Bad Arguments

The pagan maiden and the apostate adultress

I thought of titling this post: "Why apostates are so much more worse off than unevangelized pagans." But then I thought of the words above, whose meaning should soon become apparent.

This is a familiar theme among Chesterton readers who know, for example, his quote wherein he declares: "Paganism was the biggest thing in the world, and Christianity was bigger and everything since has been comparatively small." It was a big theme in his book, The Everlasting Man.

It's not surprising that C.S. Lewis also addresses the issue, as one of my students recently pointed out in a term paper. Quoting from C.S. Lewis and Don Giovanni Calibria, The Latin Letters of C.S. Lewis (South Bend, IN: St. Augustin's Press, 2009), p. 90, he writes (first in the Latin, then the English translation):

Hinc status pejor quam illum statum quem habuimus ante fidem receptam. Nemo enim ex Christianismo redit in statum quem habuit ante Christianismum, sed in pejorem: tantum distat inter paganum et apostatam quantum innuptam ed adulteram. Nam fides perficit naturam sed fides amissa corrumpit naturam.

This [present] state is worse than that state which we had before the faith [was] received. For no one from Christianity returns into the state which he had before Christianity, but into a worse one: pagans and apostates differ as much as an unmarried [woman] and an adultress. For faith perfects nature, but faith lost corrupts nature.

Related: Peter Kreeft, "Comparing Christianity & The New Paganism" (www.peterkreeft.com)

"The one thing, the first thing, the only thing that matters for the Church is to save souls!"

Bishop Fellay in a recently released 45-minute frank interview on the status of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X under the pontificates of Benedict and Francis (in French with English subtitles), via Adfero at Rorate, March 21, 2016:

Pope Emeritus Benedict breaks silence, speaks of 'deep crisis' facing post-Vatican II Church

I was surprised to suddenly see this everywhere -- reports of Pope Emeritus breaking his silence in an interview, originally given in German last October and now reported by an Italian journal, "Cos’è la fede? Ecco le parole di Benedetto XVI" (Avvenire, March 16, 2016).

Here's what Maike Hickson reported at LifeSiteNews yesterday:

March 16, 2016 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- On March 16, speaking publicly on a rare occasion, Pope Benedict XVI gave an interview to Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops' Conference, in which he spoke of a “two-sided deep crisis” the Church is facing in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. The report has already hit Germany courtesy of Vaticanist Guiseppe Nardi, of the German Catholic news website Katholisches.info.

Pope Benedict reminds us of the formerly indispensable Catholic conviction of the possibility of the loss of eternal salvation, or that people go to hell:

The missionaries of the 16th century were convinced that the unbaptized person is lost forever. After the [Second Vatican] Council, this conviction was definitely abandoned. The result was a two-sided, deep crisis. Without this attentiveness to the salvation, the Faith loses its foundation.

He also speaks of a “profound evolution of Dogma” with respect to the Dogma that there is no salvation outside the Church. This purported change of dogma has led, in the pope's eyes, to a loss of the missionary zeal in the Church – “any motivation for a future missionary commitment was removed.”

Pope Benedict asks the piercing question that arose after this palpable change of attitude of the Church: “Why should you try to convince the people to accept the Christian faith when they can be saved even without it?”

As to the other consequences of this new attitude in the Church, Catholics themselves, in Benedict's eyes, are less attached to their Faith: If there are those who can save their souls with other means, “why should the Christian be bound to the necessity of the Christian Faith and its morality?” asked the pope. And he concludes: “But if Faith and Salvation are not any more interdependent, even Faith becomes less motivating.”

Pope Benedict also refutes both the idea of the “anonymous Christian” as developed by Karl Rahner, as well as the indifferentist idea that all religions are equally valuable and helpful to attain eternal life.

“Even less acceptable is the solution proposed by the pluralistic theories of religion, for which all religions, each in its own way, would be ways of salvation and, in this sense, must be considered equivalent in their effects,” he said. In this context, he also touches upon the exploratory ideas of the now-deceased Jesuit Cardinal, Henri de Lubac, about Christ's putatively “vicarious substitutions” which have to be now again “further reflected upon.”

With regard to man's relation to technology and to love, Pope Benedict reminds us of the importance of human affection, saying that man still yearns in his heart “that the Good Samaritan come to his aid.”

He continues: “In the harshness of the world of technology – in which feelings do not count anymore – the hope for a saving love grows, a love which would be given freely and generously.”

Benedict also reminds his audience that: “The Church is not self-made, it was created by God and is continuously formed by Him. This finds expression in the Sacraments, above all in that of Baptism: I enter into the Church not by a bureaucratic act, but with the help of this Sacrament.” Benedict also insists that, always, “we need Grace and forgiveness.” [emphasis added]

Also reported in

• Maike Hickson, "Benedict XVI Gives Rare Interview ... Says The Church Has Lost Missionary Zeal" (The Wanderer, March 16, 2016)
• Steve Skojec, "Pope Benedict Breaks His Silence On 'Deep Crisis'" (One Peter Five, March 16, 2016)
• Louie Verrecchio, "Benedict's Avvenire interview: A man of the Council speaks" (aka Catholic, March 17, 2016), who raises some questions about the translation presented at LifeSiteNews.
• Christopher A. Ferrara, "Benedict Breaks His silence ... with Another Leaky Lifeboat" (Remnant, March 17, 2017), knowing Italian, offers his own translations of the text and concludes that the upshot of the interview is more devastating than Benedict's own damning diagnosis of the problem -- a continued lack of clear rationale or incentive for the missionary mandate.
• Father Z, "New interview with Benedict XVI in Avvenire" (Fr. Z's Blog, March 16, 2016), who offers an interesting liturgical inference.
• Robert Royal, "Benedict Breaks Silence" (The Catholic Thing, March 17, 2017)

SEE FULL TEXT HERE: Elizabeth Scalia, "The Christian Faith Is Not An Idea But A Life" (Aleteia, March 17, 2017); and AND HERE: "Full text of Benedict XVI's recent, rare, and lengthy interview" (Catholic World Report, March 17, 2016).

What is a "peronal relationship with Jesus Christ," and what role does it play in one's salvation?

Let's start with the Old Testament Patriarchs, Moses, Joshua, Esther, Ruth, David, and the Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Amos, for starters. Does any Christian doubt the likelihood of their salvation? Yet did they have a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ"?

Jesus famously declared: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no one comes to the Father but through me." (Jn 14:6) If this is true, and the Old Testament saints are in heaven, they are there only by virtue of the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ, even if they could not have personally known anything about Jesus, who would only come centuries later.

What this suggests is that salvation through Christ is based on the objective fact of Christ's substitutionary atonement and the incorporation of the faithful into His mystical body by the means provided by God during particular dispensations of salvation history. For the Old Testament saints, this meant the animal sacrifices prescribed by God through the Hebrew patriarchs and prophets, whose rituals looked forward to the promised Redeemer. For those of us who have lived since the publication of the New Testament, this means the re-enactment of the sacrifice of Christ in the Lord's Supper, which looks back to the Passion of Christ and His once-for-all sacrifice in human history.

Michael Voris seems to have something of this sort in mind in his provocative new "Vortex" feature entitled "Personal Relationship With Jesus Christ" (Church Militant, January 7, 2016). He may seem unnecessarily harsh in his denunciation of the prevalent Protestant-like talk about the need for a "personal relationship with Jesus" among many contemporary Catholics. But if you listen closely, I think the real message may be something else.

Yes, it's true that a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" doesn't seem to have played much of a role in the redemption of the Old Testament saints. Nor does it seem essential (or even possible!) in the salvation of a child who dies in infancy, or those who are severely mentally retarded.

But on the other hand, perhaps Voris' point is that a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" is very much the key to one's salvation, but that it has been misunderstood by those who take it to mean something purely subjective and experiential. What could possibly involve a more personal relationship with Jesus Christ than any of the seven sacraments? By being baptized into his Body? By becoming a partaker of the divine nature by way of Holy Communion? By being absolved by Him of one's sins through the sacrament of Confession? But the point is that all of these are objective performances, things one does. That is, they are more than mere experienced feelings of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

On this reading, perhaps even Abraham and the other Old Testament saints very much had "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ," even if it wasn't expressed in ways familiar to contemporary evangelicals and evangelical Catholics. After all, Jesus said to His fellow Jews: "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad." (Jn 8:56) I doubt this means that Abraham understood that God would become incarnate as a historical man named Jesus. Yet by faith he certainly is said to have trusted in the redemptive promises of God; and one of those promises, if yet seen only inchoately in Abraham's day, was the promise of a Messiah, which came gradually into focus as the fullness of time -- the time of Jesus' birth -- drew nearer.

So did this entail having certain feelings and emotional experiences on the part of Abraham. That he felt things profoundly during certain junctures in his lifetime, I have not doubt. But the point, I think, would be that his salvation rested on something objective: keeping the terms of the Covenant God imposed upon him. This is where his faith effectively came to expression; just as ours comes to effective expression in our keeping the terms of the New Covenant imposed on us -- that is, in our fulfillment of the precepts of the Church.

Fr. Eduard Perrone's proposals for the evangelization of the Archdiocese of Detroit

Fr. Eduard Perrone, "A Pastor's Descant" [a temporary link] (Assumption Grotto News, January 10, 2016):

Sometimes I feel like a word processor, an inhuman, mechanized instrument, churning out words, as duty necessitates. (This is pure bellyaching, cherished reader, and accordingly you ought not to pay much attention to it.) So many pastor’s columns, sermons, classroom teaching, counseling and occasional talks–a veritable mountain of words that are weighed, pondered and critiqued. I reckon that I have written close to six hundred Descants and a whole library of sermons and conferences. I wonder about the utility (or futility) of it all. Ideally, this mass of verbiage is an instrumental means to promulgate the teaching of Christ. But a preacher and writer can have his doubts. Every word of his will be tried in the balance on the last day. Undaunted by this reckoning, I plod on, obedient to what I believe to be my pastoral duty. Patience!

That said and done, I move on to the business of reporting on the end-of-the-year meeting held here in preparation for the upcoming archdiocesan Synod. I knew in advance that I would not be able to attend the gathering due to a previous engagement. In a way, my absence was to the good since our people spoke perhaps more freely without me being there.

Why ever the Archdiocese deemed Grotto parish desirable for the expression of its people’s views and comments remains an unsolved mystery. We are notably and decidedly different from many a parish–the very reason you make the weekly sacrifice of goodly travel time to get here. Our sole emphasis in this parish has been to form as good and devout Catholics as possible we can be. The rest of what we do is as so much jazz.

The fundamental question for the proposed Synod is: Why bother? If every priest faithfully and piously fulfilled the duties Holy Orders imposed on him for the salvation of his people, all would be well. Long years of neglect of these and–further–of departure from them in the pursuit of modernistic, socialistic and experimental ends have spelled the ecclesiastical disaster which has now hit hard on the spiritual lives of Catholic people. If it were up to me to suggest one thing that would have the greatest positive impact on the life of the Church in this Archdiocese it would be the reform of the clergy. By this I mean that priests would not only do more of the works characteristic of priests and much less of endless meetings, administrative business and wastes of their time but that they would engage themselves instead in a more concentrated pursuit of the holy life their sacred calling imposes upon them. Out would go secular-styled liturgies and inane preaching, interminable meetings, secular clothing, partying and dancing, vulgar speech, inappropriate movies, excessive drink, rock music (and the whole junk culture generally), and in would come holy hours, spiritual reading, more private prayer, and the cultivation of a more intense intellectual and theological life along with a priestly solidarity with other priests who aim at securing these same goals. There are indeed many fine priests in this Archdiocese who already do these things and who shun the worldly model of the priest expected of them in some places. Yet, as you well know, these priests are not in evidence everywhere.

Regarding the recent pre-synodal gathering here, one thoughtful writer said that its format was “a classic consulting ‘stakeholder feedback’” session. With my ignorance of the business world, I have no idea of what that means except that it is apparently a decidedly secular way for the Church to be doing its ‘business.’ In my unhumble opinion, I think the Church should be distinctively churchly and have that proverbially Christian ‘saltiness’ in its manner of operating. In other words, perhaps the very way the Synod is being prepared and plans to function is already indicative of the very problem it seeks to edress: the invasion of secularity in the ways of the Church.

I heard that many of our people expressed their content with our parish and their appreciation for its priests. They also aired their dissatisfaction with parishes from which they departed. The dangling question however remains, What good will this input accomplish? When all gets sifted through the “process,” what will be left of our people’s comments and suggestions which are meant, as I understand it, to be of service to the Archbishop? My near cynical reaction is that our participation will have been for naught. Yet, grace has the potency to elevate weakened human nature, and so a spiritually deflated (but not depleted) diocese can be rejuvenated by divine helps that exceed all human efforts.

I close with two fanciful proposals of my own for evangelization in the Archdiocese. I would ask every priest to make a voluntary pledge in writing to the Archbishop to bolster his priestly life by avoiding secular ways and entertainments and by implementing spiritual exercises that are characteristically priestly (daily rosary, holy hours, daily meditation in silence, spiritual reading, regular confession, etc.); and I’d ask every priest voluntarily to consecrate his parish to the Immaculate Heart of Mary at every Mass on a given weekend. These two things are as simple, concrete, and extremely doable as they are also highly unlikely of ever being considered for the diocesan Synod. Thus I rest my case on relative disvalue of the enterprise of renewal of the diocese through the Synodal process.

Fr. Perrone

The odds of the Old Evangelization today: What alternatives are there?

This is iconic. The Christian Faith represented by a stalwart fellow with a good heart made to look like a hopeless old geezer, mocked and ridiculed by Muslims who would rather scoff at him than behead him.

What would the New Evangelization propose as an alternative? Dialogue? Friendship evangelism? Pre-evangelism? Like what?

God bless this old fellow. At least he spoke what he could of the truth. For the record, St. Francis had about as much luck in his jaunt into Muslim lands.

A well-written, humble, inspiring book

I just finished reading this book with our daughter. J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, it's not. But it has every bit the adventure of my mother's stories about her life as a missionary in China, to which she travelled alone by freighter to Hong Kong, making her way inland to Chendgu, Sichuan, where she served as a medical mission nurse until my father arrived, they were married, they tried to stay after the Maoist revolution and after I came crashing into their lives. Perhaps this disposed me empathetically to the story about Sr. Theophane in Selfless.


From the publisher:

Selfless is the story of Sister Theophane, a passionate, driven nun dedicated to serving the poor around the world.

Discover the inspiring story of how a precocious young girl from upstate New York became a servant and apostle to the poor in the jungle missions of Papua New Guinea, and, eventually, a prisoner of the Japanese in World War II.

Selfless: The Story of Sr. Theophane's Missionary Life in the Jungles of Papua New Guinea was written in 1946 by a fellow sister of the Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters [Sr. Immolata Reida, SSpS], but it is just now being published for the first time.

Long held in anonymity, Sr. Theophane's amazing life of service and apostolic zeal is now finally being revealed to the world. Her story is a breathtaking tale that will inspire a new generation of Catholics to heed the call of service to Christ and others.

Our daughter was touched by Theophane's love of animals from when she was a child, through her horse-riding adventures in the mountain passes of Papua New Guinea. I was touched by her quiet heroism, her unflagging selfless zeal, and her untimely death as a casualty of the Pacific War (WWII). The ending is particularly moving, if you follow the threat of hear life throughout the whole narrative.

Pray for a renewal of the missionary spirit among Catholic women religious. Lord knows we need it.

When did the Church learn to evangelize? After Vatican II?

One of the more persistent annoyances in the contemporary Catholic world is the proud declaration that now we finally know that we’re supposed to evangelize and go forth and go out and not sit smugly inside the church walls! Finally!

Thus begins a recent post by Amy Welborn, who, in the context of discussing a book called The Blind Sisters of St. Paul, nails to the wall one of our own pet peeves of this era of the "New Evangelization" ... She continues:

It’s not all the fault of the Francis Moment. Since the Second Vatican Council, that idea: that the pre-Vatican II Church was closed-off, and we’re all about the openness, energy and evangelization now – exists in the Catholic Atmosphere somewhere between assumption and dogma.

But how odd, then, that when we dig out examples to inspire us in our current efforts to take the Gospel into the world, to be energetic and creative and engaged, we tell each other that we need to be more like…

Francis de Sales!

Catherine of Siena!

Frederic Ozanam!

Maximilian Kolbe!

Alphonsus Liguori!

Francis of Assisi!

Dominic!

or today’s saint: Blessed Marie-Rose Durocher!

Who all, it seems, managed to understand Jesus’ call pretty well, despite having to live rigidly with access only to the ©TLM.

Just think what they could have accomplished with more freedom and the right to actively participate!

Guy Noir, who sent us this linked article, highlighted Wellborn's frank observation:

(My take has always been that what Vatican II unleashed, even as it was called in order to enable the Church to offer the Gospel to the world with more vigor and understanding, was mostly decades and decades of self-involved naval-gazing and infighting as the energy to go out was redirected into endless meetings trying to figure out new structures and mission statements and what we’re all about and for, a massive waste of time and misdirection that we’re seeing reach its natural climax in #Synod15.)

Whether you wish to take that cum grano salis (or not), I think you will agree that there are a growing number of pretty frustrated people out there. God bless! -- Catholic and enjoying it, +PP

Evangelism and ecumenism: promise and the pitfalls

Tim Challies, "Fool's Talk" (Challies.com, September 15, 2015) - a review of a book on persuasion by Os Guinness, who thinks that we too often focus on "victory" as apologists for the Christian faith.

The reader who sends the linked article writes:

Perhaps this is the sort of thing Francis means to convey on evangelism? You have to be vary careful of drawing such parallels: John Paul II embraced Billy Graham, and yet they were quite different, even if both were gigantic religious leaders. Francis is similarly supposedly quite affirming of voices like Luis Palau... Regardless of those connections, Os Guiness here sounds the exact same notes Frank Sheed was groping towards decades ago. Two accomplishes writers both of who need to be more widely read.

[Hat tip to JM]

Ann Coulter, Missionaries, and Archbishop Lefebvre

Our underground correspondent in an eastern seaboard city that knows how to keep its secrets, Guy Noir - Private Eye, just sent me the link to the following article by Albert Mohler, "Are Christian Missionaries Narcissistic Idiots? — A Response to Ann Coulter" (AlbertMohler.com, August 7, 2014), in which Mohler responds to some wild-eyed remarks by the indomitable Ann Coulter about an Ebola doctor who was flown back to the United States (“Ebola Doc’s Condition Downgraded to ‘Idiotic.”).

Noir commented: "I am not sure what I think of this: I tend to think both all three have points. I also think Coulter is always hysterical.

"But it also raises the larger question, is there still such a thing as Catholic missionaries? I really don't think so. Also makes me think of this rather moving trailer."

The video he linked to was this:


[Hat tip to JM]

The weak underbelly of contemporary Christian arguments about sex

A guest column today by JM, which I commend to you:

I know, I know... I remain, I realize, impossible to please on the gay issue.

But in reading all the hand-wringing over the Supreme Court decision by Catholics and Evangelicals, all I see, over and over again, is concern for the future of marriage. Oddly, few are concerned nearly so much by the hook-up culture on college campuses or the fact the living together pre-marriage is now the given almost everywhere unless you are a Traddie or Amish. Gays amount to 3 - 9 percent of the population, whereas the sexually-active-outside-of-marriage amount to what percentage? Of course sex sin has always been an issue, but it used to be a sin of stumbling or weakness. Now it is a sin of deliberation, of lifestyle. College students now bring their girl or boyfriends home as bedmates for the summer, and the parents are ... just happy to have the kids home! It is all seen as not weakness but normalcy.

To my mind what is missing in the current unrest, to the point it neuters the entire controversy from a Christian perspective -- despite arguments of a Robert P George that are downright Thomistic in their awesome expansiveness -- is simply this:

Gay marriage is the societal approval of gay sex, plain and simple. It is "I'm OK -- You're Physical Partnering is OK." And this is the natural, almost inescapable endgame of "We must make sure in every circumstance we affirm the inherent dignity of our homosexual brothers and sisters." Someone with inherent dignity can hardly be affirmed and then also taken to task or asked to deny what is part of what is their inherent dignity, right? What does it mean when the Supreme Court gives a green light to gay marriage, and the only mention of sodomy or immorality in the reams and reams of commentary from countless ministry blogs is in Judge Scalia's actual dissent? When the Evangelicals are busy worrying about how we will now interact and witness to gay people and their loved ones? When Exodus Ministries shuts down and apologizes out of respect for the dignity of homosexual believers?

Rather vaguely I think of the Liturgical Wars, and how people are wildly concerned about the loss of Latin, whereas what is more deeply at stake is just what the translations say or don't say. The Latin is important too, but really the more significant matter has to be what words are used, whether in English or in Latin. True, both ARE significant, but when you realize what was done to the content of the Mass a while ago, the question of the vernacular takes on a secondary importance to what you are or are no longer saying.

I am not sure what any of it means, except that while we think sex is very important, we also don't seem to think that our sexual choices especially matter. A commenter on First Things blog said this. It has been so long since I have read anything remotely like it I was shocked. If a Catholic leader ever said any such thing, I might have to make a pilgrimage to the remotest shrine I could find to give thanks for a miracle. Tough times, battle times, require tough talk, not grave tsk tsks. As bracing as Dolan's commentary first appears, next to this it is tepid:

The issue to which I keep coming back as the Church accommodates more and more to the secular gay voices in our society, is our responsibility to proclaim the whole gospel, even the parts we don’t like. Even a cursory reading of Romans 1 and I Corinthians 6 indicates that practicing homosexuals are in real danger of not being a part of God’s Kingdom, however you construe that. That a given “sexual-minority” person is an otherwise well-socialized member of society, perhaps even particularly caring and warm, doesn’t seem to make any difference in Kingdom membership. Whether we like it or not and whether it seems enlightened or not, Scripture, as it reveals God’s message to us, is unambiguous regarding unrepentant homosexual behavior. If we fail to warn those in danger of perdition, then we too will come under a greater judgement. The truth about the Truth sets us free and we owe those caught in sin the same opportunity we have had to find redemption and freedom.

[Hat tip to JM]

Related:

• S. M. Hutchens, "Just Christians: On Homosexuality & Christian Identity" (Tourchstone)
  
• R. V. Young, "The Gay Invention: Homosexuality Is a Linguistic as Well as a Moral Error" (Touchstone)