Episcopalianism now "effete high church unitarianism"

Al Kimel, the widely-respected author of the Pontifications blog, who recently swam the Tiber, has been offering his observations, commentary, and critique of the ECUSA, the ecclesial community with which he was formerly affiliated, for some time now. Fourteen years ago he and five other Episcopal priests issued a summons to the Episcopal Church to return to biblical orthodoxy--The Baltimore Declaration. It goes without saying that things have heated up in the ECUSA considerably since that time. Last November, Kimel sounded the Gandalfian alarm to his fellow Episcopalians, "Fly, you fools!" And now, after having himself fled the madhouse, he offers some telling observations in a post entitled "Fleeing the Madhouse." Among his more salient observations: "The Episcopal Church has become an effete high church unitarianism." Read more ...

Why orthodox Catholics are angry with the Legion of Christ

Michael S. Rose
Vows of Silence. By Jason Berry and Gerald Renner. Free Press. 356 pages. $26.

Vows of Silence should be one of the most important books in better than a decade for conservative Catholics in the U.S. and beyond. Alas, it will not be. Jason Berry and Gerald Renner, conscientious and seasoned journalists, undermine their own effort with their openly stated liberal Catholic agenda. Moreover, the subtitle of the book, The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II gives a pretty good indication of the authors' bias. But John Paul II is given scant attention. This is not even a book about the papacy or Vatican politics. The book is about Fr. Thomas Doyle, who for two decades has heroically stood up for the victims of priestly sex abuse, and about Fr. Marcial Maciel [pictured left], who has been accused numerous times of sex abuse, and about his Legion of Christ and its lay affiliate Regnum Christi. The connection of John Paul to the Legion is just this: The Pope has put his weight behind the Legion in the past, which the Legion is quick to point out, repeatedly.

The Legion and its supporters have exploited the authors' bias in order to dismiss their thorough research. The people who ought to read Vows of Silence, mainly conservative Catholics who would likely be attracted to the manifest signs of Legion orthodoxy, are given a good reason not to take Barry and Renner's research seriously. Nonetheless, despite their liberal proclivities, the facts they assemble are very much worth examining.

When some of the book's material regarding sexual abuse allegations against Fr. Maciel were first published in the Hartford Courant, the neoconservative, hight-tax-bracket Catholics were quick to defend Maciel. With little or no first-hand knowledge of the situations being written about, prominent neocon Catholics such as Fr. Richard John Neuhaus or First Things, William Donohue of The Catholic League, Harvard professor Mary Ann Glendon, and Deal Hudson of Crisis magazine all denounced the Courant's series. Yet none of these neocons met with Maciel's accusers. The Legion and the neocons, both reputed to be interested in money and power, are allies. It's "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours." But these neocons may come to regret their hasty judgments.

Vows of Silence deals with well-substantiated sexual abuse allegations from nine former Legionaries against Fr. Maciel, including--significantly-men who were high-ranking members of the order before bailing out. Over the past five or so years, the Legion has been denying the allegations, categorizing them as conspiracy, and publicly assassinating the character ofthese men without substantial proof--every one a well-respected professional, none of whom is seeking financial compensation.

One of the Legion's greatest skills seems to be character assassination without substantial evidence. When former Legionary Juan Vaca came forward with sex abuse allegations against Fr. Maciel, the Publisher and Editor in Chief of the Legion-owned National Catholic Register, Fr. Owen Kearns, derided Vaca as "a proud status-conscious man angered and disappointed at his professional failures," a man who wanted "greater power in the Legion." Juan Vaca was Director of the Legionaries in the U.S. when he resigned from the Legion. I have spoken with people who personally know Vaca. They say that Fr. Kearn's characterization of him couldn't be further from the truth. Berry and Renner paint the same picture: a mild-mannered, humble man.

The defense of Maciel by the Legion is essential because both Regnum Christi and the Legionaries of Christ are built around a cult of personality, that of Fr. Marcial Maciel. He is called Nuestro Padre (Our Father) and is regarded as a "living saint." From several accounts, Maciel appears to be a megalomaniac with a penchant for making theatrical appearances with spectacular arrivals, such as flying in on a personal helicopter into a crowd of squealing teens, perhaps in imitation of a rock star.

It is instructive to note here, as an aside, that during the past few years Maciel has canceled his spectacular appearances at the annual family day festivals in the U.S. In 2003 Maciel was scheduled to address the thousands gathered in Chcago. When he failed to arrive and event organizers played a video-taped address from the Legion founder, a reporter speculated in the Chicago Tribune that Fr. Maciel had failed to appear in Chicago because he feared American abuse-victims groups would protest his presence. The Tribune also pointed out that if Maciel were a priest operating in a U.S. diocese, the nine credible alligations of sex abuse would have caused him to be relieved of his priestly duties.

When I spoke to Jay Dunlap, the Legionaries' Communications Director, the following week about another topic, I asked him if there was any truth to the Tribune's report. "No," responded Dunlap. He dismissed the entire article as the immature work of a summer intern from Stanford University. I was expected to believe that this journalist from Stanford was all wet.

Why then did Fr. Maciel fail to appear in Chicago as scheduled? It's a long story, explained Dunlap. The official Legion PR line was this: Maciel had been on some important pastoral visit to South America. From there, he was scheduled to fly to Chicago. However, said Dunlapl, Maciel was diverted by a sudden request from some unnamed cardinal to return to Rome on some urgent business. "When a Vatican cardinal makes a request," said Dunlap, "Fr. Maciel can't exactly ignore it."

Thus, according to the official party line, Fr. Maciel did not appear in Chicago because he was called to Rome by a Vatican cardinal. This explanation would only sound plausible to someone who knows little to nothing about Church hierarchy. Heads of religious orders do not report or take quotidian orders from "Vatican cardinals." What urgent business?, I asked Dunlap. Dunno, he said.

Is the public really expected to believe that Maciel's "urgent business" in Rome couldn't wait one day--until after he addressed one of the largest gatherings of his lay movement? given that Berry and Renner report that Maciel has thrown lavish dinners in Rome for prominent Vatican cardinals, perhaps a better explanation would be that Maciel has to come running, Johnny-on-the-spot, to any and all "Vatican cardinals" so as to help guarantee that the cardinals in the Curia will protect him from sexual allegations swilling about him. Don't be so naive as to think that cardinals don't do that--remember Cardinal Law (now a Vatican cardinal)?

What about Maciel's scheduled appearance at the Family Gathering in 2002 in Baltimore; why did Maciel also cancel his appearance there? Dunlap was ready with his response: "You'll remember that was the week before the Pope was scheduled to visit Mexico City."

Yes, I told him, I remember.

"Well, Fr. Maciel was called to Mexico City to help the city prepare for the Pope's arrival."

This explanation was even more far-fetched than the Chicago excuse. Was I supposed to believe that Fr. Maciel "was called" to Mexico in order to hang tinsel a whole week before the Pope's arrival? And who called him to Mexico City?

The primary reason I called Dunlap in the first place was that Sophia Institute Press (which published two of my books: Ugly as Sin and Priest) had recently published Christ Is My Life by Fr. Maciel, a 304-page book that purported to be a candid interview with Jesus Colina, a Catholic journalist with the Rome-based Zenit News Agency, owned by the Legionaries. The book was being criticized as a propaganda tract used for recruiting new prospects into the movement. The fact that the Legion purchased 16,000 copies of the book jsut prior to the Chicago festival lends some credence to that claim.

I was asked to review the book for a national newspaper--not the NOR [New Oxford Review]. After reading Christ Is My Life--filled mainly with pious platitudes with little spiritual or theological depth-I discovered that former Legion seminarians and priests were denouncing the book, which was ostensibly autobiographical, as a string of fabrications--a concocted self-hagriography. Given the fact that the "interviewer" was a Regnum Christi member and Legion employee rather than an independent journalist, and that so many former Legion members disputed the historical facts, I felt like I had little to offer by way of a review. Moreover, I was not encouraged by the fact that the Leigion's website was promoting the book as "the fastest-selling Catholic book on the market today." That the Legion of Christ itself bought up 16,000 books upon publication for free distribution was what made Christ Is My Life a so-called bestseller--a marketing technique that smaks of duplicity.

A booklet on the life and times of Fr. Maciel written by Fr. J. Alberto Villasana, a Legion priest, paints Nuestro Padre [pictured left] as a veritable hero of the Cristero Revolt in Mexico. As a teenager, for example, he is said to have calmed the crowds in a near-riot, to have tended to wounded Cristeros, to have led anti-government protests, and to have miraculously escaped the bullets of a Communist assassin, all the while as a pious seminarian he chose to sleep on newspapers instead of a mattress and use a towel instead of a blanket. (For at least the past decade he's been chauffeured around in a Mercedes, has paid $9,000 a ticket to fly the supersonic Concorde across the Atlantic, and rents helicopters to keep crtain of his appointments in Mexico, Columbia, and the U.S.) Those who knew him at the time, however, inclujding Fr. Rogelio Orozco (one of the original group of boys to form the Legion in 1941) paint a portrait of a self-absorbed, spoiled, and sissified man, who was kicked out of seminary after seminary, and who literally made his teachers "recoil." Berry and Renner write that Maciel has crafted his own persona: "a heroic, saintly mask to cover his worldly genius at pulling money from the rich while hiding sex with boys in the closet...." The Legion counters by claiming that expulsion after expulsion--at one seminary he was given only half an hour to vacate--was caused by "misunderstandings."

Berry and Renner are in top form when debunking the string of alleged fabrications put forth in Maciel's autobiography. They have done their homework, digging into the source material and often finding dead ends: sources that don't exist, sources that turn out to be nothing more than verbal recountings of incidents from the mouth of Nuestro Padre to some Legion priest-chronicler. Sometimes the authors are even able to identify fault lines in Maciel's self-hagiography, especially when exact dates are given. For example, Fr. Maciel claimed that in June of 1946 he circumnavigated curial gatekeepers to gain access to Pope Pius XII. According to one of his hagiographic booklets, Nuestro Padre waited while the Holy Father "celebrated a solemn Mass of beatification" and when the ceremony was finished he got into the greeting line and allegedly said: "Holy Father, I am a Mexican priest and I have something important to tell you, but I don't have anyone to recommend me to you." First, Maciel had two uncles who were bishops. Second, Berry and Renner discovered that pius XII never beatified anyone in June of 1946.

Maciel's exaggerations apparently weren't limited to his autobiography. According to Federico Dominguez (not one of the accusers), a former Legionary and the secretary to whom Nuestro Padre dictated his letters for years, Fr. Maciel also liked to "exaggerate" in his correspondence with his rich patrons in Mexico: "he woul say we had three hundred students but there were only one hundred.... I began to have my doubts about him."

But exaggeration, invention, and lying weren't Fr. Maciel's only problems, attested Dominguez. One evening he went to Fr. Maciel's bedroom and found him there already in bed--in the dark with an adolescent boy, Juan Vaca.

Chapter after chapter of Vows of Silence is filled with horror stories from former Legion priests, seminarians, and Regnum Christi members. The pages are crammed with charges of brainwashing, manipulation, pederast seduction rituals, character assassination, bribes, drug abuse, gulag-type threats--you name it. The most interesting aspect of this expose is that even though the authors are avowedly liberal, a good number of the sources quoted are those who are self-defined orthodox Catholics. After all, the Legion consciously cultivates conservative Catholics, using a facade of pious traditionalism to draw them in. It should come as no surprise then that the harshest critics of the Legion are not liberal Catholics, but those who are staunchly conservative in their views of the Church. They are typically family-oriented, faithful Catholics who look to the Holy Father for direction, and embrace the teachings of the Catholic Church without reserve, and often attend Mass daily. Something is making these people very, very angry, and it's not the Legion's alleged fidelity to the Pope. Rather, it is the Legion's manipulative techniques used to lure them and their money into the movement. In short, their problem is with the Leigion's use of "orthodoxy" to manipulate faithful Catholics in order to build an empire, a "parallel church" (as one bishop expressed it).

According to the well-documented and well-researched material presented in Vows of Silence--and my own research over the past five years on Maciel and his order that confirms the facts in the book--the Legion has broken up families, destroyed schools, and pulled the wool over the eyes of many orthodox Catholics. That's part of the reason the order and its lay affiliate have been banned from certain dioceses, and are unwelcome on many Catholic campuses, including some notable conservative Catholic campuses (though only in an unwritten and informal way, I am told, so they won't risk losing any big doners).

One of the main problem is that there's been a rigorously observed media blackout among neo-conservative Catholic publications on the serious problems posed by the Legion of Christ, Regnum Christy, and Nuestro Padre. This is perhaps a story in itself.

The Legion's tentacles are far-reaching, as many staunchly conservative Catholics who have been burned by the Legion or Regnum Christi are afraid to speak out, for fear of retribution.

But thankfully, many talked on the record with Jason Berry and Gerald Renner. My advice is: Read the book and then make up your own mind.

[Michael S. Rose is author of several books including Goodbye, Good Men, on the homosexual cliques in many of our seminaries. He is a Contributing Editor of the NOR. This article was originally published as a Guest Column in NEW OXFORD REVIEW (May 2005), pp. 40-43. Reprinted with permission from NEW OXFORD REVIEW, 1069 Kains Ave., Berkeley CA 94706, U.S.A.]

Phytoestrogens in beer ...

Yesterday, Cornell University scientists released the results of a recent analysis that revealed the presence of female hormones in beer. Men should take a concerned look at their beer consumption. The theory is that beer contains female hormones (hops contains phytoestrogens) and that by drinking enough beer, men turn into women. To test the theory, 100 men were fed 8 pints of beer each within a 1 hour period. It was then observed that 100% of the test subjects: 1. Gained weight. 2. Talked excessively without making sense. 3. Became overly emotional. 4. Couldn't drive. 5. Failed to think rationally. 6. Argued over nothing. 7. Had to sit down while urinating. 8. Refused to apologize when obviously wrong. No further testing was considered necessary to validate this theory.

Catholicism and Political Philosophy

An important new volume on political philosophy, which appeared last year, by the astute Catholic critic, James V. Schall, is Roman Catholic Political Philosophy (Lexington Books, 2004). In this volume Schall reflects on the relationship of revelation, as understood within Catholicism, to the implications of political life. Writing in The Claremont Review of Books (Spring 2005), Robert R. Reilly observes:

According to [Schall], there is no derogation of reason in Christian revelation. Rather, Christianity contains an invitation to reason because God is revealed as logos. He claims that "what is revealed does not demand the denial of intellect, but fosters it." If God is logs, reason and revelation are not at an impoasse. A division of labor defines them. The common objective is the search for the highest things, and reason is given primacy in this search, including in its examination of the truths claimed by revelation. As Schall says, in Christianity "revelation itself has turned to philosophy precisely to explain more fully what is revealed." Christian revelation confirms reason in its authority. At the same time, revelation has a claim on reason. A philosophy that a priori excludes the possibility of revelation is a philosophy that is not true to itself. This book is about "how the highest things of philosophy, politics, and revelation related to each other.

In an interview with Claremont Institute's Ken Masugi (available at www.claremont.org), Schall said:

[W]e will not know, intellectually, if revelation has happened, unless we have first taken the trouble to examine the questions that arise in the experience of political and human things together with the varieties of answers that have been given to these questions by the philosophers.... I like to say that the study of political philosophy ought to bring such questions forward in our souls so that there is a kind of longing or searching that arises from the suspicion that none of tne answers so given have been complete or adequate.

Reilly continues, playing on Tertullian's metaphorical use of cities to symbolize rival commitments--to reason, to faith, and so on:

Political philosophy has the obligation to look at all cities--Athens, Jesusalem, and Rome. Today, Rome seems the least familiar of these three, and there is not better guide to it than Fr. Schall. For those confronting modernity, it is an essential visit because, as he has pointed out in Reason, Revelation and the Foundations of Political Philosophy (1987), modernity is not a distortion of classical political thought, but of Christianity. Millenarian ideology attempts, in its clumsy and destructive way, to ape the redemptive action of Christianity--of "God in Christ reconciling the world to Himself." Therefore, the recovery from modern ideology requires far more than the resuscitation of classical political philosophy, though that in itself is a good thing.

One need not be a Catholic, much less a Christian, to grasp the importance of Roman Catholic Political Philosophy.

Food for thought

"A Calvinist Presbyterian beclieves that all Catholics will be damned because they are predestined to be damned, whereas an ordinary Presbyterian believes that all Catholics will be damned on their merits." --Jon Bartley

Cartoonist Kevin Giovanetto takes on the finer points of Calvin's doctrine of predestination (right).

More food for thought

"Jim, you think he's with Jesus now? We only have 30 seconds."

Larry King, CNN talk-show host, interviewing actor James Caviezel, who played Jesus Christ in the film The Passion of the Christ, about the Pope's death.

New controversial book

Washington Post reporter, John F. Harris, has just come out with a blockbuster about the Clinton White House years, The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House. If you've got the stomach for more Bill raunchiness and Hilary exposes, this book, which ranked 9,527 on Amazon's sales parade Monday afternoon, promises to be a keeper. Some highlights are listed by the Druge Report.

Alice von Hildebrand on Kierkegaard's view of women, love, and feminism

Alice von Hildebrand's magnificent article on Kierkegaard's view of women, "Beautiful Words About Women," has been published online at Philosophia Perennis (May 28, 2005). Based on a careful reading of Either/Or, The Woman Who Was a Sinner, and Training in Christianity, it is a remarkably profound piece of Christian philosophical reflection. Here is a brief excerpt from the introductory part of the essay:

... It is not my purpose here to discuss some of the contradictory interpretations of his thought that scholars have offered; such would call for a whole book. In the framework of this article, my modest concern is to shed some light on Kierkegaard's views on women. His position is ambiguous; he has written about them both beautifully and spitefully. Deal Hudson, in his book An American Conversion, tells us that he did not like Kierkegaard because the latter "did not like women -- a remark likely to attract the sympathies of the fair sex.

I am going to take to Kierkegaard's defense and show that the few regrettable things he wrote about women are largely compensated by the beautiful things he wrote about them, and that his insights into the female personality and role in human and religious life could only come from the pen of someone who has loved.

That Kierkegaard loved Regina Olsen is something no one can deny, for he says so explicitly and unambiguously. It is true that a German "scholar" by the name of Schrempf contested this fact. But Kierkegaard was in a privileged position to know his feelings for his fiancee; I find it wiser to trust him.

The Soren Kierkegaard-Regina Olsen love story is certainly one of the most tragic in the history of great love affairs. He fell in love with her; he conquered her; he got engaged to her and was hoping to marry her. Then, to his horror and despair, he realized that he could not achieve the universal, tread the common path, and marry the girl he loved. Kierkegaard was a penitent; he had received a special calling which was not compatible with marriage. He often refers to the tragedy of Abraham, who was called upon to sacrifice the son he loved. To read about how he broke off his engagement, about her despair, about the humiliation to which her proud father submitted himself by begging him not to abandon his daughter, and the qualms of conscience that Kierkegaard suffered make at times painful reading. To the end of his life, he makes reference to this drama. At times, he hoped he could, after all, make her his wife. All these hopes were dashed when he found out that she was engaged to a previous beau that his ardent courtship had eliminated from the picture. That this was a serious blow, that he probably had to fight against a certain bitterness and disappointment, is not unlikely. He left her his literary bequest -- this was rejected by Regina's husband, and it fell into the hands of Kierkegaard's older brother, Peter....

Read more here ...

[Alice von Hildebrand is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at Hunter College of the City University of New York. She is the author, most recently, of The Soul of a Lion (Ignatius), about her late husband, the Catholic philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand ; The Privilege of Being a Woman (Sapientia Press); and By Love Refined [Letters to a Young Bride] (Sophia Institute Press). She has written extensively for many Catholic periodicals and appears frequently on Mother Agelica's EWTN. This article (published in full at Philosophia Perennis) is reprinted with permission from New Oxford Review, 1069 Kains Ave., Berkeley CA 94706, U.S.A.]

Home schooling? Some resources for math ... and summer fun

Attention home schoolers! Bargain book of the week - 59% off Math Curse by bestselling Children's author Jon Scieszka - Only $6.99. While supplies last. From my own experience with parents and kids involved in home schooling, I understand only too well how math can be a challenge for some children. Here's a book that actually makes math fun.

"If you can believe that!" someone will say. But did you realize that when the famous French mathematician and theologian, Blaise Pascal, was being home schooled by his father, Etienne, attitudes toward math were very different. Math was one subject so exciting, so intoxicating, that duels were sometimes fought over competing mathematical theories. The great mathematician, Tycho Brae (1546-1601) even had his nose cut off in a duel over math and had a prosthetic nose made of silver, which required him to always take a bottle of glue along with him for repairs in case he sneezed.

Etienne thought the subject of mathematics so enticing that if his kids caught even a whiff of it, they would be unable to concentrate on anything else. Careful father that he was, Etienne therefore secretly locked up into a closet all the the math books. It was only after Etienne discovered that his son, Blaise, had discovered a considerable amount of Euclidian geometry on his own that he unlocked the math books, realizing that he had a genius on his hands.

Another boon to the effective math education, as many home schoolers will know, is the Saxon Math series of texts, whose exercises not only progressively cover material introduced in the chapter, but continue to reinforce material covered in earlier chapters. Christopher, one of our sons, practically taught himself algebra by working through one of these books. These books are available for different levels. But for a sample, see Saxon Math 87: An Incremental Development, about which one Amazon reviewer raves: "My son used this and S.A.T. tested high 90th percentile!" The reviewer continues:

"My 12 year old son has used Saxon materials at home for 4 years. His younger sister is currently using 8/7. It can be challenging, but they've been very successful! It's nice as a mother of 5 to have confidence in the Saxon program as it frees me up to deal with other things. If they have a question, it is easy just to review the short lesson and find the answer! If I could give it 6 stars, I would. Now my third child is also in Saxon. Thank the Lord for this effective curriculum. The results have been great!"

Oh, and just in case you like to take your family on camping excursions, I saw this incredible deal: 55% OFF on a Columbia CB-5400 Black Mountain Dual Composite 6-Person Cabin Tent for only $99! This is the easy-to-assmble type of tent with a mix of flexible fiberglass and steel poles, not the kind with easily breakable aluminum poles that have to be inserted into one another. Several years we tented with our family all the way to Banff and Jasper, in the Canadian rockies, and back to North Carolina--which was a trip we shall never forget!

Insights on Catholicism from The New Yorker

As many of you already know, Peter J. Boyer has written a terrific article in the May 16, 2005 issue of The New Yorker Magazine entitled "A Hard Faith: How the New Pope and His Predecessor Redefined Vatican II." I wasn't sure what to expect from the article while Boyer was still writing it and called me to ask a number of questions about the significance of John Paul II's pontificate on the eve of his death. (When a writer for one of New York's most liberal secular magazines calls to ask your opinion of the pontificate of a Pope whom, you realize, you will end up making look slightly left-of-center, naturally you're suspicious.) Boyer conceded the point by acknowledging that I probably had my doubts about his interview, but he assuring me several times that he thought I would be pleasantly surprised. For one thing, he gave me a list of those on the side of the angels that he had interviewed and spent time with, including Archbishop Chaput of Denver, Fr. Benedict Groeschel of New York, and many, many others.

Peter Boyer has clearly done his homework--and I mean a thorough job of it. Catholic readers pleased with the election of Pope Benedict XVI will be happy to find a treatment of Catholicism that takes its Faith seriously as something challenging, substantial and irreducibly real. By contrast, Boyer's reporting on his interviews with the dissident gallery--Richard McBrien, Charlie Curran, etc.--reveals them for the bitter, lackluster, sputtering media poodles that they are. They realize that history has passed them by, they have no new ideas left to pull out of their tattered hats, and Boyer clearly smells their gloom. The composite picture that emerges is really worth examining, if you have the time.

On a personal note, I gathered from my interview with him that Boyer is a Christian, and I asked him about his religious background. He didn't divulge his denominatinal background directly, but he did allow that he and his family currently find their home in a good Episcopalian parish.

This article is now available on the internet (thanks a tip from Sam Schmitt, who notes that it appears on the "Call to Action - Western Washington" website, and wonders whether they are finally seeing the light): "A Hard Faith: How the New Pope and His Predecessor Redefined Vatican II." It's well worth reading in full. Here is the closing paragraph from my copy:

If the introduction of Holy Communion into the political arena in 2004 was, for many American Catholics, a divisive and regrettable turn, it was no less regrettable for Chaput according to Chaput who criticized the press for a shallow understanding of the Eucharist and its centrality to the Catholic faith. But Chaput, like Razinger, also believed that such controversy might ultimately prove salutary. "Whenever the Church is criticized, she understands herself better and is purified." And when she's purified, then she better serves the Lord. We're at a time for the Church in our country when some Catholics too many are discovering that they've gradually become non Catholics who happen to go to Mass. That's sad and difficult, and a judgment on a generation of Catholic leadership. But it may be exactly the moment of truth the Church needs."

Read this article. Ultimately you'll find it a bracing dose of reality.

"Kneeling before outcasts"

The Prison Angel, by Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan

A review by Karen Long

Three decades ago, no religious order would consider a twice-divorced 51-year-old novitiate. So Mary Brenner committed the audacious act of making private vows and moving into a Tijuana prison where she lived among its sick and reviled inmates.

Now 78, Mother Antonia still lives in an unheated cell in La Mesa, the notorious Tijuana prison.

Like Mother Teresa, Mother Antonia gravitates toward outcasts, prostitutes and criminals, corrupt guards and mentally deranged prisoners. Readers will leave this nun's company reluctantly and thank Jordan and Sullivan for making her remarkable life visible in a jaded world. (Penguin, 237 pages, $24.95)

-- KAREN LONG, RELIGION NEWS SERVICE [The Charlotte Observer, May 15, 2005]

Evangelical perspective on Pope Benedict XVI

Timothy George, in an article entitled "The Promise of Benedict XVI," published online in Christianity Today online (May 26, 2006), finds five points in which he believes Pope Benedict's pontificate holds great promise--five points in which Evangelicals can make common cause with his Catholic Church:

1. He takes truth seriously.
2. His theology is Bible-focused.
3. His message is Christocentric.
4. He is Augustinian in perspective.
5. He champions the culture of life.

Read more.

Why liberal Catholics think authority is "repressive"

The short answer is that they think "authority" means power. It does not. In the current postmodern milieu, these stepchildren of the masters of suspicion (Marx, Freud, Nietzsche)--particularly Nietzsche--think of authority as something reducible to power. Thus, when the academic tradition speaks of canonical writers and essential core requirements for cultural literacy within the liberal arts tradition, these liberals know (they think) in their heart-of-hearts that beneath it all, that all this talk about knowledge is reducible to power. Likewise, when the Church speaks of canonical scriptures, Sacred Tradition, and magisterial authority of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, these liberals know (they think) in their heart-of-hearts that religion, along with everything else, is ultimately reducible to power. Or so they think.

In a May. 15, 2005 article entitled "Faith isn't threatened by questions" in The Charlotte Observer, MARY C. CURTIS says she consideres her Jesuit university education a blessing. She writes:

That's why I was saddened to hear that the Rev. Thomas Reese, an American Jesuit, has resigned as editor of the Catholic magazine America. According to the National Catholic Reporter and Catholic officials, Reese was forced out--for encouraging thinking.

In the seven years under the leadership of this respected political scientist, America has published articles representing different points of view on issues such as stem-cell research and the church's relationship with Islam.

The Rev. Richard McBrien, a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame, told Newsday that Reese "has been very careful to be even-handed, fair-minded and restrained in any comments he's ever made."

Thus the Vatican comes out looking villainous and repressive, an enemy of "thinking," as well as "even-handedness," "fair-mindedness," and "restraint" in discussions about current scientific research. But Ms. Curtis isn't through: "As Reese wrote in an editorial," she writes: "'A church that cannot openly discuss issues is a church retreating into an intellectual ghetto.'" The election of Pope Benedict was clearly a blow to "open discussion" and free thinking, according to Ms. Curtis. But she remains hopeful, despite these threatening clouds, she says, "that the Church is strong enough, resilient enough to withstand anything--even thinking."

Such sentiments as these are quite common, sad to say; but they are really worth examining? Why does Ms. Curtis see the Church as opposed to open discussion and free thinking? Because she makes distinctions between ideas and practices that accord with the Christian Faith and those that don't. In other words, she claims to have the authority to do that. But "authority," we remember, means power to liberals like Ms. Curtis. So the only thing the exercize of such authority can mean for them is the arbitrary weilding of power.

In a related article, entitled "Stifling Catholic debate? Critics say Tom Reese's departure an ominous sign," in the May 14, 2005 issue of The Charlotte Observer, KEVIN ECKSTROM writes that Reese, by most accounts, "was ousted as editor of America magazine because some U.S. bishops and Vatican officials had grown impatient with his policy of allowing open debate on controversial topics." There again we have it: the Church stifling "open debate." What can this mean? Like Ms. Curtis, Eckstrom turns for support to that champion of self-congratulatory Catholic liberalism, the National (Anti-)Catholic Reporter:

"Is Rome's definition of faith simply a matter of absolute assent to every utterance that comes out of Rome and we're all supposed to obey and not question?" asked Tom Roberts, editor of National Catholic Reporter, an independent newspaper with liberal leanings.

Um ... yeah, though that's putting it mildly. During the final days of Pope John Paul II and the election of Benedict XVI, says Eckstrom, Reese was a sought-after commentator on the unfolding events in Rome: "He was respected for providing a candid assessment of both men while never betraying his loyalties to the church."

I wonder, what does "never betraying one's loyalties to the church" mean to a liberal in this context? It clearly cannot mean supporting orthodoxy and orthopraxy in matters of faith and doctrine, since that was the reason for Reese's dismissal. It cannot mean "obedience" or "submission"--words apt to induce apoplexy in a liberal. NCR editor Roberts could speak only of a "Chilling effect." According to Eckstrom, Reese's "grievous sin" was only that he "devoted too much time and ink to the three D's--debate, dialogue and discussion--that some interpret as a threat to church teaching." He continues, "Reese opened the magazine to all sides of an issue, giving equal space to each." Overall, he adds, "the magazine enjoyed a solid reputation for balance." So the Church is allegedly opposed to giving "equal space" to "all sides of an issue," opposed to America magazine's "solid reputation for balance."

Why must the Church seem opposed to "thinking," "open debate," "balance," and "giving equal space to all sides of an issue"? Eckstrom provides some clues. He writes:

The editorials sometimes leaned left of center, and Reese sometimes expressed dismay at the Vatican's move toward centralized authority.... But according to the National Catholic Reporter and other media outlets citing unnamed sources, church leaders (including the pope himself) were angered by articles on gay priests, contraception and politicians who supported abortion rights.

Once again, why must the Church seem opposed to "open debate," "balance," and "free thinking"? Simple: because Church teaching condemns what is opposed to its teaching--including homosexuality, contraception, abortion, as well as the dissent and confusion promoted by the liberal editorial bias of Reese in a publication ostensibly representing a religious order of the Church. Since the Church stands for something (orthodoxy and orthopraxy), it can't help opposing something (whatever is opposed to orthodoxy and orthopraxy).

Would it make sense for Orthodox Judaism to promote Buddhism? Would it make sense for the Unitarian Universalist Association to promite belief in the divinity of Christ? Would it make sense for the Japanese Shinto religion to promote the Muslim belief in the Prophet Mohammed? Of course not. Neither does it make sense to expect the Catholic Church to promote views inimical to her own traditional doctrines. Granted, what self-styled liberal Catholics want is to promote a revisionist re-interpretation of what "Catholicism" means. But of course they should hardly be surprised, then, when the Church resists their efforts to denature her teaching.

What is "authority," according to liberal dissenters? Nothing but the raw exercise of arbitrary power. In other words, they don't really believe the Church has anything like divine authority at all. This is why this idea (heavenly authority) is translated into that (power), which is something earthly, human, and mundane. But what is the Church's authority, really? To quote Peter Kreeft, it is nothing more than "author's rights." The author of a book has rights to it. The Author of the Church has rights to it, just as the Author of the Church's Gospel has rights to what it means. Likewise, those to whom He has delegated authority in the Church have the His rights as Author to declare what is and what is not in accord with the Author's intended teachings and purposes. That is what lies behind Apostolic Succession. That is the meaning of the Church's authority. It is that authority (author's rights), which provides the sticking point that sticks in the liberal craw; because what it means is that The Faith can't simply be twisted, like a wax nose, in any arbitrary direction that prevailing whim would desire.

Is this authority repressive? Hardly. Instead, it provides a standard by which to measure, an ideal to which to aspire, a foundation for undersanding. "I believe in order that I may understand" (credo ut intelligam), said St. Augustine. This provides a ground for humility--a humility, as G.K. Chesterton said, which is a "spur that prevented a man from stopping; not a nail in his boot that prevented him from going on." Catholicism founded all the earliest universities in the West. Catholicism promoted much of the research that launched the Renaissance and Scientific Revolution (see my post of July 30, 2004: The Church and the birth of modern science). In this country Catholicism is responsible for hundreds of colleges and universities, including major research universities like Notre Dame and the Catholic University of America. It's a red herring to suggest that Catholicism stifles debate and free inquiry. It merely insists (by Author's rights) on Catholicism being Catholic.

If Ratzinger is a "fundamentalist," what is Frank Schaeffer?

Frank Schaeffer--film maker, novelist, Eastern Orthodox convert from evangelical Reformed Protestantism, and son of the late Francis A. Schaeffer, the well-known Christian apologist of L'Abri, Switzerland--has recently come out with a piece in the San Francisco Chronicle calling Pope Benedict XVI a "fundamentalist" (this according to Carl E. Olson of Ignatius Insight). Sigh ... so what's new? Haven't we all known for some time that any non-revisionist Catholic, like any protestant evangelical, is regarded as a "fundamentalist." The word "fundamentalist" began in 1909 among evangelical Protestants who rallied around several basic principles--such as the deity of Christ, the virgin birth, the authority of the Bible, etc.--called "The Fundamentals," in order to combat the rising tide of protestant liberalism (link). But the term has lost any association with those historical antecedents. "Fundamentalist" now connotes any person with beliefs and practices that are generally regarded as "fanatical." Politically, it therefore refers to "Islamic terrorists," as well as "repressive patriarchal papists," and just about anybody who seriously believes that God actually makes any demands of us. Thus Pope Benedict is a "fundamentalist."

The really interesting question to me personally, though, is where this puts Frank Schaeffer. Franky, as we used to know him, is a bright, creative author and film-maker who authored the hilariously amusing autobiographical novels, Portofino (Calvin Becker Trilogy). In 1995 he published Dancing Alone: The Quest for Orthodox Faith in the Age of False Religions, an earnest account of his conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy somewhat tarnished by his often bitter attacks on the evangelical Protestantism of his childhood, as well as on Catholicism (see my critique in the New Oxford Review here). The question now, as far as I am concerned, is this: if Franky Schaeffer believes protestant evangalicalism and traditional Catholicism are to be disparagingly dismissed as "fundamentalist," then what does that make him? An newly minted species of Eastern Orthodox liberal? An irrational mystic? For some time I have argued that Eastern Orthodoxy lacks a fully catholic identity due to its increasingly reactionary bent, and that it might more aptly be called "Anti-Western Orthodoxy." That bend, coupled with Schaeffer's own animus and personal vendetta against his erstwhile evangelical co-religionists and Catholic pro-life colleagues, would seem to make for a toxic potion. Let us pray for him.

This makes me wonder why converts do not more often share the generous attitudes toward their former friends found in the likes of Peter Kreeft, Thomas Howard, or Louis Bouyer--none of which have Schaeffer's reactionary and dismissive disposition. On the contrary, to a fault, each of these emphasizes his appreciation and gratitude for all that was good and nurturing in his former religion. (See Peter Kreeft's Fundamentals of the Faith, Thomas Howard's Lead, Kindly Light: My Journey To Rome, and Louis Bouyer's The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism.)

All Christians come in two different sizes, to paraphrase Peter Kreeft (Fundamentals of the Faith, p. 272): orthodox Christians, who follow the traditional teachings of their churches; and liberal Christians, who dismiss the traditional teachings of their churches in favor of revisionist re-interpretations. The clearest litmust test to distinguish the two is their attitudes toward the Bible. Liberals reduce the Bible to a human book. Their low view of Scripture they (naturally) call "higher criticism." They are the "demythologizers." This means that orthodox Catholics, Protestants, and Eastern Orthodox Christians ought to have a great deal in common. Far more in common, certainly, than any of them would have with liberal Catholics, Protestants, or Eastern Orthodox Christians. If only Christians could get this much straight. If only Franky Schaeffer could get this much straight.

[See my earlier post of March 8, 2005, "Marvin Olasky on Francis Schaeffer's 'Political Legacy'" ]